The Rider II-By Edward Maroncha

(Continued from The Rider)

“Kissing my boyfriend in my own house. What do you think you are doing intruding in my home like this?” Catherine replies. She has released Horace but she is still standing so close to him that her feminine body is still sending his hormones on a wild frenzy.

Horace is confused. The man is the soldier on the photo. He has no doubt about that. But why is she talking to him like that? Are they divorced? And if they are divorced, why does she have his photo on the wall? Horace gets his answer soon enough.

“You mean my brother’s house. Built on my father’s land,” the man says.

The guy is not Catherine’s husband. He is her brother-in-law. But still, your brother-in-law is the last person you would want to see you kissing another man. Something is still not adding up. The man stares at Horace as if he is noticing him for the first time.

“So you are dating boda boda people now? Is that how low you have stooped?” the guy asks, looking at Horace contemptuously. For the first time, Horace feels something other than fear for the man: hatred. His ego has been bruised, but he understands his position well. He is a fly on the wall. These are wealthy people dueling.

“Who I date is really none of your business, Maingi. Now get out of my property before I throw you out,” she is speaking with so much force that it surprises Horace. Just a few minutes ago she was a sweet girl offering him tea. Now she is a fierce lioness spoiling for a fight. Horace cannot help but wonder how she intends to throw him out. He is a large man, and he doesn’t look like a coward.

She, on the other hand, is a woman with a soft feminine body in a dress.  She is barefoot, having removed the heels when she was entering the house. A physical fight is out of question. Does she have a gun?

“Throw me out? I would really love to see you do it. Go ah…” Maingi does not finish his sentence before he howls in pain. The movement was so swift that Horace missed it. Maingi did not see it either. Catherine has forcefully kicked Maingi in the mouth, causing him to bite his tongue.

“I have tried my best to be nice to you Maingi. But you are pushing me to the wall. And when I am pushed to the wall, I hurt people. I do not want to hurt you, so please, I beg you, leave me alone. Get out of my property.”

When Maingi looks up, his eyes are filled with pure hatred. He swings his fist forcefully to hit her, but Horace reacts instinctively and blocks it. This infuriates Maingi even further.

“Move away from him. I do not want you to get hurt. This is my fight, I can handle him,” Catherine says.

Before Horace can react, Maingi hits him on the jaw with his fist and hits him again on the nose and blood splashed out. He falls to the ground dazed, but Maingi is not done. He comes upon him, swearing and cursing. Horace curls himself into a fetal position to protect himself from the blows that will follow.

Then he hears Maingi howling in pain again. He looks in that direction and sees Catherine kicking and boxing him like a grand master in those Chinese movies. She is obviously skilled in martial arts, maybe karate, kung fu or judo. Horace doesn’t even know the difference between the three. It is surprising to see her fighting because she is not even one of those girls with athletic bodies. She is a curvaceous woman who looks as fragile as an egg.

If anyone had told Horace about what he is seeing, he would have dismissed it as a fake story. But he is witnessing it with his own eyes. Catherine is using her legs and hands at a surprising speed and to maximum effect.

Her dress is flying up as she fights, but the legs that are revealed do not represent sexiness: they represent horror. At least to Maingi. When Horace sees her planting three successive kicks on Maingi’s groin, he winces and looks away, forgetting his own pain. Getting forcefully kicked down there once is painful enough; having someone hit you repeatedly must be pure hell.

The whole thing takes about a minute. Maingi threw a few punches at the start, but Catherine easily ducked them. Now he has capitulated. When she sees that he is subdued, Catherine stops hitting him and looks at him with a calm expression.

“Get out of my property, Maingi,” she says.

Maingi looks at her. The hatred is still there, but now he can hardly stand straight, and he is bleeding in the mouth. He winces as he tries to stand straight. Many of his joints are sore.

“This is not over,” he tells her. Then he turns to Horace. “And you will regret getting mixed up with things that do not concern you.”

Then he limps away.

                                                            *

Horace has stopped nose bleeding, but Catherine insists on cleaning him up. She takes him to her bathroom and cleans blood from his nose with water that she has disinfected with Dettol. She examines his jaw, which has started to swell and declares that it can be treated with ice cubes.

When she has finished her treatment, she asks him to sit so that she serves him tea. This time around he doesn’t argue. She goes to the kitchen and fries eggs. That aroma alone makes him hungry. She comes to the sitting room with two platters, each with slices of bread and fried eggs. She gives him one of the platters. Then she pours tea into two mugs and gives him one.

“Let us give thanks,” she says, then goes ahead and prays. She notices his astonishment and smiles.

“I am not a bad person, Horace,”        

Horace nearly chokes on his tea. He doesn’t remember telling her his name, so how does she know who he is? Who is this woman?

“How do you know my name?” he asks.

She smiles again.

“You forget your friends easily, Pastor,”

This makes Horace even more confused. The only people who call him pastor are either members of his youth group or his former school mates at Maragi Secondary School. He is sure this Catherine woman does not fall in either category.

“I am sorry but I do not remember you,”

“When you were the CU chairman at Maragi, I was the CU secretary at Kahuhia Girls. Our chairlady was called Joyce, and she had a serious crush on you by the way, and our treasurer was called Mary. We used to meet in a lot of KSCF events, and we also used to come to your rallies and vice versa.”

Horace’s jaw drops as he recognizes her.

“Kate?”

