DEAD OR ALIVE

Gicheru is a master breeder, proud owner of oxen so fierce the villagers swear they carry buffalo blood. Beasts the night itself might have fathered. Uncle, by contrast, keeps grade cows with long eyelashes and silky skins-gentle creatures that rarely wander beyond his compound.

Still, their paths keep curving toward each other. The land calls, and both men answer. Sometimes they share a stub of kiraiku, smoke curling into the dusk like incense between old friends. In the evening, you’ll find them at Wakulima, squinting at the old TV, grunting things only they understand.

Beyond breeding, Gicheru is a famed herbalist-the best in our ridges. His reputation runs from the undulating hills of Iyego to the coffee farms of Weithaga, to Mugoiri and beyond. His hands smell of bark and bitter herbs, the mark of a lineage that has healed for centuries. He may be the last.

One morning, Uncle’s beloved cow, Mathaga, starts coughing hard. By midday her eyes are dull, her silky flanks grimy. Uncle thinks of calling Gicheru, then remembers how Gicheru’s bulls are always dirty yet stubbornly healthy. He hesitates. By evening, the cow is down, a thin film of death glazing her face.

“Wee Mwathani wa igũrũ, ũtarĩaga ngima…,” Aunty Jerusha prays, hands raised to Kirinyaga.

“Go call Gicheru. Quick!” Uncle interrupts.

Gicheru arrives with his slow, limping gait, trousers folded to the knee. His ginger beard blazes like a crown of fire, giving him the aura of a wandering prophet. A sign that he walks with herbal secrets whispered down through centuries. His eyes drift from the cow to Uncle and back again. He says nothing.

Uncle searches his face for a verdict. Gicheru gives him nothing. He has seen too many animals die to flinch at a Friesian with long eyelashes.

Uncle lights his kiraiku. Gicheru runs his hand down the cow’s jugular vein and gives her a lingering, worried look.

“Do we sell it to the butcher?” Uncle asks. Silence.

“If they give us fifty thousand, we’ll accept,” Aunty throws in, uninvited.

Gicheru circles the heaving beast, shaking his head slowly. Aunty calls on the Messiah. Uncle fumbles for matches with trembling fingers.

Gicheru lifts the lids of Mathaga’s eyes. They are rheumy and dry, as though she has cried all night. He shrugs, the weary gesture of a man who has locked eyes with death too often.

“We’ll take forty,” Uncle bargains.

Gicheru raises the cow’s tail, revealing a smeared yellow mess. He pinches his nose-the first time in half a century of calling.

“Thirty… thirty is okay. We’ll take thirty,” Uncle pleads. Aunty begins to wail.

Gicheru sighs theatrically, then digs into his pocket. He peels off thirty moldy one-thousand notes and drops them into Uncle’s hands. Uncle slides the money into his battered leather kabuti before Gicheru rethinks it or Mathaga breathes her last. Or both.

Gicheru turns toward the gate, his limp now gone.

“Wewe, carry your cow,” Aunty reminds him.

“Whether it lives or withers, it’s mine,” he replies, vanishing down the slippery path to River Boyo.

“Bank that money before that cow dies,” Aunty mutters.

At dusk, Gicheru returns with dew on his legs and a bunch of fresh, fragrant herbs in his hands. When he pounds them, a citrusy, biting aroma fills the air, stinging the nose and watering the eyes. He mixes the pulp with water the old way-not written in musty books but handed down from healer to healer. Without ceremony, he tilts Mathaga’s head and pours the bitter concotion down her throat. Then he leaves.

“Your dying cow-carry it!” Uncle calls after him.

“It is mine. Dead or alive,” Gicheru replies.

Uncle shakes his head, convinced the animal will not see morning. He repeats this to anyone who will listen, as if saying it aloud will soften the loss.

But at midnight, Uncle wakes to the sound of steady chewing. Mathaga is on her feet, eyes bright again, tail swishing.

When morning breaks, Gicheru appears with a rope in his hand and a song on his lips. Uncle grips his machete, lips quivering, ready to block him.

“Dead or alive,” Gicheru stops him with three words. He loops the rope around Mathaga’s neck. The cow lets out a soft moo and follows him to the gate.

And in that moment, Uncle finally understands: some men are born to coax life from death, while the rest can only watch in awe.