I was hunted.
The men tracked me wherever I went. Even with Kuwajii strapped to my chest in a harness made of boiled bamboo, they couldn’t find me, unless I drew them in.
I killed more of them.
The toughest and smartest never saw me. I used the boy’s short bursts of baby noise to draw my attackers, and when they were near, they got the blade.
I didn’t actively seek my enemies out. I let the few who chose to stay away continue their meaningless existences. I would have slayed them all if I didn’t have my little brother to look after. Without me, he wouldn’t survive a day alone in the forest.
So I let them live. God help me, I let them live.
Six months went by. A year. They stopped coming. I guess they finally got the message.
Kuwajii grew to the size of a pumpkin and started to walk. That was neat.
As he aged, I constantly expressed the importance of staying close. I made pains to instill in him a great fear of the lion. In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t fair to scare the shit out of a child, but I had no other choice. He had Shakasantie blood flowing through him — that meant he was a target to be stalked and slaughtered. In later years, I would teach him to protect himself and to hunt; but for now, it was best to keep him afraid for his life. It was the only way to stay alive.
Before I knew it, Kuwajii was old enough to ask questions. The older he got, the more questions he posed.
“Where are my mother and father?”
“Why are we alone in the world?”
“What else is out there?”
“How did we get here?”
“Where do we come from?”
“Is there anything else?”
“Marcus, is there anything else?”
Given that I did not have all the facts concerning his parents’ demise, I was forced to concoct a plausible story for him that could pass as the truth. I told the boy that his people had been used as bait (they had; Shumbuto told me as much before he died). I told him that I tried my best to save them (I did, I know I did, even if I didn’t). And mostly, I told him again and again about what a great and powerful man his father was. How he saved my life. I told him of his mother’s beauty and her laughter and warmth. I told him they loved him like no parents had ever loved a child before and he was the luckiest boy on Earth to have been born with that special ancestry. I told him he could be all the things his parents were. Even though he would never know them, he could honor them by being true to himself and to his very nature.
“If they loved me, why did they leave?” He was four years old when he asked this.
“The world is an unfair place, Kuwajii. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make your mark on it. And know this: Your parents never meant to abandon you. That was never their choice.”
I was his brother and he respected me. He grew up trying to please me … for a time.
As the years flew by, the boy became restless for change.
“How can you be happy here, Marcus?” he asked. He was fifteen. An entire decade and a half had caked my pores with dirt and age.
“Why can’t we leave? Go to a city? Meet people?”
“You know why,” I muttered.
“There has to be more to life than this.” There certainly was. Everywhere else in the world there was death and estrangement and pain. This hut, this home I’d built with my own two hands, just as my father before me, was our shield from the world. As far as I was concerned, we would never leave. We would live out our days here and be happy.
“Eat your food,” I told him.
On this particular evening, we were roasting a sable antelope over a tight fire. The boy was exaggerating about our seclusion. Of course we strayed from the hut. I had taken him on a hunting excursion two days prior. We hunted all the time. It kept our minds sharp and our bellies full. In this respect, I was quite unlike Shumbuto. The farthest from home I’d ever allowed us to go was when we bagged this delicious feast. Perhaps it was that trip that got Kuwajii’s explorer blood boiling.
I would not give him higher ground. Our hut was the safest place for him.
“I don’t know what you’re so afraid of, Marcus,” he said. “The lions don’t even know we exist.”
“Maybe,” I said, sharpening Shumbuto’s blade. “Maybe not.”
Kuwajii made as if to leave. He knew better.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here.”
“And what makes you think I’m going to let you out of my sight?” I felt for the boy, I did. His entire life, he had known no one else, had never even seen another human being. It was no way to live. I knew that.
“What else is out there, Marcus?”
“Nothing worthwhile,” I said.
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe any of it.”
“The Shakasantie don’t lie, Kuwajii.”
“There are no Shakasantie! We are all that is left! You tell me every year!”
“Do you need to hear it again?”
“No, I …”
“What?” He needed a father. Everyone needs a father. I didn’t play the role well. I was his brother and constant protector. That was all.
“I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense.” He was right. “If Shumbuto was such a great man, then how could he allow his entire tribe to be slaughtered?”
“It is a mystery, Kuwajii. One that haunts me to this day. Though I suspect that Shumbuto, Shandra-Namba, and all of the Shakasantie resigned themselves to being a bigger part of the universe’s story … somewhere beyond this earth.”