“That is me. My official name is Kate but some people annoyingly insist on calling me Catherine.” she says. Then she laughs when she sees the surprise on his face. “I know, I have gained weight.”

“Nonsense. What you have become is way more beautiful. And rich,” he says, looking around the house, then laughs as he adds “and fierce too. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“My husband insisted that I should learn to defend myself because he was always away. So he made me take judo classes. By the way thanks for defending me. I really appreciate it.”

She is smiling, and for a moment Horace imagines that she is mocking him. But then she continues.

“At that point you did not even know who I was. And Maingi is a huge bully. But you stuck your neck out for me. I do appreciate it. Thank you,”

That look of helplessness that had melted Horace’s heart before Maingi the bully appeared is back, and Horace can feel the attraction again. Then he remembers the soldier on the wall.

“Where is your husband?”

“He is dead. He was killed in Somalia two years ago,”

“I am sorry,”

Kate smiles sadly.

“He was a good man. Nothing like his twin brother Maingi.”

“What does Maingi want?”

“My property,”

“Property?”

 “Yep.  Before he died, my late husband Chris had written a will leaving all his property to me. Most of that property was inherited from his late father, but we had turned the farmlands into commercial enterprises and renovated the old buildings into modern residential apartments and office blocks. When Chris died, my in laws wanted to take it all back because I didn’t have Chris’ child by the time he died. But the court ruled in my favor and the property was transferred to me. That is when Maingi started seducing me. He probably thinks that if he sleeps with me I will surrender everything to him. I have tried to gently tell him that I am not interested in him, but he doesn’t listen. Perhaps he thinks that I will be attracted to him because he is my late husband’s twin. But besides physical similarity, Maingi is nothing like Chris. Besides, he has a wife and children.

I kissed you like that because I saw him coming through the gate and wanted him to think that there is another man in the picture. I thought he would get the message. But yea, you saw what happened. I am sorry for throwing myself at you like that.”

They sit in silence for a while, then Horace remembers something else.

“I have seen your car outside. Why didn’t you use it to go shopping?”

“I wasn’t going shopping, I was coming for you,” she says and laughs. She laughs often, and her eyes light up beautifully when she laughs. “I have watched you for a while now. My office is opposite the supermarket so I am able to watch you and your friends. I don’t like your friends by the way. I see the way they ogle at women. But I realized you are different, which told me that you have kept your faith. I wanted to talk to you but I did not know how to approach you. After some thinking I decided that approaching you as a customer would be the perfect excuse to bring you to my house where we could talk over a cup of tea. I don’t have many friends in Murang’a, especially after the whole drama with my in laws. They have all taken sides with my in-laws claiming I am a gold digger. Someone I considered a friend even went around saying that I told her that I went to a witch doctor to get my husband killed so that I could inherit his wealth.”

“No way.”

“Yea. I avoid my -so -called friends these days. I just go to the office, work and come back home. But at some point it gets lonely. We all need someone we can talk freely with. My other friends are people I was in law school with, and they are all either in Nairobi or other far away towns. That is why I wanted to talk to you. I was hoping you could be my friend. At least I think we used to get along as teenagers, and I guess we share values.”

“How long have you been watching me?”

“Two weeks, maybe? My office was in one of our properties in Mukuyu. I moved into town last month after I bought that building.”

                                                      *

They have been talking for almost two hours when Horace’s phone rings. He picks it and frowns as he listens.

“I have to go Kate. Take my number so that you won’t have to do shopping every time you want to talk to me,”

She laughs, then her expression becomes serious almost immediately.

“Is there a problem?”

“Yea. That was my father. Apparently my brother has gotten into a fight and is seriously injured. I need to take him to hospital.”

He rushes out of the house towards the gate, with Kate following to see him off. Then they stop in consternation. Horace’s motorcycle is not there, neither is it anywhere in the vicinity.

“Strange. We do not have thieves in this area,” Kate mumbles. “Look Horace, let me drive you. We can worry about the motorcycle after taking your brother to hospital.”

They walk back to the compound but another surprise is waiting for them. All the four tires of Kate’s car are flat.

“Your brother didn’t get into a fight Horace,” she says angrily. “He was attacked by Maingi’s goons. All this is Maingi’s work.”

Horace shivers. What has he gotten himself into?

(Continued Here)

Image source:     https://pixabay.com/photos/forest-leaf-portrait-nature-man-4190137/

•                        

To purchase a copy of this month’s novella, Vanuatu, or the bonus novella, Betrayal at the Altar, you can follow either one of two ways:

1. Digital Method. Log in to the bookstore- register if you are new-(https://www.maroncha.com/book-store). Select the book (Vanuatu or Betrayal at the Altar). Add to cart, check out then pay. You will be able to download instantly from the bookstore. A copy will also be automatically sent to your email.
2. Manual Method. Pay Kshs. 100 to Buy Goods Till Number 297264. Send us an email at info@sanctuaryside.com telling us your M-PESA name and the book you wish to purchase (Vanuatu or Betrayal at the Altar). It might take us some time to process your order, but we will email your copy once we have verified your payment. If you are using the manual system and wish to buy my previous books, just log in to the bookstore (https://www.maroncha.com/book-store) and you will see all the previous titles. You can then pay for any of them.

Remember you can always inbox Sanctuaryside on Facebook or email us at info@sanctuaryside.com if you have a query or feedback.

See you all on Friday.