Bow and Arrow by Offer R (best classic books .TXT) 📕

T'is part of nature's way;

For everyone the game is fair,

The strong one will prevail.'

            Then the Chief's response:

'We are not wolves, nor bears- we're blessed,

We're members of a tribe;

We never take a life unless,

 Required, it's, to survive.'

            For the first time since she'd picked up the bear's trail, Jangili's grip of her bow slackened. She felt she'd been confronted by a moral challenge that she didn't know how to overcome. The zealous huntress in her found its match in the form of an edified conscience. Was her own accomplishment worth the lives of mother bear and her cub? For, as the Chief had explained, the bulge in the bear's stomach and her general protective manner denoted with very little doubt her state of pregnancy.

            Wakuu instructed the young huntress to remain with the sow. Since she'd occasioned the sow's plight, she would now be bestowed the opportunity of extracting her from it. She was to remain at the base of the tree and allocate food from the supply that would be delivered to her to the hungry mother. At night with the sow's first snore, she was to pull the head of the arrow out of its side in hopes that given the chance, the wound would heal without requiring further attention. If all went well, by the turn of the following day Jangili would have redeemed herself with the sow and would be free to return to the village with a clear conscience and a lightened heart.

            The nuts and the berries that were delivered to the huntress-turned-caretaker were fed to the injured sow through different contraptions that Jangili devised using two of the Chief's flat arrows, which had been lent her by him for this purpose. The sow's initial apprehension quickly made way for complete readiness to maintain this partnership. With the exception of a short recess occasioned by Jangili pulling what was left of her arrow from the sow's side, which was the cause of no minor intensity of pain in the temporary tree-dweller, a rather peaceful relationship sprouted between the two. It came to a proper end the following evening when, having essentially recovered from her injury, the sow climbed down the tree. She didn't do so with haste or at a moment of distraction but as a bear would be expected to do in the absence of a threat to his or her well-being. In much a similar fashion, Jangili watched the sow reach level ground with her and approach to within lunging distance. They retained their former respect for one another, but one that savored of affection rather than fear or malice. They were never to cross paths again, and Jangili was left to wonder whether a single act of compassion was worth sacrificing a lifetime of glory. For no short span of time was she set ill at ease by this reservation.  

For the sake of reference let's assume that roughly a month had passed since Jangili's encounter with the bear when Zito was aiming her arrow at the unsuspecting wolf twenty meters ahead. Or was it thirty? She wasn't a very accurate judge of distance, as she was a judge of direction. In short, mastery of the art of archery evaded her, but she was possessed of a trenchant belief that her true abilities suffered an unjustly poor reputation. A pall of dishonor hung over her for this blatant underestimation, which she was determined to dispel. The requisite manner of redressing this iniquity, she concluded, was to pursue and achieve an unusually ambitious goal, a prominent instance of which would be to seek and hunt one of the forest's most dreaded hunters.

            There were two of the wild canines, one with its back to her and the other faced sideways- just at the right angle for the arrow to slice through its neck. A small target, a fair distance, a fearsome predator; this one instance of success would consign to oblivion any hint at her incompetence as an archer. And how could she avoid a few words of self-motivation before undertaking such a glorious venture?

'Poor wolf, employed in seeking pray,

But you must be confronted;

Your destiny shall change today,

From hunter to the hunted.'

            She was certain, gauging the trajectory of the arrow once it was in the air, that success was duly hers. Her target would be killed, its companion vanish timidly to the ends of the forest, and she would take her prize to the village to be rewarded with newfound respect. Reality chose to diverge from this planned course, however, and sent her arrow face-down into the ground one meter before the target wolf. With sharp eyes and a rather resourceful mind both wolves traced the stray arrow to its shooter, and stared at the poorly hidden Zito, assessing their enemy. They, too, formed a low estimate of her, and indeed and at once, hunter became the hunted. In the race that ensued the wolves were easily victorious, and not a minute into the chase they came within striking distance and Zito realized that running was pointless. She tried her bow as a shield but was disarmed by the first wolf; she attempted an arrow as a sword but found it of little use against the speed and power of the second. She screamed so shrilly as they bore down upon her that the whole forest shook, but there was no further recourse for her to resort to. She was soon on her back, fighting desperately and hopelessly as the hunters tore her flesh down to the bone. Soon she began to imagine all the wonderful things she was about to lose- the wonders of life in the forest, which in the absence of the threat of death seemed so trifling- and deplored her grim fortune. By the fall of night that day, much blood was drained in the forest.

            An hour later she lay in the sickbed, groggy and in great pain but above all consumed with surprise and gratefulness for being alive. The first words she spoke were, to the surprise of no one, in her panicked sister's presence. While biologically speaking, they weren't identical twins- not twins at all, in fact- their physical identity reached such uncanny levels that few were the tribesmen who could tell them apart by appearance. They even smelled the same, sharing a great predilection for a certain pungent lemony ointment that they applied to their fair hair daily. As it is well known that the greater the similarity between two people the stronger their connection, so the sisters' lover for each other was rivaled by their love for no one and nothing else. News of the unfortunate conclusion of Zito's venture into the forest had shaken her sister's heart to the point of breaking; had death rather than minor injuries been her lot, her sister's heart shouldn't have been able to bear the pain. And here were the words the frail younger sister uttered meekly to her older sibling:

'The wolves weren't so kind to me,

Nor me to them, to be fair;

But I had a savior, mind you Jangili,

T'was one brave and mighty bear…'

Publication Date: 12-11-2014

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