Free Walking Home by Eric Walters Page B

not want to leave him behind. I understood, but I insisted.
    “As the crowd grew, they started tossing rocks. I remember people jumping and screaming as that first rock pierced the stained glass and sent shards into the air. Those shards of glass compelled my mother to listen to what I had said.
    “Then it all happened. They swept through the front gate of the church grounds, screaming and yelling, and people inside and outside the church answered with their own anguished screams. I grabbed my sister in my arms and carried her through the crowd to the back of the building and out the rear doors. I yelled for my mother to run! I looked over my shoulder as we stumbled into a cornfield. Desperately I looked back for my father, but I knew he was gone.”
    “And through your actions, you and your mother and sister escaped.”
    “It was my father’s actions that allowed us to escape. He stayed behind to give us time to leave,” I said sadly. “My mother, unsteady on her feet, clung to my other arm for support. The corn was thick and high and we were hidden in the stalks.”
    “And then?”
    “I left my sister and mother and went back to the edge of the field. The mob had by then surrounded the church on all sides, so there was no hope of escape. Again I looked for my father, but he was not to be seen. I knew. I knew. I could not do anything. I hid there, able to watch but not to be seen.”
    “If you cannot talk more about this, I understand. This must be difficult for you to speak of,” the sergeant said.
    Strangely, it wasn’t. I’d relived it so many times in my thoughts and my nightmares that the words simply flowed out. I was more of a distant witness than anything else, as if I were telling him of something I’d read in the papers.
    “I can talk.” It felt like now that I had started I had no choice but to keep telling him the story, that I couldn’t have stopped the words if I’d tried. “The mob barred the doors, barricaded them so none could escape. And then they set the church on fire.”
    “So awful. So terrible. I am so sorry for your loss.”
    “Thank you.”
    “If I had been there, I would have tried to stop them,” the sergeant said. “If I had to, I would have opened fire upon the mob to drive them back.”
    “They were Kalenjin, your people. You would have fired on them?” I asked.
    “I would have fired upon enemies of the country because that is what they were, whether they were Kalenjin killing Kikuyu or Kikuyu killing Kalenjin, as was done in other parts of the country.” He stopped. “All those responsible for these atrocities are the same. They are nothing more than savages, animals looking for an excuse for violence, hyenas reacting to the smell of blood.”
    “It might have been different if the police and soldiers had come,” I said.
    “I have spoken to some of the men who were in those garrisons. They said there were more in the mobs than they had bullets in their guns. They were afraid. I understand the fear, but that is not an excuse. Those men were sworn to uphold the laws of our land. They did not keep their oath.”
    I should have felt angry at the soldiers who did nothing to protect us, but I didn’t. I could still taste the fear I felt lying in the stalks at the edge of the field. I didn’t have a gun, but even if I had, would I have doneanything? Would I have been brave enough to help my father? I just lay there and watched as the church was set on fire.

    “The flames started from the inside as windows were smashed and torches thrown in,” I said, resuming my story. “Soon the thick black smoke poured out through the windows, and then the flames licked up the sides of the building and the roof caught fire. The light from the fire was so bright that I was afraid I would be seen and the mob would come after me. I needed to get my mother and sister and get away—as far away as possible.
    “When I reached them, my mother wanted to wait for my father. I simply told