Where was Zaire? she thought, frantically scanning, looking for him among her people. She cast a glance back to the garden area where he had been troweling with his hands just a short while ago. His diligent work, churning the soft earth and creating a little repository for the seeds to be sown was evident. She thought of the tender exchange they’d shared as she served him water from the ladle.
But his small body was not crouched where it once was. He wasn't in the crowd. He knew better than to wander off. Whenever the trucks came, he was supposed to find her, to tuck himself deep behind her, making himself small so he wouldn't be worthy of selection, hiding in plain sight. But he was nowhere to be seen, and this worried her.
Without Zaire present, she was suddenly filled with a wholly different prospect. A sense of relief rushed over her. Maybe he had run, taking the back path down toward the river and hiding somewhere down there away from Dakarai’s soldiers.
The soldiers rarely went down to the river. On occasion they took some of the female villagers down there for things she dared not think about. Even if that were the case today, they would undoubtedly be too preoccupied, and her son would be safe.
She tried to calm herself and take solace in the fact that he wasn't here. He couldn't be selected if he wasn't here. Would they notice Zaire’s absence? If they did, she would be punished. They’d need to make an example for the others.
The soldiers exited their vehicles as the Jeeps came to a stop. All except for the man standing behind the mounted machine gun.
The yelling began, ordering the villagers to tightly huddle up. They surrounded them like a pack of rabid dogs. Most chewing khat, the drug Dakarai used to influence his soldiers. And one that added to their deranged state of mind.
The rifles were used to prod them. The clink of metal and bone and flesh as the elderly and infirm moved slower displeased them. One of the younger soldiers used the butt of his weapon to strike a man using a cane, sending him to the ground.
A young woman ran over to help, and the soldier shoved her from behind, sending her down on top of him.
Laughter amongst some of the men broke out as they jeered the two with taunts. Dakarai wasn't present, but his lieutenant belted out in Swahili for them to stop.
The barrel-chested lieutenant with a penchant for young girls turned his attention to the crowd. “We need three volunteers.”
His terse voice and succinct command drew silence from the villagers. Volunteers. They all knew what it meant. And nothing about it was voluntary.
Now Masika was grateful. She couldn't send forward Zaire because he wasn’t there. Her other children were far too young to join the ranks. As painful as it would be to watch another family endure such hardship, she was glad this time it wouldn’t be hers.
It didn't take long before the soldiers picked their recruits. A tall boy nearby was grabbed by one of the armed men and dragged away from his mother. Masika listened to the anguished screams of the mothers as they made a last-ditch plea, begging for them to stop, trying to remind the soldiers that they were once boys, that they weren't always under the warlord’s command.
But it happened regardless of protests as it had in the past and would undoubtedly happen again in the future. These cries for humanity fell on deaf ears.
One of the soldiers went door to door checking each hut, making sure nobody was hiding. Masika could hear the crash of pots. The clang and bang of overturned tables as the man rummaged his way around, sending another message. Don't hide. But no one was hiding. Nobody except her son. Please be at the river, she prayed. She tried to calm herself, to remain steady in the face of such danger.
The soldier exited the last hut and shook his head, looking at the leader, saying something to the effect of "nobody's here."
The lieutenant looked at the group, turned to his men and said, "Let's go."
The three boys who had been selected, none of them much older than her son, were shoved toward the awaiting Jeep. In fact, the youngest of the three was only six months older than Zaire, although he was taller and a bit lankier, giving the impression of being maybe a year or two older.
Masika felt blessed her son was born small and that he had remained so as he grew. Maybe he could avoid their interest for another year or two if luck favored? Maybe something would happen to change the course of this current situation and they’d be free from oppression.
As she stood shoulder to shoulder with her people, Masika made a silent prayer that these men would leave and never return. Then movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. It was her son. Zaire peeked out from behind the side of one of the huts nearest the Jeep where the young men were being loaded. Whatever she had felt in panic and worry was now giving way to something worse, an impalpable fear. She could taste the bile in her stomach. What was he doing? Go back to wherever you were. They're leaving. She willed him to listen, but he wasn't looking at her and she did not want to stare too long in his direction for fear one of the soldiers would notice.
It was too late. He was running now. She held back a scream. Zaire was running at a dead sprint, a large tree limb in his hand. The branch was held at the ready like a baseball player preparing to take the plate. He rushed forward to the soldier putting the last child, his best friend, into the back of the Jeep.
The soldier on the turret, seeing the boy running, yelled something to the soldiers on the ground, who turned and saw the boy. The last to turn was the one forcing the new recruits into the back, and he was the young boy's target. And as the man began to turn to see what the commotion was about, her son swung the stick, like John Henry swinging that mighty hammer. It came crashing down on the soldier's shoulder. If she had to guess, he was not more than 17. The heavy branch struck somewhere between his shoulder and his neck.
Her son was strong. The toil of hard work had made him so. The force with which he struck the soldier dropped the gunman to his knee.
Masika watched in horror as her son jumped on the stunned man’s back and ripped free the machine gun that he had been holding. Zaire was swinging it wildly about, pointing it in every direction and yelling. “Go! Leave! Leave my friends! Or I’ll kill you all!” he shouted. His voice cracking under the strain.
Tears streamed down her son’s face. The look of anger in his eyes was one she’d never witnessed in his twelve years of life. He looked like a rabid dog, loose and unchained.
Several of the soldiers took aim. The lieutenant let out a deep laugh.
Zaire was trembling. These men saw it. They were battle hardened and numbed by the khat. Life and death no longer held the same meaning, as was evident in their soulless eyes. They knew the look of a killer and the conviction it took to pull the trigger. As angry and desperate as Zaire was, Masika had no doubts these men could see that he didn't have it. She knew her son. He was no murderer.
All the effort he had just made was for naught. He couldn't follow through and they were starting to see that. She wanted to cry out.
Several of the gunmen were now taking aim on the villagers.
The lieutenant said, "Drop the gun or we kill everyone here. Your family will die today. Is that what you want?"
Zaire looked to the crowd bearing witness to his act of courage. He looked at his mother. Tears fell more rapidly. His lip trembling in both fear and sadness, his failure immediate as the soldier he’d toppled and taken the weapon from stood up behind him and struck him in the back of his skull. The hard impact could be heard in the silence and it jolted him forward.