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Before the echo of the gun report had died down, Jimoh and another boy were on their feet, missiles flying off the front of their slingshots. The two machete bearers leaped up and disappeared through the undergrowth. In a short while they returned, dragging a small antelope by its hind legs. Its throat had been slit. The scent of the blood that gathered in a dark pool beneath it made Ethan feel light headed. He sat down heavily on the ground and put his head between his legs. He took a little puff from his asthma pump.

“I think I have sunstroke,” he croaked hopefully, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anybody. It did not particularly matter – everybody was busy focusing on the dead duiker.

The hunters strung the duiker up from a tree by its hind legs, its head dangling down. Ethan buried his head in the crook of his arm, but could not help taking a small peek at the creature. One glassy eye stared back at him accusingly, wide open with fright. Joe and Jimoh slit open its belly and allowed the entrails to land in a sloppy heap on the ground amongst their feet. They started to skin it expertly, stepping over the muddy entrails as if they were not revolting at all. They worked swiftly and efficiently, moving around each other like chefs in a busy kitchen. Ethan could see they had done this as a team before.

The animal had a gunshot wound on its rump and two shallower pebble wounds on its head, he noticed. The wretched thing probably died only after the machete guys slit its throat.

“Not bad for a first try,” Tariro said, squatting down in the dirt beside Ethan, obviously delighted with his handiwork.

“I don’t know what you are so pleased about.” Ethan couldn’t help himself. “All you did is wound the poor thing. You shot it in the bum.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Tariro said, furious. “The village has to eat and at least I tried. You couldn’t even shoot a stationary target if you tried.”

“Could too,” Ethan said and, to the great amusement of all the assembled hunters, he stalked twenty paces down river and deposited the box of matches in the fork of a tree. He stomped back again, took the gun out of Tariro’s surprised hands, cocked it, aimed, and blew the matches away. “
Call of Duty
,” he said with relish.

“It’s a computer game,” Joe explained to the surprised hunters.

