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THE WORCESTER REVIEW: "Two Men and a Gun" by Frank Scozzari

Frank Scozzari — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:54:06 -0400

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

From Volume 35: A story by Frank Scozzari
Frank Scozzari

Two Men and a Gun

It’s hard to say exactly how I ended up in this dreadful situation, although I could easily put all the blame on the Thomas-Cook train schedule. If they had made their timetables a little easier to read, and their columns more evenly aligned, I may have never ended up on this midnight train to Athens. Yet there I was, sandwiched in among all the dissolute of Southern Europe in a third-class train compartment, trying to figure out how I was going to get some sleep.
It was bench seating only, benches that faced one another with such little space between them that one had to sit straddling the knees of the person opposite you. There were smells of human body odor and of middle-eastern cooking, zeera and black cumin, the mixture of which was not a pleasant thing. I couldn’t imagine someone cooking in such confined quarters. I looked around but couldn’t make out where the smell was coming from.
Across from me was a sinister-looking character, a man in his mid-thirties with narrow eyes and high cheekbones. I assumed he was from North Africa, although one could never really be sure about this kind of thing when traveling along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. He had dark skin and an angular face and he was carrying a canvas satchel with Nubian markings. He was a man of mixed races, and a man who could not be trusted, that much I knew. Call it experience or traveler’s intuition, after logging many miles through third-world countries one acquires an instinct for this kind of thing. I had encountered this type before; trouble, not in size, but in opportunist nature. In his eyes I saw the furtiveness and cleverness of an accomplished thief. He was filthy and unshaven. His clothes were soiled. Among the many odors in the train compartment one was particularly strong, and undoubtedly it came from him.
And in the instant I was thinking this, I caught his dark eyes studying my carry-bag. The satchel, which I kept on my lap, had a shoulder strap securely over my neck. In it were my most valued items: my passport and credit cards, what few euros I had left, and some souvenirs I picked up along the way. His eyes went from the bag to the attachment latch, and followed up the strap to where it disappeared around my shoulder. When he realized I was watching him, he quickly turned his eyes away. He had a satchel, too, and when he saw me looking at it, he pulled it closely to his side.
I brought my hand thoughtfully up to my chin. It was only then that I realized I was likewise filthy and unshaven. Perhaps I was the one who smelled of body odor? I discreetly took a sniff of my underarm, but could not tell if the odor was coming from me or not.
It had been nearly three days since I had taken a bath. Having crossed by ferry from Brindisi the night before, arriving in Corfu in the early morning hours, there was no time to shower or shave. By the time I reached Patras, sleepless and exhausted, I was desperate to find a sink or washbasin. But the train station had only the old, European-style bathrooms with a launching platform, no running water, and a bucket for a flush.
It was an uncomfortable arrangement no matter how you look at it. And despite the lack of accommodations and the desperate guy across from me, sleep, I knew, was what I needed most. I looked around the car. It was completely full. A group of young Europass students had already commandeered the one small piece of floor space and were sleeping there, piled on top of one another.
I pulled my carry-bag close to me, keeping an eye on the man across from me, and I tried to get comfortable. In shifting my body weight I accidentally bumped his leg.
“Excuse me,” I said.
He did not reply.
He was sleepy too, I could tell, and as tired as I. His eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids looked heavy and like they wanted to drop. He also shifted uncomfortably and likewise pulled his satchel in close to his side. Then he curled his hand around it and held on to it like it was filled with gold. It made me wonder what he had in it. Maybe he’s a gem trader, I thought, or the thief of a gem trader.
If only he would fall asleep. If he would sleep, then I could do the same. And almost exactly when I thought of it, I saw his lids begin to drop. Go down, I thought. Yes. Let them go down. Let them drop. But then the thought crossed my mind: What if he’s faking? Lulling me into a false sense of security so that I would sleep, only to wake up hours later and find my carry-bag gone, cut from my shoulder with a knife.
We exchanged hard, guarded looks, and bouts of drowsiness. His eyes would close, and his head would bob, and then he’d snap himself back awake. And I, in one instant, lost all consciousness, although just for a few seconds, awaking to see him glancing at me with a little smirk on his face.
Not so easy, I thought.
I caught him pinching himself, and then shaking his head, trying to shake out the drowsiness.
You’re going down, I thought. I can outlast you. But each time I saw him struggling, I found myself struggling too; fighting off the inevitable sleep that I knew would eventually win over my body.
The night wore on. The vintage train rattled over the tracks. The noise and motion helped keep us both awake. Still, as the hours passed it became nearly impossible. The accumulation of three bad nights had caught up with me. My eyelids were feeling like lead shutters, ready to close for a long winter. I did everything I could to fight it. I tilted my head back, and then sideways. I scratched my side though I didn’t have an itch. The good news was that he was not doing much better. I watched his head bobbing. I watched him fighting it, and clinging to his pouch more protectively.
And finally I saw him unclasp the middle button of his shirt and reach his hand deep down into it; down along his side. His eyes gleamed at me. He gave me a little grin, and a head-nod, letting me know that he had something, a knife or a gun perhaps? It didn’t matter what, I realized. He had a weapon of some sort, down there in his shirt, and whatever it was, it brought him fresh confidence, confidence enough to sleep.
And now his eyes began to close and his expression was sure. I watched him with one eye still open, watching me.
And he’s probably a light sleeper, I thought, with a hair-trigger finger that’s equally light and fast.
It is unfair, I thought, as my eyes, too tired and too heavy to fight it any longer, began to close. There is no justice. This scoundrel would have a peaceful night while I would suffer from frequent awakenings and sleep apnea.
Then it dawned on me that I had a similar option. The idea seemed too obvious, yet likely to work. I unbuttoned an opening in my shirt and reached down with my hand, down along the side of my chest to where I kept nothing. I left my hand there, warm against my side, and I watched him, his one eye still open, watching me, but fluttering closed.
Okay, I thought, détente. And I smiled at him; a little smile; a warning smile, and I closed my eyes and slept.

