Gold of Our Fathers

by Kwei Quartey

  It was stuffy in the car, so Dawson got out and casually looked around, making sure to exchange a few friendly words with the watchman sitting on a stool at his post near the gate. He said his name was David. A small, padlocked wooden shed stood behind him to the right. Dawson supposed it held tools for maintence work around the house, as well as, perhaps, a machete David might find handy if a burglar ever somehow wormed his way into the compound.

  Wei came out with his laptop and a tangle of connecting wires. “We go now,” he said to Dawson.

  Yes, we go, Dawson thought. It had been a long day on his first case. Was it to be simple, solved in a matter of two days or so, or was it to be more complicated? He laughed to himself at the question. Having needed a Chinese interpreter already seemed an indication that complexity awaited.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The galamsey boys who had discovered Bao Liu’s body were such an important element of the puzzle that it was vital Dawson locate at least one of them. He thought the chief of Dunkwa might be able to help, since chiefs often knew everything that was going on in their village or town.

  On Saturday morning, hoping to make time and leave some of the day free to get to Gifty’s guesthouse, Dawson engaged Kofi’s taxi services and set out for Dunkwa at seven with Obeng. During the trip, Dawson found out a little bit about him. He was married with four children and was born and brought up in Aniamoa. He had managed to stay in primary school despite his father’s attempts to keep him working on the farm, and then he had moved to Kumasi to live with an aunt while in secondary school.

  As they got to Dunkwa, Dawson made one stop to buy an obligatory bottle of schnapps for the chief, whose name was Nana Akrofi. Showing up empty-handed was a no-no. His palace was at the top of an incline along a paved road eaten away at its edges and hugged by worn houses with corrugated tin roofs. At the roadside, an old man in a green shirt dozed off with his back against the wall of a building as he shared space with two other people on that typically Ghanaian item of furniture—the long wooden bench.

  The color of the chief’s brick house had been corrupted by accumulated layers of the ocher village dust, but the small veranda where a young man asked Dawson and Obeng to take a seat while he went into the house to get the chief was painted an uneven pink. They could smell palm nut soup cooking from somewhere in the back, and a baby was crying.

  When Nana Akrofi emerged, he turned out to be younger than Dawson had imagined. He wasn’t dressed in resplendent traditional garb either, but rather in a pair of tan khaki slacks and an orange T-shirt with rutgers university written on the front in blue.

  Akrofi shook hands with them, right to left, and then sat down in a white plastic chair. Times must be hard, Dawson thought, because the chief was without a linguist or spokesman. Or it could be this young guy was the “acting” chief and had dispensed with that old formality. Traditional life was changing.

  Neither Dawson nor Obeng spoke out of turn. The chief had to start first, and with a fairly predictable script. After a pause in which he leaned forward slightly, he cleared his throat. “Eh-heh. Who are you?”

  Dawson let Obeng speak first on their behalf. In this case, police hierarchy was subordinate to the sergeant’s roots in the Ashanti Region. Speaking in Twi, he introduced himself, beginning with the deferential “Mepa wo kyew,” and then introduced Dawson. Then it was time to present the schnapps, which the chief gracefully accepted.

  “So,” he said, “what is your mission here today?”

  “Please, Nana,” Obeng continued, “a certain Chinese man died yesterday morning at one of the mines around Dunkwa and my boss here, Chief Inspector Dawson, and I are investigating what happened.”

  “Yes, I know about it,” Akrofi said, looking directly at Dawson now. “If I can help you in your investigation, I will.”

  “Thank you, Nana,” Dawson said. “The Chinese man’s name is Bao Liu. He was the boss of some galamsey boys who found him buried in the soil yesterday morning. We need to talk to those boys, but they have all disappeared.”

  “Are they in trouble?” the chief asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Dawson said truthfully, “but without speaking with them, the investigation is incomplete because they are the first witnesses.”

  Akrofi appeared satisfied with that and nodded. “I know the one called Kudzo Gablah. He’s from the Volta Region. I understand he left Dunkwa this morning and went to one of the mines at Aniamoa.”

