“Here! I’ve found him! Kamau’s here!” Elijah’s voice, strained and hoarse, broke through the haze of dawn.

Bette turned sharply. Nyah was already moving, pushing through the clusters of villagers with urgency in her step.

Elijah stood at the base of a pile of rubble, hunched over where the muddy water had settled into a shallow basin. Kamau’s body lay crumpled beneath a tangle of charred wood and twisted metal from the wreckage, half-submerged, one arm stretched across his chest. His eyes were closed; mouth slightly parted.

Several of the Maasai men stepped forward. They said nothing, only exchanged brief, knowing glances before falling into quiet action. Two of them climbed into the debris without needing to be asked, working with surprising gentleness to dislodge the fragments that had caught on Kamau’s limbs. Others gathered branches to brace and lift the heavier beams.

Bette moved toward them, the old woman trailing behind her silently.

Elijah’s hands were still on Kamau’s shoulders, his head bowed, his breath sharp with grief and guilt. “I didn’t have time to pull him out of the water’s path,” he said quietly. “I tried…” His voice cracked. “The current was too fast.”

Bette knelt beside him, pressing a steady hand on his back. “He was gone before the water came. He didn’t suffer after that.”

The villagers eased Kamau’s body onto a clean piece of cloth, freshly unrolled from a warrior’s satchel. They worked wordlessly, reverently. There was no rush now, no fear, just the shared understanding of death and the dignity it was owed.

One of the elders, draped in crimson faded with age, stepped forward. He knelt by Kamau’s head and spoke in Maa, his tone even and low, not mourning the man, but acknowledging him, welcoming his spirit, guiding it.

Bette stood silently as they began to chant.

It was not loud, nor theatrical. The voices were steady and unbroken, rising and falling like the rhythm of walking, a journey home. They sang of the land, of the fire, of the trials faced. They called Kamau by no name, for they didn’t know it. They didn’t need to. He was human, and that was enough.

Nyah came to stand beside Bette. “They’re performing the enkipaata,” she whispered. “A version of it, anyway. A farewell. Usually for warriors. He wasn’t one of them… but they honour him as one now.”

Bette swallowed the lump rising in her throat. Her hands were filthy, streaked with blood and mud, and she realized she was trembling.

“I thought maybe… I thought maybe we could bring him back from what he was,” she said, her voice dull with fatigue. “He’d done terrible things. But I saw something in him, flickers. A man trying to crawl his way back to decency.”

Nyah nodded. “You did more for him than anyone else ever would have. You gave him a chance. And he died trying to help.”

Bette’s gaze lingered on Kamau’s face. In the cool blue of dawn, with the chanting continuing around them, his expression had softened. The tension was gone. Even the fear was gone. He looked young again. Unburdened.

She turned as the old woman who had tended her stepped forward, handing Bette a small clay bead, its surface worn smooth from years of touch. “For peace,” the woman said in English, her voice barely above the wind.

Bette took it with a nod of thanks, her fingers closing around it like a talisman.

Behind them, the compound still smoked, but the fire had lost its hunger. In its place stood people, some bloodied, many barefoot, most strangers. But they had come. They had answered the unspoken call of the land and its creatures, of its defenders. And together, in the silence after fire, they honoured the fallen.

Kamau was wrapped in a red cloth, his body lifted by six hands, all guided by the soft hum of the Maasai’s parting songs. There was no shame, no judgment, only the peace of final rites.

Bette stepped back, the bead clutched tight in her palm, and whispered to herself, “Ashe oleng, Kamau.”