Rite of Passage

One of them was David Farmer, who was almost as much of a goof as Riggy Allen. He posed picturesquely at the top of the red rock face and, I have no doubt, was about to yell to be looked at, and then he lost his footing. One of his legs doubled beneath him and he went skidding down the face of the rock and landed heavily on the flanks of the startled tiger. It sprang forward and went charging right over the one cringing dog.

The tiger snarled and charged at the circle of people. Unfortunately, he picked me to charge at. Without thinking, I heaved the rock in my hand and whether I threw it properly or not, it rapped him in the muzzle. That was the signal that set off the barrage of rocks, and the poor bewildered tiger spun away again back toward the rock face. Those above threw rocks down at him.

The circle started closing on him, nobody quite daring to dash in and face him alone, but gathering courage from those who moved in beside them. Then working almost like the dogs, Jimmy waved his knife in the tiger’s face and it snarled and slapped at it. And then, with the tiger’s attention held, Att, whom I’d never have expected to do it, jumped on the tiger’s back and slid his knife between its ribs.

The tiger hunched its shoulders and threw Att off, making a wounded cry. Then it was swarmed under by all of us knife-wielding, screaming kids. In just a few seconds it was dead. When we drew away, it lay there in a hot, limp pile, its purple streaked with streams of blood.

David Farmer came out with a badly broken leg. Bill Nieman had a clawed and broken shoulder, the tiger having struck him almost as it died. I had one tiny scratch and a moderately-serious knife gash, not from my own knife.

They were right, too. It gives you a feeling of power to know that you can kill something as alive, as beautiful and as dangerous as a tiger. But the feeling of power can come from pushing a button at the range of five hundred yards. We killed the tiger on his own terms. We chased him on foot, we caught him, and we killed him. That makes you feel able.

You also learn about yourself. You learn about the sight of a claw a foot from your face. You learn abput blood. And you learn that a tiger hunt can give you a sore throat.

For whatever positive effects on our minds that the tiger hunt held, nonetheless it cannot be denied that the month of November was a time of growing uneasiness and tension. I was not at my most cheerful. Though my mind told me, as it had for months, that Trial would be the simplest sort of waltz, my viscera refused to be convinced. I tried to act decently to people, but by the end of the month I could hardly bring myself to talk to anybody at all, let alone nicely, and I was sleeping badly. I woke myself screaming one night, something I hadn’t done in years.

The worst thing about it was waiting. If I had had a choice, by the middle of November I would have elected to go then, rather than later, simply to have it begun. Instead, I just got more and more edgy.

I even managed to get on bad terms with Jimmy, and that wasn’t easy, partly because Jimmy is very goodnatured, partly because we were close. Though you are dropped separately, one at a time, after landing you can join forces. I had been intending to go partners with Jimmy, and I’m sure he had the same thought in mind, but our quarrel ended that.

It started with an intransigent remark by me about the Mudeaters. I said what I thought, but I may have overstated my ideas for the sake of emphasis. In any case, Mr. Mbele was moved to comment.

“I thought you’d gotten over that, Mia,” he said. “This is a point that’s important to me. I don’t like this oversimple categorizing. Some of my ancestors were persecuted during one period and held to be inferior simply because their skins were dark.”

That was plain silly, because my skin happens to be darker than Mr. Mbele’s and I don’t feel inferior to anybody.

“But that’s not an essential difference,” I said. “This is. They just aren’t as good as we are.”

On the way home, Jimmy tried to argue with me. “Do you remember those ethics papers we did last winter?”

“Yes.”

“It seemed to me that you approved of Kant’s proposition that we should treat all humans as both ends and means.”

“I didn’t attack it.”

“Well, then, how can you talk this way about the Colons?”

I said, “Well, really, what makes you think that the Mudeaters are people?”

“Oh, you sound just like your father,” Jimmy said.

That’s where the fight started. Jimmy never physically fights anybody, at least he hasn’t since I’ve known him, and I hadn’t been in a swinging fight with anybody in more than a year, but we came very close to it then. We ended by going separate ways and not speaking to each other. And I gave Jimmy back his “between mountains” pin. That was Friday night, the night before my birthday.

Jimmy didn’t show up on my birthday. That day, when I turned fourteen, was completely flat. So was Sunday. On Monday, we left for Trial.