The Trio

But we always have gone together to eat in the village. Why is it that today, you want me to go and bring the food? Kwame listen to me he said as he rested his cutlass against a nearby tree, you see today we have so much work to do, so it will be a waste of time for both of us to walk that distance and back. So you go and bring the food while I go on weeding. By the time you return, the sun would have reached the centre of the sky and it would be time for lunch. "I took my gun and my hunting bag and started moving away but a sense of fear gripped me and I stopped abruptly. After a while, he turned and found me still standing there. "Are you going or not?" he asked with a tinge of anger in his voice" I will, Father, but to walk all the way to the village and back all by myself? What if I meet the killer beast which hasn't spared the life of anyone who has crossed its path?""Come here, Kwame," he called me and patted me on the shoulder. "At twenty years, you are a big boy now, in fact, an adult, so you must behave as one which means having courage. This whole cocoa farm will be yours someday when I'm dead and gone. You must begin to gather courage and stop being a coward. I took over this farm from my father when I was only fifteen years!""You know how to handle a gun, and that is good enough. You have to deal with the fear that is growing in you. If you don't deal with it now, it will eventually lead you to total failure. Be courageous, be courageous, Kwame," he concluded. ''That's all I have to say because a word to the wise is enough. Do you understand?" he asked, and stared at me again, this time, the loud silence and the look in my father's face touched my inner - most self and urged me to kill that fear, gather courage, and move forward. I smiled in self-satisfaction, nodding my head in total agreement with my father's words of encouragement. I took my gun and left for the village. For the first time, I was alone on the way. A long, loud roll of thunder broke the stillness of the afternoon, re-echoed among the low hills, but it did not rain, and it did not scare me. Several cottages were scattered throughout the forest inhabited by janitors and their families of the cocoa farmers but they were to far apart from each other, when I got to the village, neither the janitor nor his wife were around, but food was ready in the kitchen as usual. So I picked it up, made a quick turn, and hurried along the path back to our farm to continue weeding and to join my father in completing the task. My father was right. The sun was right in the centre of the sky, so it was time for lunch. Excitement welled up inside me for making a successful trip to and from the village alone. Unfortunately, my father was not there. His gun and cutlass were in the hut, which meant he was on break, so I placed the food in the hut and continued weeding. After a while, I looked up. The sun had moved quite a distance from the centre and that gave me reason to worry about my father's whereabouts. He had never been late for lunch, so I decided to stop weeding and look for him."Father, Father, Father," I called, but there was no answer. I took my gun, my cutlass, and my father's hunting sack. I first checked the nearby farms but I didn't find him. I rushed down the valley, sounding the forest alarm, huu! huu! huu! but to no avail. "Could it be he had entered the thick forest and had been killed by the killer beast?" No! I rejected that thought."But where else could he be?" I asked myself. Then I heard a voice like my father's "Be courageous, be courageous, Kwame, be courageous!""I will be Father. I will be," I answered, and entered the thick forest. I couldn't tell what time it was, but the sun had set. And there I was, all alone, in that long stretch of thick forest controlled by that wild human like killer beast. With my gun fully loaded and prepared, I moved with caution, calling my father and sounding the forest alarm every now and then until I reached Sabinom, the only river in the forest. It was a wide, swift river with broad, fertile banks.