I was born into a hunting family, and my people tell stories. It is not all the time that I believe these stories. Believe me, it is not all the time that I get quite interested in a story. And the very last story I ever enjoyed was from Papi Jo. But this story, when I first heard it, gripped me so much that I sparingly had any time to resist the urge growing in my bones. And it was right about this time that I swore on my effing life to go to the Appastochiant cave—whatsoever be my fate. Not to hunt big games or upland birds. The very story which was told to me was seemingly that powerful. And I had been opportuned to hear it during Christmas holidays that saw me spending copious hours in an old rickety castle with Jacobean architecture. No doubt, Tonkie was right. The castle had existed for so long. And it was the story he told me there one day that changed the course and trajectory of my life. And to confess, I was word-drunk on the lyricism of the entire tale.
Now, to begin, I have just one hand. The other is just a stump. And believe me, I don’t even know why I do. And to start with, Cash has never even cared to ask. Not once in his life. Not my mom, not my grandmom, not my father who was seldom around enough to be called a father. Cash Jacob is my name, and I also don’t know why. At least I am old enough to know that my old man never had cash and that Jacob was never one of his names. Whatever happened to reasonable naming! Enough! Enough of that spicy chunk of personal history, which I have come to abhor with my left kidney. Pardon me. So, as I was saying, my friends, Tonkie was the one that told me about one Johnnie Dell “Delstro” who it seemed never had any luck whatsoever. “Frankly, I don’t know,” Tonkie said one afternoon. “Maybe he was cursed. No man was ever as unlucky as he was.” I paid attention to every detail Tonkie had to lay out like a tapestry. The last of the sunrays had started to hide itself from our sight, and the last testament of our coming was still looking ahead of us—an old broken fish statue, which would have been pointing an accusing finger at me had it been any way possible. And as we turned around to go, one kid tore out in front of us—his head was bloody and probably battered, and in one of his hands was an axe. He was bleeding. And by the corner of his left eye was a stitch, as though the flesh there had been torn apart. His eyes were sunken. His throat was cut open. “God forbid!” I muttered under my breath, my hands shaking. Um, erm…my hand actually. You know. The fright was deep. Something dripped from his nose onto the earth. But, of course, we knew what it was. It was blood. The boy might have been nine or ten, but never eleven. Does he live in the castle? But, of course, we supposed not—owing to the dusty and rickety nature of said castle. How about his family? No one knew. We simply kept quiet and stared at him, ready to even run if there was need for it. My blood was curdling. And by this time, Tonkie was holding my hand.
“Are you looking for salvation?” the boy said, his voice almost a ghostly thing. “We sell salvation – half, quarter, full.”
We had agreed that this would be our last time at the castle. And now there was a fine reason for our decision to be cut-and-dried. All my teeth were clattering. The boy rubbed the phlegm coming down his nose. I was seeing something, and it was not a product of my febrile imagination. On the boy’s tightened fist was a grub. “God forbid!”
“Where do you guys come from?” he asked, a question that came with urgency.
Yet we stood—our lips not moving, our lips not answering. The line between decision and action as fine as frog hair. It must have been fright. The boy too stood, not moving. Not even a quarter of an inch. Maybe he was equally having a dilemma as we were. Next, from the periphery of my vision, I saw someone or something breeze past. Really, I would have screamed if not for Tonkie’s grip. A shriek came and disappeared as soon as it reached our ears.
“Whatever you want here is like the fleecy clouds. You will have misgivings. You will have dyed-in-the-wool convictions. But, worst of all, you won’t have much of a choice.”
“Please…” someone was saying. It was me. But the boy didn’t give room for it.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “Every wall is a door here.”
A confused look came over Tonkie’s face. It was something I’d never seen before. Surprisingly though, it wasn’t stark disappointment—because that time the lid over his mouth had a fall.
“What wall, what door, and what are you doing with an axe? We don’t owe you a dime.” Tonkie quipped. “It’s late and we need to go. Now you must excuse us.” Tonkie was the coolest bull I’d ever met, never afraid to say things when they needed to be said.
“Every wall is a door.” the boy said again. “It will soon be 7:00, and then 7:01, and then poof!”
Tonkie was preparing to say something probably sensitive or off-the-mark at this moment, when a hanging adjacent bulb from the castle came on and flickered out—leaving us only with a memory of what there had been. Believe me, I was almost dying from fright. Fright the length of a rabbit’s warren. In fact, it was now that we noticed the diorama on the wall of the castle. Tonkie was still holding my hand.
“That’s all just a bunch of shit, boy.” Tonkie said. “Like I said, you must excuse us now. Night is fast approaching, and whatever bullshit you have up your sleeves should wait for another bunch of strangers. Get it? If you don’t get it, forget it.”