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EUPHONY JOURNAL - “The Yosemite Bear Bandits” by Frank Scozzari

Frank Scozzari — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:50:20 -0400

FICTION: “The Yosemite Bear Bandits” by Frank Scozzari

The silence of the midnight valley was broken by the patter of running feet.

Then came the cry—“Bear!”

And again, a different voice, “Bear! Bear!”

And then a chorus of “Bears!”

Lantern lights came on, flashlight beams cut through the darkness, and my two buddies came shuffling past me, grinning.

“Tea time,” Rob said.

He was on one end of an ice-chest and George on the other, each holding a handle, moving awkwardly. I turned and watched them disappeared into the dark forest behind me. Then I turned my attention back to the campsites, where the door of a nearby camper opened. A man dressed in long johns poked his head out and glared into the darkness, but he was looking in the wrong direction. From a large tent in the adjacent campsite two children emerged. Their parents quickly grabbed them and held them back. One little boy had a brownie camera with a flash on top and held it up and ready. The other boy held a toy tomahawk. The man from the camper now came fully out and walked in my direction. He carried a lantern in one hand and a hammer in the other. He looked like he wanted to tangle, but stopped at the edge of the forest.

“They took my chest!” he yelled. “Goddamned bears took my ice chest!”

Neighboring campers emerged from all different directions, gathering at his campsite. He stayed there looking into the darkness for a minute, his lantern held high, then he lower the lantern and the hammer and walked back to his picnic table.

“It was sitting right there,” he explained to the others, pointing. “It was sitting right there on the table. They just carried it off! Goddamned bears carried it off!”

“I’ll be damned,” one of the other campers said, shaking his head.

The flashlight beams turned and searched the dark forest beyond the lantern light and I ducked low behind the large Douglas fir, and snickered. None of the campers were brave enough to venture beyond the light, and even if they did, I would just pop my head out and claim to have come from the next campground upriver. They just stood there, all bewildered, like a herd of wilderbeests looking at the carcass of a fallen comrade.

Dumb asses, I thought.

I watched for several entertaining minutes before I turned and followed the path of my companions, back along the dark trail to Happy Isles.

♦ ♦ ♦

It was the summer of 73’ and the Hippies were in Yosemite in full force. They were there to celebrate living and nature and the human spirit and the hope for world peace. That high tide mark that Hunter Thompson talked about hadn’t crested yet and beautiful spirits roamed freely, sometimes nakedly, through the meadows and along the Merced. It was commonplace to hear strumming guitars and serenading voices coming from the forest. The Hippies held nightly love-ins at Happy Isles and you could hear the music echoing all the way down the Valley. And if you looked up at Glacier Point you could see the shadows of celestial dancers stretching high on the granite walls. Everywhere you went in the Valley you could find peace and love and anti-war slogans and music and celebrations of nature and the human spirit. Bead-laden sun worshippers lay out on the granite boulders along the river; Hippie goddesses bathed beneath the waterfalls; guitar strumming and flute playing troubadours strolled the Park’s roadways; and there was a Jimi Hendrix lookalike in a dusty black suit carrying a beat-up suitcase in one hand and a beat-up guitar case in the other who could often be seen wandering through the Village in a drug-induced daze. I think I even saw Joni Mitchell’s child of God walking along the road with a bong pipe strapped to his back. A blissful feeling was everywhere, except for the ranger stations. Back then, the rangers were crew-cut, red-necked Korean War vets looking to smash some free-spirited heads. This was before Mork & Mindy. And there had been a battle royal going on between the Hippies and the rangers. There had been an incident in a meadow where baton-welding rangers had stormed a love-in on horseback. Many of the Hippies were hospitalized, but it only made them more resolute and more anti-government and anarchical.

That was the Yosemite we stumbled into, four trail-worn kids looking for food, essentially anything that was edible. Marmots had raided our food stash at Florence Lake, so we had been improvising ever since.

And improvise we did, very well.

When we first arrived in Yosemite Valley, we relied on the Hippies. They welcomed everyone in communal fashion. Into a huge pot everyone added something—a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, a can Dennison’s chilly beans, Spaghetti-Os, Chicken broth, etc., etc.—and anyone with a sierra cup or an empty can or a somewhat-clean hand could dip into the pot and pull out dinner. We had made our camp only a short distance upriver from Happy Isles—a cave-like hideaway along the Merced beneath a large granite overhang—which made this arrangement with the Hippies very convenient. We partook several times, contributing nothing, yet dipping our Sierra cups into the Hippie-stew, often multiple times. And they were liberal with their alcoholic spirits as well. Pull an empty gallon jug from a trash can, go from one hippy campsite to the next, get half a beer here, some wine there, the last drops from a whisky bottle, a little rum, or whatever, and four teenagers had enough brew to get an army drunk.

Each evening of our first several days in the Valley, we’d return to our cave, full-bellied, and we’d sip and lay flat, and fat, in the pine needles. But as usually, when thing are going good, we became discontent. We got bored. The Hippie soup concoction got old. We craved something better, and as boys do, we planned and devised and schemed. So it became our daily routine to scourer campsites for unattended ice chests, and our nightly routine to commandeer these ice chests. The way we saw it, we were providing a service to the weekend adventurers, all those L.A. urban dwellers who ventured into the wilderness only one week per year. It was a once-in-a-lifetime-into-the-wild experience we bestowed, the telling of which could be passed down through the generations.