“Well, that may be good enough for you, but it’s not good enough for me.”
“Listen to me, Kuwajii.” I spoke in the most caring way I knew how. “The moment we let our guard down — that is when it will end. We cannot underestimate the cunning power of the lion.”
“It is just a fucking animal, Marcus!” he shouted, quite unexpectedly. Kuwajii was not one to raise his voice in anger. “And since I’ve never even seen this ferocious, snarling beast you claim once hunted Shakasantie, you’ll forgive me if I think you might be out of your fucking mind.” He caught himself then, lowered his head, and stared into the fire. “I apologize for shouting, brother.”
“I should have never taught you to curse in English,” I said, and he stormed away.
The boy was right. The lions weren’t coming. Not anymore. Since that fateful day, there were no more lions, which was very strange, very strange indeed given Kuwajii’s special sauce. We never ventured further than our little patch of land, and the big cats never showed their faces in our territory.
Maybe it was true. Maybe I was out of my fucking mind. The passage of time and the ever-present memory of history’s horrors played their unsubtle tricks. There were days (bad ones) where I could not even remember my name.
Later that night, under cover of darkness, Kuwajii slipped away. I suppose he’d been working up the courage to leave for some time. I taught the boy well. He surpassed me in the art of stealth.
Though I’d not slept a peaceful night’s sleep in fifteen years, I would occasionally find bliss in unconsciousness. The experience many westerners know as REM sleep visited me on the rarest of occasions and only for a very brief time — an hour at most. But somehow, on this night, Kuwajii knew exactly when I went deep under. He seized his golden opportunity and ditched me.
Despite the boy’s cunning ability to recognize my weakness (I venture to guess it had something to do with a slowing in my breathing), he would not get far. I had trained my brain to do oh so many things — one of which was to recognize when danger was afoot and spring my body into action. My senses, even in the deepest sleep, were agitated when Kuwajii’s feet silently grazed the ground. Though my conscious self was too far gone, there was a bit of me that recognized something was amiss. My synapses ran circles around my subconscious, kicking up dust storms and riding lightning in my head. Wake! my mind screamed to me, and I did.
“Kuwajii!” I yelled. But it was of no use. He was gone.
I rose and embodied expedition. Shumbuto’s blade, never far from my hand, burned in its sheath. I could feel its essence. It pulsed, wanting to be drawn.
How long had I been unaware? I pondered as I pursued my father’s son through the forest. Kuwajii’s scent was easy to trace.
It couldn’t have been more than an hour. One hour. Such an infinitesimal amount of time. Not much damage could be done in one hour. Right?
I knew better.
When I exhausted my worry and the soles of my feet bled, I stopped. I had come to the crossroads of our world and theirs.
Popaltree was a sinner’s town. It was filled with the devil’s brood — displaced criminals, crooked government officials, warlords, and whores just itching to waylay you with their wiles. The worst of the flock (as I soon came to know them) called themselves the Doom Squad. They had no morals, no redeeming characteristics, and certainly no souls.
The men of the Doom Squad were, in essence, the meanest, foulest, most despicable sons of bitches that ever existed. I felt the evil surround me as I rapidly approached the town with caution. Villainous eyes watched secretly from behind closed shades and malevolent horses snorted demon snot through their nostrils as I passed. None of it fazed me. I was unafraid. I was here for Kuwajii, and nothing would defile my love for the boy. My mission was clear, had always been clear: Keep him safe, keep him whole. He is chosen. I wasn’t about to let up now.
There was no other town like Popaltree in all of Zambia. The rest of the region was a sprawling mixture of forest, grassland, river, and desert. All my life, I had avoided entering this place, but I suppose I always knew it would one day find me. Now, here I was, in the thick of it, all for the love of a foolish, self-centered child. If we survived the ordeal with our skins, I would kill him.
“What you doin’ there, hot stuff?” asked a whore from the porch steps of what appeared to be the first of the town’s many dens of ill repute. “Looking to get fresh now, are you? Come and take a piece of Charlotte, sugar. Charlotte’s got your business right here.”
I turned to her as I walked past. She lifted her mangy, muddy dress and revealed her mangy, muddy cooter. I had seen women’s privates before, in Shakasantie Village, but until this moment I had never officially been offered one. I did not allow myself the luxury of surprise.
“Thank you all the same, whore, but I am only passing through.” I thought it was a cordial enough response, but she didn’t approve. She spit a rocket of phlegm my way. It hit the ground an inch from my left foot.
