On the northern edges of the swamp, in this warm autumn, there were crowds of Kimeti. With singing and celebration they ate at the fruit trees, juice staining dark the chins of bucks and does and fillies and colts alike.
The younger ones played together: a rare shared childhood for the generally-solitary Kimeti. Their games were simple: tag and mock battles, hide and seek and games of pretend.
Bitterleaf played alone. Shaking her funny tuft of hair from her eyes, the filly engaged in strange solitary games, away from the others, daydreaming. Walking with the slow, contemplative gait of one much older than herself, she would peer at or past her reflection in shaded pools, lost in her secret thoughts. Restless.
When night gathered close on the evening we speak of, Bitterleaf found herself near a circle of old, white-chinned, bleary-eyed Kimeti, telling tales. She drew nearer to listen, and heard a tale of Tatterhide.
There was a black buck. There was a red doe. And there was their child, scarlet-skinned Tatterhide.
When Tatterhide was a filly, her father Black Dog took her about on his adventures, to teach her what he knew. This is one of their adventures, as it makes it down to us--and my grandfather told me that stories change, but are no less true.
It so happened that a great and mighty crocodile was terrorizing a tribe that had settled in a pretty mangrove forest near the eastern edge of the swamp. Each night that crocodile would come up between the roots--snap! Snap! Gone! Two or three foals or a big strong buck at a bite, and then back into the night.
Now maybe the wise thing to do would have been to move elsewhere, and let that crocodile have that mangrove forest if he wanted. But that tribe was a proud lot, and loved their home, and in any case perhaps the crocodile would only have followed them like a cat on the hunt. So they sent a runner, the swiftest they had, to go find Black Dog, who came with his daughter to vanquish that crocodile.
Well, Black Dog was greeted like a hero, you can imagine. They held a great feast up on the largest roots, and he was serenaded by the sweet voices of their loveliest does, and given the ripest fruits and juiciest fish they could procure. All the while he boasted his strong songs of valor and chanted of how he would defeat the crocodile:
with blood and bones in the water
with teeth broken on his mighty hide
... or so the song comes down to us. But he lost track of Tatterhide, little Tatterhide, and forgot to seek her out, and so she slipped away from the noise and wandered down into the roots.
She came back the next morning, muddy, tired, but smiling.
Well, for days that crocodile did not dare show its head. The tribe kept on feasting Black Dog, who grew increasingly cocky, until he suggested it was out of fear of him that the beast did not snap up one of the tender new foals. But then he grew irritated, as time went on, that he did not do battle--and also because the patience of the tribe wore thin. After all, they were each night offering up the finest tale-tellers and the finest foods, and had received, as far as they could tell, nothing in return. What would happen when Black Dog left? Surely the crocodile would come back, and they could not feast the buck forever.
Finally one day the leader of the tribe, an old doe--older even than me--came to Black Dog, and said: "Black Dog, you must find the crocodile. Even though he does not attack, we cannot sleep easy. If the crocodile is so afraid as to not come to you, surely you must go to him."
And so Black Dog and Tatterhide went out into the swamp to hunt, Black Dog already composing his victory songs.
But soon they came to a sight! A great dead crocodile, as long as three Kimeti, belly up and bloating in a shallow pool where the birds pecked at its skin. Surely this was the same deadly beast that had tormented the tribe. But how had it died? Its skull was crushed in and its teeth broken.
"Someone has beaten me to the kill!" cried Black Dog in fury. "Why, who could vanquish this beast and say nothing of it?"
"It was I," said Tatterhide, quiet, stoic Tatterhide. "I found him the night we came, and beat his skull in with my hooves,
with blood and bones in the water
with teeth broken on my mighty hide
--I killed the crocodile."
Black Dog was astonished, as you might imagine. He stamped his hoof. "And why did you not tell me--why did you not tell us of your victory? You could be a mighty hero to that tribe."
"You were enjoying yourself, Father," said mischievous Tatterhide. "And I have no desire to be a hero. I broke the crocodile's head with my hooves and that satisfaction was enough. The feasting and the songs--those are more, I think, for your type than for mine, Father." And Black Dog, feeling foolish for his boasting, was nonetheless pleased with his daughter, and vowed that one day she would surpass him for fame, which she cared nothing of.
They returned to the tribe and Black Dog sang the song of his daughter's triumph, telling them long tales of the crocodile's blood staining the water, and the tribe was impressed by both the filly's valor and by her modesty. She had praise heaped on her long into the night, but she cared for none of it, and when the night drew to a close and the feasting had stopped, she turned to her father expectantly, to ask him when they would adventure again.
The old Kimeti drew to a close with a smile, and there were murmurs of approval from the listening audience. This was no star-touched song-singer, blessed with a golden tongue to tell great tales, but it was an enjoyable story, and as the crowd dispersed, Bitterleaf wandered up to the teller, tossing her mane from her eyes.
"I want to be like Tatterhide," she announced. "Not famous. I want to do great things, and if they are forgotten by all but those who learn from me, and even from then, I don't care. I will do great things. I will take Kimeti to conquer places they have never been, or I will conquer them myself, and die there alone."
The old one laughed, and said nothing, but rose on creaking limbs to leave Bitterleaf to her strange and solitary games.
And Bitterleaf pretended she was Tatterhide, her hooves beating one--two--three in the shallows, on an invisible crocodile's head, for no one's recognition but her own.