The Prodigal Poacher

A short tale of hatred, vengeance, and redemption in the Ugandan savanna following amateur poacher Alejandro and the target of his burning resentment—the cape buffalo that killed his father.

Alejandro wiped away the waterfall of sweat on his forehead as he crouched within a patch of yellowish tallgrass, his trembling, clammy hands clenching a bolt-action rifle. His wide-brimmed pith hat did little to fight off the fierce Ugandan sun. His ears picked up every sound around him: the songs of birds, the hum of insects, the faint rustle of grass, the rush of the river to his left, and the sips from that river by the massive Black Devil before him. Alejandro forced his eyes onto the beast, which bent over the grassy shore to quench its thirst, its short and stubby legs digging into the dirt. Its two pointed, curved white horns, fused together at the boss, juxtaposed its coarse Stygian hide and onyx soulless eyes. 140cm tall, 830kg. An absolute beast. An oxpecker fearlessly picked up miniature meals on its skin while it mightily gulped down the stream. Though the Black Death remained unaware, if Alejandro screwed up this vital .375 H&H Magnum shot, the creature would undoubtedly take off charging and gore him with those keratin horns within seconds. The natives called it the widowmaker for a reason. Many men before him had tried to take on the cape buffalo, only to never return, many men...including Father.

A mixture of rage, excitement, and anxiety coursed through Alejandro as he observed his target. Father had poached many beasts on his worldwide travels, fearlessly faced dozens of predators, stared them down, and turned them into prey. If Alejandro held his blood, he could surely do the same. It was what a man ought to do. God gave men dominion over animals; would not it be senseless to not wield that authority? The same with the bearing of arms. That was always what Father told him, what he raved while thundering his fists upon his son.

Alejandro moved his eyes to the rifle and sucked in a deep breath. The cold wooden texture sank into the nerves of his hands. Father's words echoed in his head, as well as a distinct memory. Alejandro had likely been twelve at the time, accompanying Father on a local hunting trip in the woods. Just becoming aware of the world, he had asked him what it meant to be a man. Without hesitation, Father brandished his firearm and immediately shot the doe they had been stalking. As the graceful creature fell, Father turned to him with a smirk as he twirled his weapon. "That, brat. That's what being a man is."

Alejandro tightened his grip around his rifle. Father's rifle. The only thing retrieved from the grisly site other than his gored, rotten corpse. Mother's phantom wails filled Alejandro with anger and courage. This brute had stolen things, so many things, from him�"above all, Father, and the chance to prove him wrong, to prove those accusations of failure wrong, to prove his strikes wrong, to prove his venom towards Mother wrong. He would do what Father could do; he would not miss. He could not miss. He had much more to fear than the buffalo's horns if he did. Everything sacrificed for this moment�"his career, his fiancée, Mother's sorrow, Father's death�"it would all be for naught if these three.375 H&H Magnum rounds did not slaughter the dark fiend. He had sold most of his things to afford this flight�"including his religious items, his saint statues, and his rosaries, for he had taken on a new religion now. A religion of death.

Alejandro inhaled deeply, fixed his eyes on the cape buffalo, and exhaled with resolve. He gingerly lowered himself onto his stomach, brought the rifle up toward his face, peered through the scope. He ignored the jolt in his spine at seeing the monster up close. Information from the Internet pushed his aim toward the front shoulder, where beneath the sturdy bones lay a pulsating heart. All he had to do was get this bullet through the shoulder bone and into the heart. He tilted the rifle a little upward so that it hovered above the ox's shoulder. An unintended smile spread on his face. This dumb beast had no idea what was coming. Look at it, standing there, drinking water, unaware of impending doom. These smug thoughts oozed through his mind, the buffalo snapped up from the river and directed its beady black eyes at him.

Not directly at him. Toward his general direction. But the sight still hit Alejandro with the strength and speed of a bullet train. He flinched; his bladder screeched and threatened to release its contents. He would have tossed aside his rifle and run...if the bull's eyes did not remind him of Father's own. Those cold, menacing, smug pupils. Father's vulgar, cutting words reverberated in Alejandro's head, the memories of his burning fists and belt, his callous laughter, his booming shouts. Alejandro swallowed thickly, breathed in, blinked. He muttered a careless prayer for a successful kill, then adjusted the rifle, wrapped a firm finger around the trigger, breathed out...and pressed down.

The sound sprang out across the savanna, eliciting the frightened squawks of fleeing birds. His supine body shook with the rifle's recoil, and he watched as the bullet traveled simultaneously at the spectacular speed of light and at the agonizing amble of a turtle. His heart slammed against his throat, hoping against hope that the bullet would pierce the buffalo's hide, shatter through the shoulder bones, and implant instant death upon contact with the heart. He held his breath and watched.

