Eager To See a Poacher
When I started guarding Najin and Fatu I was twenty-two years young.
I am now sixty-two, and I am worried about my reflexes.
Poachers have never stopped coming.
They are the only predators of the white rhino.
How much longer can they live? My partner Abdul asks me.
Some white rhinos live to be fifty years old, I tell him.
Will you still be guarding them when you are seventy-two?
I do not see why not, I reply. If I have my health.
He is a young buck, and I can see this reply amuses him.
We have had no troubles yet. This is only his second day.
When he has been standing all day in the grassland for forty years
Maybe he will be a little less eager to see a poacher.
Right now, he is waiting, and hoping.
Najin and I meet eyes.
Najin smiles.
Knowing what I am thinking.
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