The sun has baked the pan without rain for almost as many seasons as I have breathed.  I look back over the shoulder of my memory and cannot recall a time without the cracked and splintered earth beneath my feet.  Today has been little different than the caravan of all the other days that preceded it.  The day has been little different except we have fallen upon a tree.  Much as the ravenous hyena falls upon the dead and dying on the plain to replenish its own life, we rush the tree, circling in until all eight hands lay hold and stroke the trunk.

We have been on trek the last four days, carrying our own water in ostrich shells, eating the last of Mother’s dried meat and yams with termite paste.  The tree had loomed at us unexpectedly from within a shallow depression in the blank horizon.  The shimmer of heat waves has given way to the off green of leaves.

Its massive, vibrant branches, spackled with the shifting glints and winks and shadows caused by the setting sun, spread outward from the bole of the trunk.  The trunk thrusts up from deep within the largest crevice of the cracked and splitting pan.  It seems to stab into the moving lungs of the tree at an angle, like the final spear thrust of a good hunter.  The trunk is bent by the prevailing winds which always prowl at dusk and the leaves, green as termite larva, explode in the cloudless sky, now tinted blue, changing from the piercing glare of ivoried white from earlier in the day.

No words are exchanged between us.  Mother and Grandmother know this is where we will stop and stay, perhaps for many days, even without Grandfather giving his decision.  Even I know this is a place of water.  With water there is game.  And with game there will be the continuation of life for perhaps another season, or until the rains come back and slack the thirst of the earth itself; until the rains come back and slack the thirst of Grandmother’s hard life.  Grandmother is old and ill and the daily trek across the land has been particularly hard on her.  The tree is a signal that maybe not all of the land has given up or been given back to the sun.  Some of the land is still reserved for the life of the Kikuyus, for Grandfather, for Mother and me, and maybe for Grandmother too.

By nightfall Grandfather and I have built a hut of dead sticks and animal dung taken from beneath the tree.  Grandmother is too weak and mother is too large with child and so we bent the tradition of our people and we build the hut while mother starts the cooking fire and roasts yams.  Grandfather and I eat first and in silence.  Then Mother eats.  Grandmother falls deeply asleep as soon as she is comfortably assured that the hut is stout and mother has food cooking.  The night has turned bitterly cold, even though the eyes of the sky are not yet fully opened, when Grandfather decides to speak.

“It is said by some of the people that old Kikuyu women turn into hyenas at night.  They do this at the height of the full moon.  They roam the pan in packs.  They nose up the leftovers of the day and scold the moon as it rises.”

“Really, Grandfather?”  I ask, not knowing if this is really true or whether it is another of Grandfather’s great tales.

Mother has her own opinion.  “Quit filling the boy’s head with that same nonsense old man, you who can’t even hunt anymore!”  All this is punctuated without a smile.  It has been almost enough moons for the child to be born and both Grandfather and I know she is tired.

When he had started this lesson last time, last month, Grandmother had been even more angered than Mother is now.  Grandmother had scoffed and stomped away, her bare feet shuffling quickly across the hard-packed dirt of the hut and out the door.  That last time I had followed Grandmother.  I still have a clear vision of her raising puffy red clouds of fine dust as she stomped her way along the path in the village and over to her son’s hut.  The clouds had swirled into miniature dust devils by her rough passage.  But this time is different.  This time Grandmother doesn’t leave, but Mother.  This time I stay in the darkening hut with Grandfather.

He watches mother go again as he has each time she or Grandmother has left him in anger.  He says nothing.  He doesn’t smile or wink at me or purse his lips to blow and push her on her way faster as the old men sometimes do.  Even I can tell he has not begun the story with the purpose of sending his daughter-in-law on her way.  He seems more serious, more intense this time.  He seems about to speak again now that she has gone and I bend closer to hear him better.  I continue to fan him lightly with his ostrich feather.  Grandfather speaks slowly and quietly when he takes up his lesson again.

“What is a hyena, young one?”

“What do you mean, Grandfather?”

“I ask, ‘What is a hyena, young one?’”

I know he wants something more than just a description.  I feel that almost any answer I provide will be insufficient.  I hesitate, trying to wait out his meaning.

“Well young one?”

