Free Roots by Alex Haley

moments of solitude, for they gave him the chance to stalk some great beast by himself. It was no ordinary antelope, leopard, or even lion that he sought in his daydreaming; it was that most feared and dangerous of all beasts—a maddened buffalo.
    The one he tracked had spread so much terror throughout the land that many hunters had been sent to kill the savage animal, but they had managed only to wound it, and one after another, it had gored them with its wicked horns. Even more bloodthirsty than before with its painful wound, the buffalo had then charged and killed several farmers from Juffure who had been working on their fields outside the village. The famed simbon Kunta Kinte had been deep in the forest, smoking out a bee’s nest to sustain his energy with rich honey, when he heard the distant drumtalk begging him to save the people of the village of his birth. He could not refuse.
    Not even a blade of the dry grass crackled under his feet, so silently did he stalk for signs of the buffalo’s trail, using the sixth sense that told master simbons which way animals would travel. And soon he found the tracks he sought; they were larger than any he had ever seen. Now trotting silently, he drew deeply into his nostrils the foul smell that led him to giant, fresh buffalo dung. And maneuvering now with all the craft and skill at his command, simbon Kinte finally spotted the huge bulk of the beast himself—it would have been concealed from ordinary eyes—hiding in the dense, high grass.
    Straining back his bow, Kinte took careful aim—and sent the arrow thudding home. The buffalo was badly wounded now, but more dangerous than ever. Springing suddenly from side to side, Kinte evaded the beast’s desperate, stricken charge and braced himself as it wheeled to charge again. He fired his second arrow
only when he had to leap aside at the last instant—and the huge buffalo crashed down dead.
    Kinte’s piercing whistle brought from hiding, awed and trembling, those previous hunters who had failed where he had gloriously succeeded. He ordered them to remove the huge hide and horns and to summon still more men to help drag the carcass all the way back to Juffure. The joyously shouting people had laid down a pathway of hides within the village gate so that Kinte would not get dust upon his feet. “Simbon Kinte!” the talking drum beat out. “Simbon Kinte!” the children shouted, waving leafy branches above their heads. Everyone was pushing and shoving and trying to touch the mighty hunter so that some of his prowess might rub off on them. Small boys danced around the huge carcass, reenacting the kill with wild cries and long sticks.
    And now, walking toward him from amid the crowd, came the strongest, most graceful, and most beautifully black of all the maidens in Juffure—indeed, in all of The Gambia—and kneeling before him, she offered a calabash of cool water; but Kinte, not thirsty, merely wet his fingers, to favor her, whereupon she drank that water with happy tears, thus showing to everyone the fullness of her love.
    The clamoring crowd was spreading—making way for aged, wrinkled, gray-headed Omoro and Binta, who came tottering against their canes. The simbon permitted his old mother to embrace him while Omoro looked on, eyes filled with pride. And the people of Juffure chanted “Kinte! Kinte!” Even the dogs were barking their acclaim.
    Was that his own wuolo dog barking? “Kinte! Kinte!” Was that Sitafa yelling frantically? Kunta snapped out of it just in time to see his forgotten goats bounding toward someone’s farm. Sitafa and his other mates and their dogs helped to herd them up again before any damage was done, but Kunta was so ashamed that a whole moon went by before he drifted off into any more such daydreams.

CHAPTER 14
    A s hot as the sun already was, the five long moons of the dry A season had only begun. The heat devils shimmered, making objects larger in the distance, and the people sweated in