CROCODILE TEARS
Global Village Mystery #1
Excerpt

“Don’t worry.” Hannah Craig took her friend, Nyakal’s, hand and swung it as they approached the dust cloud rising from the dancing space of the village. “He’ll show up at the feast.” He was Daniel, Nyakal’s son and Hannah’s godson. They’d waited for him for some time at Nyakal’s home in Gambela town, before finally setting out for Kam village.

“Wearing the new anklet I just made for him,” Nyakal took up bravely, trying self-consciously to cover her protruding front teeth with her lips.

The drums changed tempo. The two women’s heads turned, with many others, towards the open space under the encircling mango trees giving onto the broad, brown river flowing past towards the Nile. Nyakal’s hand tightened on Hannah’s as they watched a double row of tall, slim-muscled men enter the meeting space, Nyakal’s husband Matthew at their head. A body much larger than any of them hung heavily from two poles digging deep into their shoulders.

The men sang as they advanced, stamping their feet, of hunting, of victory. Victory over the sharp-toothed crocodile that would no longer attack and eat the goats of Kam, the calves, the children, even the adults, while they were fishing, or fetching water. Well might they sing, for this Nuer hunting co-op had repaid the risk the Anuak village had taken in trusting them, by slaying its monster, the infamous crocodile, the Croc.

“Only ten more cows and he may buy a new wife,” said Nyakal, leaning in to Hannah, referring to the whole cow her husband’s co-op would earn for their work. She was trying to joke, but Hannah could tell she was still worried. Which couldn’t stop Hannah’s surge of pride in the young man she’d known since he came to Ethiopia—was it really ten years ago?—as a refugee from the Sudans’ neverending civil wars. Soon enough, she noticed that the proud lift had come back to Nyakal’s head, the bright flash to her eyes, as she followed the hunters’ victory circuit of the open space.

The hunters were coming to rest under the spreading branches of the largest tree, the one opposite the river, when there was a stir on the side of the fenced village itself. Through an opening in its tight reed wall emerged a man Hannah had known for all of her fifty years. Omot Okeo, the village headman, followed by a train of notables, office holders, and the traditional headman’s bodyguard, including one newcomer, a noticeably large and strongly built young man who stayed, close and watchful, by his side. Surely, Hannah thought, turning a sudden giggle into a cough, Omot wasn’t afraid of revenge from the relatives of the Croc?

Omot himself looked very upright today, very dignified in his one-shouldered ceremonial robe as he and his retinue took their places on a raised earth platform to one side of the gathering place. Still, even from a small distance, Hannah could see the lines that had bitten deeper and deeper into his face this past year, since he’d lost his only son to the same crocodile whose killing they were here to celebrate today.

The hunters stretched the beast belly-up on the ground and stood over it, some pressing a foot or hand on limb, jaw, or tail to hold it steady. The pulse of the drums mounted. Murmurs of anticipation rose from the gathered people, a suppressed “Ah!,” some scattered cries of triumph. Most of the villagers here had to bathe in the river, or fetch water, many at the change of light, when the crocodiles liked to attack. Few were untouched by the pain of their ripping jaws—either to themselves, or to ones they knew or loved.

Matthew raised his knife high, then swung it down in a strong, two-handed pull that ripped the beast open from groin to ribs.

The time-consuming task, Hannah knew, of removing the hide and cutting up the meat for those with no compunctions about eating the flesh of a man-eater—very few Anuak, possibly some Nuer—would come later. But edible portions of the croc’s latest kills could be salvaged from its stomach now. Crocs did not chew, they snapped, dragged their victim under water, snapped some more, and gulped, and whole carcass parts could be found in their stomachs after a kill, a nice large fish swallowed by accident, or a haunch of antelope, if the croc had not secreted all the sections in hidey holes along the riverbank to age like limburger cheese.

This beast’s belly was rounded, displaying promising lumps and bumps. It had eaten recently. Hannah hoped it would not be someone’s pet goat or calf, or even a Nuer male’s beloved namesake ox, recognized by the decorative tassel hanging from his ear. She shook her head to clear that fantasy from her mind; she hadn’t heard of any missing lately.

Matthew sliced what had to be stomach lining. The slick viscera around the cut rippled. Hannah braced herself for the sight of a small hoof or the waxy white lip of a calf.

What emerged was a toe, a set of toes, dark human toes, attached to a dark human leg, too small to be adult.

All motion stopped. In Hannah, around Hannah. She had lost her friend’s hand. She reached for it. Nyakal’s fingers were digging, now, hard and cold, into her arm. Then they ripped away.

Nyakal fell to her knees and keened her son’s name.