NO HUNTING

“We can’t go that way.”

“Tracks go here.” Adunya pointed. “See.”

“It says No Hunting.”

“How can that be? Deer go that way. Come, we follow.”

“We can’t. The sign says No Hunting.”

Adunya stared blankly at the boy, his finger suspended in a half-point toward the mule deer tracks. “I not understand.”

“This property belongs to some guy from Colorado.”

“Where is this Colorado? Is it close?”

“Not really.”

“If it is his land, why does he not live here?”

“Look, Adunya, we can’t hunt here. The sign says. Let’s just go back to the pond.”

Adunya glanced from the sign to the deer tracks to the boy. He pointed with his spear across the field. “Deer go this way.”

The boy shrugged. “It’s not our land. We can hunt on Dad’s, on Uncle Albin’s, on the public land, and sometimes on Old Man Hill’s when Dad is with us. We can’t hunt here. Nobody can.”

“Can your lion not hunt here? Or your wild dog?”

“Coyotes can hunt anywhere they want. Heck, one ran in front of the headlights right in town one night.”

“But sign say no hunting.”

“If you want to go hunting in there, go ahead, but I ain’t going. When you get arrested, you tell them what I said.” The boy turned his back to his Ethiopian friend and stared at the ground. If Adunya got caught, they would blame him. He knew they would.

Adunya tapped the boy on the back of the leg with the handle of his spear and then raised his palms when the boy turned. “Why I want to hunt here? The sign say no hunting.”

“You—.” The boy reached out, but Adunya was two steps away, sprinting down the road, his bare feet kicking up gravel and his teeth shining in an open-mouthed grin.

BRAVERY?

The scent of smoke lingered in the small living room. The fire burning strong now crackled and the boy had to scoot to the edge of the rug as the heat became too much for his back. Jon Jon’s knees almost dug into the floor as he leaned forward.

“Adunya here was the first to notice the lion tracks.” Uncle Albin had been telling them about a kudu they had to track the morning after a client wounded it. “He didn’t even flinch,” Uncle Albin said clenching Adunya’s shoulder.

The Ethiopian boy raised his lean body into the grip—comfortable and proud.

“When that female in the brush growled at us, I about jumped out of my boots. Adunya just turned and watched her slip into the grass.”

They all looked at the young Ethiopian. “I know Uncle have big gun. I have nothing to fear.”

Uncle Albin glanced at the boy’s father, smirked, and almost rolled his eyes.

The boy closed his eyes for a moment and imagined the scene. Behind Adunya’s soft face, behind Uncle Albin’s heavy shoulders, behind the idea of straw huts, elephants, and adventure, he saw golden grass as tall as a truck, and inside the grass, he saw a pair of eyes. They burned like the fire—hungry, fierce, imminent.

“After a few more yards, we found cub tracks. That’s when I decided to send for the truck. Adunya may be brave and I may be a bit dull, but I ain't dumb. Still, a client who just spent a few thousand dollars expects to retrieve his kudu, lion cubs or not.”

“Will a lion attack a truck?” Jon Jon almost tipped forward.

Uncle Albin chuckled. “Only if you do something to make them really mad like shoot one in the belly or try to steal its dinner.”

“What happened?” the boy asked.

“The truck didn't make it in time.” Uncle Albin raised his eyebrows and looked down at the boy. “I wanted to get a better idea of what we were up against and told everyone to wait beside a termite mound while I circled around. I hadn’t gone more than a couple of steps when a lioness charged. Her head was down, grunts and growls rushing from her throat. She cut a hundred yards like that.” Uncle Albin snapped his fingers. “I had two shots in my double. If the first one didn’t turn her, I’d have to kill her—a death sentence for her cubs. I shot at the ground in front of her. Dust flew. Her head slammed into the ground and her body slid. I thought the bullet had ricocheted and had I killed her.” He lowered and shook his head.

“But she would have killed you,” Jon Jon said.