“Fuck you, cuntmonkey!” she ejaculated and headed indoors. I was beginning to feel unwelcome.
At my side, I could feel Shumbuto’s blade pulsating again. “Easy, boy,” I whispered. If the time came, I would wield it with honor. But for now, I was looking for a peaceful resolution to this unfortunate escapade. All I wanted was to collect Kuwajii and leave.
There was a ruckus coming from the tavern in the middle of town. The sounds of drunken revelry filled my ears as I approached.
I pushed through the double wooden doors and was instantly blasted with the scent of scum and degradation. It was everywhere. Men playing at cards and swigging large draughts of beer had the facial hair of goat-footed devils and wicked, burnt-red skin to match. At a table in the corner, I found Kuwajii sitting among them. He was laughing loudly, unafraid. I wondered how a child could be so brave yet so stupid.
“Kuwajii!” I called, but he didn’t hear me over the din. I spoke his name again and still nothing. His attention and his energies were focused elsewhere.
Unforgivable, I thought. If a lion charged in here, the boy would be digested before he ever knew he was being chewed on. Had I managed to teach my brother anything?
I took one step toward him when some cigar-smoking monster of a man blocked my way.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded. I had to crane my neck to look into his ugly face, at least a full foot above my own.
“I am of no concern to you. I suggest you clear my path.”
“You suggest?!” The human granite chortled. He raised his eyes as he laughed, and I seized the opportunity. With a speed I had not unleashed for quite some time, my arm shot up, plucked the burning cigar from the monster’s mouth, and rammed the lit end into his left ear. He went down screaming, and the rest of the filthy establishment quieted. Kuwajii looked up from his shameful business. I certainly had his (and everyone’s) attention now.
“Come, Kuwajii,” I said to him in the fatherliest manner I could muster. Given the awkward circumstances, I imagine my voice was more forceful than I intended. The boy rose drunkenly from his chair.
“But Marcus, I —”
“Now,” I shot back, ignoring my tender side. With reluctance, he began to move toward me. Someone sitting at Kuwajii’s table had not been amused by what he’d witnessed. He tried staring through me with his black, soulless eyes, but I had my glaze on. I revealed nothing of my insides.
“What’s the rush, kid?” The man directed his words to Kuwajii but intended them for me. “You always go running when daddy calls?” He sat there stewing in arrogance as Kuwajii slowly made his way to me.
“You don’t talk to him,” I said. “Do you hear me?” I had control. “The boy has nothing to do with you.” I glanced around at the many faces in the bar — bastards and bitches in every chair and every corner. “He has nothing to do with any of you.”
“Oh, I doubt that’s true.” The man spit on the floor. “He’ll be back. Won’t ya, kid?” He stood then, and Kuwajii shared a knowing look with the miscreant. That look wrecked my core.
“We’re leaving,” I said. The manmeat with the singed eardrum was still squirming on the ground. A half-naked whore with a wet cloth attended to him. Kuwajii’s eyes flashed anger when he passed me, but that was fine. He was safe and in my care once again. As I edged my way back outside, I warned them, “The boy is not my son. But he is special. And if I ever get the notion that any of you foul creatures have been plaguing his brain or his heart again, I will come back here.” I made sure they felt the power behind my oath. “I will burn this town to ashes. And then I will burn the ashes.”
It wasn’t until we were under the forest’s natural cover again that their laughter at last began to die away.
We walked home in silence. I did not chastise or berate him, but kept to myself (while keeping a safe-enough closeness in case of true danger). He knew how I felt about the situation. He knew he’d put himself in harm’s way. He had been so reckless, so foolish, and for what? A few hours of carousing with the devil? The whole idea was disgraceful, but taking him to task would have done no good. The way he marched with his uptight shoulders demonstrated that there would be no way to pierce his impossible teen angst.
We reached our hut and the silence broke. I gave in to the ghosts of the Shakasantie begging me to speak my mind.
“Kuwajii,” I started, and he glared at me. What could I tell him that he did not already know? I’d told him countless tales of our people but always withheld the part about how he alone was the one destined to carry on the Shakasantie name; the one who would make his people’s story known throughout the world. No one should have to shoulder that burden; I certainly never wanted to.
“Kuwajii,” I spoke his name again, still unsure of what would come next. Beneath his fumes, he was waiting — waiting for me to scold him. But I would not. It would do no more good to yell than it would to kiss a scorpion.
“What?” he asked of me, seemingly on the verge of tears.
