A young girl squatted on the ground, set a basket in front of her, and pulled off the top.

  She lifted a juvenile warthog out of the basket and held it between her knees while she slipped a piece of knotted rope around the creature’s neck.

  The little creature grunted softly to itself and started snuffling around in the dry leaves at her feet.

  An old man came over to her and watched her set the basket aside.

  “You always find the best ones, Mora,” he told her.

  She smiled up at him. “This one is the perfect size—not too big and not too small. Is everything else ready?”

  “It’s all ready when you are. Everyone is in position.”

  Mora stood up straight still holding the rope in one hand. The young warthog walked in circles around her ankles. She had to pass the rope from hand to hand around and around herself to stop it from tangling her body.

  The old man picked up the basket. “Agro and Erus are scouting the perimeter to make sure no other creatures come while we’re hiding.”

  “I suppose that’s the best we can do,” Mora replied. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  The pair crossed the clearing and stopped next to another tree. Mora tied her rope around the trunk and left the young warthog there.

  “You should get up to the ridge, Papi,” she told the old man.

  He laughed at her. “You can’t blame me for wanting to watch my favorite grandchild work her magic. It’s a pleasure to see what pains you take with this project.”

  Mora made a face at her grandfather, but she couldn’t stop her cheeks from coloring. “You tell all your grandchildren they’re your favorite. Mother even said you told her and her siblings the same thing when they were growing up. You can’t fool me.”

  He only laughed. “Finish torturing the little thing and let’s go.”

  Mora bit back a smirk, took a second rope from the pocket of her long dress, and looped that around the young warthog’s neck, too. The little creature was too busy exploring the jungle floor to notice.

  Mora and her grandfather Rono circled the clearing. Mora let out more and more lengths of the second rope and stopped next to another tree opposite the one where she tied the warthog.

  She wrapped the second rope around the second trunk, made a knot, and pulled it as tight as it would go.

  The two ropes stretched taut and trapped the young warthog between them. The ropes held the little creature in one place so it couldn’t move.

  The warthog immediately started to struggle. It kicked its hooves against the hard-packed dirt and squealed loudly while it fought to get out of the double noose.

  Mora worked fast to secure the knot in that position. Her grandfather kept looking back and forth between her and the warthog. Its screams escalated to shrieks.

  She tied off the knot extra tightly, spun away, and she and her grandfather ran for it. The warthog’s screams followed them all the way through the undergrowth and up the nearest hill.

  Mora clambered through the trees and flopped down on her stomach between her mother Alura and her two sisters, Yena and Grea.

  A long line of their other relatives lay in the same position on the ridge overlooking the jungle below.

  A clear place between the trees gave a view of the little warthog struggling and thrashing between the two ropes.

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  Its tiny hooves dug deeper into the dirt when it tried to run away. “It will break the sheet if it doesn’t stop,” Grea remarked.

  “Here it comes,” Yena murmured.

  Everyone looked up and turned to the east. The treetops trembled and then the canopy broke.

  The scaly beaked head of a Gorlock broke the canopy for a second before the creature plunged back under the foliage.

  The disturbance came fast and straight toward the warthog. Its screams attracted the Gorlock faster than anything.

  The Gorlock’s head broke the canopy one more time before it vanished again and reappeared right there in the clearing.

  The little warthog panicked and shrieked even louder. Its screams echoed through the jungle again and again. The noise set Mora’s hair on end.

  The Gorlock eyed the warthog from high above. The Gorlock strutted toward the little creature. The warthog couldn’t even get to its feet anymore. It lay in the dirt struggling to rise, but its legs trembled too badly.

  “Just a few more steps…..” Rono murmured.

  The Gorlock took two more steps. The minute it put its weight on that leg, the ground beneath it collapsed. A structure of thin saplings, woven grass mats, and a thin film of dirt covered a vast pit dug out of the ground.

  The Gorlock shrieked and spread its wings, but the monster was too big to fly. It plunged downward into the pit and impaled itself on dozens of sharpened spikes buried in the ground.

  The Gorlock thrashed in its death throes, but the spikes were too thick and too well anchored. The creature eventually stopped twitching and lay there bleeding from all those puncture wounds.

  Rono stood up chucking. “Mora strikes again.”

  Her father Dagu stood up and yelled down the line. “Everyone get down there and start butchering the creature. We need to retreat to safe camp before dark! Don’t leave anything behind!”

  The rest of their family band got to their feet and headed down the hill at a leisurely pace. Mora went with them. The family would eat well tonight with plenty left over for the days ahead.

  Her family band consisted of four sets of grandparents, two sets of great-grandparents, dozens of uncles and aunts, and at least thirty children.

  They flooded into the clearing. The children got to work pulling away the saplings and mats from the edge of the pit. Mora untied the young warthog and put it back in her basket for next time.

  Then she helped the other children stack the poles and mats in the nearby undergrowth. Their band didn’t go to all the effort of digging this pit just for one kill.

  The party pulled hand-tied ladders out of the nearby bushes, lowered them to the bottom of the pit, and Mora’s uncles climbed down there to butcher the Gorlock.

  They had to balance on the ladders to stand level with the creature’s body. The uncles used long, sharpened metal machetes to hack the creature apart at the joints.

  The uncles handed the pieces up to the aunts who laid the joints on clean skins and blankets on the ground. The aunts boned the meat, sectioned it into smaller portions, wrapped everything in cured hides, and tied the bundles for transport.

  Everyone helped. As soon as the children finished putting the sapling poles and mats away, they came back to the pit and ran errands for the aunts.

  Mora went back and forth between all her aunts and older relatives. No one stopped working until the uncles handed the last piece of the Gorlock up and the aunts wrapped it up.

  The children had to carry water in handmade pots from the nearby stream. The aunts went to great pains to wash all the blood off their hands, clothes, and the bundles so no dangerous predators would smell the blood and come after the party.

  Mora’s brothers Agro and Erus came back during the process. Both were married now with their own children on the way.

  “Ah, excellent work as always, Mora,” Erus remarked. “No harm done.”

  She smiled at him. “Thank you for patrolling.”

  “We wouldn’t want any other creatures to interfere or come upon our trap from another direction.” He had to stop talking when his wife Sinda handed him one of the meat bundles. “It looks like we’re moving out.”

  Everyone in their band picked up a bundle of meat. Some people had to carry two. Everyone fell into a single file line on their way out of the area.

  All the relatives kept a sharp eye on the surroundings. If the party saw any dangerous creatures on the way, everyone would have to hide.

  The Followers Clan didn’t fight creatures. The Followers didn’t fight anyone. They avoided violence whenever possible.

  Their members stayed alive much longer than anyone from other Clans. Followers usually lived to great ages. Some survived long enough to see their great-grandchildren become grandparents. A few people lived longer than that.

  The Followers valued their old people for their knowledge and experience. Old people were too valuable to risk anything happening to them.

  The Followers valued all human life too much to risk it in any kind of violent endeavor. There were better ways to hunt and avoid conflict with other Clans.

  None of the Followers even carried weapons. The men only carried their machetes for building things and butchering animals. No Follower would ever consider raising a weapon against anyone or anything. That would have been horrible.

  Mora kept a sharp eye on the surroundings. Everything in the jungle hunted humans as prey. She knew the dangers. She and her family just had to avoid them.

  End of Chapter 20.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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