were avoiding that area on all our hunting trips during all these years in Dostatok? So those original paths didn't define a sharp, clear border the way that I'm defining it now. And our paths didn't turn all that sharply... we just lost track of our prey, or for some other reason turned gradually away. So the forcethe barrier uses must increase with my firm intention to cross it. And if I somehow were able just to wander through here, the barrier's strength might be much weaker.
Yet how can I casually and accidentally wander where I know full well that I must go?
With that thought, his plan came to him full-blown; yet he also hardly dared to think it clearly, lest it trigger the barrier and fail before he tried it. Instead, he began to focus on a whole new intention. He must hunt now, and bring prey to feed the children. He himself was certainly hungry, and if he was hungry then the young ones must be famished. Only the young ones he thought of feeding were the young baboons. He remembered the baboons of the Valley of Mebbekew and felt himself responsible for bringing them meat - as Yobar had scavenged food, to please the females and strengthen the young.
So he set out in any direction that morning, not particularly orienting himself toward Vusadka, and searched until he found the pellets of a hare. Then he stalked his prey until, within the hour, he was able to put an arrow through it.
It wasn't dead, of course - arrows rarely killed immediately, and he usually finished the animal off with his knife. But this time he left it alive, terrified and whimpering; he drew the arrow from its haunch and carried it by the ears. The sounds it made were exactly what he needed - the baboons would be much more interested in a living but injured animal. He had to find the baboons.
It wasn't hard - baboons fear few animals, and defend themselves from those by being alert and giving good warning to each other. So they made no effort to be quiet. Nafai found them foraging in a long valley that stretched from west to east, with a stream flowing down the middle. They looked up when they saw him. There was no panic - he was still a safe distance away - and they looked at the hare with great curiosity.
Nafai moved closer. Now they became alert - the males stood on their foreknuckles and complained a little about his approach. And Nafai felt a great reluctance to come nearer to them.
But I must come nearer, to give them meat.
So he took a few more steps toward them, holding the hare out in front of him. He wasn't sure how they'd take this offering, of course. They might take it as proof that he was a killer, or perhaps as a suggestion that he already had his prey and so they were safe. But some of them had to be thinking of the hare as meat that they could eat. Baboons weren't the world's best hunters, but they loved meat, and this bleating hare had to look like a good meal to them.
He approached slowly, feeling more reluctance with every step. Yet he also saw that more and more of them - especially the juvenile males - were looking from him to the hare. He helped them think more of the meat by averting his own gaze whenever they looked at him - he knew it would only challenge and frighten them if he made eye contact.
They backed away from him, but not far. As he had expected, their natural tendency was to retreat toward their sleeping cliffs. He followed them. He kept thinking. This is not a good idea. They don't need this meat. But he shouted down the thoughts, trying to focus on one thing: These mothers need the protein, their babies need to have it from their milk. I've got to get this meat to them.
You can't, this is stupid, you should drop the hare and then retreat.
But if I do, then the hare will go to the strongest males and not to the females at all. Somehow I've got to get this nearer to them, so it can benefit the young ones. That's my job, as the hunter for this tribe, to bring them food. I've got to feed them. I can't let anything stop me from reaching them.