THE ROOT OF A CYNOSURE

Chapter seventeen

Fahad

It took me two hours rummaging through the hummocks before I found her. I was obsessed with the cattle girl. I learnt they always changed places of grazing, so I always had to  look round intensively to find her. I would then stay with her until sunset when she left. From a billionaire Vanhard University graduate to a cattle rearer .

This had been going on for two weeks and there was never a day I took a break.  I realized how buggered her life was.Rearing cattle on daily bases, being alone in the hummocks for hours, was a humdinger.

No western education, no Islamic education, just she, cattle,grass and mountains.
Some time she had to climb moutains with the cattle, running here and there, trying to control them, staying under the sun, rain, cold. Rain? Yes.I had my bite too.  It had rained cats and dogs on that day. We were on a wide grass land, no trees ,just grass and mountains. There was no hiding place.

The rain showered on us. I was under the rain, feeling the discomfort but as I looked at her, standing with her stick, watching over the cows, not showing any concern about the rain, I cried.

It was inexpedient, and annihilating to a girl like this. I had never witnessed such a suffering. God! I never believed such kind of life existed. So while I and my sibblings got the best things in life, there were people living in such an abyss.

I knew of the word ‘poor’ but I never took it serious because I had never been with poor people. It was always people of high class. I saw a different side of the world and something cropped up inside me.

I had to contribute something within my reach to the less privilege. This was delibitating. She would go to streams and perform ablution when it was time for prayers, go behind a rock and pray. If there was no hiding place, I would leave the vicinity and give her space. In the afternoon, she would milk a cow and drink milk. She would make sure she hid from me while drinking. She drank water from the clean spring water from the rocks. Once I hid behind a rock, she did not know I was there and I heard her singing. It was the most sonorous voice I ever  heard.

Her voice was mellifluous, sweet like honey .Even though I did not understand a word of the lyrics,
her heart-piercing voice, the sensational  tune, her pacific and pretty face made me felt tears in my eyes. I wished she could give me the chance to extricate her, polish her, build her and love her but no, all these while, she never said a word to me. Never? Yes,never.

On the day I had fainted, I opened my eyes to find myself in darkness. The  cold air had hit me savagely, it took me seconds to remember what had happened, Then I sat up, feeling pain on my jaw where the beast had hit me. I was in the hummocks, alone ,in the dark. Then I saw a small fence of thorns around me. What was that for and who did this? This was not the place I had fainted. Someone must have moved me. The cattle gitl? No,she could not have had the strength to move me. I checked pocket and found my phone and money.

Nothing was missing. I  turned on the flashlight of my phone, then I realised why the thorn was there. There was a big black snake that was barred from coming to me. Snakes hated the slightest lacerate. I felt something cold piercing through my liver.

If not for the thorns, I should have been long dead. I stood up, now invigorated by the sight of the snake, I carried a small stone and threw at it. It sped away while I jumped out and went the opposite direction. It was around 10:00 pm. I had to walk  fifteen kilometres back to our hotel.Yet, the next day,  I was back for cattle girl.

She would never talked to me, or look at me ,or act as if I was there. I did all I could do to get her talk to me, but I failed. I would talk for hours but she never responded. Sometimes I would climb a hill and watch her, sit on a tree branch and never got tired of looking at her. I could not tell anyone what I was going through. There was a day I secretly used my mini powerful camera to snap her.

She was holding her stick amidst the cattle. When I posted it on my facebook page, I got over four thousand likes and three thousand comments. Many thought she was a model posing for a shot.

I had not forgotten about the supposedly dead doctor neighter did I forget about the strange incidence I saw on the night I took the long walk through the hummocks. At a point, I saw a fleet of cars, Toyota Hilux in a convoy driving into the deep mountainous forest.

I hid behind a tree and noticed how starnge it was. The cars were exactly twenty in number. They seemed to be transporting somethings. Then I caught sight of a white man among the passengers. Who were they? What were they carrying? Where were they going  ?

I did not tell Damon and his wife any of these. I used one hour every morning to inquire about Ardo then resume cattle rearing. I made sure Damon and his wife were occupied. I called one of our family’s private pilot and a chopper was provided. I made arrangements for Damon and Alicia to visit most of the tourist sites in Nigeria. They had gone to Olumo Rock in Abeokuta, Obudu  Cattle Ranch in Cross river, Yankari Game reserve , and lots more. Nigeria was blessed with a lot of tourists attractions and they were having the best time of their honeymoon. 

I was now sitting on a hill, hungry and tired.I used to hire bikes and after a hard learnt lesson, I got the number of a local bike man who would pick me anytime I was ready. He did not care what time it was because I paid him a lot of money.
I decided to jump down and move to a shade cast under a rock when I fell off and landed badly. My leg ached and for moments I lay moaning in pains. I thought my leg was fractured but realised it was just badly hurt.

I tried to get up but I could not. She did not even look at me and I guessed she did not see me fall. I sat there for over two hours. I still could not stand up and walk. It was aching.

I drgagged myself  behind the hill ,there was shade there and a stream passed near the hill. I sat there  and the pain became more excruciating  and I could not stand up. I sat there alone, watching the clean water flow by.

I was almost startled as I saw someone standing over me, starring at me. I could not believe my eyes. It was cattle girl, standing close enough and I began to wonder if Science had discovered all the main fields of attraction . They discovered electric field, magnetic field and gravitational field but I discovered a stronger field. A field that acted upon the physical body, mind and soul. This field did not mind the distance. This cattle girl now standing close to me was deep into my body and soul. she was acting upon everything in me, around me and about me.

I said nothing, just looking at the perfection of God’s creation. I wondered why she came to me,why the stare.
“ An aso mata bolu ?  ( Don’t you ever get tired of talking?)” She said in fulfude.

I did not understand her then so I kept looking at her speechless.
She looked at my leg, squatted and held my ankle. As she touched me I nearly melted. She sent an electric pulse through me instantly. She touched the part I was holding in pain, pressed it and made sure it was the part she wanted, then gave it a twist.

“ Ouuch!” I moaned.
She then got up, said no word then left. After five munutes, she came back with a bowl of fresh cow milk, gave me to sip before she collected it, squeezed some leaves and mixed the sap with the milk and asked me to drink. It tasted bitter but since it was from cattle girl ,It became,me the sweetest thing I ever drank.

I could not believe how the pain began to vanish at once. This was the power of herb. I tried to get up. I did and took a short walk.’
“ Damn! I can walk.” I said. “Thank you.”

She said nothing, just stared at me, like she was studying me.
I sat down again. She stood ,not saying a word. I was trying to talk ,gesticulating to make her understand what I meant.

“ What is the meaning of acatalectic?” She suddenly asked me in English language. Her accent, the fluency made me shocked. Did she understand English?  “ Don’t stare at me like that. You used it in your song and I don’t know the meaning.” She now sat down opposite me. “ Start talking ,you stubborn guy.”
I became flummoxed.