Man Tiger Read Free Page B

the dog cage behind the house.
    He soon forgot about the rusty sword, and saw no hint of the disaster to come. Perhaps age had made him complacent. Now he felt slightly sorry for having confiscated the useless sword. Had the shabby weapon remained with Margio, Anwar Sadat might still be alive. No matter how many times it struck him, he would have suffered no worse than bruises and broken bones. Now the Major shivered, imagining how the boy embraced Anwar Sadat as his jaws bit down on his neck.
    That afternoon he had told the boys to take a break and chase women, if they had to, and make sure they had someone to have fun with that weekend. The next day he would take them boar hunting as usual. During the hunting season, they were good enough to stay sober on Saturday nights, otherwise they wouldn’t be invited or even worse they’d end up impaled on a boar’s tusks. They would go to the shore in troops, dragging wild women along, or greeting respectable ladies with bags of oranges and shy smiles. They would go home before ten o’clock, all sweet and obedient in the name of boars, and stay fast sleep until the call to prayer woke them at dawn. Darned kid, Major Sadrah cursed as he thought of Margio, for instead of resting and preparing himself for the coming boar hunt, he had gone to the house of the bristly, porcine Anwar Sadat and killed him.
    Boar hunting had become their pastime many years ago, back when Sadrah was still the town’s military commander. Anwar Sadat himself had always been highly enthusiastic every time the harvest season ended, when people were no longer bound to the soil, which was left fallow temporarily. Although he had never raised a spear or run up and down the hills, he always provided boxed meals of rice and fried egg and a truck to take the hunters to the jungle’s edge. Three times a year they enjoyed this sport, going on the season’s non-stormy Sundays. Between hunts they would tame ajaks and train them to course their prey.
    Among the troop of hunters that until recently had been under Sadrah’s leadership, Margio was the champ. On his back he wore a scar from a slashing boar’s tusk, and all his friends knew how many hogs had surrendered to the swings of his spear, before being dragged to the trap and shut up alive. They had no interest in a dead hog. Even when confronted by a raging boar, they would balk from killing it. They would wound it, just a little, before forcing it into to the trap. They didn’t want the hogs to die, because they would later throw them into battle with the ajaks, in a public spectacle at the end of the hunting season. During these strategic hunts for these stupid beasts, Margio became known as the herder, with his powerful strides and ruthless spear. Not many had the courage to take up that role, running alongside the boar, matching its pace. It was a feat that earned Margio the admiration of his companions.
    A few weeks earlier, Sadrah had been dismayed to learn that Margio had disappeared. Gone and nobody knew where. Some of his friends went looking for him on the shore, where he had often disappeared to pull up nets or hunt for stingrays with the fishermen, but no one there had seen him. For the two previous weeks, a circus had encamped by the soccer field, and everyone finally concluded that Margio most likely had joined the performers, moving from town to town. The idea sent Sadrah, who was ready with the vicious ajaks to welcome the boar-hunting season, into panic. As herder, Margio was irreplaceable. The first hunt the previous week had ended in disappointment. They had trapped only two boars and mostly because of the ajaks’ agility. On that same day they heard that Margio’s father had died.
    His name was Komar bin Syueb, and his death brought his missing son home. No one was happier on his return than Sadrah, who had been heartbroken by failure of the hunt. But Sadrah dared not invite him to return to the jungle