his bow across his back and scanned the forest for any glimpse of the black cat—a flicked ear, a twitching tail. A Kesa warrior had lent him a long spear affixed with a rusty iron point, and Kau held it low out in front of him as he tracked, swiveling his hips from side to side, moving in tiny measured steps.
A leopard has a weak nose—though it still works much better than that of a man. And what a leopard lacks in smell it gains in eyesight, hearing. Such is the way with all animals. An elephant might see only in shadows but it can also listen to the beatings of its own massive heart, wind a hunter from a mile off. Soaring eagles spot prey from soundless heights. A snake tastes the world with a tongue flick. So what then is a man? An animal with poor eyes and poor ears, a near-useless nose. Hairless. Fangless. Clawless. How is it that this pitiful creature—a creature that should not ever have been able to survive among beasts—has come to lord over so much?
IT WAS ALMOST dark when he spied the dead farmer lying high up the slanted trunk of a fallen tree. A blanket of flies covered the half-eaten corpse; moths drank from still-damp eyes. Kau looked around, processing the forest in sections. Nothing. She was still resting, he decided. She was resting, and at some point when she was once again hungry she would return to resume her feeding. By the light of the moon he would kill her.
And so he readied himself. He walked up the sloped trunk of the dead tree and stepped carefully over the mangled farmer. At a place well past the ripening corpse he stopped and bent branches for a blind, and then he set his spear and quiver down close where he could reach them. The bow was in his hand, and he selected the best from among his arrows, then went as still against the tree as a day-lazing moth.
DARKNESS FELL OVER the forest as day pulled away. He remained motionless in the tree, waiting for the man-eater to appear. A hyrax shrieked and was soon answered by another. The ebony sky was speckled with bright stars. The moon rose and he closed his eyes, listening for the sound of claws scratching bark.
THE LONG NIGHT passed without any sign of the leopard, and as dawn came he spotted the first of them—a colony of driver ants was moving through the forest, a dark brown band of butchers coming million after million. They swept closer and the base of his bent tree divided the river into halves. He saw a sprinkling of foragers ascend the tree trunk, following the stink trail of the cat-killed man. A single ant perched itself on a rib bone of the corpse. It reared back on hind legs, seemed to celebrate before retreating. Some collective intelligence clicked and both columns shifted and then doubled back. They met at the tree and soon ants covered the dead man. The leopard had lost her kill.
And Kau was trapped. He knew the colony would stay for several days now, would not leave until the farmer’s bones were all that remained of him. An ant latched onto Kau’s ankle and he flinched in pain. He broke off the body but the stubborn head remained, the jaws still clamped to his skin. He pulled the head loose, and then he threw his spear and quiver and bow down to the forest floor. More ants were on him. He jumped, touched down on the balls of his feet and crumbled into the leaves. He was on his knees when he spotted her. The black cat was crouched and staring, close enough for him to see the tip of her pink tongue. The snaking mass of ants flowed between them.
The leopard’s black coat shined almost blue in the glow of morning, and watching her Kau was certain that he would die. He waited but she stayed crouched even as her tail danced above her. The Kesa spear was impaled in the ground beside him, and when he slowly reached for it so came the man-eater over the wide scramble of ants. She leapt once and then twice as he lifted the spear. The iron point went in at her chest, and then the spear twisted free from his hands. He rolled away and watched as the screaming cat raked at the shaft with her claws. Finally blade nicked spine and the leopard went limp. She stared at him with fluttering yellow eyes, until at last her bleeding slowed to a trickle and she died.
He stood and looked down at the dead leopard. Only now could he see the splash of rosettes hidden deep within her black coat—rosettes the same as a typical and ordinary leopard. The first few driver ants had discovered this new kill, and he watched as the insect river divided itself yet again. This would not be so horrible, he thought—to be devoured by the forest. He knelt and with the wet spearhead he sawed off the man-eater’s tail, his proof for Chabo.
A beam of sun pierced through the canopy, and Kau felt his body being cut by light. He tied the soft black tail in a twist around his neck and let himself be warmed. He could sense the forest watching him, and he trembled as he began walking toward the village.
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