“Now you have gone and scattered the matches for our fire, Ethan,” Tariro said.

~~~

Ethan felt better about the killing once they returned to the camp. Word had spread, and the campsite was crowded with children from the nearby kraal who could hardly contain their excitement for the protein feast. Once the duiker looked more like regular butchery meat, Ethan did not feel too sick to the stomach at the sight of it. Not to be outdone by the great hunter, Tariro, he volunteered to help Jimoh set up a spit braai.

The two machete bearers, Tafadzwa and Tendayi, each sharpened the end of a forked branch and drove them into the ground on either side of a shallow fire pit a short distance from their shelter. Jimoh struggled to sharpen a long thin branch with a small pocketknife. Ethan pulled out one of his Swiss Army knives and handed it to Jimoh shyly. He didn’t want Jimoh to think he was being flashy, but he was very proud of that knife. It was the largest model with thirty-three tools and a bone shaft.
 

“Beautiful,” breathed Jimoh, hefting the multi-bladed knife in his hand. “Too special for using.”

“No, no, Jimoh. My step-dad gave it to me. He really wanted me to use it.” Ethan swallowed a slight tingle in the back of his throat. He was kind of missing his mom and step-dad.
 

“You try then,” Jimoh said, offering him the branch.

Ethan started to whittle but was soon interrupted by Jimoh, who seemed irresistibly drawn to the knife. He kept stopping Ethan to admire various blades and attachments and to ask what they were for. Soon, Joe and a couple of the other hunters joined in and Ethan found himself whittling with a machete while they admired and tested his knife.
 

Once Ethan had got the branch down to a fine point, Jimoh drove it right through the duiker, in through its neck and out through its backside. He stored it carefully in the fork of a tree for later when the fire was ready.
 

“We don’t want hyenas coming for it,” he said, causing Ethan to whip around and scan the surrounding area, and the rest of the boys to give way to hysterical laughter. Jimoh flicked away a fly with his hat and flopped down on the ground beside Joe when he was done.

Tafadswa handed Ethan’s knife back to him and said something in Shona, which clearly annoyed Tariro and made the other kids laugh again.

“It was funny what you did for Msalad,” interpreted the one called Tendayi, the one with the wild hair. Ethan had been surprised earlier to find the boy spoke almost perfect English.
 

“What’s Msalad?” Ethan said.

Tendayi grinned and glanced at Tariro. “It’s what we like to call a black guy who is trying to be posh. They don’t eat ‘
sadza ne muriwo
’, the traditional food anymore, only salad. So we call them ‘Msalad’.”
 

Ethan didn't find it that funny, but he laughed anyway because Tariro had been especially amused at his fear of hyenas a moment before.
 

Tariro didn’t seem that upset though. “And yet you speak such fluent English yourself, Tendayi,” he said with a sardonic smile.

“Where did you learn to speak so fluently?” Ethan asked.

“I speak fluent Shona and Ndabele too, Ethan. You don’t have to go to private school to get an excellent education. I go to boarding school in Domasi Town because I want to be a TV Presenter. The rest of these kids go to Tjalotjo School at the kraal. That’s a village, in case you didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t make them uneducated though,” Tariro sprang to their defense, even though they had teased him. “It’s just that they take their lessons in Shona.”

“They are going to need English if they want to move to the city, or go on the Internet or anything,” Ethan said.

“As crazy as this may seem to you, tech boy, they don’t want to go live in the city or spend their time surfing the internet,” Joe said. “They have everything they could possibly want right here. They are perfectly happy, hunting and farming with their families. That’s exactly what I am planning to do.”

That’s if your best friend here’s father doesn’t pull a political move and take away your farm
, Ethan thought. And in any case he didn’t believe the other kids were so indifferent to technology. They had liked the Swiss Army knife well enough, and a couple of them had eyed his laptop enviously, but he was not prepared to argue the point.
 

“If Tendayi and Joe are off at different boarding schools, how did you guys become such good friends?” he said, changing the subject.

“Jimoh and I are cousins,” Tendayi said. “I come and stay with him every holiday to get back to my roots, but the thing with Joe and Jimoh started with their dads. Jimoh can tell you his story. It will do him good to practise his English.”

“My dad, he runs farm with pigs and goats and some tobacco and things other side of river,” Jimoh started, glancing from his cousin to Joe, to see if he was doing okay. “He friend with Joe dad from when they are children. Sometimes he help Joe dad with safari and camp when he need cash money for school fees, and Joe dad help with tractor and dipping cows for ticks and things. They do this for many years. Joe and me friends from baby.” He put an arm around Joe’s neck, pulled his head down into an arm lock and ruffled Joe’s hair with his knuckles.

Tariro seemed to grow bored with the conversation and wondered downstream with a small entourage to supervise some local children in their game. Ethan watched his progress as he went, noticing for the first time that the river seemed to run towards the mountains instead of away.
 

“The river, he make a big tear in the mountain,” Jimoh explained when Ethan asked about it. “Cannot see from here, but...” he looked at Joe for the words.
 

“A gorge,” Joe said. “You can’t see it properly because it turns the corner.”
 

“Does anyone live there?” Ethan asked.

“No. There is a set of dangerous rapids blocking access from this side,” Tendayi said. “In the past people have settled there, but never successfully. Some people used to live on a small beach down there for a time but the river is too turbulent to navigate. Every time they wanted to go somewhere, they would have to climb all the way up the escarpment. Some of them got fed up and left, and some died of malaria, living so close to the water.”
 

“So where does it end up?” Ethan said.

“Don’t know,” Jimoh said. “Grandfather he say river run under mountain in big tunnel or something. We not allowed go there.”

~~~

By mid-afternoon the heat was stifling. Ethan propped himself up against the trunk of a shady mopane tree beside Jimoh, and dozed on and off.

Most of the other kids splashed about in the pool. Some of them built themselves a makeshift raft out of bamboo, and took it in turns to go for a sail into the deeper water. A couple of them perched precariously on top while the rest hung on to the sides and paddled it haphazardly to and fro.

Ethan watched Joe, Tariro and a group of the older kids snake their way along a crooked narrow path that twisted its way up the opposite cliffs to a ledge about fifteen meters above the water. From there, they launched themselves off with squeals of fear and delight and plummeted into the cold green water below. Some of them took a disturbingly long time to resurface, making Ethan vaguely anxious. He glanced over at Jimoh, who followed his gaze, but he looked completely unconcerned.