“Your stealth has surpassed my night’s eye.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to think I am proud of you for sneaking off. You disobeyed me and put yourself in great danger. But yes, it is true,” I relented. “You bested me when you escaped tonight. I always knew this day would come. I just never expected it to arrive so soon.” I sighed openly and went to him. “You have outsmarted me, Kuwajii. Me, Marcus Fox, Zambia’s greatest hunter. You have proven yourself worthy. Today you are a man.”
“Marcus,” he started. “I’m sorry I deceived you. But those men, they said …”
“Whatever they spoke with their devil tongues is of no consequence. Those men are not true men. Do you hear me? Do you understand me?”
“I hear you. I understand.” He wavered, but I believed I was getting through.
“Please just tell me you will never stray again. And abide by your word.” I reached out and held him by the shoulders. I repeated to the boy the words I had heard in a vision, long, long ago. “We have work to do.”
“What work?” he asked. I realize now that he did not promise to stay put. He did not give his word.
“I am going to teach you how to hunt an unimaginable beast,” I said, and the boy’s face brightened. It was what he had always longed to hear. “The gargantuan tree-toed sloth is second in potency only to the lion. Or maybe now he is the most fearsome of beasts. I don’t believe the lion exists anymore in this godforsaken place.”
Kuwajii recoiled. He was not expecting a penultimate opponent. His demeanor collapsed into disappointment. For the first time in our long life together, I understood what mental atrophy had made of us both.
I shuddered.
The next morning, we began our work. Kuwajii took to it easily. His unrefined skill was a dry sponge waiting for me to douse it. He was eager to learn, so very eager. Once we got going, he came to life in a way I’d never seen. It was almost as if he’d been asleep until now. The enthusiasm he brought to each lesson was borderline psychotic. When I spoke of skills he would possess, his eyes bugged out of his head. I could feel the heat of anticipation beating off his body in waves. I marveled at how he was able to contain himself inside his own skin.
“Until now, you have hunted only nature’s easygoing prey,” I began. “The able antelope that still digests in your belly was but a child’s plaything.”
“Sable antelope.”
“What?”
“You said able antelope.”
“I know what I said. The sable antelope is as able as any other.”
“Not anymore,” Kuwajii said, and belched.
“Don’t be crass. Respect the dead. And don’t interrupt the lesson.”
“Sorry.”
“Before you can even begin to fathom a true hunt, you must first know your body.”
He gazed down at his slender, bony cage. To say that Kuwajii had any muscles would be like avowing the cape dwarf gecko lizard can sprout iron wings — a preposterous notion, for the record.
Up and down his eyes fluttered, then they fell back on me. Taking in my awesome structure, the boy manifested inferiority.
“I am so scrawny,” he said. I pitied him.
“Perhaps. But your advantages are many. True, you may not be able to defeat a gargantuan tree-toed sloth with your bare hands, but you could use your body to out-dance him. Observe yourself.” I bulked up, roared like a great sloth would, and bore down on him. Kuwajii expertly sidestepped my attack; before he or I knew it, the boy was behind me. “Do you see?”
“But how can I use quickness as a weapon?” he asked. I shook my head in disgust.
“You have so much to learn. Come with me. I will show you the sloth.”
He followed me through the forest to where the thickets grew thickest.
“Stay close,” I said. “Stay close or die.” And further into the thick of it we marched — two soldiers heading off to war. Bring it.
Kuwajii was right about one thing — he would need more than speed to best a great beast. Of course, I was not about to tell him anything that would soften his instinct. Hunting is all about power, pride, perseverance, and ego. These were the lessons that would make or break him.
“Stop. We are here.” I crouched behind a large rock, and Kuwajii got down behind the large-and-in-charge me. About twenty-five yards away was a cave. I knew what lurked in there. I had left him in peace all these years, but now the time was nigh.
“Why are we stopped?”
“Your great sloth rests in there,” I said. “He is deep in hibernation, but we will wake him.”
“What?”
“Turn your stealth on. Let’s go.” Forward we went, into the enemy’s lair. The cave was deep and slanted downward. Of course it does, I thought, it slants down to HELL!
“Can you see through the darkness, Kuwajii?” I asked, mainly so I could get a read on his fear meter.
“Marcus, I can see just fine. And so can you.”
He was right. I had long ago trained my ocular globules to shine light out from the back of their nerve endings.
The pit was bright despite its blackness. The fact that Kuwajii could also see in that pitch-dark space spoke multitudes about his rapidly evolving abilities.