  Dawson glanced at Obeng. That was the sergeant’s home village. Connections like that were always good.

  “Mepa wo kyew,” Dawson said to the chief, “you say Kudzo went to Aniamoa. Is it because he was trying to avoid the police?”

  Akrofi smiled slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe you need to ask him.”

  Dawson nodded. “We will do so. Thank you, Nana.”

  “You are welcome.”

  It might have been the end to a short meeting, but Dawson was curious about other things, and now that he had given the chief his schnapps, he felt licensed to ask Akrofi if he had known Bao Liu or his brother Wei.

  “I was not the chief here when Bao first came to Dunkwa three years ago,” Akrofi replied, “but one time they came to pay their respects to me.”

  Dawson wondered if they had brought the chief some gold along with the schnapps. “Did you hear of any problems between the Lius and the farmers working in the area of the mine?” he asked.

  Akrofi shook his head. “No problems at all.”

  But Dawson’s left palm began to itch as if a caterpillar was walking across it, and he knew the chief wasn’t being truthful. “Mepa wo kyew, Nana,” he said, still very deferentially, “if you don’t mind my asking, how have the Chinese people been received in Dunkwa?”

  Akrofi reflectively rubbed his hands back and forth over the tops of his thighs.

  “Well, you see,” he began, “the China people have helped us a lot. They have provided the youth with employment where before there was no work. You know, these young guys don’t want to work on the farms planting cocoa and all that. They want quick money. Cocoa is too slow. Look at how many years it takes for one cocoa tree to start bearing fruit. So this gold mining, it is very good for our boys. It keeps them out of trouble, prevents them from engaging in robbery and theft and all those things.”

  “Medaase, Nana,” Dawson said, nodding to show acknowledgment of and respect for Akrofi’s observations, but in fact he was slowly working up to the most troublesome aspect of the Chinese occupation.

  “In addition,” the chief continued, “they constructed two boreholes for us because the Ofin River has been polluted by AngloGold Ashanti mining. So we can now have a good water supply.”

  Interesting, Dawson thought. Akrofi was laying the blame for the river pollution at the feet of the multinational company, AngloGold Ashanti, rather than the small-scale miners. “I see. That’s a good point.” Now the tough question. “Please, Nana, what do you say about the farms that have been destroyed by the excavators? Maybe it’s true that the young people get work on the mining sites, but at the same time, farmers who have spent all their lives planting crops have lost their livelihood. Is that not correct?”

  Akrofi shook his head vigorously. “Please, Mr. Chief Inspector. First of all, don’t believe everything that you hear about those excavated areas. It is not all farmland. Some of it isn’t suitable for cocoa at all, because the soil is not good quality. And then, those farmers complaining are the same fools who sold their land to the Chinese. They are not supposed to do that without my permission, but still, some of them do. Then, when the money they took has run out, they come crying to me saying, ‘Please, Nana, what should I do, Nana? The China people have destroyed my land.’ You are rather the stupid one who allowed yourself to fall to the temptation of the money they offered you.”

  “In other words, Nana,” Dawson said cautiously, getting
close to the edge, “if a farmer did not want his land used for mining and the Chinese came to ask you permission to take that land, you would not allow it.”

  “Yes!” he answered fiercely. “Of course I would not allow it.”

  In his peripheral vision, Dawson saw Obeng averting his gaze, and he sensed that the sergeant knew or suspected that the chief’s assertion wasn’t altogether true.

  “Look,” the chief continued, “the only real problem with the excavators is that the Chinamen should backfill the pits once they have finished with the site.”

  “Why don’t they?” Dawson asked.

  “Because it costs money,” Akrofi said simply. “It takes a lot of fuel and time. I was listening to the radio the other day and heard the Minister of Agriculture saying that they will come in and cover up all the abandoned pits and request the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research to plant and restore all these areas.”

  “Do you think that will happen?” Dawson asked.