Uncle Albin winked at Jon Jon. “She wasn’t dead. The bullet hit a rock and flipped it into her head. Knocked her cold. When she came to, she looked around and disappeared into the grass. We never saw her or the cubs again. The client got his kudu—a little chewed up. The lion lived. And Adunya proved his bravery.”

The boy turned his gaze to the young Ethiopian standing tall beside his adoptive uncle. Adunya did not smile. He held his back straight and his shoulders tight, reveling in the moment of adulation.

The boy’s hands were shaking from the story and even though he knew the answer, he wondered if he would be as brave as Adunya. Then he wondered if you could learn to be brave.

CROSSING FENCES

The boy slowed when he hiked past Uncle Albin’s home. Empty and dark, it almost stared at the boy. He shivered.

Fortunately, the house only felt cold when his uncle was in Africa. But when Uncle Albin was home, it felt inviting. Still mysterious, but with a sense of adventure. When Uncle Albin was home, stories filled that house.

Uncle Albin always brought back trinkets and items that begged for stories. Skulls, horns, spears, small bows, clubs, masks, beads, wooden bowls, sharp teeth, claws, the wiry hair from an elephant’s tail. But last season he brought home something unexpected—even for him. He brought home a boy. He brought home Adunya.

Now the house felt empty for different reasons.

Half a mile past Uncle Albin’s the boy had a choice. Continue down the road or cut across Old Man Hill’s property to the pond. He could save ten minutes by cutting across Old Man Hill’s ranch. But Old Man Hill hated trespassers. He hated kids.

The boy would have to cross a barbed wire fence. He looked down the road. He looked up the road. No trucks. Old Man Hill’s house was on the other side of the next hill. Over where the boy could see the tops of trees sprouting with tiny buds. No cattle in sight. The next fence line, back to where Uncle Albin’s property cut into Old Man Hill’s for seventy-five acres, required the boy to cross five hundred yards of open prairie pasture, clumps of grassy weeds, small cacti, and soft ground, almost like sand in places. It was the quickest route to the pond. Otherwise, he had to hike all the way around the small section of Old Man Hill’s ranch and down the dirt two-track road separating his place from the railroad ground.

“Sometimes the hard way is the right way,” his father had said once when the boy complained about the distance around Old Man Hill’s.

What was that supposed to mean?

The boy could be to the pond, fishing in a few minutes. He looked down the road one more time, tossed his pole to the other side, grabbed the fence post, and positioned his shoe on the bottom line of barbed wire. He climbed. He pushed over to the other side, caught his pant leg on a barb, and fell back. His pants tore and his elbow slammed against a flat, pale rock. He jumped to his feet and turned around to make sure nobody saw him.

He snatched up the pole and took a step to run, but stopped himself.

He had done this so many times. Though he had been caught once, he knew he could make it. Yet something held him back. Why? Why did Old Man Hill hate kids crossing his property? He never asked himself that before. He never asked his father that question. He never cared. What harm could possibly come from running across a few hundred yards of pasture?

He rubbed his elbow and stared across the prairie. Adunya wouldn’t hesitate. He didn’t even understand land ownership. Where he came from land belonged to everyone—at least in theory. Adunya never worried about fences.

The boy remembered the time Old Man Hill pulled up to the house with the boy’s father in the passenger seat. His father’s truck had broken down and Old Man Hill gave him a ride home. Didn’t seem like such a mean, crazy old man that day. That day, the boy saw his father shake their neighbor’s hand.

He rubbed his elbow and glanced at his torn pant leg. He looked across the pastured once more before tossing his pole back through the fence.

It wasn’t that much further to walk around.

IN THE FIRE

“I never wrote him a letter.”

“Have you ever written anyone a letter?” The boy’s father asked.

“He wrote me four.”

“It’s not a competition, pal. Adunya wrote letters to you because he’s your friend. But even without the letters, he would still be your friend.”