I wanted to shout to the boy’s hearing that this would be our last time here—and probably tell him how a loser he was—but a woozy clarity flushed over me, holding back my tongue. Tonkie’s story had begun to sink in.
***
I don’t fall head over heels for a story very often. The one Tonkie told me was quite compelling and propulsive. It was that of a young man caught in-between Scylla and Charybdis. His name was Johnnie Dell, but his friends who had so much admiration in their hearts for him, gave him “Delstro”. For a decade or two, he was left in the woods. And according to Tonkie, it was there he took his first step as a kid and learned his first word. Tonkie told me this story with enthusiasm, which as time passed by matched mine, and with some form of eat-shit-and-die expression smeared across his face. That was during our penultimate visit to the castle. While I listened, I pulled the black-eyed Susans in a white earthen vase. The heat was much, but I wasn’t feeling any of that shit. My attention was on Tonkie and the story he was telling. As he continued, I found myself swimming the murky waters of his wild tale. “So Johnnie actually had no formal education,” he continued. “And when other kids were playing in schools, Johnnie was climbing trees. Forests and caves were his favourite go-to places. And nuts and cherries were his favourite food. And anytime Johnnie was on his own, trouble would find him. If he slept, he would find a snake coiled round his leg. If he laughed too much—just a laugh—a fly couple would miss their way in his mouth. If he dared to swim in water for too long—only a swim—his feet would get stuck and he would have to pull for an hour or two or the livelong day. He was probably cursed. And never was Johnnie out of the woods for a minute or two.” My eyes were widening now as he told this tale. “His mother had been mentally deranged, escaped the federal asylum and carried Johnnie in her womb into the forest. Before her madness, she had been a sculptor for a company named Matt Kins & Sons. But that was before her sudden death. And whether those hands would’ve done more stuff worthwhile or not, I hadn’t the foggiest. But the fact that they would never do another thing ate at me.” My emotion was rising now, and in my mind I was saying, ‘Tonkie easy so I can at least catch up. I need to digest all of it’. But he didn’t hear me and continued nonetheless. “The death of Tonkie’s mom gnawed at his heart—and it was the death of the only parent he had ever known. He looked for ways to manage his grief, like a man alone in the world. But the grief was too much for his little heart to bear.”
“So what did he do?” I asked.
“He did what anyone in the jungle could do. Killed more animals than he had ever killed in a single hunt, broke branches and buried his mom under a tree. It was the most he could do.”
I felt a pang in my head and wondered what had become of Johnnie Dell. “Could Johnnie Dell still be alive?” I asked Tonkie.
He looked around for a while and gave me a nod. “Not much good news about him. But these days, he spends time at the Appastochiant cave. I have seen him once or twice sitting on a stone, pensive as ever. I reckon he recounts his woes.”
“Then I should be there.” I said to Tonkie. And at that moment, everywhere I looked a soldier like me. Courage was boiling bright, as my mind was made up. What I would do, hopefully, is find Johnnie Dell and save him from himself.
Tonkie looked me dead in the eyes. “You sure? It’s a helluva of a risk. You sure? You sure it’s something you’d want to do?”
At this moment, anger rose in me and I felt I should just hit Tonkie with a ball of stone. ‘”Sure,” I replied. “Sure. A man who cannot save himself needs to be saved. Not everyone knows what it means to have light. Some need a hand to pull them out of darkness. Grief is a burden no man should bottle up. I will go to the Appastochiant cave.”
“Well,” Tonkie said, rising from his stone, “I will give you directions, but just be careful. Johnnie might not like to have conversations.”
“But is this story not worth taking to heart?” I suddenly asked Tonkie. “Tell me, would you watch grief swallow up a man?”
Tonkie just shook his head—his face frankly expressionless—and held my shoulder. “You’re kind. Take my blessings and find Johnnie.”
I smiled. It was obviously all I needed to hear. Saving a man, to me, was no less a noble deed. And, frankly, I was in.