  The chief made a rude noise with his mouth. “It will never happen. These ministers are all liars. Spending the country’s money on their Benzes and girlfriends.”

  Much truth to that, unfortunately.

  “The Chinamen have built us roads that go far into the bush,” Akrofi said. “If you wait for the government to do such a thing, you will wait until your hair turns gray. The Chinese even built a small school in one of the villages not far from here. So yes, they are good people. They have passion for the villagers. If I have a problem, I just go to them and they help me. The Chinese have been giving us money every two weeks to maintain the boreholes.”

  That surprised Dawson. He would not have expected that kind of generosity. Which made him think of something. “What about Bao Liu? Did he contribute to the boreholes?”

  “Not as such,” Akrofi said, “but I understand he planned to do so.”

  Could there have been any conflict in that area? Perhaps Bao had withheld funds from the chief, or had refused to bribe him for something? But as a motive for murder, it still seemed unlikely. You know where your bread is buttered, even if the butter is a little long in coming. Still, what was the chief withholding about conflict between Bao and the local farmers? Was he trying to gloss over the true situation, or was he shielding someone? Much as Dawson wanted to know that, confronting Nana Akrofi about it now would destroy any chances of questioning the chief in the future.

  Dawson looked at Obeng, conveying that he had no more questions for the chief. Obeng nodded. He had none either. He and Dawson began the process of thanking the chief and wishing him the very best. He rose and again shook their hands, right to left.

  Akrofi had an afterthought as Dawson and Obeng were about to leave. “When you go to look for that boy, Kudzo Gablah,” he said, “just be ready. He will be afraid of you and he might try to escape before you find him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Getting to Aniamoa meant traveling thirty miles north-northwest from Dunkwa deep into the bush along unpaved red laterite. If Kudzo Gablah had indeed fled to Aniamoa, he obviously wanted to be as far away from Dunkwa as possible.

  Dawson texted Christine, sorry love, can’t get to the house today—too much going on. will try tmrw. luv u

  She replied, ok, lu2

  Whenever a rare SUV or truck appeared in the opposite direction, both vehicles squeezed over onto the verge to allow each other to pass. The dust, potholes and bumps made Dawson think wistfully of owning an SUV just for this purpose.

  Obeng told Kofi where to stop and wait until their return. They would be walking the rest of the way because the road trailed off and the taxi would not be able to handle the terrain.

  Like Dunkwa, Aniamoa had a number of small-scale mining sites dotted around the town. Obeng had a pretty good idea which one of them Kudzo was likely to have sought out as his new location.

  The perishing afternoon heat seemed to make everything still as they walked, the brush softly crunching underfoot. A rhythmic chugging noise slowly became louder, different from the now-familiar excavator sound.

  “Ticki-ticki-ticki-ticki,” Dawson said, imitating the sound. “What’s that?”

  “Dredging pump, sir,” Obeng said. “This kind of mining is different from the one where they found the dead Chinaman.”

  After several hundred meters, they began a slight decline into a valley and the view opened up beyond a clump of trees to reveal a river below them. About ten young men were crowded on a barge secured to one bank. The ticki-ticki was from a filthy, smoking diesel pump, also on the barge.

  Facing the barge was a smaller vessel with two boys on it. Together they used a long pole to stab and churn the riverbed, increasing the amount of gravel to the pump. The river was a murky, yellowish brown.

  “You see how those boys are churning the riverbed?” Obeng said to Dawson, pointing. “That makes it easier for the pump to suck up mud and gravel. Then the gravel is washed and maybe they can get some small gold at the end of the day.”

  Dawson was trying to get a grasp of how much—or small—that amount of gold could be. “How much can the workers make?” he asked Obeng.

  Obeng shrugged. “Most days just a few cedis. Sometimes nothing. Don’t forget, the owner takes most of the profit. But what is sad, sir, is that the tiny amount these boys earn is more than they made in the hometowns they came from. So this is why they stay, doing this dangerous work.”