The widowmaker barely had time to react before the caliber round sank into its flesh. It unleashed a thunderous shrieking bellow and thrashed upward, backing away from the river shore and throwing its head about. Before he could stop himself, Alejandro released an involuntary gasp. He clasped his hand around his mouth and dove against the ground, barely seeing the furious black frenzy charging toward the tallgrass. Wind blasted past his right side as the beast barreled through the concealment, a voluminous grunt erupting into his ear. A dreadful realization attacked his mind as he lay flat against the ground: he had hit, but he had not killed.

Alejandro acted first. He jumped onto his hind legs and propelled himself forward out of the tallgrass. Tripping, he rolled over the open plain, dashing his limbs against green-yellow blades, his skin stinging with the small lacerations. He settled onto his back and remained there for a moment to regain his bearings. He gazed up at the cloudless sky, and a fatal mist permeated his brain. This could be his final day.

Alejandro picked himself up and brushed off the debris on his sweatshirt and khakis. He then cast his gaze about the land, in desperate search for his weapon. The forage had so overtaken him that he did not notice the charging bull until he heard its roaring bellow. He looked up and briefly saw a blur of jagged white and instinctively covered his torso with his arms before entering free flight. A kaleidoscope of the world surrounded him as he soared through the air. A screech escaped his lips, both fueled by fear and the searing pain of the fresh gash on his right arm. He reached his ascent and then plummeted toward the earth. Scorching agony wracked his form upon landing onto his back; his spine shrieked with its near-shattering. He entered a brief paralysis, making him witless subject to the onslaught of tormentous waves that consumed his frame. He looked down at his stomach and sighed in relief. At least he had not been struck there. His entrails were safe, for now.

A gruff huff grabbed Alejandro's attention and allured his eyes toward the Black Death before him. It threw its head up and let out a victorious grunt before laying its eyes on him. Those midnight orbs...they seemed to mock him, to dare him to get up. Lying there, still as death, Alejandro pondered his next course of action. To stand up would be suicide! The buffalo would only tear him with its horns or knock him down again. Conversely, any sudden movement whilst prone would likely cause the bull to trample him into a pancake. Perhaps the best course of action would be to play dead and lower the animal's sense of threat toward him. This idea lingered in his head until, whilst flitting his eyes around, he saw the busted-up action bolt rifle lying a meter away to his right. With it, hope revived in him. He knew what he had to do, and he had to act fast.

So, he lay there for what felt like hours, willing the thing to lose interest. This was his plan: to play incapacitated and regain strength until the creature gave in to apathy and walked away, at which point he would run, grab his gun, and finish the job. The problem was the damned demon would not budge an inch! No, it just stood there, watching, waiting for the inevitable.

Eventually, Alejandro lost his patience. He could not rest here with a bleeding arm and an injured spine, especially not in this wild savanna where he could become easy prey to a lion or a hyena or any other monster. Thus, he gave in to foolish delusion. He breathed in, traced the path in his head, counted down from three, took action! He lunged toward the rifle, pushed himself onto all fours, and scuttled towards the weapon. He grasped it! He jerked upward with a smirk�"and howled as a horn stabbed into his shoulder and pulled him upward. The kaleidoscope returned, the earth upside down as Alejandro arced over the Black Devil, and he crashed onto his side. His sight blackened for a second and then turned the surrounding world into a blurry, incomprehensible mess. He could not withhold his groans and moans any longer, and they spurted forth from his mouth like the torrent of blood from the torn artery in his posterior shoulder.

Alejandro's life flashed before his eyes: his hometown, the fear of his first time wielding a gun, Father's fists and yells, the time Father screamed at him for refusing to shoot game, the tumultuous divorce, Father's funeral, his fiancée Catalina, her crestfallen face when he broke off their engagement, his burning ruminations during the flight to Uganda, the trade of his treasures�"earthly and spiritual�"for his vengeance, the initial sight of the buffalo, the dire shot...and a statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe, one from his mother Mónica's house. She had always been a strict and pious Catholic, to the point that she lived utterly selflessly. She followed every beatitude beyond excess. After the separation, she rejected even the consideration of finding a new partner. Alejandro, on the other hand, cared not for religion. His father's hand made him indifferent to any hope in the world. But a strange thought passed his mind as his vision recognized the black blur charging ever so rapidly. What would be the harm? He had lived a life full of hate; he should at least end it with some other emotion. And so, he uttered words, words deep from the soul, words he never knew he had the capability of saying:

"God...have mercy on me."

He then closed his eyes, rolled onto his back, and accepted his fate, awaiting the deathly hooves. But an earsplitting car rev and shouts in an African native tongue signaled otherwise. He gradually opened his eyes just in time to see the cape buffalo run off into the distance. Immense relief swallowed him, followed immediately by confusion. What had scared the great creature off? What awaited him now? The answer soon came into view over him in the form of a young, handsome Ugandan man with tender brown eyes. He donned a pristine white robe that gracefully hung from his thin frame. His lips pulled into a warm smile, flashing his pearly teeth. For an indescribable reason, the man's presence served as a stabilizing force to Alejandro's decaying reality. A gentle sensation enveloped Alejandro's hand, and as he faded away, he saw that the native man had taken his into his own. The man was saying something. Alejandro gazed into his eyes, his comforting chocolate pupils...and fell into the void.

