Assegai

‘At sunset this evening I will speak to my brothers and you will hear it,’ Loikot offered, but before Leon could question him further they heard terrified screaming from out on the plain. Leon and Manyoro seized their rifles and jumped up. They stared out at Ishmael’s distant figure. He was in full flight towards them, holding his bundle on his head with both hands. Close behind him came a gigantic cock ostrich. With its long pink legs it was gaining on him swiftly. Even from this distance Leon could see that it displayed its full breeding plumage. Its body was the deepest onyx black and the puffs of feathers on its tail and wing-tips were brilliant white. Now every feather was fluffed up in rage. Its legs and beak were flushed scarlet with sexual frenzy. It was determined to kill to protect its breeding territory from the white-robed invader.

Leon led the two Masai to the rescue. They shouted and waved their arms wildly to distract the bird, but it ignored them and bore down remorselessly on Ishmael. When it got within striking distance it stretched out its long neck and pecked the kitchen bundle so viciously that he was knocked off his feet. He went down, sprawling in a cloud of dust. His bundle burst open and his cooking pots and crockery clattered and bounced around him. The ostrich leaped on top of him, kicking and clawing with both feet. It lowered its head to peck his arms and legs, and Ishmael squealed as the blood flowed from the wounds it inflicted.

Nimble as a hare, Loikot outran the two older men, shouting a challenge at the ostrich as he closed in. The bird jumped off Ishmael’s prostrate form and advanced menacingly towards Loikot. Its stubby wings were spread and it began its threat dance, stepping high, lifting and lowering its head menacingly, cawing an angry challenge.

Loikot pulled up and spread the tails of his cloak as though they were wings. Then he began a perfect imitation of the ostrich’s dance, using the same high steps and ritual head-bobbing. He was trying to provoke it to attack. Bird and boy circled each other.

The ostrich was being confronted on its own breeding ground and his outrage and affront at last overpowered even its instinct of survival. It rushed to the attack, head thrust out to the full reach of its long neck. It struck at Loikot’s face, but Loikot knew exactly how to deal with it, and Leon realized he must have done this many times before. Fearlessly the boy jumped to meet the huge bird and locked both hands around its neck just behind the head. Then he lifted both feet off the ground and swung his full weight on the ostrich’s neck, bearing its head down to the ground. The ostrich was pinned helplessly off-balance. It could not lift its head. It flopped around in a circle in an attempt to remain on its feet. Leon ran up and raised his rifle. He circled the mêlée to give himself a clear shot.

‘No! Effendi, no! Do not shoot,’ screamed Ishmael. ‘Leave this son of the great shaitan

to me.’ On his hands and knees he was fumbling through the scattered debris of his kitchen utensils. At last he came to his feet clutching a gleaming carving knife in his right hand and raced to the struggling pair with his weapon held en garde.

‘Twist its head over!’ he shouted at Loikot. Now the bird’s throat was exposed and, with the skill of a master butcher, Ishmael drew the edge of the razor-sharp blade across it, slitting it neatly from side to side and cutting down to the ostrich’s vertebrae with a single stroke.

‘Let him go!’ Ishmael ordered, and Loikot released the bird. They jumped well clear of its flailing feet with their sharp talons. The ostrich bounded away but a long plume of blood shot high in the air from the open arteries in its throat. It lost direction and staggered in a circle, its long, scaly pink legs losing their driving force and its neck drooping like the stalk of a fading flower. It collapsed and lay struggling weakly to regain its feet, but regular jets of bright arterial blood continued to spurt on to the sun-baked earth.

‘Allah is great!’ Ishmael exulted, and pounced upon its still living carcass. ‘There is no other God but God!’ Neatly he slit open the bird’s belly and cut out the liver. ‘This creature is slain by my knife and I have sanctified its death in the name of God. I have drawn out its blood. I declare this meat halal.’ He held the liver aloft. ‘Behold the finest meat in all of creation. The liver of the ostrich taken from the living bird.’

They ate kebabs of ostrich liver and belly fat grilled over the coals of the camel-thorn acacia. Then, bellies filled, they slept for an hour in the shade. When they awoke the breeze, which had died away at noon, rose again and blew steadily across the wide steppe. They shouldered rifles and packs and went with the wind until the sun was no more than a hand’s spread above the horizon.