  It was a stark truth. Elsewhere in Ghana, street children eked out a meager living in urban centers like Accra, and they had similar stories: no work, and nothing to do in the villages they hailed from.

  As Dawson watched the dredging, he reflected that he found this method of gold mining most intimidating because he could not swim and had an abiding fear of deep water. He spotted an eddy around the sandbar adjacent to the barge, which to him meant that a person could be swept away into the clutches of the wider river as it gathered strength and depth farther downstream.

  One of the guys on the sandbar spotted Obeng, waved at him, and started his way toward them by plunging into the water between the bar and the bank. The level reached the top of his chest, even though he was quite tall, and Dawson could tell that the current was exerting a pull. He shuddered.

  The depth of the river at the crossing point the man had chosen wasn’t the only thing that caught Dawson’s attention. The man had slipped off his shorts, left them at the sandbar and crossed the river stark naked, emerging completely exposed and in full view of his coworkers. He swept excess water off his body and sauntered to a clump of rocks to put on another pair of shorts waiting for him. Evidently this was the norm and galamsey boys were not in the least bit bashful. The man, in his early twenties, called out to Obeng with a familiarity that demonstrated that they knew each other, and walked in their direction with the same casual gait.

  “Please, we can go down,” Obeng said to Dawson.

  From where they stood, the drop to river level was a few meters, and steep, so they had to jump, their feet imprinting the soft, squelchy loam. They covered the rest of the way to meet Obeng’s friend, whose name was Brave. He was lean and muscled from hard physical work and rather fair colored with a broad, flat face. He and Obeng shook hands, snapped fingers, and traded a couple pleasantries, and then Obeng introduced him to Dawson.

  “Akwaaba,” Brave said in Twi.

  But Dawson had guessed he was Ewe because Ewes loved names like “Marvelous,” “Beauty,” “Grace,” and “Charity.” He replied to Brave in Ewe.

  Brave laughed, slapping palms with Dawson in delight. “Are you Ewe?”

  “Half Ewe, half Fante.”

  “Oh, wonderful.”

  But to be fair to Obeng, who didn’t speak Ewe, Dawson and Brave went back to Twi, the default Ghanaian language.

  “You know Kudzo Gablah, right?” Obeng asked Brave.

  He nodded. “Y
es please. He’s from Keta, my hometown.”

  “We’re looking for him.”

  “Is that so? Please, isn’t he working at Dunkwa?”

  Obeng shook his head. “Nana Akrofi said he came to Aniamoa, so we thought maybe he was at this site.”

  “Oh, okay,” Brave said. “He used to be with us, but no longer.”

  An older man came up to them who turned out to be the foreman.

  “I have all my papers,” the foreman said defensively in response to the detectives’ inquiries about Kudzo. “This is a legal site, and I don’t deal with troublesome boys like that Gablah. I told him a long time ago that I didn’t want him working here.”

  “Relax,” Dawson said with a smile. “It’s not you we are investigating. Why did you not want Kudzo working with you?”

  “Hot temper,” the foreman said in English. “Too hot. He fought with me; he fought with all these guys.” He gestured to his workers. “I don’t know what is wrong with him.”

  “I see,” Dawson said, wondering if this was going to be a short case. Did Kudzo kill Bao in a fit of anger?

  “Please,” the foreman said, switching back to Twi, “if you think he’s around the Aniamoa area, then you should go into the town and ask.”

  “We will do that,” Dawson said. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” The foreman turned away. Dawson could tell that he wanted as little as possible to do with this investigation.

  Brave accompanied them part of the way back up out of the river depression, showing them a much easier path than the way they had come.

  “So is your group of miners Ghanaian-operated?” Dawson asked Brave.

  “Please, no. A certain Chinese man owns it.”

  “Sometimes you won’t see any Chinese at the site,” Obeng explained to Dawson. “The Ghanaian authorities have started to pay more attention to illegal mining so Chinese owners put a Ghanaian front man there so that people coming around won’t become suspicious.” He gave a hard ironic smile. “These China people aren’t stupid at all.”