“Shh!” I halted and rested a hand against the slick cave wall.
“Marcus …”
“SHH!” I shushed him too loudly. It was premeditated. In my mind’s eye, I knew exactly what notes would play in precisely which order before the scene reached its natural crescendo. And this is how it went down.
The gargantuan tree-toed sloth clomped his way up out of the cave’s bowels. His mighty, rushing, guttural noises echoed off every slippery wall. He issued forth his war cry.
“Kuwajii, my brother, prepare to dance!”
I leaned back on my haunches and assumed the position. I was prepared to fight or die.
“Are you crazy?” Kuwajii asked from behind me. His precipitous judgment did not make for a good omen. With those three words, I knew the boy was not ready. I’d misread his enthusiasm for preparedness. Luckily, I’d foreseen every step of this battle, even his shirk.
“Leave if you can’t handle it, Kuwajii. Here he comes now!” I unsheathed Shumbuto’s blade and rushed forward.
“Shakasantieeeeee!” I screamed and met my foe head-on. He was huge and he was pissed. I’d fought gargantuan tree-toed sloths before, but this was the first I’d purposefully woken to do battle with.
The sloth swung his mighty clawed hooves and I ducked and slid away from them in expert fashion. I felt the breath of his swipes but never their sting. When he swung his thorn-tail at my throat, I didn’t spare a moment for awe. I threw my body under his tail’s arc and, looking up, saw that his belly was presented before me. Quickly, I threw my arms up and punched his slothy gut with both fists.
One two! BA-BAM.
The effect was more than I could have hoped for. Though I’d desired only to knock the wind out of him, the force of my incredible strength did much more than that. My enemy was launched to the wall nearby where the boy stood, motionless.
Kuwajii! I ran to him. Sure enough, Kuwajii was staring at me, dumbstruck. He didn’t realize the supreme danger he was in.
“Move, Kuwajii!” I shouted. Thankfully, he did.
The sloth regained consciousness. He shook his head, dazed, then stood on his hind legs. Before the beast could get a read on the boy’s many weaknesses, I lunged and plunged Shumbuto’s blade deep into his mud-crusted chest. The monster screamed for a full minute and twenty-two seconds, then fell forward farther onto my father’s blade. I held the beast steady there with my stupendously venous arm. When I was sure he’d ceased breathing, I knelt before him, ripped out his dead, putrid heart, and took a big bite. His black blood smeared my face.
“Yes, Kuwajii,” I answered his unasked question with ventricle dangling from my lips. “There are monsters here.”
The boy walked out of the cave.
“Where are you going?” I called. He ignored me, so I chased after him.
When I came into the light, Kuwajii was sitting on a stump with his head in his hands. This, I had not anticipated.
“All right,” I said softly. “You weren’t ready. I pushed you too soon.”
“Marcus, Marcus, Marcus,” he said, shaking his head. He wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t want to believe it. I still don’t.”
“Next time you will triumph,” I assured him. “You’ll see.”
“You are an animal,” Kuwajii said. “And you are insane.”
“I have the blood of the lion in me, Kuwajii,” I tried to explain, but he was uninterested. He just sighed, stood, and sadly walked away. “Where are you going now?” He just kept walking. “Kuwajii!” I caught up with him and he turned fast to face me.
“Do not follow me,” he said.
“Kuwajii, I must keep you safe.”
“No, Marcus. I will see you at home tonight. Stay here and …” He paused. I could tell he was searching for words that would make sense. “Clean your kill. I promise I will wait for you at home. All will be well.”
“What makes you think I’m going to leave you alone for even one second? There is more to your story, Kuwajii.” It was time. Time to tell. “I must tell you now.”
“Tell me later, Marcus. Tell me tonight over a warm fire. We will cook your sloth and we will eat and talk. All will be well.”
I noted that was the second time he used that phrase. My keen powers of intuition were flaring up. Why was the boy so calm? What was he playing at? How could I let him wander off on his own?
“It’s OK, Marcus,” he said, and caressed my blood-caked face with his fingers. The act of tenderness was eerily familiar. “I know now that I can never be as great a hunter as you. But it is OK. Let me be on my own for just a few hours. Let me prove to you that I can survive without your protection for this minimal amount of time.”
He was right. The boy was a man now, and I was going to have to start allowing him some freedom. A few hours were not going to kill him.