***
It wasn’t easy getting into the woods. And soon I was faced by a jackass. I didn’t respond but watched the jackass stare till it got tired and stumbled over the boulder. Finding Johnnie Dell was the plan, and I didn’t feel like bailing out was an option. The land leading to the cave was wet, and often had streamlets of murky water trickling by. I stomped my boots in the detritus and fluvial debris as I hurried along, counting the encounter with the jackass as but a first in the series of probable encounters. The cobwebs on the trees looked like alien things oftentimes, and at other times simply like ships on a ghostly sea. God knew I was sacrificing myself to save another man. The sun was going down, and it meant evening was fast approaching. I have never been so much alone to understand that one can carry a bunch of silence on his back. It was so much that I felt I should talk to the trees. But no sane man ever dared, so I carried on. With the goal to find the Appastochiant cave still burning deep, I laboured on. Everything was becoming eerie. The water bottle in my bag was making me quite uneasy, so I drank often from a desperation to feel light, and never out of any dire need to quench thirst. The landscape in some paths were hilly, quite remarkable and different from the downland I grew up around. Worthy of note was that some parts were easy to tread, and lovely to look at. Now I had come to a large trunk of wood. The whole of it was lying in a puddle, and there were worms in it. I tightened the strap of my bag and climbed over it to the other side. Frankly, I had lost track of time. Didn’t know how I let forgetfulness make me leave my watch at home and not on my wrist. Birds were chirping loudly with decibels I’d never imagined for birds. I Just tripped the moment I tried to keep my balance on another trunk. I got up, picked a nut and examined it. Something had gnawed at it, probably a rodent. I cleaned my body and wondered how much more distance I needed to go before I found Johnnie Dell or just the Appastochiant cave. The forest is no man’s friend, and I was beginning to understand that. Another jackass was standing in the distance. Its skin had patches of grey and black. I stepped back and found a hard branch of a tree lying around. It was still staring, its eyes wild and bloodshot. Something told me to turn and run, but I stood. The jackass, I knew, was studying me—trying to understand what it was before it attacked. Or just trying to find where if a pound of flesh was taken, brutal death would go next. I was afraid, but I stood. Suddenly, the thing made a wild noise and leapt forward. One person was going to be dead, I knew. Me or the jackass. But God knew it had to be the damn jackass. No overcalculating here. I lashed at its neck with the branch. It fell backwards, gurgling sounds coming from its bloody mouth. The sounds were wild and spooky. I lashed at it again and again until I was sure the light in it had gone out. Until I was sure it was dead. And all of that I did with one hand. My work having been done, I dropped the branch and ran along. I should have taken that damn branch with me, but the idea had only come as a second thought. And going back was never an option. Hurriedly, I made my way through the forest. And as I reached the forefront of a clearing, I found a hut nestled at a corner with thorny bushes. Indubitably, I wondered if this was where Johnnie Dell lived. Or if it was just a trap for unsuspecting wanderers. Really, I was very careful about approaching this house. If there was anything I ever wanted to avoid, it was trouble. So, decidedly, I left the house in search of the Appastochiant cave. But I had not gone so far when I heard a strange, chilling voice. The voice was shrill and low-pitched, like whoever had it was struggling to breathe. Not only did it make me stop, I was trembling like a leaf. Tonkie was right. That was my guess. Johnnie could probably be more antisocial than Tonkie had even imagined. Slowly, I turned and found a half-naked belle staring hard. Her eyes were apprehensive, her cheeks slightly sunken, her lips shaped like a stark brown almond. Her breasts were bare, and I was trying damn hard not to look at them.
“Saara,” she said. “As above, so below. Things that grow in the earth need water. Without the rain, there will be no rainbow. Saara. Yep me. The dusts won’t settle. The bougainvilleas will all be gone. My name Saara. One day, like every other day, the billy-goat will ascend the hill it has ever known, and will come with a cry no one has ever heard. And yet, people shall go about eating their corn and stuffing their ears. Yep me, sah. I need pish. Piss yep me. The trees here don’t need me. I smell death. Everything is dying. Look at the trees. Look at the land. I feel I smell death, the season of the pale. The supreme allure of our nature may be gone before the sun sets. The songs of the cicadas may no more be songs. And when dawn sets her anchor at the bay, the world would scarcely know we are gone.”
The sight and the words did hurt my heart which, of course, was not fashioned from a stone. Perhaps there was a message she was passing. But there was nothing I knew I could dare. The burden to find Johnnie was too heavy to carry another. I didn’t know what to do—if to leave or to reach out with a helping hand. In the end, I turned and hurried off—closing the door in my heart telling me to go hug the stranger. That could have hurt her—that action—but I was desperate to find Johnnie. God knows I had little time on my hand.
***
With evening fast approaching, I combed everywhere for signs of a cave. Or just the sight of a man. What I’d do with him would be marvelous. God knows. So that was it. I continued until I came to a brook. And there sat a man. His hairs and eyebrows were gray, even though he didn’t look quite old. He sure was different from the old folks I had ever known. When he saw me, he sat up. Dropped his kettle. Widened his eyes. Took a glance at me and began to murmur. He was scaring the shit out of me.
“Johnnie!” he exclaimed softly. “I can’t believe it.”