“What if he’s mad I didn’t make an effort?”

“Would you be?”

The boy shrugged and stared into the fire. He would be. He knew it. And it made his gut feel hollow. If Adunya had not sent letters, the boy would think he had been forgotten.

The boy’s father leaned back and rubbed his chin. The fire demanded attention in quiet moments. And the boy’s father, like the boy, did not resist.

The flames led them into a dance, a soft rhythm--the seduction of warmth, the threat of destruction. It held them in a quiet trance and almost stole their thoughts.

But for the boy, the dark part of the flames, the blue, the almost black, felt like a mirror. It stared back at him and pierced his heart.

Yet inside that darkness, the boy also saw visions of lions and buffalo, deer and bears. He did see fear. But when he thought about hunting and fishing with his friend again, he saw hope.

GOOD NEWS

Dear Steven,

Uncle say we come back to America soon. He say maybe we stay for long time. Do Jon Jon learn to throw spear yet? I hunt my first warthog with Uncle now. He give me lesson with rifle. We shoot target every day. Then Uncle tell me to sit by tree and shoot when warthog come. I miss first one, but Uncle say we wait for number two. When it come, I make sure I no miss. Uncle say I natural. But it much work to cut meat from big animal. Men with Uncle no touch pig because they say it no clean. I think it taste much good. I want to bring some to you and Jon Jon. Uncle say it not possible. I am happy to come back to America. I am sad to go from the home of my father.

The boy re-read the first sentence. Adunya was coming home. With new stories about Africa, about hunting, about beasts the boy had never even read about. And he could show Adunya the flock of turkeys he discovered in the breaks. And Adunya could see that Jon Jon was practicing with the spear every day. And the boy wanted to show him the new fishing hole where he hooked into a big catfish. And he wanted to show him his new shotgun.

He read through the letter again. No mention of when they’d be coming. He’d have to ask his father.

The boy pumped his fist in the air and ran to find his younger brother.

SPECTATORS

The spear hit the water again and Jon Jon lifted it without a fish, again. He waded to the mossy south end of the pond and tried to stick one of the bullfrogs croaking half out of the water. They all splashed off.

“Throw it, Jon Jon,” the boy said from the shore.

Jon Jon feared losing the spear. He worried it might break. What if he threw it awkwardly and looked like a fool?

“There’s a big one. Throw it.”

Jon Jon noticed the bullfrog half out of the water.

“Throw it, Jon Jon.”

He stared at the frog, its bulbous eyeballs glinting above a body the color of the moss that hugged the pond’s edge. Its eyes shifted, the amphibian aware of the hunter’s menacing presence.

“Throw it before he jumps.”

A throaty scream jumped from Jon Jon’s mouth and heaved Adunya’s spear. The frog plopped below the surface. The spear landed shaft first and bounced onto the shore. He turned to his brother. “Stop yelling at me.”

The water lapped like a whisper and a breeze rose into the big cottonwood and made the leaves grumble. A layering of clouds glowed with a sun not quite ready to set.

For a moment, nothing.

Then, Jon Jon sloshed over to the spear Adunya had thrown with such accuracy and grace. Half a dozen more frogs croaked and disappeared below the surface. He wrapped his fingers tight around the spear, wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist, and waded back to where the water was clear. A bluegill darted past and he jabbed at it. Not even close.

He sensed his brother watching from the shore and then he missed again.

COLD SWEAT

The boy rolled over and tucked the blanket under his shoulder. Sweat stained his pillow and a chill that seemed to explode from inside his chest sent a lasting shiver through his body. He tried to call out for his father, but rolling over had taken so much energy. Only a pitiful moan left his mouth. The pain made him want to cry, but that would hurt too much.

It had only been a fever-induced nightmare, but it seemed so fresh as if it hung there suspended in the darkness. He could still smell the breath like death dripping with blood and saliva from a row of fangs the lion exposed when it snarled.