A group of little girls downstream waded in only up to their knees. Surrounded by battered enamel tubs full of washing, they beat lengths of coloured fabric against the rocks. Although they seemed happy enough, calling their songs back and forth in time to their pounding, Ethan hoped they were playing house and that this was not the actual family wash. They looked as if they were only about five years old. One little girl balanced a water bottle on her head while delicately picking her way across the rocks at the top of the rapids, which marked the end of the pool.

“Yoh, Ethan!” Joe yelled from the ledge. He and Tariro were nearing the front of the queue to take a jump. Ethan held back a small stab of envy. Even from this distance the two boys stood out in sharp contrast to himself and the local boys. It wasn’t just their designer board-shorts and their athletic bodies. They both looked as though they owned the place, like heroes or movie stars.

Ethan wondered if it would be awkward to broach the subject of Joe and Tariro with Jimoh. He was curious to find out why Jimoh showed no animosity towards this golden boy who swanned about on Jimoh’s territory, rounding up his gang to get up to all sorts of heroics with Jimoh’s own best friend. He could see Jimoh was not intimidated by the boy, so why was he content to take a back seat?

“Um... Jimoh,” he said. “What is the story with Tariro and Joe?”

Jimoh looked very uncomfortable. “You mean life saving thing?” he said.

That was not what Ethan had meant, but if Jimoh knew anything about it, here was a great opportunity to find out more. “Er... yes,” he said.

Jimoh shook his head sadly and looked down at his feet. He seemed to be struggling to find the words. “White boys attack Tariro at school,” he said quietly.

“What, you mean like bullying?” Ethan said. He’d imagined Joe had saved Tariro from choking or drowning or something. He couldn’t imagine Tariro giving in to bullies to the point of taking his own life or anything, but you never knew.

“No, with knife,” Jimoh said. He raised hurt eyes to meet Ethan’s and held his gaze for a long time. “To kill,” he added softly.

“Jimoh! You mean kids from Joe’s actual school?” Ethan felt a horrible cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“No,” said Jimoh, “Big boys from outside school. Joe injure them very bad with cricket bat, but he is only one. Others run away when they see this thing. They afraid of knives.”

“Well that explains a lot!” Ethan breathed out.

“Tariro very special for Joe. Risk own life to protect him,” said Jimoh. He watched the two boys seriously from under the rim of his felt hat for a moment and then jumped up, grabbing Ethan’s hand to drag him to the top of the cliff. “Come, Ethan. We jump,”
 

“No, thank you!” Ethan said, suppressing a shudder as he pulled away.

“Ah, don’t be scared Ethan. Is not that high,” Jimoh cajoled.
 

“It’s not the height of the cliff that bothers me, it’s the risk of crocodiles, not to mention this pool must be riddled with bilharzia.”

“Ah, no Ethan,” Jimoh told him, pointing downstream. “Those crocs, they won’t bite, and we don’t pee in this pool.”

“You mean there really are crocodiles nearby? Shouldn’t we get everyone out of the water?” Ethan was almost as shocked to have his crocodile suspicions confirmed as he was to discover that the kid knew that bilharzia was spread by urine.

“I tell you what,” Jimoh said, over his shoulder, “you let me play with laptop thing tonight and I tell you secret about crocs.” He sauntered off cheerfully in the direction of the path leading up to the jumping ledge, not seeming to care that part of his bum was showing through the seat of his raggedy shorts.
 

Ethan turned his attention back to Joe and Tariro. They were about to launch themselves off the ledge together when Ethan was overcome with a horrible feeling. He wondered if he was in the grip of a seizure or something because the air around him seemed to warp in slow motion and then ripple outwards from the pool in concentric circles, followed moments later by a sonic boom. He clutched his head between his hands, covering his ears, and screwed his eyes shut. When he opened them again he was just in time to see Tariro and Joe fall towards the water in slow motion. It looked as if Joe was being attacked by a leopard. And for some reason he had turned into an old black woman.