Alejandro felt weightless, suspended in a vast ocean of warm air. Then he opened his eyes to a blindingly bright light, a light that completely surrounded him. The world about him, holding the sensation of a benevolent dream, seemed composed of iridescent illuminance. Peculiarly, he felt not his wounds suffered from the beatdown.

Alejandro slowly became aware of his surroundings. He rested supine in the back row of a moving open-roof Landcruiser vehicle, and by his side was the African man from before. He looked at that man in the immaculate garment, who imparted another smile upon him. The friendly fellow then began to speak. Being in that friend's tongue, the words sounded foreign to Alejandro's ears, but they somehow soothed his heart and mind. The man's voice was akin to a melodic lullaby, and his soft tone embraced the injured soul.

Then the African fellow's expression fell solemn. He spoke once more, and his words suddenly made sense, as if taking on a vocal transliteration! Alejandro only knew English, Spanish, and a touch of French, yet he could understand every syllable.

"Do you want to live?" the man asked.

Alejandro blinked as the inquiry bounced off his skull. "What?"

"Do you want to be saved, man?"

He did not entirely comprehend the reason for this question, but he felt compelled to answer, "Of course! Yes, I want to live!"

"Then do you regret?"

Alejandro began to ask what he meant, when it dawned on him. He did not know how, but he understood that the man referred to the buffalo poaching incident. Regret? What was there to regret, exactly? Failing to instantly kill the beast? Not running away? Or, perhaps...trying to slaughter the buffalo? This latter concept settled heavily in his heart. For what reason had he sought to murder this creature? Revenge? Vengeance? ...Approval? But approval from whom? Father? Father had long passed. Yes. Father was dead.

Alejandro found himself obtaining a profound realization. He had attempted to rob a creature of its life and subjected himself to a potential gruesome death for rather vapid motives. His father's life demanded no such recompense. Alejandro trembled with the gravity of his past actions.

"Y-yes...I do...I regret..." He breathed out as he stared up at the setting sky. A gorgeous array of purple and orange painted the heavens, and, for the first time in a while, Alejandro admired the sight, and he smiled, genuinely smiled. In his peripheral vision, he saw the man smile as well.

"Repent, then, man," the villager urged with a toothy grin. "Repent, and live."

"I will..." Alejandro swore. "I will."

And he faded away once more.

Later that evening, the vehicle arrived at a hospital, and Alejandro was admitted. In what the nurse professed to be a miracle, he survived. After a few months of physical therapy, he recuperated and regained the ability to walk; as soon as his legs could function once more, he boarded a plane back to his family home in California, intent on repenting as his savior had encouraged him.

He visited his mother�"who was now in hospice�"and rekindled his familial connection with her, caring for her and never leaving her alone even through a difficult battle with Alzheimer's disease. He attended therapy and Mass regularly and gradually recovered from the trauma of his past; Father no longer dominated his life. He found himself made anew. Finally, he sought out his beloved Catalina and expressed his deep remorse for abandoning her in pursuit of his vain revenge. He resolved to win back her good graces and�"with luck�"her heart. A year later, she rewarded his months of heartfelt efforts by giving him her hand in holy matrimony. Mother Mónica would die a grandmother, the sight of her grandchild engraved in her deteriorating mind.

For their tenth anniversary, Alejandro and his wife, Catalina, organized a family vacation to Uganda. While on a safari, he noticed a similar environment to the left. Soft recollection tickled his mind until he saw that riverside plain, upon which his memory exploded. Expediting the process, drinking from that same spot, was a majestic herd of cape buffaloes. Their sable hides and pearly horns appeared to sparkle under that gorgeous Ugandan sun, their strapping, bulky forms a pleasant contrast to the amber hues of the African savanna. Some hornless calves playfully head-butted each other along the shoreline while an adult observed their antics. The visage painted a warm smile on Alejandro's countenance as the beauty of nature struck him.

A soft voice whispered in his mind ever so gently: "Behold, my creation."

Alejandro beheld, indeed.

One of the male cape buffaloes glanced up and met his eyes; the faint scar of a bullet wound was etched right above its front shoulder. Alejandro locked with the animal's onyx pupils as the vehicle crawled past...and he nodded. He could have sworn the buffalo nodded back.

Author's Note

My first "published" story. Please provide feedback on the story structure and pacing, as well as Alejandro's character arc. Please also provide feedback on the presentation of Alejandro's past, particularly his feelings about his father.