I looked around and found no one else but me. “Johnnie what?! Said what?”
“Praise be to the heavens!” he proclaimed, giddily. “Welcome home, Johnnie.”
“Please stop that shit!” I warned. “I don’t have time for crude jokes. I am heading to the cave. Ever heard of the Appastochiant cave?”
“Stop being unreasonable, Johnnie,” the ‘old’ man said. “He who has come has come. The stars have aligned. Come, we have a lot to discuss. Never wished for another Johnnie, but here you are.”
“Look, don’t piss me off.” I said pointblank. “I have no business with forest people. I am here in search of a man called Johnnie Dell. That’s all. If there is any help you can offer, that’d be to help me find him. If this is a joke you forest people crack, count me out. Okay? Do you know Johnnie Dell?”
The man looked at me and laughed. “No Johnnie Dell looks for a Johnnie Dell. It’s the oldest legend in this region. Some people believe a certain man named Johnnie once lived in some wood which has remained unidentifiable. However, some have recreated the story and now it has many versions. Nobody knows the real truth, but most wish there was a tall proof. So every year people risk their lives wandering into various forests in search of him. He didn’t really grow old as the stories purported. It’s now a game people play with curious minds. I was a victim and have decided to make the forest my temporary base. I go home sometimes. Whoever made you come has used you, Johnnie. So what it means is that you have been pranked. That could be deleterious. But you are the Johnnie Dell.”
I was shell-shocked, completely knocked out. I stood for a while, wondering if Tonkie could be that crazy. God forbid. No. Nevertheless, I asked the man a few more questions till I got tired and decided it was time to leave. Could this be some kind of April Fool? Or could the old man be the real Johnnie Dell after all? And what has happened to the many Johnnie Dells of this world? Where have all the curious minds gone to? Did I really believe so much in mere fiction? I couldn’t wait to meet Tonkie the storyteller. A coot was chirping now.
***
When I returned, with plum-happiness, I contacted Tonkie right away. I told him how’d found the Appastochiant cave. He stared at me with wide-eyed wonder in his eyes. It seemed almost obvious he never thought I’d risk anything to follow his wild tale. But I did. It had really been a wonderful tale, I reckon—one that was harshly true after all. Believe me, I think the bull was destined for Hollywood or just the movies. I told him how I found Dell full of hope and somewhat ageless. The excitement that shook him was palpable, something I had never seen before even in a quarter of my life. He wanted to know if I brought home some souvenir or any pointer to validity. Well, I produced Johnnie Dell’s shoes. He shook my shoulder with enthusiasm and took me with him along that narrow corridor that led towards the patio. I couldn’t even dare to venture a guess. All I did was follow, like a blade of grass. Out there, on a wooden table, were laid steaks of dried meat that’s probably wild turkey. He asked me to have some. I gestured, thanking him. I smiled and took a seat to rest my head as I lit a cigarette. Nobody loves meat more than I do. But in matters like this, I’d rather smoke than eat. And as the wild smoke reached somewhere near Tonkie’s roof, I replayed everything in my head – the plumes creating enormous scenes. There was something wrong with my hand, not like I haven’t noticed though—the tingling sensation. I just wanted the whole good suspense to repeat all over, so I could go on believing for a minute or two longer. I didn’t need forever.
But actually, everything had been a lie built on a likely true story—and Tonkie knew it from the outset, except that now he has started to believe his own lies. You know one thing about being fooled in the most expensive way? The anger doesn’t just come out straight, and you have to pretend you didn’t get the joke. However, two can play at this game. So I just told Tonkie “Delstro” has bags of gold hanging from the trees near his cottage. Everyone could use some imagination sometime. If only he knew how I’d been quite lucky to survive pursuits by hyenas on my way back. Don’t tell me any bullshit. Don’t you ever. I’m letting this bull pay for his big fat lies! Unless this pump of nicotine makes me change my mind, which I pray it doesn’t. God knows. It will be a fair game, and his clock’s chime has just begun. And how about the boy at the castle? That’s something I’d never know. If there’s anything I remember, it’s Tonkie wrestling him to the ground.
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About
Marvel Chukwudi Pephel is a Nigerian writer who writes poems, short stories and other things besides. A graduate of Applied Biochemistry from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, he combines scientific thought with literary art. In 2021, he was invited to the Sixth Chinua Achebe Literary Festival. His poem “Ogene” appeared on 10, 000 socks printed in Sweden which resulted from a collaboration launched as a project to tell African stories through socks. Apart from literary art, he has a keen interest in artworks (especially the works of Salvador Dali). He is the author of I, Robert’s Robot and Other Stories.
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