We weren’t bad kids, we convinced ourselves. We were just hungry.

The rangers, of course, knew bears don’t carry-off ice chests—bears simply demolish them on the spot. So they sought out us human bears, but could never figure it out, or find us. And the evidence of our labor piled higher beneath the overhanging rock we called home in the form of a pyramid shaped of ice-chests, stacked six high. On top was our prize—a red, white & blue stars-and-stripes, lacquered-finished, custom Coleman.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now we examined the bounty of our nightly catch and found the pickings to be slim. The ice chest contained only half a package of Oscar Myer hot dogs, five to be exact, mustard, no buns but a quarter loaf of bread, three cans of coke, and a ton of ice.

“Looks like they were ready to leave.”

“Why all the ice?”

“Who knows.”

“Maybe they were planning to go to the store, but hadn’t gone yet?”

“Maybe we need to be more picky?”

Willie, the youngest among us, who had stayed back at the camp, had a fire going when we arrived. He had made it correctly this time, keeping the flames low beneath the encircling-boulders so they could not be seen from the trail above or the road down at Happy Isles. Rob proportioned the catch evenly. The morsels handed out looked pitiful. One-and-a-quarter hotdogs each, one-and-a-half slice of bread each, and a few ounces of coke poured evenly into our Sierra cups. We stuck our dogs on sticks and cooked them. Then we stuck them in between a slice of bread, added tons of mustard, and washed them down with the divvied-up coke. After we were through, George carried the empty chest to the back of the den and stacked it with the others.

Silence prevailed as the campfire burned down. The glowing embers lit our hungry faces. Somebody’s stomach growled.

“It’s hit or miss,” George finally said.

“We need to be more particular,” said Rob.

“We need to stick with the best tents or the Winnebago’s,” I said. “If they have a luxury tent, and good equipment, then they’ll have good food.”

“That’s what I mean,” Rob said, and he stuck his stick in the fire and moved the coals around. “I don’t want to eat that Hippy shit anymore.”

“Me neither,” said George.

Rob looked around at our glowing faces. “I want more steak.” (We had gotten steak in one of the stolen ice chests, and it was our best feast yet.)

“Hamburger will do,” George said.

“I saw a campsite with a Cadillac and an Airstream yesterday,” Willie said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Upper Pines—I think.”

“Was it Upper Pines or not?”

“I think so. We passed it on the bus.”

“Okay, we’ll ride the bus again tomorrow. We’ll take a double-decker and stakeout the best campsites.”

“Yeah,” Willie said, “and maybe I’ll find that Cadillac again?”

“We’ll look for campsites with multiple tents, good tents.”

“And a lot of children,” said George. “Children need food.”

“And parents usually have beer or wine,” I said.

I looked over at Rob, who was strangely shaking his head as he stirred the coals with his stick.

“What’ya thinking?”

“We’ve hunted and scavenged and begged,” he said. “We’ve gotten lucky sometimes, and sometimes we don’t.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve eaten Hippy shit.”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“Why scavenge when we have a shit-load of food right here at our feet?”

George and Willie exchanged glances.

I looked at Rob with a bewildered expression.

“The snack-bar, Dummies!”

He was referring to the concession stand at Happy Isles, which was open during the day and boarded up at night. It was loaded with all the kinds of junk food teenagers love.

No one said anything. We were all aware of the snack stand. We passed it everyday on our way into the Village and had watched, covetously, as tourists purchased and ate hotdogs and ice-cream bars and drank Dr. Pepper and Crush. We had never considered busting into it. Breaking the law stealing ice chests was one thing; breaking into the snack stand would be felony larceny.

Rob slowly glanced around the campfire, stopping on my face. With the end of his stick he flicked little a coal in my direction. “Well?”

“There is food there,” I said, a-matter-of-factly.

“They’ve got hamburgers,” said George.

“And ice cream,” said Willie.

“And they have cigarettes,” said Rob (he was the only smoker).

And I think we all thought of the Snickers bars, boxes of them.

“I could cut the cable with my axe,” Rob said.

We all knew what he was talking about. The stand was secured each night with plywood boards secured by a cable-wrap, which could be cut with a sharp axe.

We exchanged interested glances.

“When?” I asked.

“Now,” said Rob.

“Now?”

“Yeah, now,” George nodded. “All the rangers have gone to bed and there’re no Hippies tonight.” He paused. “And I’m still hungry.”

“So am I,” said Rob.

I thought about it. It was past midnight. Happy Isles was the ghost town it should be. And there were no Hippy music festivals going on.

“You think you can cut that?”

Rob stared at me. Then he got up, went to his pack, took out his axe, and came back to the campfire. He took his seat and ran his finger over the blade. When he was being mischievous, he could put on one of those shit-eating grins, the kind that only Jack Nicholson could make, and he did that now.

“Yep. I think I can cut it.” He hacked the air twice for dramatic effect.

Willie grinned widely too. “Yeah, that should do it.”

“Okay, then,” I said, my mind was already racing ahead. “George and Rob will take the snack-bar. Willie will stand guard out back (meaning a cautionary watch of the unoccupied Ranger cabin), and I’ll watch the road. Once you’ve got the cable cut, you come get us.”

Rob chopped the air with another practice swing of axe, and grinned again. “Certainly.”

