The next morning the village of Shinyalu was abuzz with what had happened overnight. Fred Chikati, a local butcher, had attacked his wife with a meat cleaver in a drunken rage, and brutally killed her. Moses had been injured while trying to protect his mother, and had fled in the direction of Winky Walker's house, probably because it was the only one with a light on at that hour. His younger sister, Rosy, though uninjured, had been found cowering in a corner in shock, when neighbours went to investigate the screams.
The police had come to Amy's door shortly after she and Benjie returned from the hospital. They were, of course, looking for information, but Amy was little help, apart from telling them where she had taken Moses, and what his condition was. The sun was just coming up when the police left.
Later that morning, Fred was found sleeping in a nearby maize field and the police dragged him off to the local lock-up, where a stiff beating gave them all the information they would need to lock him away for the rest of his life.
That same afternoon, Fred Chikati's brother, George, came by with young Rosy. He wanted Amy to take the two youngsters in as orphans.
"They ain't orphans," Amy whispered angrily, hoping that Rosy would not understand if she used English. "They're your family; you take them." All of the kids staying with her had lost both parents to AIDS, and none of them had any other living relatives. She had refused to help literally hundreds of other orphans in the area because they did not match those criteria. Locals knew her rules, and most respected it; but George did not let that deter him.
"We'll not take them," he said. "They're cursed, Madam. A bad spirit will come on us if we help them."
"Don't be stupid," said Amy. "A bad spirit will come on you if you don't help them. They're your kin."
Her words had little effect. When George returned to the markets he left Rosy on the road in front of Amy's house, with a strong warning for her not to follow him.
"C'mon in, girl," Amy said to Rosy when George was gone. Rosy was 11, two and a half years younger than Moses, who had turned fourteen just before Christmas. Both children were big for their age.
Rosy was not talking. But she laughed.. a strangely happy laugh. She used it (and a word or two here and there) to respond to Amy's questions. For all Amy knew, this was how she always communicated.
Amy was able to get information out of Rosy just by asking the right questions and by watching how she laughed in response. Through this, she learned that Rosy was afraid to return to the butcher shop; and through her own children she learned that the family had a small shamba nearby, with a mud hut on it. Their father had only been renting the butcher shop, and so it would no longer be available to the children now that he was in jail.
Rosy stayed at Amy's overnight, and the next day, Sunday, Amy took her out to the shamba, along with Lucy and the twins. Lucy was seven, and Jane and Gene were nine. The land was in the process of being prepared for planting, and the hut looked like it had been used from time to time.
"Do you sleep here?" Amy asked.
Rosy laughed in a way that expressed embarrassment, and she shook her head vigorously.
"Did Moses stay here?"
Same reaction.
"So who stayed here?"
She raised her eyebrows, laughed again, then screwed her face up in disgust. "Bad lady," was all she said.
Whoever it was, Rosy obviously did not approve.
From the hut Rosy picked up a jembe, a short handled heavy hoe, and she proceeded to drop it forceful y into thick grass that had grown around the edges of the tiny block, and then to lever the grass out before turning each piece of sod upside-down to die. Soon she had enticed Gene into using the hoe, while she checked on a few other things. As Amy looked on, he got the feeling that it had been Rosy's job to farm the tiny plot.
Amy also worked out from a few gestures and words thata larger,neighbouring block belonged to the children's uncharitable uncle, George Chikati.
Kenyan parents divide their land up between their sons. With each new generation, the plots become smaller. Some sons sell out to their brothers, then move to cities like Nairobi and Mombasa; but for those who stay, just surviving on what they can grow on an acre, then half an acre, and then a quarter of an acre becomes more and more impossible with each new generation. No doubt the uncle wanted to see the children disposed of, so that he could claim back his brother's share of the family plot.
On Monday, when most of the children were off at school, Amy decided to leave Benjie in charge and take another trip to the hospital in Kakamega to check on Moses. Rosy came with her.
When they were in the hallway, before entering Moses' ward, Amy detected a hurried movement in the boy's bed about the same time that the nurse cleared them to enter the room.
Moses had a big grin on his face. Rosy ran over to him and leaned her head on his left shoulder, both to comfort him and to comfort herself at the same time.
"Me, I got a surprise, Madam," Moses said, looking over Rosy's head at Amy.
"Watch this, Rosy," he added, and then, with a flourish, he pulled his right arm out from under the sheet.
Amy was shocked to see that the boy's arm had been cut off, below the elbow. Moses was displaying a heavily bandaged stump. And he was treating it like a joke! His resilience was amazing; but Amy was furious.
"Wait here," was all she could say as she turned to race back out of the room.
"What have they done to him? What have they done?" she whispered to the duty nurse in something close to a shout. "They didn't need to do that."
"Madam, you need to talk to the doctor about that. We don't have specialists here for putting pins and wires in; so he just took. That was better for him."
"Easier maybe, but not better," Amy said in disgust, as she turned to walk back into the room. The boy's life could be ruined just because of their indifference!
Moses was busy talking to Rosy, who was still only responding with laughs and giggles. It was hard to believe they had just lost both of their parents and one arm.
"You must not go with her. We will lose the land," Moses was explaining in Luhya.
"Sawa," Rosy managed to say in response, before adding her signature giggle, to show support for her brother's logic.
"Thank you, Madam, for helping me," Moses said to Amy in English, when he saw her approaching the bed. "Me, I think I woulda been gone they said that if you did not assist, I would be over the mountain and gone."
Amy was witnessing what she would come to see as trademarks of the young boy. One was his command of language. He could have easily spoken to her in Luhya, but he enjoyed using English, and he would often use it in the strangest ways.. not because he lacked vocabulary, but rather because he had more vocabulary than he knew what to do with.
The other trademark was his spontaneous good nature... an ability to stay positive in the face of any adversity. These were qualities that were destined to take him to the top of the world.