Eric Brandon Ngaba

THE GREATEST HUNT. As a young warrior, a lot is expected of me. I have to be ready at any moment to put my life at risk and defend the honor of the tribe. Most days, I spend my time constantly on alert for whoever might need me. From small children to the entire Clan of Elders. My oath is bound in blood, and on most days I feel the weight of my commitment. It gives me purpose, gives me belonging. Today was not one of those days. No. Today was different, I had been selected as part of a hunting crew. The humble yet mighty task of providing sustenance to the clan had been assigned to us and, in light of my grimmer tasks, was akin to encountering an oasis in the middle of a devastating desert. Rumors abounded throughout the clan of a beast like no other. A trophy deserving of the greatest amount of respect the community could muster to one strong enough to deliver the final blow. It was a powerful Buffalo and had bested the most ferocious hunters of the clan. Such a beast was not something hunters were encouraged to hunt, for one, its meat would be too tough for the children and elderly to chew. Those who had crossed its path had done so in the middle of hunting for the relatively less powerful Buffaloes whose meat the clan preferred. I was yet to see it, but first-hand accounts described a grizzled monster with skin that was resistant to arrows. They claimed it towered over most of the hunters, not surprisingly since we were reputed to be of a shorter stature. However, the more one heard the accounts, the further from reality they sounded. One even detailed a hunter who had observed full-grown lions actively avoiding it. It was almost as if the beast drove unparalleled amounts of fear into the hearts of all who witnessed it and left a memory so damning that their minds could only attach mystical explanations to its existence. I belong to a tribe called Sant'uko. From a young age, boys are selected and grouped by attributes into four categories; warriors who defend the clan, hunters who keep it fed, blacksmiths who craft weapons & tools, and medicine men tasked with treating the clan. The beast took three capable warriors to the grave, wounding two, in the last hunt. Things would have been graver, had a nearby crew not intervened in time and fought it away. Every three days, six hunting crews are sent out. The loss of hunters in the previous hunt had necessitated the addition of new ones. Because most of the new hunters were still under training, the elders had turned to the warriors. Typical hunting crews consisted of six men, with the one who had been on the most hunts assuming leadership. This was my first. I was required to follow instructions without uttering a single word unless asked to. It was a rigorous system of authority in which only the experienced had a say. I was a warrior, not a hunter, and they made it clear that a distinction existed between the two. Little did I know at the time that I was about to find out just how different hunting was from fighting. My hunting crew set off into the plains at close to midday. It was a somber gathering, and I could tell everyone was praying to finish the hunt without encountering the beast. Today, we had a medicine man among us. His task was to bestow spiritual energy upon the hunters. While we were tracking a herd of buffalo that had conveniently left their prints on the savannah grass, the medicine man took the opportunity to teach us a bit about spiritual pressure. He referred to it as something that existed within every human and animal, and that how a creature turned out was a reflection of the intensity of its spiritual pressure. He said that at times, deities selected creatures with great spiritual pressure as hosts with which to observe humans and see whether or not we were living according to their expectations. When I was young, my father told me stories about how not all deities had the best of mankind in mind. He called these the unclean. Right now I couldn't help but wonder whether the medicine man was indeed correct and an evil deity was calling the beast its home. We caught up with the herd and after seeing the beast was nowhere in sight, set about planning an ambush. How the hunt worked was that we would mark the ones we were interested in capturing and draw them away from the rest. Essentially, one of us had with him a horn into which he blew to create a panic among the herd which would naturally react by fleeing. The ones targeted would then be converged upon by the hunters and slain in the ensuing commotion. It was a foolproof method, requiring a lot of courage from the executors. We set about it with enthusiasm and as the dust cleared, two buffaloes had met their death. We were just about to set off on the return trip when we heard the sound of an approaching animal. Its hooves hit the ground with strength, sending vibrations that shuttered our resolve to stand ground even before we had seen the creature. Everyone broke into a run and I was left standing confused, my warrior instincts kicking into gear. I couldn't accept to hide from that yet unseen and had been taught to stand my ground as a warrior. My heart beat still, as the monstrous silhouette came into view amid the blinding rays of the sun. As warriors, we are never taught how to face death. In such moments, it is your sole resolution to react in a way that bears honor. Right now, all my training seemed to fade with every advance of the beast. It looked intent on murder, I could have sworn its eyes were red. A dark red haze that stuck out from its white background, driving unadulterated fear deep into my soul. At the last moment, my self-preservation instinct kicked in, and I tried to dive to the side. Still, it was too late for me to avoid the beast's gleaming horns and as they connected to my ribs and skull, all I could think of was who would watch over my younger sister. Darkness came then. What happened next was relayed to me by the other hunters, after I woke up at the infirmary with swaths of linen where the horns had broken through my skin. Thinking me dead, the beast had turned its focus on the rest, who kept it occupied long enough for the other crews to come to the rescue after hearing the distress calls. The pain of lost comrades strengthened every hunter and stilled their bows. The beast met its demise that fateful evening, three hours after we had set out to hunt. It was the greatest hunt of my lifetime, one that was passed on as a legend to all those who came after.