We immediately assembled into a unit, heading down the dark trail together along the white-flashing Merced. There was starlight, but where the forest was thick it was nearly black. Only out in the river we could see white. And we could hear various echoes down-Valley—a garbage truck slamming dumpsters and some shouting voices—but they were distance sounds, none of which were of any concern to us.

We all took our positions and Rob and George got started at the snack stand.

From the road, I could hear the action but couldn’t see it. The first chop of the axed had a muted sound and the second a little louder. The third echoed off the granite base of Glacier Point.

Then the chopping became a flurry and, reaching a crescendo, there was a pause and one last loud Bang!

Then nothing.

I tried to look in between the trees back toward the snack stand, but could see nothing. And I was getting nervous. I was expecting someone to come get me, but no one came. There were no lights on the road. The only light I could see was up high at Glacier Point.

Finally I left the road and walked back to the snack stand to see what was going on.

The snack-bar, which was a four-sided building about fifteen-foot square with a back door and an open counter facing the river, emerged in the starlight. What I saw, or thought I saw, was the bar open for business, as I had seen it so many times in daylight. Behind the counter, where the plywood had been removed, stood an attendant wearing one of those center-creased white café caps with two-pointed-ends.

It was Rob.

“How can I help you?” he said, sporting that crazy Jack Nicholson grin.

George was already inside rummaging through boxes. I could see his backside bobbing up and down as he was going through the inventory. Willie suddenly appeared in the back door, which was now open.

“Yeah!” was all he said.

“Take those,” George told him, and Willie grabbed some boxes George had set aside and carried them out.

Rob grabbed the point of his café hat and tossed it out the opening. “C’mon, get in here and help!”

I went in through the back door. Willie was walking away with what I now saw to be a case of ice cream sandwiches.

We didn’t handle this very systematically. We were more like pirate pillaging, or rats in a cheese factory. We took whatever, and as much as we could. By the time we left, it looked like the bears had been there, for real. Boxes tipped over, some ripped open, shelves disheveled and emptied, refrigerator items unwrapped, bitten into, and carelessly discarded. We even left the damn freezer door open. And I’m sure our fingerprints were all over the place. We really didn’t think about that kind of thing, nor did we care.

Exiting the back door with arms filled, I saw Willie sitting there at the base of a pine tree in full-lotus position gorging on those ice cream sandwiches. He had white ice-cream all around his lips.

“Come on,” I yelled at him.

He wiped his mouth, got up, picked up the boxes, and followed me. I let him go ahead.

As we walked back up the dark trail, Rob carried a stack three boxes high. The box on top was a case of Salem cigarettes. He had jerky strips and pepperoni sticks stuffed-in and hanging out of his back pockets. George was equally loaded. Being the biggest of us, he managed four boxes, the top one pressed up against the side of his face. He had to eyeball the trail through a slither between boxes. Willie had two big boxes. He was still munching on ice-cream sandwiches. I know this because I could hear him and every once in a while an empty wrapper would drop to the trail in front of me.

“Hey! Don’t leave a trail!” I’d picked it up.

He’d looked back at me and shrug, and then do it again.

We reached our cave-like hideout exhausted. We set all the boxes down and took inventory. We had boxes of hotdogs, hamburger patties, bums, cases of Snickers, Almond Joy and Mounds, cookies, and even a boxful of ketchup in those small little packets. Rob’s prize was the case of Salem cigarettes, and he took to smoking one right away.

Everyone had already eaten something, either back at the snack-bar or on the way returning to the camp. But we ate more now. We ate as many ice cream sandwiches as we could before they melted. What was left was set afloat downriver in a box. We ate some raw dogs, some pepperoni sticks, and some Snickers. Afterward, our bellies were feeling it. Willie was moaning all night and eventually threw up, which caused a chain reaction. I remember, at one point, three of us were lined up along the river bank.

The next day, ranger trucks were all over the place. They stretched police tape around the concession stand. Tourist and hikers stopped and gawked.

We spied on them from a distance, but stayed at our camp for the next two days, keeping out of sight, sunbathing on the large boulders along the riverbank, barebacked with big bellies. We had no need to go anywhere. We had more food than we could eat. We utilized the ice chests to preserve the food and also rigged a line in the icy river, at the end of which was a huge plastic bag full of perishables, weighed down with some stones.

But truly, we had taken too much, and much of it was spoiled in the heat of the summer valley.

On the third day, we all headed into the Village. We slipped by the Ranger’s crime line, acting shocked to see the concession stand still closed and taped up. We spent the day lounging around the Village. At one point, I saw Rob sitting at the entrance to the Village Store selling half-priced cigarettes. Yes, he did that, and somehow didn’t get caught. We heard some word about the snack-bar break-in at Happy Isles. Rumor had it, among the day-hikers anyhow, that bears had done it.

Yeah, right, we thought, bears with axes.

We were all snickering at the news of this.

The rangers, of course, knew better.

We spent our last day in the Valley riding around on top of one those double-decker buses, sliding jerky strips to one another, trading Almond Joys for Mounds bars, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. I remember looking at Willie’s face, which had been gaunt after the long trail, and noticing it looking fuller. We went back to Happy Isles for our packs, and left with some misgivings. This granite overhang, nevertheless, had been our home for several weeks. We set the red white & blue custom Coleman ice chest afloat downriver, hoping its return to its true owner. All the other ice chests we left stacked beneath the overhang, figuring someday someone would find them.