“Grandfather, a hyena is a scavenger.  It eats the leftovers of others.  It is too cowardly to hunt alone like the lioness or the leopard.  It travels in packs.  It’s smelly.  It looks funny.  It’s . . . it’s a . . . um, I guess that’s about it.”  All this I tell him as I have heard others tell me.  It is made of bits and pieces, scraps of conversations overheard.

“Well, not bad, but think for yourself.  Why is the hyena a tribe animal?  Why does it howl at the rising full moon?  What makes its yellow eyes shine like the embers of a cooking fire?  You have left out much.”

“Yes Grandfather.”

“Take your time young one.  Think.  The night is still early and the full moon and the hyenas are not yet out.”  Grandfather steals a quick look at grandmother, curled into a ball on the far side of the hut.

I puzzle on Grandfather’s questions for a long time.  He sits on his haunches with his eyes now closed, but I know he is not asleep.  Just as I am about to speak, he opens his eyes and is staring directly at me.

I take up my answer again.  “The hyena always stays with the pack.  It does not go off on its own.  The hyenas are smart and post lookouts.  They take food to the young cubs after the strong have eaten.”  Grandfather keeps nodding without interrupting.  He doesn’t correct me, so I gather strength as I speak.  “The hyenas yip to announce themselves when they enter the group.  They laugh and talk to one another in the pack and when they eat.  They only howl at the bright full moon, at its yellow presence hanging in the sky, when all the eyes of the dead are open.”

“Good, young one.  You have learned much since your father went hunting to the east.”

For a moment I am caught thinking backwards, then I ask, “Will . . . will he come back now Grandfather?  Can he find us since we left the village?”

“The village is dead.  Forget about the village.”  This is not said harshly, but merely as simple fact.  Grandfather continues, “He was always a good tracker.  He could find us, if . . .” The words hang in the air and Grandfather does not bother to finish.  He does not need to finish.  I know that other hunters have left the village on long treks before, not to return.  It is something our people have learned to accept.  Not everyone returns.

“Finish the lesson young one.  What makes the hyena’s yellow eyes shine like the embers of a cooking fire?”

I think for a moment and guess, “Perhaps there is a flame that burns inside its head.  Or maybe it is a reflection from the moon.”

“Good.  Closer,” says Grandfather quietly.  “Keep trying.”

With a growing awareness, I realize it must have something to do with the eyes of all the dead.  Even on nights when the moon is not full, on nights when the hyena does not howl at the moon but is content to yip at its fellows and chuckle; even on those nights the eyes of the hyena glow with gold intensity.  I hazard an idea with Grandfather, “Perhaps it is because he shares a secret with the dead in the sky who look down at night.”

Grandfather opens his eyes.  He looks at me and then at the far side of the hut.  He then looks back at me, locking his eyes with mine and nods his head.  “You are truly the son of a wise hunter and the son of the son of a once great warrior.  You have struggled out an important truth.”

I cannot help the small smile that creeps to my lips.  I sit up straighter.  I am not yet a wise hunter, but I am the son of one.  I am not yet a great warrior, but I am the grandson of one.

After a pause and another glance into the far darkness of the hut, Grandfather speaks again, “Go outside young one.  Send your mother to me.  Then look up to the vault above.  Look for the eyes of your father’s mother, for she has joined the others who trek the sky at night rather than the world by day.”

I do as Grandfather bids me.  I find Mother on the far side of the tree and tell her of Grandfather’s request.  She goes quietly, without a word to me.  There are times the Kikuyu do not need words for understanding.  There are times our eyes alone speak.  I do as Grandfather bids me.

I look up into the great darkness that is unknown but is peopled with all our ancestors.  The moon is rising above the flat horizon to the east.  The hyenas are beginning to howl.  Perhaps another old Kikuyu woman is joining them.  Perhaps they are sending grandmother on her way.  Perhaps she will see her son again.

I turn in the opposite direction, to where the sun went to rest.  Many eyes are covered by the gathering clouds.  Perhaps it will rain tomorrow.  Perhaps Mother’s child will come with the changing season.  The hyenas continue to howl at the full moon and laugh among themselves.  I return to the hut to help and to share this lesson with Grandfather.