Legacy

This story starts at Oxford University in England. I’m Rodney  Cochowan, a black native  Kenyan.  My parents were well to do and farmers who got along maybe to well with their white neighbors. Maybe too well.

I was in my third year studying Engineering and having fun doing part time ventriloquist acts at local Night Clubs; that helped give me extra spending money in college. I’d learned to do ventriloquism from an old master, now retired, he was a good teacher and I learned to throw my voice rapidly.

All was fine until I got the telegram telling me that there had been a Mau-Mau uprising and my parents were killed and their farm burned along with their white neighbors.

I was devastated and angry beyond belief.  I dropped out of school and headed home to what was left of my parents farm.  It was a burned out husk of a house.  Two graves nearby was all I had left of family.  I wondered if the Mau-Mau had found out about the contents hidden in the well.

I checked, they had not noticed the iron ring three feet down with a small chain attached that ran to a strong box just below the water level.  I retrieved it not being sure of how much would be in it; but I knew it would be all in gold coin.

It was difficult to lift out but I finally got it up.  The box had almost forty thousand dollars worth of gold coins by weight, which was now worth more than face value.

I used the funds to outfit myself and start a Safari Company offering tours.  Business was not good yet; as the uprisings were too fresh in the minds of the whole world.  I knew someday all would get back to normal.  But meanwhile I made myself into a professional hunter, and sometimes poacher.  That was the life of a now soldier of fortune so to speak. I was also an opportunist and would deal in diamonds when I could from some native who knew he’d found something but had no real idea as to true value.

Time passed and things settled down. The Safari business picked up.  While leading a Safari  we were attacked  by a very warlike and territorial tribe.  It was the one who while participating in the Mau-Mau attacks had killed my parents.

They took us all prisoners and were having a great time cruelly killing our native bearers.  The means was horrible.  In one case they covered a man with clay and when it was sun dried baked him alive over an open fire.  In another case, they covered another man with clay, leaving a hole he could breathe through and then poured flesh eating army ants in the hole.

They hadn’t got to me and the white tourists I was guiding yet.  But then they turned their attention to me.  They drug me up to within six feet of the fat ugly Chief Waturi who had led the raid on my parent’s farm.  Apparently he was wounded in that raid and as a result could no longer speak or even make a sound; but he made himself understood.

The tribe worshiped the God, Bolgani and were very superstitious.  I don’t know what made me do it or from what depths of my soul I dredged the idea up from; maybe it was a knee jerk reaction.

Anyway, fallen back on my ability as a ventriloquist  I threw my voice to the lips of the evil Chief that could make  no sound and in their native dialect which I was well familiar with; I made it seem that the God Bolgani had spoken.  I said this is your God Bolgani, free this man immediately, he is your new Chief. Kill the old Chief immediately.  Their eyes about popped out of their head, their God had spoken through the lips of a Chief who could make no sound.

Before he could protest or make hand gestures a half a dozen spears finished him off.  As new Chief I immediately ordered the release of the white tourists.  They were so relieved.

I knew that tribe had diamonds in their possession and I ordered them brought to me.  They complied immediately.  It was quite a pile.  Then I had to consider how to make an exit with all the booty. Not easy but I hit on a solution.

I ordered every able bodied man and woman to make a journey of loyalty to me. I sent them on a trip that would take them fifty miles each way, and told them I wanted each to bring me back a rock from the bed of the Kingah River.

After they had been gone about three hours, I vamoosed.  I had enough diamonds to leave Kenya and live very, very well in London, England. Also finish my education because my parents would have wanted me. To

In a nutshell things worked out good as I got my revenge on that evil Chief who had killed my parents and got filthy rich in the process.  The Chief had been the biggest Dummy I ever threw my voice to.