♦ ♦ ♦

The postscript to all of this was a sad one, as the Hippies were blamed for the snack-bar break-in. The baton-wielding Rangers banned them from Happy Isles. They could no longer hold music festivals there, or for that matter, anywhere in the Valley—the crackdown became Park-wide. It’s funny how the sins of one can fall upon another—maybe not so funny, but that’s what happened. We knew of this before we left the Valley. I remember that last night we stayed at our camp there was no song or music echoing down the valley. Nor did we see the shadows of celestial dancers high on the granite walls. Nor, on that last bus ride, did we see the tied-died T-shirts and long dresses celebrating out in the meadows. We had crashed that long beautiful wave Hunter Thompson had wrote about—maybe not for the rest of the country, but certainly for Yosemite Valley.

In reflection, I would say, we had gone pretty low, and we were not really starving. As with the sixties and seventies, we faded into responsible (and law-abiding) adults. The craziness of youth was gone, but not the memory of it, not entirely.

Still, I can see Rob lounging in the last seat on top of the double-decker, bare-backed as usual, smoking one of those stolen Salem cigarettes. He was grinning that crazy Jack Nicholson grin, like he was in on some joke the rest of the world didn’t know about. I couldn’t see his eyes because he was wearing dark sunglasses, but when he noticed me looking at him his grin widened, and when the corners of his mouth rose to their highest point, his lips moved slowly and he spoke one word, loudly:

“BEAR!”

Frank Scozzari is an American novelist and short story writer. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been widely anthologized and featured in literary theater.

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the Penman review - The Cowboy and The Ballerina by Frank Scozzari

Frank Scozzari — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:48:06 -0400

The Cowboy and The Ballerina

By Frank Scozzari

The door swung open and the silhouette that appeared was undoubtedly that of a ballerina. The figure was sublime and had the fanning outline of a tutu about the waist.

“Can I use your phone?” the silhouette cried out.

Marge, the fifty-something waitress-proprietor looked over at the lone cowboy seated at a table. He tilted his big Stetson hat back so he could see the figure more clearly.

“My car died and I need to call a cab,” the silhouette said.

“Sure, come on in,” Marge said. “The phone is right there.” She pointed to a phone hanging on the wall behind the counter.

The silhouette stepped into the light and now Marge and the cowboy could see her clearly. She was wearing a pink tutu and white stockings, and as she rushed past the cowboy’s table, she continued rambling, “It was One Stop Car Rental. I’ll tell you, don’t trust them. I should have known it was too good to be true.”

She reached the phone and dialed a number. Marge and the cowboy watched curiously as she began to speak.

“What’s the name of this place?” she asked, cupping her hand over the phone’s receiver.

“Bill’s Tavern,” Marge replied.

The ballerina repeated the information into the phone. An inaudible voice answered, to which she replied, “Forty minutes? An hour! Can’t you make it any sooner?” The voice on the phone spoke again and the ballerina said, “Okay,” and then hung up.

With drooped shoulders, she wallowed over to an empty table and sat down. She looked around. It was late afternoon and the place was empty except Marge and the cowboy. The interior décor was purely western. There were horseshoes and branding irons hanging on the walls and a couple deer head mounted above the counter. “I am going to miss my audition,” she cried.

Marge and the cowboy exchanged glances.

“I flew in from New York. The flight was delayed. By the time I got my bag I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I dressed in the airport bathroom, got my car and headed in for the city.”

“The city’s in the opposite direction, honey,” Marge said.

“It is?”

“You must have gone the wrong way.”

The ballerina reached down and tied a loose strap on her velvet shoes. Then she hung her head again and began to cry.

“Can’t be all that bad,” Marge said.

“It is,” the ballerina said. “I’m going to miss my audition.”

“Well, just call them and ask for another one.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a thousand girls trying for the same part.”

“Yeah… but if you’re good, which I’m sure you are, won’t they want to give you a chance?”

“It’s one of the top companies in the world. They have no tolerance for this kind of thing. They’ve heard every excuse in the world.”

Then there was the sound of a man clearing his voice. “Pardon me,” the cowboy said. “What time is your audition?”

The ballerina turned and looked over at the lone cowboy figure. His face was shadowed by his hat, but she could see that he had rugged features and a broad mustache. He was slouched back in his chair with his leather chaps and boots extending out on the wooden floor. He was handsome nonetheless, she thought.

“It’s at four o’clock,” she answered. “Why is the airport so far from everything?”

“Hey Marge,” the cowboy said. “You think I can borrow your car?”

“You could if I had it. Bill had some errands to run in town so he dropped me off today.”

“The taxi company said they can’t get out here for an hour,” the ballerina said.

“Yeah, traffic can get pretty heavy this time of day,” Marge said.

“Four?” the cowboy asked.

“Yes, four.”

The cowboy took off his hat and scratched his head. “It’s at the big theater house downtown?”

The ballerina lifted her head and looked over at him, teary eyed. “The Metropolitan Opera House.”

“That’s the one on Van Ness,” Marge said.

“I can give you a ride,” the cowboy then said. “If you don’t mind riding on the back of a horse.”

“That’s your horse?” The ballerina had seen a horse out front, tied to a lamp post. She thought it odd to see a horse in the city, although she had seen police horses in Time Square before.

“Yeah, she’s my one and only. I’m not sure if I can get you there in forty minutes, but one good thing about a horse, it can wade right through traffic.”

The suggestion seemed too preposterous to take seriously, but the ballerina glanced over at Marge nonetheless, to see what kind of expression she had on her face.

“He’s a good horseman,” Marge said.

The ballerina looked at her watch. Five minutes had already passed.

“You think you can get me there on time?”

“I think so.”

“Let’s go, then” she said.

They quickly got up and together went out front. The cowboy unhooked the rein from the light pole, leaped up into the saddle, and reached down with his long arm. She took his arm and felt herself lifted off the ground, effortlessly, like she had been lifted off the dance floors so many times.

