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.