The first time I noticed the stone had moved, I told myself it was nothing.

The second time, I knew someone had placed it there on purpose.

The night before, the rain had been heavy, the kind that sinks into the earth and makes it easy to shift things without a trace.

My toes dug into the damp soil as I traced the boundary with my foot. The stone that had always marked the edge of our land was now deeper into our farm. A few inches. Just enough to go unnoticed. Just enough to matter.

I straightened, my eyes sweeping over the field. Beyond the sugarcane, the evening light stretched long and golden, fading into the quiet of dusk.

Ahead, my father walked with his panga hanging loose in his hand, its blade catching a dull glint as it swung with his steps. This was our routine—walking the land, talking about things that weren’t meant for the daylight.

“Papa,” I called, moving to his side. “I don’t like how Mzee Okeyo keeps shifting the boundary.”

He kept walking, his silence heavier than words. Then, after a moment, he placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, son. I will handle it.”

Handle it how? By ignoring it? By waiting for Okeyo to grow tired?

I looked back at the stone, half-sunk in the dirt. Okeyo was patient. He moved the boundary the way termites eat through wood—slowly, quietly, until one day the house collapses.

I clenched my fists. “It’s not right, Papa.”

My father let out a slow breath. “Right doesn’t matter. Not to men like him.”

Mzee Okeyo was the kind of man who shook your hand in public and sharpened his knife in private. He had once owned more land than anyone in the village, but greed is a thirst that doesn’t quench.

He had sold most of it, wasted the money, and now, instead of accepting his fate, he was carving out more for himself—one stolen inch at a time.

Mzee Jatelo, the old land surveyor, had warned us. A man who fights for land never stops fighting. Okeyo had been fighting since before I was born.

I swore to myself I would never be that kind of man.

We walked to the far end of the farm, where my father suddenly slowed. He had seen him.

Mzee Okeyo stood at the edge of his shamba, his hoe resting on his shoulder, his lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. He wasn’t working. He wasn’t passing by. He was watching.

I felt the heat rise in my chest. My fingers itched toward the handle of my panga—not to use it, but to feel the weight of it. To remind myself that I could.

My father did nothing. He didn’t even glance at Okeyo. He walked past him as if he were nothing more than a tree swaying in the wind.

Okeyo gave a small smile. Just a little but enough.

That night, I sat outside my hut, watching the fields disappear into the dark. The crickets hummed, and somewhere in the distance, a hyena let out a sharp, shrill laugh. A sound that belonged to something hungry.

My grandfather had fought over land. He had taken his own brother before the elders, the chief, the courts. They argued until both were dead, and in the end, they were buried side by side in the very soil they had bled for.

Now, my father was caught in the same quiet war.

At dawn, I went to till the land. My bare feet pressed into the damp earth as I gripped the jembe, ready to work. Then I saw him—Mzee Okeyo.

This time, he wasn’t pretending. He stood at the edge of the farm, watching me the way a hyena watches a dying cow.

Waiting.This wasn’t over.

Part 2 LOADING.....