“What are you doing with a horse in the city?” she asked.

“It’s not all city.”

“Most people drive cars.”

“Got one of those too.”

“Just decided to take your horse today?”

“Yeah, thought I’d take her out for a ride.”

“Interesting.”

“There are trails and places for people to ride, even in the city. I run a boarding stable.”

“Oh, okay.”

He turned and looked back at her. He saw her face clearly now, in the sunlight, and took notice of her beautiful green eyes.

“Ready?”

She nodded her head.

With that, the cowboy gave the reigns a little tug and the horse reared its head, turned and began a canter.

“Hang on,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and then, with a nudge of his boot along the horse’s flank, the horse began to gallop fast.

In ten minutes they came upon a car, abruptly parked with one wheel up on the curb. A slip of paper was attached to the antenna.

“That’s my car,” the ballerina said.

“You got a parking ticket,” the cowboy advised as they rode past.

They proceeded down the frontage road, keeping a fast but measured pace. The horse began breathing heavily and the ballerina could feel the sweat on her legs coming from her back.

The cowboy reached down and patted the horse’s side. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered into its ear.

Ahead was the airport terminal. There was a considerable amount of traffic, shuttle buses, rental cars and the like. A huge Boeing 747 came thundering overhead.

“That’s the airport,” the ballerina said.

“Yep.”

They got off the frontage road and onto the freeway on-ramp. The freeway was quite congested but they stayed clear off to the right shoulder and were able to make better time than all the traffic, except for the carpool lane. After a short distance, they got off an off-ramp and went under a freeway underpass, and into a commercial neighborhood.

“There’s a short cut,” the cowboy said.

They went down an alleyway, behind some commercial buildings, following along a long row of dumpsters. The ballerina hung on as the horse turned sharply back toward another raised roadway, beneath which was a storm tunnel. The horse was riding above the bit, and the cowboy leaned forward, gently against its head to bring her down.

“Duck down,” the cowboy said, and they went into the narrow tunnel.

“Another short-cut?”

“Yep.”

Back into the sunlight on the other side, the horse found a trail through the grass that meandered up above a housing district. They climbed along a mountainside with the freeway below them. On the other side of the mountain they had a fabulous view of the city and the bay; then dropped back down into another residential district. After another couple miles, they were deep within the city.

As the horse bolted down the streets, the cowboy thought of the ballerina’s beautiful green eyes. There was a depth to them he had not seen before, and it made him think of what it would be like, a life together. How it could be? He could show her the rodeo, he thought, and teach her how to rope. He imagined them living on a ranch and raising cattle, and having grits and omelets together every morning.

At the same time, the ballerina was thinking about the cowboy’s strong arm, how easily it had lifted her off the ground to the back of the horse. If only her dance partners could do it so effortlessly! And she pictured his face. Though not clean shaven, it was ruggedly handsome. It would be so great, she thought, to show him her world – life, through the interpretation of dance, with all its spins, uplifting moments, triumphs and tragedies.

Above them now was a huge concrete freeway interchange. Curving elevated freeway trusses stretched skyward. The horse wove swiftly between them, her nostrils flaring, and the ballerina hung on to the cowboy, feeling his body lean with the horse as a slalom skier leans between gates, until finally they found the place where the freeway deposited the cars down onto a surface street. The horse reared and raced up the street using the small space between the parked cars and the traffic as an alleyway.

The traffic past Market Street was at a stand-still. Slowing to a trot, the cowboy negotiated through the cars. The ballerina kept her arms around his back, and her head pressed against his back, and she listened to the horse’s hooves clacking on the pavement as they proceeded north.

“Pardon me,” the cowboy said, tipping his hat to one man who looked up at them from his rolled down window.

He tipped his hat again, to an old lady who stared at them from the backseat of a limousine.

All the way up Van Ness, the traffic remained deep, which made crossing six lanes on a horse a little less daunting.

Across the street they could see the Opera House and the Memorial Building, huge monolithic buildings made of marble and granite.

“It that it?” the cowboy asked.

“I think so.”

They navigated through the cars, galloped across the sidewalk between a few pedestrians, and came to the front of the building. There was a sign on the colossal front door: “Auditions in Back.” An arrow pointed to the left side of the building.

The cowboy pulled the reigns in that direction and the horse followed. They crossed a lawn, beyond a fountain, back through a parking lot, and at last reached the rear entrance. There were several other ballerinas standing around, watching as they rode up. The horse came to a half halt in the rear parking lot. The cowboy reached back with his long arm and in a single movement, slid the ballerina off the back of the horse and set her gently to the ground.

There was a woman seated near the backdoor with a clipboard in her hand. She seemed oblivious to the fact that they had just rode up on a horse.

“Name?” she asked as the ballerina hurried up to the front of the queue.

“Ingrid Simpson.”

“You’re next,” the woman said.

The cowboy dismounted, tied the horse to a handrail, and joined the ballerina. The ballerina looked at her watch. It was four o’clock.

“That was wild!” she exclaimed, looking up at him. “I can’t believe we made it!” She reached up and kissed the cowboy on his cheek. “Thank you!”

“Thank you!” the cowboy replied, politely removing his hat.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Sam.”

“I’m Ingrid.”

She held out her dainty hand and he took it and shook it gently. “It’s a bit of a miracle that we met,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

From backstage, through the side curtains, they could see a young ballerina performing to a waltz.

“Let’s meet afterward,” Ingrid said. “Get some coffee or something. I really can’t thank you enough.”

“Sure,” the cowboy said.