In the dream, the lion had been chasing the boy when a flash of his best friend, Adunya, morphed the scene into an image he could not push from his thoughts. The lion feeding.

The boy felt trapped under the giant cat’s claws—like daggers in his shoulder.

At the same time, he seemed separated from the carnage like a ghostly figure from another dimension, watching the lion feed on someone else.

The lion raised his gaze and stared into the boy’s soul, its round eyes thriving on the weakness it saw there. The body below the lion moved, a bloody arm reaching out.

The boy avoided the face. He feared what it might reveal. Then he looked. Adunya.

“Help,” the Ethiopian boy had whispered.

That was when the boy ran. That was when he awoke sweating and sobbing.

Maybe it was just a dream, but what if could happen? What if he never saw his best friend again? He closed his eyes and prayed for Adunya’s safety. He prayed for the pain to end. He fell asleep in mid-prayer.

Painting: Inside The Red Zone by John Banovich

http://www.johnbanovich.com/

MOVING UP

The boy reached toward his new shotgun, a 20-gauge, the first scattergun he would call his own.

“It’s okay,” his father said. “It’s yours. You already know how to use it. It will stay in the cabinet with the rest of the guns. Just like the BB gun. Don’t you think it’s time we give that to Jon Jon?”

The boy stopped his reach, even pulled back slightly. His BB gun had been a gift from his grandfather, who said he had originally purchased it for the boy’s father. The boy had nailed bull’s-eyes with it. He had shattered glass bottles. He had knocked an apple out of a tree. He had killed his first rabbit with it. That BB gun had rust on the trigger guard. He could not count the times he had run his hand over the stock, its finish worn dull with scratches as deep as worm grooves.

“You mostly use the .22 now.”

But the .22 was not his. The .22 was his father’s. His late grandfather had not given him the .22. How could he pass the BB gun down to Jon Jon? His younger brother allowed his pet turtle to die. He broke his new skateboard after only a week. How would Jon Jon take care of something as important as Grandpa’s BB gun?

“You think he’s ready?” The boy had not touched the shotgun and struggled to turn his eyes from it.

“You think you’re ready?”

The boy turned to stare at his father as if the old man had threatened to give all his possessions to his younger brother. “What if I want to use it for shooting cans? He’ll never let me.”

“I’m sure if you give him a chance to use the .22, he’ll give you the BB gun.”

The boy refocused on the 20-gauge. It sat on the old dining table. The gun’s smooth finish, a little checkering on the pump stock, the barrel shining like a black mirror, and the scent of gun oil tempted his hand again. When he finally touched it, he forgot about the BB gun.

He no longer had to borrow Uncle Albin’s shotgun. He could shoulder his own weapon and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his father and uncle. Now, he could be one of them.

He picked it up. “Can I shoot it?”

His father placed a box of shells on the table and his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

THE OTHER SIDE

“Dad? What’s Ethiopia like?”

“I know what I think it’s like.”

“You’ve never been there? But Uncle Albin’s a hunter there and you’re brothers.”

The boy’s father placed the book he’d been reading on the end table. “I’d like to go someday. You’re uncle and I used to hunt together all the time. My path just hasn’t taken me to Ethiopia yet. I’ve seen Uncle Albin’s pictures. I know what I think it is and I know that’s not even close.”

“What do you think it’s like?”

“What do you think it’s like?” The boy’s father asked.

“I think it’s like lions and elephants and zebras and hunting every day and living in huts and adventure.”

“That sounds pretty good doesn’t it?”

The boy started to nod, but saw that slight smirk on his father’s face. The one that told the boy to be careful of his next move. “Maybe.”

“Knowing what we know. Living like we live. That kind of existence would be fine to experience. Even to embrace and learn from. But we could not go back to that. You and Jon Jon and I, our lives are easier and in most ways better. Do you understand?”

“Uncle Albin went back.”

“Did he?”

