By evening, the village meeting ground at Mbuyuni Kavu was full before Balozi had even called people to order.
Plastic chairs, logs and empty feed sacks had been arranged beneath the old fig tree. Herders came with dust still on their ankles. Women arrived with children. Most of the younger men stayed at the edge of the crowd, standing instead of sitting.
Juma came with his route ledger and one of the solar torches slung over his shoulder.
Balozi was already at the front.
On the small wooden table in front of him sat the same unlabelled black tin.
A murmur moved through the crowd.
“We are not going in circles tonight,” Balozi said. “We have lost livestock. Families are taking losses. We cannot sit here waiting for paperwork.”
An old man raised his hand. “Two sheep from my place.”
A woman called out, “Ten chickens from mine.”
Someone at the back shouted, “A calf last night!”
Juma turned. “Whose calf?”
“Mzee Kondo’s.”
“Is Mzee Kondo here?”
No answer.
Balozi frowned. “We are not interrogating every person.”
“If we’re counting losses, we need to know which ones are verified.”
A man near the front laughed. “Verified, verified. Animals don’t read forms.”
A few people laughed with him.
Naserian Doto sat on the far side of the table in a plain khaki field shirt, a small notebook in his hand. He waited until the noise dropped.
“One thing,” he said. “Poison does not choose your target with certainty. It can kill the wrong animal. Dogs. Birds. Livestock. And if you still do not know what is entering the enclosures, you do not know what you are trying to kill.”
A young man said, “We know. There’s a predator.”
“Who saw it?”
Silence.
“Tracks?” Naserian asked.
Juma answered, “More than one pattern.”
Balozi shot him a hard look. “That still does not mean there is no animal.”
“I never said there wasn’t.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“The problem is choosing the answer before we know the target.”
Balozi tapped the tin. “The target is whatever is killing our livestock.”
“If you kill something unrelated, loss does not become victory.”
The crowd stirred again.
Mama Tunu sat farther back. Juma did not look at her for long. Her goats were the ones gone. She had school fees and a water-tank loan hanging over the household. Every argument against immediate retaliation could sound to her like an argument for waiting while her family paid the price.
Balozi began listing households claiming losses.
“Pius?”
“One goat injured across the back.”
“Killed?”
“No.”
“Still an attack.”
Juma wrote it down separately.
“Mama Sifa?”
“Six chickens disappeared.”
“Fence?” Juma asked.
“Open at the back.”
“Tracks?”
“None.”
Someone snapped, “So now you’re blaming people?”
“No. I’m saying missing chickens and a verified enclosure attack are not the same record.”
An elder shook his head. “Evidence doesn’t always survive.”
“That’s true,” Naserian said. “Which is why prevention and reporting have to work together. Poison is different. It is irreversible. If you are wrong, you cannot take it back.”
Balozi put three options before the crowd: night patrol, a metal trap or poisoned bait.
Juma asked, “What trap?”
“For the animal.”
“Which animal?”
Balozi slapped the table. “Again?”
“Yes. Again. Because that is still the question.”
The crowd split openly. Some older herders wanted stronger enclosures and patrol first. Many of the younger men wanted something that looked like force. Others did not care what species was responsible. They wanted the village to prove it would not absorb losses quietly.
Balozi called for a show of hands on poison.
“Nani anakubali?”
Hands rose.
Juma stood.
“Wait.”
“We have discussed enough.”
“You do not even know what is inside that tin.”
The young man who had brought it said, “It works.”
“Where did you test it?”
“Not everything has to become a laboratory.”
“I want to know what we are putting on the ground.”
Naserian added, “If a cooperative or village body authorizes an unknown chemical, you create a second liability before you solve the first.”
The word liability irritated the crowd, but it also slowed them.
Balozi said, “We do not need a town lecture.”
Naserian did not react. “You called me after the loss. My job is not to teach you how to be angry. My job is to help you avoid adding another loss.”
They voted again, this time between immediate retaliation and formal tracking combined with a reinforced patrol.
The result was close.
By three hands, the poison option failed.
Some people clapped. Others cursed under their breath.
Balozi looked directly at Juma.
“You have chosen a side.”
“I chose not to kill by guesswork.”
“If there is another attack tonight, people will remember.”
“Let them.”
Naserian began writing down names for the tracking team and the logged patrol. Juma added his own.
“You’ll be field lead?” Naserian asked.
“I’m not a tracker.”
“I didn’t ask you to be. I need a record person.”
Juma nodded.
When the meeting broke apart, the argument did not end. It only fragmented into smaller ones.
Two herders debated which households should contribute wire. A woman told Naserian she wanted a solar lamp but could not afford another battery. An elder asked Juma whether patrol shifts would be written down so nobody could later claim to have guarded all night when he had not.
Juma reopened his ledger.
He wrote names, hours and starting points.
Some of the younger men laughed at him for it, but one elder said, “Good. Tomorrow we will know who actually came.”
Juma realized the meeting had done more than reject poison. It had started dividing responsibility, cost and evidence. It was slower than anger, but it was something the village could examine the next morning.
Mama Tunu approached him as people drifted away.
“Are you sure you did the right thing?”
“No.”
Her face tightened. “No?”
“I’m only sure we do not have enough evidence for poison.”
“The goats were mine.”
“I know.”
“Do not become someone who protects wildlife better than people.”
The words struck harder than Balozi’s accusation.
“I’m not.”
“Then tell me what happens next.”
“Tracking in the corridor tomorrow. Patrol begins tonight.”
She left without looking convinced.
As Juma closed the ledger, he heard low laughter behind the fig tree. Four young men stood in the edge of the darkness. One was the man who had held the black tin.
Juma moved closer without looking as though he was listening.
One of them said, “The elders refused.”
Another answered, “The elders are the ones who voted.”
Then a third voice, low and clear, said,
“At night, we don’t need a vote.”
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