They watched as the ballerina on stage finished up with her audition and bowed.

“Ingrid Simpson,” a voice then called from stage right.

“You’re up,” the woman with the clipboard said.

Ingrid walked out on to the stage, and the cowboy watched as she curtsied before a handful of theater executives seated in the front row. Then she came to her toes and held her position. The music commenced and she began to twirl and spin beautifully. Her elegant lines flowed with the music and cast long twisting shadows upward from the recessed lighting.

So perfect, the cowboy thought; God’s perfect embodiment of the female form. It would be great to meet afterward.

But they were from different worlds, he knew, from opposite ends of a continent. She would always be a ballerina, and he would always be a cowboy. He put his Stetson hat back on and adjusted it snuggly to his forehead. Then he turned and walked down the foyer toward the backdoor.

By Frank Scozzari on February 3rd, 2014

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Category: Fiction, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing, SNHU Student

About the Author

Frank Scozzari is an American novelist and short story writer. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been widely anthologized and featured in literary theater.

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ATTICUS REVIEW: "The Triumph" by Frank Scozzari

Frank Scozzari — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:45:06 -0400

The Triumph
by Frank Scozzari | Mar 13, 2012 | Flash Fiction | 0

Mowambi was breathing hard, panting like a wild animal, his leathery face wincing in the hot African sun. He had been hit cleanly through the side, the wound causing a great numbness in his abdomen. His left leg lay limp like a dead thing, the life in it taken by the bullet. But the maumivu, the pain that it made, wasn’t bad. Except when he tried to move or when he breathed too deeply. He concentrated on his breathing, short and fast, short and fast, never too deep.

Mr. Rick–on the other hand–was dead. He lay, face-up on the rocks ten feet below Mowambi, where he’d been hit. The tsetse flies had already gathered around his eyes, scavenging on the moisture there.

Together, he and Mr. Rick had made a gallant rush up the dry wash, under the weight of heavy packs, laboring like horses, dodging bullets that ricocheted and wheezed past them. They had been close to the top, very close, nearly three-quarters of the way up the stone gulch to where it steepened abruptly, almost into a cliff. Then, Bam! Bam! Two shots and they were down—dropped like two gazelles on the Serengeti.

Mowambi lay now, back propped against a stone, trying desperately to hold back the blood which oozed from his side. His head was fuzzy and light; his breathing still fast and labored. The air was hot and dry and parched his throat with each breath he took. His life light, that which gave vision to his eyes, had momentarily gone out, but was back now, and his heart was pounding fiercely. He looked over at Rick Johnson, a big man, Mr. Rick, young and tall and strong. The bullet had hit him squarely in the back and came out his chest. Mowambi had seen many bullet wounds in game animals in his long life of fifty-eight years; many bullet wounds in animals, but not as many in men. He could see now how this one had taken Mr. Rick down so quickly. Over five-hundred meters and right through the big man’s heart. They shoot very well, he thought. These white men from Zambia.

“Mr. Rick,” Mowambi spoke aloud. “They got you good!” He shook his head, sadly.

He squinted up at the sun, the sweat running down the sides of his face. It was mid-afternoon, hot, and there was no shade, except for one old thorn tree, scraggly as the thin gray hairs on Mowambi’s chin. And Mowambi wore only a green army tunic and big Bermuda shorts, so his slender arms and lean black legs lay heavily exposed to the heat of the sun.

“Now they come to kill me!” he said, resting his head back against the stone and staring up into the blue, Zimbabwesky.

He pulled himself higher on the stone, dragging his dead leg, and he looked down the wash. He could see them coming up: four, no five, of them. The three bushmen from the Kalahari and the two white men from Zambia. Their white safari hats were shining in the sunlight as they came out from under a group of huge, thick-trunked baobab trees at the bottom of the wash.

All that practice, he thought. Shooting down elephants. It has made them good shots. Now they come to kill me and won’t have to shoot well. So this is how it ends?

He began to laugh about it, but the laughter made the pain rise in his side.

They could use their hands now, or a rock, he scoffed.

Then a grisly thought entered his mind, that they would not kill him at all, but would leave him to die in the sun. He had seen, many times, the carcass of an animal out on the Savannah, left to die beneath a blazing sun, left alone to ward off buzzards and hyenas, left until it could fight no more and was savagely eaten alive. He understood how all things are connected; how all that rises from the earth goes back to the earth, but this did not comfort him. Death in the Savannah could be hard and brutal. Not a good way to end a long and joyous life. It was a frightful thought, and it made his heart hollow. Living long made dying okay. But slow dying, in a way that humiliates, was not good.

But they would have to kill him, he thought. After all he and Mr. Rick had done! They had no choice but to kill him! He smiled broadly.

“We done good, Mr. Rick,” he said. Ah, yes, we did them good!

He began to laugh out loud, a high-pitched, happy laugh.

In his mind he saw the two Jeeps explode, going up beautifully, spitting huge bellows of black smoke into the sky. And then the plane. Yes, the plane! Mr. Rick was right. Just one bottle of gasoline and one match did it. And the Coca-Cola was so good! They enjoyed drinking the Coca-Cola thinking of the gasoline with which they would fill the empty bottles afterward.

This was a huge setback for them, the white men from Zambia. Mr. Rick said it would be. No longer could they so easily shoot elephants from the sky. No longer can they take the last rhinos from the Savannah.

“Sorry you cannot laugh with me, Mr. Rick,” he said. “It was a very funny thing we did.”