“He lives half the year over there.”

“And he has great stories to tell, doesn’t he.”

“I love the one about the cowboy who wanted to rope a buffalo.” The boy started to laugh.

“Albin doesn’t talk much about the weeks he spends building camp, about the clients who expect the impossible, about how he loses trackers to jail, omens, and death. He don’t tell us about all them kids who catch malaria and die before they get a chance to dream about the other side of the world.”

The boy sat there for a moment and watched a tumbleweed roll across the prairie into a fence lined with tumbleweeds that had come before it. “How come you want to go to Ethiopia some day?” He asked.

“Because of the lions and the elephants and the hunting and the people who live in huts.”

FEAR

“Look, Steve,” Jon Jon whispered through his teeth. He did not move his head--just his eyes.

The boy inched his gaze to the right. His heart quickened and his breath burned. The outline of something close—something that had not been there when he began blowing on the predator call they had found in their father’s old trunk.

What could have come in so quickly? Its blurred outline in the boy’s peripheral looked big. Too big to be a coyote. Too big for the .22 in his hand. Uncle Albin used to tell stories about bears and wolves that lived in the breaks, though nobody had seen one for years.

The boy turned his head a little further. His right leg trembled and his knee started to click on a rock. It was so big. What was it?

It stomped and grunted.

The boy fell back and brought the rifle to his shoulder, sure he was about to be pounced on.

Then the doe mule deer’s body went rigid for an instant before she bounded into the valley, her twins right behind her. They raced up the next slope and, just before disappearing over the horizon, looked back, their big ears high, their bigger eyes filled with something that looked like half-fear.

Only after they were gone did the boy push himself off his elbows.

“That was awesome,” Jon Jon said. “Why didn’t you shoot?”

It was not deer season. You don’t shoot deer with a .22. You don’t kill a doe with fawns. The boy eventually gave his younger brother all those answers and more. But he never told him the entire truth.



Painting: Passing Along The Lessons She Learned by John Banovich
http://www.johnbanovich.com/

HOME

The boy stumbled through a dip in the yard as he sprinted from the mailbox back to the house. He dropped all but one of the envelopes onto his father’s desk. His father peered from beneath bushy eyebrows.

“It’s from Adunya,” the boy said. “See, look here. It says Ethiopia. Do you think he’s coming back? Do you think he’s hunted lions with Uncle Albin?”

His father shrugged. “Open it and see.”

The boy began to rip at the edge, but slowed and pulled at the flap as if the envelope held a baby rattlesnake. Finally, he slipped the yellowed paper into the open and unfolded it. A black feather fluttered to the floor. The boy picked it up and held it behind the letter. The writing appeared as the scribbles of a toddler at first glance, but as the boy studied them, they began to form in to letters and words and even sentences:

Uncle teach me to write at heat of day when hunters sleep. I stay with brother of my father for only week before Uncle bring me back to camp. Here I feel I am home.

The boy stopped reading for a moment and turned toward the window. Out there, beyond the house, he could see forever across a prairie mostly grazed to the ground. But the seemingly endless expanse of grass and rock held secrets only its inhabitants understood. Out there, dens and buck brush and hills and canyons and cliffs held badgers and snakes and deer and coyotes. Out there, hawks fed on rabbits. Grouse scurried from stalking foxes. Out there, life was free. The boy understood what his friend, so many mountains and rivers and oceans away, meant. And he wondered if it was possible to have more than one home.

Uncle say he teach me to shoot. He say I one day I be better hunter than him. He say one day you come to Ethiopia and we hunt buffalo and leopard together like Uncle and your father do. I look with happiness to that day. Please give feather to Jon Jon. Tell him it come from bird like his raven. I will wait for letter from you. It will make me envy of all camp. Your friend, Adunya.

The boy refolded the letter and stared out to the prairie. “Do you think he’ll come back?” he said softly.

His father moved to the window and without looking back said, “I hope so.”