Guilty Eye

Chapter 2

I froze for a moment, half a dozen scenarios running through my mind.

What if I answer? What will I say?Whoever was calling would certainly know I was not the owner of the phone.

I stole a fearful glance at the caller ID. The saved name was "Boss".

What should I do?

I pondered that for long seconds before thinking, what the heck!
I pressed the answer button.

" Hello?"That was me.

"Doctor Mate, where the hell have you been?"The voice was feminine, strict sounding.

I inhaled and shouted into the mouthpiece,"Your doctor is dead!Why don't you leave me alone, you witch?"

There was a moment of silence, then,"Don't worry,Mr Saka,it will be over soon."

"What! What will be over?" But she had hung up.

Now what? I asked myself.
I knew I could not continue staying at the motel. I had to move. Where to, I could not immediately figure out. I just knew I was not safe at the motel.

Where am I safe then? Nowhere! Wherever I go they will hunt me. Oh!
  
The last thought was actually a cry of helplessness. Before this affair began I had no enemy, I had no fears and I had never seen a person die, let alone by my hand.

Oh! How I wished I had not gone to check my wild boar traps that morning! If had stayed in my warm sheets a little longer I would not have seen anything! I would have heard it on the news like everybody. And I would not be here, wearing a killer's clothes, answering his phone.

But I had gone to Mudodo hill that fateful July morning, as I always did every morning, to check my traps.

By the way, I am a licensed hunter and my license permit me to set traps on and around my property. I inherited a twenty- five hectare farm from my father who died when I was thirty - four years old.

Two years after that, I quit my job as a security supervisor at Real Giant Security Company and started concentrating on maize farming.

With my wife and two children, I have lived at the farm ever since and have been happy. I found life outside the city to be peaceful and tranquil. I had no deadlines to meet, no expectations to live up to, no boss to please and no subordinates to discipline. All I had to do cultivate my land and put seed on the ground.

And thanks to Zimbabwe's hospitable climate, I was doing great. I had time to practice playing the guitar and, even though mine is not a particularly melodious voice, I used to entertain my family in the evenings.

Yes, I digress, I know. But I was happy. Happiness does not come from having everything you want, ladies and gentlemen, it comes from being contented with the little you have.

      Well, there is a Zimbabwean saying :chisingaperi chinoshura- -nothing is endless. And it did end.

On a cloudy July morning, I woke up earlier than usual. Long before I pushed the bedroom window curtain to one side, I knew it was cloudy day. The pain from my ten year old rib injury is a reliable weather forecaster.

I switched on the FM radio, keeping the volume low so as not to disturb my still slumbering wife. On the radio was playing a dancehall song, one of those types you can dance to if you could block the lyrics. Musicians nowadays seem to sing about anything and everything.
After a while the disc jockey announced the time, 5.45am.

I got up from the bed ,putting on my clothes as I did so. I stretched my muscles and winced before getting on all fours to begin my daily pushups.

Ten or so minutes later, my wife woke up, kissed me good morning and hurried out to begin preparing for the twins' school day.

Portia, my wife is light in complexion, tall(though not as tall as I am) and of medium build. Now 35, she looks the same as she did when I first met her, thirteen years ago. Not even the birth of our twins changed her. Motherhood becomes her.

On the contrary, Blessed and Grace (my son and daughter respectively) seem to grow every day.

The boy is a whiz at maths and can already run circles around me. His sister on the other hand is more into sports - -more like me. On weekends she accompanies me wherever I go. No need to say, she is my favorite.

While my wife was in the kitchen, I put on my work-boots and started out.

My farm lies two kilometres from the Harare - Masvingo road,in a village called Odzi. The eastern side of the farm is bordered by a range of hills, of which the largest is called Mudodo. It is thickly forested with sycamore, Msasa and white thorn trees that grow so tall  they prevent sunlight from reaching the ground. The bushes that grow here are thin and tall, most of them branchless.

Few local people come here, largely because my late father started and promoted the myth that the hill was haunted. As a result the flora and fauna remained intact. All year round, wild boars cause havoc in the surrounding farms. Mudodo hill is their habitat. So most evenings I set up to three traps which I check in the mornings.

On this particular morning I had no luck. All my traps lay as I had left them the previous night. The last of them was a few metres off the top of the hill.

I had started to turn back when I caught a strong scent of tobacco. I stopped in my tracks and sniffed the air. The smell was coming from someone nearby. Now the only people who come this way are tourists from the hotel on the other side of the hill, but usually they come in the afternoon.

I started walking towards the summit slowly, trying not to make noise. Due to the rocky nature of the ground of the summit few trees grow here, making a natural clearing.

As I approached this clearing, I checked in suspicious surprise. A green quad bike was parked just inside the clearing. What the hell?
As I stood there wondering that, three loud bangs roared out, causing me to fall flat on my stomach.

Gunshots! I did not need anyone to tell me.

Before the echoes died down, I heard quick footsteps, someone was running towards the clearing. I raised my head and saw a figure wearing dark clothes running to the quad bike, carrying a...a gun!When he reached the bike, he slung the rifle onto his back, jumped onto the seat and roared away into the bushes.

What did those gunshots mean? I asked myself.

Nothing good, I thought. I had barely finished the thought when four men in dark suits appeared, pointing guns at me and yelling:

"Freeze! Don't move! Put your weapon down! DO IT NOW!"

I hastily threw down my axe, and before I knew it someone jumped on me from behind and pinned me to the ground.

"Don't try anything,you son of a b***h!If you do I'll f***ing kill you." This was spoken in different accent, an Englishman's accent.

"Calm down, sir," one of the men said, "we need him alive."

"Yeah," the white man said," you better start singing. Why did you kill the ambassador's wife?"

Author's note: Thank you for reading, please do vote and comment.