You know, the very first germ of a seed of an idea for this adventure story occurred to me when I was in the 8th grade at Glencoe Elementary School[1] in Portland, Oregon.

Here is Chapter 1 of Bentari. I hope you like it!

The Calm

Belgian Congo, north of Mbara Territory—April, 1943

Sometimes the calm occurs as the sun first breaks across the eastern sky. Some days it happens after an hour or so when the sun’s heat begins to scald the jungle air. The calm settles like coincidence and, for that still moment, all the birds and morning talkers hush together. The rising heat and humid air melt into an intoxicating perfume. Movements of the briefly silent fauna become majestic and graceful in the calm. The forest and its children paint the timeless and mystifying tableaux.

In April of 1943, a child of the forest witnessed such calm. Miles away from the village huts where he lived, the boy played and hunted and pretended that he just might find his father who had been gone for days on a real hunt. He was perpetually happy, this copper youth with long black curls, and, though large for his age, he was very young—too young, one must imagine, to be alone so far from home. Yet his parents did not worry. They were skilled in all manner of woodcraft, and they had trained their son mightily. The boy was quick and agile of limb as well as wit so that his parents came to accept his frequent dawn excursions.

This time the boy had wandered far. The northern veldt was still many miles ahead of him, but here and there small grassy plains began to intrude upon the dense layered canopies of the forest. He knew of this one small savanna that held peculiar secrets. He also knew that his father had come this direction to make his hunt. The boy held no real hope of finding him, for his father had been hunting for many days. Yet the lure of the strange playground, his father’s potential nearness, and the clarion call of early morning adventure had all conspired to draw the boy to this clearing on this calm day.

Many were the grazers who foraged at this plain. Few but deadly dangerous were the hunters who stalked them. Scavengers waited on the wing or in the shade to mop up after the drama of a quest for supper had been settled. Depending on time of day and on the season, one might find herds of wildebeest, zebras, springboks, or gazelles, and many smaller herbivores. Stately giraffes roamed frequently along the meadow’s border trimming yellow acacia blossoms for their roughage. Secretary birds strutted through the stargrass. Scarlet chested sunbirds perched nearby. Slow moving wings swept gliding storks and eagles and augur buzzards through the warming sky.

(Continued below)

[1] For a wonderful history of a great neighborhood school, see: http://www.pps.k12.or.us/schools/glencoe/206.htm