Making Wolf by Tade Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

because of the improvised masks they wore.
    “Weston Kogi?”
    I nodded.
    “Come with us,” said the nearest.
    “I have a gun,” I said.
    The heavyset one cocked his rifle. “So do we.”
    “No, I mean, I’m telling you that I have a gun so that you don’t get surprised when you find it. If you’re surprised you might shoot me.” I pointed to my holster and waited on the bed while they removed it and searched me. When it became clear that I was cooperating they became casual. They pointed their guns at the ceiling, and we strolled out of the hotel. The clerk at the desk didn’t even look up when we walked by. I found it difficult to decide if this was more or less frightening.

Chapter Seven
    We drove all night.
    I was in the back seat between two of them, while one drove us. By the time the sun emerged, one of my kidnappers was snoring loudly to my left. They had taken off the masks. I thought it was reasonable to assume these were not Liberation Front foot soldiers. These actions did not seem consistent with Church’s plan for me. It was the most polite abduction I had ever been involved with, and, in the short time I had spent in Alcacia, I was fast becoming an expert.
    The road was narrow with the occasional hole that would fling the car and all three of us off our seats and send the driver into peals of laughter. Even at this time of day the road was busy. We passed all-night coaches and bolekaja. Bolekaja were modified Mercedes Benz 911 army trucks. Local mechanics ripped away everything but the driver’s cab and engine, then replaced the back with a wooden compartment with benches designed to accommodate as many passengers as inhumanly possible. It was the cheapest form of fuel-based road transport in Alcacia, and thus, the world. The name literally meant “disembark; let us fight” because, if you had a dispute, the hard-packed space didn’t even leave room for harsh language.
    There were horses, and the riders seemed to have this predilection for the middle of the road. The driver would have to lean on the horn before they majestically inched to the side so we could overtake.
    Then there were the police checkpoints, which were simply two gorodom on both lanes of the road with three or so tired-looking officers who quite blatantly took bribes from passing motorists. A gorodom is like a barrel about five feet high and made of steel, effective as a barrier when filled with cement. The police asked for your “particulars,” which, in the local parlance, meant money and not your license, registration, and insurance. Everybody in Alcacia seemed able to identify who the rebels were because we were waved past every single checkpoint.
    Going by the rising sun, we were headed northwest, People’s Christian Army territory.
    The car slowed. There was a collection of fires on both sides of the road ahead, and other vehicles had parked. My captors started pooling their money. The fires were where women were frying akara in massive woks over wood or kerosene stoves. I had heard of the place.
    They decided who had to do the buying by playing “the little mermaid” which had nothing to do with the cartoon or Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. It was closer to Rock-Paper-Scissors.
    “Mamy wata kekere kan to ko sinu omi,
    Mo n’so fun la t’owuro titi d’ojo ale,
    ‘Dide soke, nu oju re nu,
    yi s’apa otun; yi s’apa osi,
    Mu eni keni to ba wun e o.’”
    Which meant, the little mermaid who jumped into the water, I’ve been telling her all day, “get out of the water, wipe your eyes, turn right, turn left, and choose who you want.”
    It’s a child’s game, it doesn’t have to make sense.
    The snoring guy to my left lost. The aroma of akara soon filled the car and they even got me some. We sliced open loaves of sweetened bread and seeded them with the akara, making a crude sandwich. I was soon licking my fingers and not resenting the loss of liberty as much as I should have.
    We approached a