The next morning, Wakare lent to Buikhu a flint-tipped spear and a shield cut from tanned cowhide. The child was absolutely elated to receive these weapons, the weapons he should had received after his circumcision. A feeling of great power surged into him when he touched the spear and shield. It felt like he had transformed from a mere youth into a fearsome warrior, but he knew that he had to train first.

Their first session of training began awkwardly. When Wakare thrust his spear at Buikhu for the first time, the youth dodged.

“No, that’s not how you counter a spear thrust,” Wakare said. “You block the point with your shield. Let’s try again.”

He made two more moves with his weapon. His student tried to block these attacks with his shield both times, but while the boy missed the first time, he was more successful with the second. The spear’s point bounced off the hide. Then Wakare thrusted for a third time, and then a fourth, both of these deflected.

“That’s it! You’ve got the idea, Buikhu! Now you try attacking. Remember to keep your eye on my shield so you can get past it.”

Buikhu tried to strike his tutor several times. His first few attacks were repelled, but later his success rate increased.

“You’re getting better,” Wakare said after they both tired from the training. “If we do this every day, you’ll almost be ready for a real fight by the season’s end!”

The two continued to practice fighting as days passed. During those same days, Wakare also taught Buikhu how to use a bow and arrow. The Nekhenian progressed more slowly with this weapon than he had with the spear, but still he improved over time.

The summer had almost half passed when Wakare invited the boy to his first hunt. The youth almost exploded with excitement when he received this opportunity. Finally he would test his weapons on real living creatures!

Attentively he listened to his tutor’s instructions on how to stalk and track prey and what parts of an animal’s body he had to attack. The first few hunts were nothing spectacular, for they went after small game such as duiker, warthog, and gazelle, but Buikhu still beamed with pride over each successful kill.

Then came the morning when Wakare asked him, “Do you want to be challenged like never before today?”

“What do you mean?”

“We have spotted a rhinoceros roaming to our northeast, and I feel that you should have the opportunity to tackle larger and more dangerous prey for once. Do you want to hunt this animal?”

Buikhu blinked incredulously and said, “Has some evil spirit driven you mad? I have seen only twelve rains! I couldn’t bring down a rhino even if I tried.”

“Yes, you can, with the help of these.” Wakare lent to Buikhu a bow and quiver full of arrows. “These arrows are tipped with poison so strong that they can kill an elephant within a day. As long as you are brave, quick, and accurate, then a rhinoceros will be little trouble for you. Nonetheless, my friends and I will join you if you need help.”

Buikhu quivered upon receiving his weapons, in part because of fear, but also because of eagerness, for this would be the event of his redemption. Either way, he knew he was in for an exhilarating experience.

***

Buikhu’s previous experiences in the wilds had taught him to examine his surroundings very carefully as he moved, and so the boy did when he and his party searched for the rhinoceros. As he moved, he inspected every bush, tree, and patch of grass for both danger and signs of his quarry. His trained eyes were not the only organ of sense he used, for he also sniffed the air for the pungent odor of dung and listened for the slightest rustle. Every footstep of his was carefully calculated to make the least noise possible.

Morning had halfway passed when the hunters detected large gashes in the fat trunk of a baobab tree. The knowledge that only a rhino sharpening its horn could have left behind those marks raised the youth’s heartbeat. Lowering his head, he noticed round, shallow depressions in the grass that were almost certainly the beast’s fresh footprints. They were getting close!

The boy and his companions followed the footprint trail until they could make out a pale gray animal in the distance ahead of them. This creature, as they saw when stealing towards it more closely, had two horns projecting from its snout and browsed from shrubbery with a pointed, prehensile lip; this was definitely the rhino they had sought.

“We will hide in these bushes while you shoot at the rhino, Buikhu,” Wakare whispered. “Call for us if you need help. Now go.”

Buikhu’s heart rate went up again as he snuck towards the beast. Looking at the rhinoceros’s sharp horns and smelling its stink only worsened his anxiety. The thought of scramming from this monster grew tempting, and the thought of being crushed into a pulp by its feet grew chilling. The boy was about to turn and run when he reheard these words in his head:

You have shamed our family with your cowardice. Now you will never be considered a man.

The heart-ripping power of those words had not dulled since his father first said them; if anything, they were even more intense. The tears returned to fill up Buikhu’s eyes...

No! He would not let his past haunt him anymore. Now was the time to prove his father wrong! The Nekhenian tightened his grip on his bow and raised it, nocking an arrow and aiming it at the rhinoceros. His fear having been swamped by his determination, he drew the bowstring far back until it was as taut as it could be.

Then he let go.

The arrow whistled through the air until it pierced just behind the rhino’s shoulder. Instantly the animal shrilly cried out its pain and then burst into a charge towards Buikhu, causing the ground to quake with its thunderous footsteps. The youth screamed as he raced from his enraged prey, wind brushing against his body.

His flight was broken when he stubbed his toe against a rock and crashed onto his chest. So hard was his collision that he felt too weak to push himself back up. Then he heard the rhino’s stomping loudening. A sense of urgency coursed through his veins and gave him enough strength to roll out of the beast’s path.

When Buikhu finally got back up, he ran towards an acacia tree and scrambled up its crooked branches. The tree’s coarse bark cut through his skin, drawing blood, but he was too consumed by terror to pay these scratches any heed. Suddenly he felt the tree shake violently, which he knew was caused by the rhino.

Again and again the beast thrust its bulk against the acacia trunk. The boy clung onto a bough as hard as he could, but still his hold loosened with each vibration. At last he slipped off and plummeted until he landed onto the rhino’s tough-skinned back.

Buikhu did not stay long on his quarry’s back, for the rhino bucked its body until it threw him up into the air. Agony racked the boy when he landed on the ground again. He tried to crawl away from the scene, groaning and grunting with every movement, but then he heard the animal’s feet pounding the soil in his direction. Despair halted him, for he knew there was no hope of escape this time. The rhino would ground him into paste, he was sure of it.

Then there was a loud whine and an earthshaking thud.
Looking over to where the rhino was, Buikhu saw that it lay still on the ground, breathing heavily. Its flanks rose and sank more and more slowly until they finally stopped. The boy was confused by the creature’s sudden death at first, but then he remembered that Wakare had told him that the arrows were poisoned. That meant that Buikhu had killed the rhino by himself.

Pride like he had never felt before swelled inside the youth and pushed him back onto his feet.

***

The appetizing aroma of roasted rhinoceros flesh radiated from the Abedjuan campfire that night. Men, women, and children clapped and chanted praise to Buikhu while musicians pounded on drums. The boy had never seen even anyone except for a nsu receive such adulation by himself, so he could barely believe what he was seeing and hearing before him, yet he beamed anyway. The coward of Nekhen had become the hero of Abedju.

Wakare walked up to Buikhu with a necklace from which a brown rhinoceros-shaped amulet hung.

“This amulet was hewn from one of the rhino’s horns,” he said. “I want you to have it as a reminder of your deed.”

The child looked down at his new gift, admiring how it shone from the firelight, and then strung it around his neck. For a moment he wondered what his father would think if he were here to see his son so triumphant. Would Kemnebi recant how he had disowned Buikhu?

Then again, Buikhu recalled that part of the reason his father was mad at him was that he had let their cattle run away. No rhinoceros would redeem him of that error…but what would redeem him instead?

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