Pigeons are already on the ground. They peck and prod for food, but most start to gather around one boy before another shoo them away. That boy. That is the boy. The one rubbing his forehead and revealing his skin. The shorter one standing still, while a taller one rub ash on his forehead and nose. The one with a ring in his right ear and left nose hole. He ask somebody a question, I can tell from the tone. He don’t like the answer, I can tell from the frown. This is the boy who might not even know who he is.
Noon is threatening to push me out of this tree. I can’t tell if the griot is asleep or sun drunk. Or maybe he is just lodged between two branches making up his mind about what to write. The drum been sounding since morning and while I know some Marabangan drum language, this is not Marabanga. First all the boys are jumping up again and again, then they shuffle around the dead fire. The older boy is beating the drum and shouting what sound like orders. The boys drink from a gourd, grab spears, then form a line and head into the bush. I shake the griot out of his stupor and leave him by the shore while I follow them into the forest, hiding behind wild leaves and thorns and watching for their footprints. Not many trees in this forest. Come to think of it, this is not much forest, but at the biggest tree somebody build a canopy with four blackish-red posts, with black moss all down the legs, and the roof lost in branches and leaves. They are lying down, still, as the drum beat slower and slower. The pigeons still peck and poke the ground around one boy. That boy. I approach. All of them so still, even the drummer is a statue except for the right hand beating the drum. I am closer, close enough that it is the pigeons that start. Now is the time. I think. I don’t know, for the useless water sprite didn’t tell me what to look for when a boy is dying and a man is being born, and right now only the gods must think this is something to look at. The posts are drawing me more, craft that I didn’t expect in this province, thin at the base, thin as a tree, that is, then bulbing wider at the middle like a fruit, then narrow again, ending with a top that is arrowpoint sharp. Right now the boys are lying down still as death, and maybe from this they rise. This must be the moment, I can’t wait for anything else. But he is just a boy. Is just a boy. A boy is not a boy, a boy is never a boy. A boy is potential. Ehede was just a boy, and now he will be nothing else. I don’t know what to think, but the pigeons know that I am thinking. They knowing too much. First one looking at me, then another, then all of them. I pull my knife, counting how many throats I will have to cut.