The boy was running in the same direction as the rain such that it was slanting into his back and it was as if the rain was pushing him every step of the way.
When the trail he was on curled between fallowing plots of land of thick bushes the rain drove into his face, the fat raindrops stung him.
He raised both arms to shield his face, he kept his gaze fixed on the trail beneath him and he kept on running with both hands on his head.
He thought there was no way the old man could still be knocked out under the palm tree under the same heavy rain.
The boy was not halfway to the shack and he was already drenched from his wounded head to his bare feet. Water poured from the thick mat of hair on his head down into his eyes, he had to keep blinking it away even as his eyes stung.
He was careful enough even while dashing into the rain and going as fast as possible to not slip, it was too easy to step on a stone and tumble and break a neck. The terrain was sloped downwards towards the stream and upwards to the farm and the main road, the steady climb worked his muscles painfully until he hit the flatland where the roughly cleared plots of land from the morning looked as strange as a stain in the air without the thickets of wild bush.
He skirted the last of the bushes and turned and saw that the palm tree and its fronds were all blowing with the wind and the terrible rain.
The palm tree swayed as if drunk and he stopped moving to see better.
There was no point going all the way to the palm tree if the old man was not there, instead he should go to the shack. He turned around towards the plywood shack in the slanting rain and gusting wind. He found an outcropping boulder to stand on and crawled on it.
He peered above the bushes of the farmland to see the shack where it squatted and stood firm against the wind and the rain. The door was flapping open and close and open and close with the whims of the wind.
There was no way the old man had let the door open that way, the wind must have forced it open.
The boy turned around on the boulder while watching his step. He looked at the palm tree and squinted hard against the raindrops and water running into his eyes and saw what he could only assume must be the unconscious shape of the old man.
He shook his head to drive away the thought that the old man had died there under the tree and in the rain.
He jumped down and cut across the rough clearing.
The ground he trod on was treacherously carpeted in rough slash that was now slick and deadly in the rain. He picked his way across, not running as fast as possible but not in anyway slow.
He started thinking he should not have cut through the rough clearing but the more treacherous, the carpet of rough slash became, the more he calmed down. Soon he was not running and had come to accept the rain whipping him as something natural.
He was reluctant to find out if that humanoid shape was indeed the old man's corpse.
The palm tree bowed and snapped back, the powerful wind lifted even the rough slash into the air.
The boy put his shoulder against the force of the wind and struggled a step at a time. He got close enough that even the sleeting rain stopped affecting his field of vision.
The shape was indeed the old man who was still under the tree where he had been since the bluetongue snake had poisoned him.
'Baba!'
The boy started shouting as he drove further against the wind, it felt like a battle he was fully aware he would lose but he could not let up and he did not stop shouting.
Lightning arced high in the sky, the thunder never came. He thought he was being punished for letting the man die.
The palm tree shuddered against the wind and palm fruits dropped from their high perches, carried by the wind like flying stones. A handful were dashed against his body, he managed to bury his face inside the crook of his arms that were crossed in front of his head. His arms and wet naked torso flared up in pain as if the palms were deadly rocks not fruits.
The rain could not stop him, the wind could not stop him, and the palm fruits did not faze him.
His whole body was in pain but he reached the old man and stopped thinking about the man as a corpse when he reached the palm tree, slumped as the old man was against the base of the palm's trunk, he still looked like he could wake up at any moment. He still looked alive.
The palm fruits had not fallen on the old man and the cutlass that had cut open the boy's head was no longer there. He looked around and did not see it on the floor or anywhere. He realized how near to the edge of death he himself had been, a flying cutlass could have found its way into his gut and that would have been his untimely end out here on the farm with none the wiser.
He grabbed the old man under the shoulder by the armpit and forced his body off the tree. He was careful not to trouble the poisoned foot. He went down on one knee and humped the body up and over his shoulder.
The boy found it hard to lift the body and make himself upright from that kneeling position but he did it and only staggered as he did it. He now trudged carefully with the blunting wind and the swaying palm tree firmly behind him and the old man over his shoulder.
He went carefully across the path between plots, not the rough clearing, for he feared slipping and stumbling and breaking open the old man's brain and twisting his own ankle.
The shack's door was made of a single sheet of galvanized zinc and it was still banging on the doorframe with each gust of wind, producing absurdly loud bangs each time. The door was streaked with grainy brown rust of iron and only a few lines had the hint of the original silvery zinc coating. Entering the shack with the deadly door flapping was no small feat, worsened by the weight of the old man slowing him down.
He went to the side of the frame without door hinges and waited. The door banged close and lurched open and it fanned his face with droplets. He quickly turned into the door and ran into the shack. The door banged right behind him.
The shack's interior was illuminated by a scattering of light through a window that was also open and was matching the door in its insanity, banging and closing. The rain poured inside whenever they were opened and the shack was wet and there was a pool of water beneath his feet.
The boy set the old man down at the end of the shack, near the corner, angled away from the door and the periodic wash of rainwater. The floor was uneven and that was the only dry spot in the shack, even though it was wet. He now had to wrestle the door close. He was tired to the bone and his head was throbbing where the cutlass had opened it. There was a strong itch that made him all too aware of the wound.
He could not rest.
The rain and the pool of water under his feet were not in anyway unbearable but that banging was going to drive him crazy. He went towards the door and he waited in front of the doorway, rain slanting into the shack, directly on him.
He waited until the door banged close and he sprang upon it. The wind behind the door had the force of a brick wall. He could not push open the door even if he tried. He latched the door and when the wind tried pulling it open the door only rattled and stayed put. He left the window open for the scant illumination.
The boy listened to the rain as it pattered against the roofing sheet door and the roof and the walls and then the he started taking stock of the damage. He needed to start a fire before they both freeze to death but the bundles of wood in the shack were wet, the wood shavings were wet and also useless, the axe was still useful. He looked up at the ceiling and saw how water seeped through the seams in the walls and the roof and then he saw where two knapsacks had been hung on nails driven into the plywood walls. They were not wet. He retrieved both of them.
He found the matches and a bottle of kerosene in the old man's knapsack, and the dirty postbill, dry and rustling, in his own knapsack.