“Very well,” I said. The gargantuan tree-toed sloth’s corpse was calling to me. “I will see you at home. And we will talk. But Kuwajii, please be safe.”
He turned and walked away. I went back into the cave, back to the beast, to cut the bitch up.
When I arrived back at the hut, towing a sack packed to the brim with sloth, the fire was already blazing. Kuwajii poked at the burning cinders with a stick, his face a pensive wonder.
“There.” I dropped the meat at his feet and walked to the opposite side of the fire. “This is but one-tenth of the prize that awaits us back in the cave. Coupled with the leftover antelope, I’d say we have a full season’s worth of food.” He continued staring into the fire. “Do you see something that interests you in the flames, Kuwajii?”
“No,” he stated simply. “I see nothing.”
Whatever was bothering the boy, I didn’t dare pry it out of him.
“Very well,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Of course you are.”
“No. I am not.”
“Kuwajii, don’t consider today’s fight a failure. Think of it as a learning experience.” He snorted at this. “You think this is funny?”
“Far from it,” he said. “I think this is tragic.”
It was time. I made up my mind. The boy must know.
“Kuwajii, there is no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to come right out and say it. You are the chosen one.”
“What?”
“For many years, our father thought it was I, but it is clearly meant to be you.” At this, Kuwajii released himself from the fire’s trance and gazed upon me. His eyes were the eyes of a lunatic just coming to realize he was nuts.
“I have told you many times about our people, about Shakasantie, about our father and our mother. I have told you all about the lions, the killings, and the dual genocide. We are indeed a tragic breed, you and I. But you have handled the painful truth of our roots well.”
“I never knew any Shakasantie,” he said. “I never knew any Shandra-Namba and I never knew any Shumbuto. But you have always called yourself my brother.” He stood, and his scrawny muscles bulked unnaturally. “If you are truly my brother, then tell me once and for all how it is that your skin is tanned sallow, like the day’s first light upon the ground, yet mine is as black as the darkest part of a moonless night?”
“This again?”
“Yes, this again.”
“I have explained to you, Kuwajii. I have lived more than one life.”
“You fell from the sky.”
“I was pushed.”
“By your mother?”
“She was not my mother. Though she did birth me.”
“You are unbelievable,” he said, meaning it not as a compliment.
“Do not doubt me for an instant, Kuwajii. We are Shakasantie, and Shakasantie never lie.”
“Tell me more about being chosen.” His tone was one I couldn’t bear to hear. I’d been wrong to take him on a true hunt for an incredible beast. He wasn’t ready. I’d also been wrong to disclose the prophecy. He wasn’t ready. What was happening to me? How could I be so wrong about everything?
“It’s obvious that you are in a foul mood and you’re mocking me. I think we should save this talk for another night. When you are more open to the truth.” On that word, Kuwajii kicked the fire logs and shouted through the resulting sparks.
“Will you ever shut the fuck up about the truth?!” His words flew heavy and slammed into me. “You want to know the truth, Marcus? Do you? Do you?”
“Tell me. Tell me your truth, brother.”
“The reason I could not kill the sloth,” he said, walking over to me, “in that cave today was because I saw no sloth. And the reason I saw no sloth is that there was no sloth. Just as there are no lions. Just as there have never been any lions. Just as there was never any Shumbuto or Shandra-Namba or Shakasantie.”
I slapped him so hard across his face that the ghosts of our departed ancestors winced. The forest echoed with reverent abhorrence.
“Don’t you dare disgrace the memory of our people again. If there was no sloth, then where did all this meat come from?” I indicated the sack on the ground.
“I don’t know, Marcus. Maybe you killed another antelope.”
“An antelope? Look at the size of this sack! Have you lost all your senses, Kuwajii? Just because you didn’t see the sloth doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Just because you don’t feel the danger doesn’t mean it isn’t coming for you. And just because you don’t believe in your history doesn’t make it a lie.”
“You say I am chosen.” Kuwajii rubbed his bruised, swollen cheek. He spit, and the ground turned red with his saliva. “I tell you I don’t care. I choose my fate. Do you understand? Me.”
Shumbuto’s son was headstrong in forging his own path. Whatever his future held, the boy was not going to sit idly by waiting for it. His destiny was pleading with him to move forward. In that moment, I made up my mind to let him lead the way. It was either that, or lose him forever.
“Very well, brother,” I said. “At dawn, we will seek whatever fate you choose.”
A chill passed between us.
It was the beginning of Kuwajii’s sixteenth winter.