7

Tajirika acted with his usual unerring instinct of self-preservation. With the new authority ceded to him in writing, he sent Wonderful Tumbo to fetch the masked riders from death row and bring them straight to him at the Ministry of Defense. Fortunately, Wonderful Tumbo got to them and found their hair and beards still intact, for no warden dared trim the masks of spirits. A few wardens even knelt before the spirits, begging them to intercede with their ancestors on their behalf.

Once inside Tajirika’s office, it was the spirits who fell to their knees, confronted by a figure different from the picture of Tajirika they carried in their heads. Ditto Wonderful Tumbo, a longtime friend and confidant of Tajirika’s. Had it not been for his years of police training and experience, he would have fainted.

Tajirika sat on a raised chair, the one that Sikiokuu had made in imitation of the Ruler’s at cabinet meetings. He wore a T-shirt and shorts made of lion skin. He was draped in a cape of a colubus monkey skin that reached to his feet. Tajirika had discarded the glove used to cover his right hand. To the wonderment of his guests, his right arm and left leg were white, his left arm and right leg black. The riders assumed him a deity. Wonderful Tumbo said loudly, with absolute conviction: He is the chosen one, a man set apart by the gods.

The four spirits abandoned themselves to newfound joy and gratitude for life restored, and there was nothing they would not do for their savior. They listened with all their power to every word of what was expected of them. They would conceal weapons under their hair when they went to meet with the Ruler at the State House.