Love Thine Enemy

Hunt

It was late afternoon and nearly time for dusk, a terrible time to hunt in my opinion. However, the Warriors seemed convinced they would find a hog or two because the time of day was perfect. I began to wonder if the lack of daylight and visibility was the reason they had lost men every time they went hog hunting. It occurred to me that I had never seen a hog. How would I know what to look for? Were they huge? Did they have four legs or two, maybe six?

We were all hunkered down constantly, very light-footed and barely breathing. Silence was important; the most important thing to Rushi, apparently. Personally, I thought the most important thing was to prevent the animal from smelling your sent. We were upwind from our hunting ground, which meant everything out there could sense us coming.

Also, Tunmo had long since been seated on my back to stifle Rushi's wrath. For a small boy, I thought he was doing rather well to watch his steps, but Rushi insisted he was too loud with his footing and was the reason we had seen nothing yet. I rolled my eyes for the hundredth time as Tunmo gripped his fingers even tighter in my fur to contain his excitement at riding the Nashoba. He kept kicking his heels into my sides as if I were some mule to be ridden about, and if my mission was not to be utterly quiet on this hunt, I would have turned and eaten him out of sheer annoyance by then. I had to admit, though, having him on my back made my task of watching him much easier than I had anticipated.

Just as our group began to creep over a fallen log one by one, sun cascading even lower behind the trees, I heard the snap of a twig off to the left. I glanced at the Warriors and noticed none of them turned their heads. Of course not. They had human hearing. I took my turn to cross the log but inhaled deeply, surprised to smell something dangerous. Was it this hog creature? Did they smell this way? I waited for the men to get a good four yards ahead before I veered silently off to the left and disappeared in the thick of the forest. If this beast was not the hog we were looking for, I did not want to look stupid to the others for finding the wrong animal.

"Where are we going?" Tunmo squeaked, twisting on my shoulders to look back at the trees where Rushi and the others had been. "We must stay together!"

I grunted at his less than quiet whispers and flicked my head quickly to the right while he was leaned forward, successfully slapping him in the face with my left ear. He huffed at me but sat back and became somewhat still, turning his focus on the trees. The smell was growing stronger by the second, causing the familiar feeling of excitement before a fight to stir in my chest. Perhaps a battle would feel different out here in the wild where I was no one's prisoner.

A grunt sounded in a thicket not far ahead and I stopped dead, immediately hunkering down. Tunmo took that as a false sign to slide off my back, but there was no time to correct his mistake as a black ball flung itself out of the bushes with a deafening roar, barreling into my chest hard enough to send me sprawling on my back.
I collected myself and flipped over quickly, finding my battle stance only to look up and see a large black bear standing on his hind legs, mouth open to brandish his teeth for a challenge.

That is not a hog.

I scowled at my failure to find the mystery hog and began to turn away from the bear, but an audible gulp caught my attention. Tunmo was frozen less than three feet from the bear, poised behind it, eyes wide as he looked upward at the back of the beast. I begged him to look at me with my eyes, to be able to tell him not to move a muscle, but he never looked at me.

He lifted a shaking foot and slowly took a step back, but his heel came down on a pine cone that crunched beneath him. He cringed and his eyes began to water, already aware of his fate. The bear immediately turned around to face his second intruder, but I was already moving through the air. The tip of his claw barely had time to pierce Tunmo's bare chest before my teeth were sinking into the side of his face, ripping and gnawing madly in desperation to distract. He roared angrily and raised a large paw backward, swiping it into my side to send me crashing into a nearby tree. I felt a few cracks in my ribs and groaned as I stood back up, shaking my head to stop the throbbing.

I met the bear in midair once more, biting down on his forearm this time. The wound was deep and I knew he was hurt now, but he refused to run. He returned my wound with a bite of his own on my shoulder that was exposed. I let go of him to yelp, slinking backward to refocus myself. I glanced to Tunmo, finding him still there with his spear raised, unsure of what to do but ready to do something. An idea popped into my head. I only hoped Tunmo was smart enough to see his chance and brave enough to take it.

For a third time I charged the bear, aiming low for his feet so that his head dipped to meet my attack. At the last second, I jumped off the ground and landed on his back, biting into the back of his exposed neck. I swing myself downward, forcing his body to go down with the weight of my own, and slammed him into the ground. I had him pinned by his neck for just a split second, but that was all Tunmo needed to dive forward, plunge the spear deep into its throat and rip it back out through his mouth. The creature didn't even make a last bit of noise as the life seeped from his eyes.

Tunmo gazed at the bloody spearhead in his hand with cloudy eyes, then looked back at the dead beast at his feet. With a loud sob, he dropped the weapon and flung himself at me, wrapping his shaking arms around my neck as I sat before him. He cried hard into my fur for reasons I would never understand, but I stayed still for him.

He had hiccups by the time he was done, but he pulled back and wiped his eyes with a brave face. Picking up his weapon once more, he took a strange looking piece of wood from his leather pouch and blew into it. A loud noise like the bugles of the Volkens came out of the object, then he placed it back in the pouch and turned to me with a wobbly smile.

"Rushi is not going to be happy about this."

I snorted at the mention of that man and he giggled, absentmindedly stroking my side again. He pulled his hand away quickly when he found it sticky with blood.

"You are bleeding," he said wide-eyed, guilt on his face. "This is my fault. You had to save me because I was stupid. I am sorry, Nashoba."

I frowned at his words but did not have time to comfort him before Rushi came bounding through the same bushes the bear had been in, out of breath and red-faced as usual.

"Tunmo, you stupid-" he began, but stopped with his mouth open when he saw the huge bear laying at our feet. The rest of his mean bounded up behind him and stopped to stare at the carcass.

"How you do this?" He breathed after a while, looking up at us. "Only best Warriors do this. How do this?"

Tunmo turned to me but I pushed him forward with my muzzle so they would see his bloodied spear.

"You- you killed it?" another man asked, disbelief in his eyes as a smile spread on his face. "A warrior, like his father!"

The others cheered in unison at the greatness of the Chief's grandson and his mighty ways. They hefted him up on their shoulders and began the trek back to the village while four others gathered the bear and tied him to a pole to be heaved upon their shoulders and carried back as well. Perhaps he was to be the feast tonight now.

I watched Tunmo disappear into the trees, a deliriously proud grin on his face, and my heart felt warm. It was a strange feeling.

"You do this."

I startled at Rushi's presence and turned to glare at him. He was fuming with shaking fists.

"Tunmo not brave!" he yelled. "He not do this. You kill bear. Blood on shoulder. You did it."

Something about this man was off. His resentment toward Tunmo was obvious but a mystery to me. Why he would dislike a child, I did not understand. Perhaps he knew he was growing old, and Tunmo was next in line with the potential to become even greater than Rushi.

I snarled at the leather-skinned man and snapped my jaws at his legs, pleased when he yanked away. I waited until he followed the group into the trees first, spear in hand.

If I had learned anything in the arena, it was this: never turn your back on an enemy.