He looked at the packs, the packs that had ruined them, one still slung partially on Mr. Rick’s arm, the other beside him on the ground where he had fallen. They were filled with ammunition, hundreds and hundreds of rounds, ammunition for automatic rifles. Mr. Rick had insisted on taking them. After blowing up the Jeeps and the plane, with the bushmen breathing down their necks, he insisted on taking them. It would be a tremendous setback, he said. The hunters could not replace them. Each two or three rounds represented an elephant’s life. Now the two packs lay there, heavily on his mind, easy pickings for the white men from Zambia who came up the wash.

He surveyed the area around him. He and Mr. Rick had made it to the point where the two washes merged. He had picked this spot, this saddle near the top of the two washes, from far away. He had remembered it because the two washes were like crossroads and he had looked up at them when they first started up the wash, using them as a bearing to know when they neared the top.

Above him was the rock-strewn ridge that they would never make. Before him was a vast view of the African countryside. From high on the stone face, he overlooked a deep valley, almost a canyon which swooped down from the mountains and opened into a large sea of rolling hills of grass. Beyond that were the flatlands, and further out, along the western horizon, a dusty yellow haze, fading into the sky, marked the end of the Savannah. The near end of the canyon was thick with bamboo forests, out of which the hunters now ascended, following a game trail steeply up the gully.

Between him and Mr. Rick’s body, there was nothing but the rocks and stone slabs that made up the slope, the two packs, and the scraggly old thorn tree. Near his foot he saw a stick from the thorn tree. A nice, round stick–the length of his arm. He reached for it with his one good leg, pawing at it with his heel until he could draw it in. Then he reached down with his good right arm, stopping for the pain to subside, then reaching again, stretching and clenching it in his hand. It is a good stick, he thought. It will be useful.

A noise sounded behind him. He looked up and saw a large yellow hornbill perched on the stone just above his head. The bird watched him, turning its head, showing its big, curved, yellow beak. It had small yellow eyes that pulsated and zoomed in and out. The bird peered at him, long and lustfully.

“So, you have come for dinner, my friend?” said Mowambi. “Leave now. I do not die yet.”

Mowambi waved at it with the stick and the bird flew up and over the small rise in the saddle between the two washes, and down into the steep gorge beyond.

Mowambi looked down at the packs. All that weight in those packs, he thought, that weight that slowed us down, that kept us from getting away free. That’s a shame, Mr. Rick. Too bad the hunters will end up getting the bullets back. It is mbayasana, very, very bad. But we got their plane. They will not be killing elephants from the sky for a while. No, sir. We did good, Mr. Rick.

He looked at Rick Johnson again, thinking of the young American. A crazy man, he thought, here in Zimbabwe, so far away from his home, here to save elephants from the culling, the poaching, and the trophy hunters. It was not his fight, they were not his elephants, nor his home, nor his land, but here he was, leading the charge, organizing the others, doing what he could to thwart the hunters. Here he was, dead because of 150 pounds of bullets that would go back into the hands of those who will use them to kill.

Mowambi was thirsty now, very thirsty, and he tried to think of something pleasant. He thought of the water flowing in the small stream down below in the bamboo forest. He thought of the Kariba, the endless Kariba, and the cold, clean water that flowed from it. He thought of the life it brought. He thought of what it would be like to have a cool drink of water!

“Nipatie kinywaji baridi, tafadhali,” he said–please bring me a cold drink!

But his mind kept switching back to Mr. Rick, his presence here, and why he should die in Zimbabwe, in vain, high on this rocky gulch overlooking the Savannah. And for Mowambi, it was wapi–the worst way to die. When you do not finish what you start out to do. It was the worst way. Those bullets, Mowambi thought, they really ruined us.

Mowambi had not known all that had taken place, until Rick Johnson told him. Sure he knew the value of ivory, pound for pound more valuable than gold, but he did not know that the culling had been authorized by the government and the ivory was being used to finance rebel armies in the north. It was bigger, even bigger than Rick Johnson had known. But for Mowambi, what he had always known was enough. The killing was bad. He worked hard to help the foreigners fight against the killing. What he saw in Rick Johnson’s eyes and what he felt in his own heart was enough for him. It was all that Mowambi needed.

The elephants were friends of the people and friends of the land. And they had always been friends to Mowambi. From the time he was a small child in his father’s village, to now as an old man, they had been a part of his life, part of the Savannah. From birth to death they all walked together on the Savannah. The elephants widened the water holes and brought life to many. ‘Tangu kuzaliwa hata kufa,’ was the saying.

He knew how elephants cried. Even more so than humans, they sensed death and felt death. They were not thoughtless beasts. He remembered the time he saw an elephant cow crying for her lost child. He had watched her from a thicket, and had returned three days later to find her there, still mourning. He had heard elephants laughing, under the sunlight, herds wallowing in mud holes, laughing and squirting showers of water on one another. He had watched young elephants rumble on the Savannah, tripping over their trunks, fumbling with the use of that strange appendage. And he had laughed hard, so hard that he thought his belly would crack.

He had seen an elephant reach out and touch another, fallen from a bullet; and many others carrying and fondling the bones of their fallen friends. He had heard stories told of young elephants, orphaned after their parents were shot, having horrible nightmares for months on end, as any human child would. He had heard their trumpeting cries across the desert, felt the sorrow of their low, subsonic rumbles, and saw them kick up clouds of dust against a setting African sun. Elephants had brought him amusement and sadness, compassion and joy. They had brought great laughter to his long life, and he owed them for that. They belonged here.

But the hunters could not see the elephant’s soul. Their eyes were blinded by greed. For them, the prize was ivory—white gold. And the herds were diminished, as was all the world. At first, they took out the big bulls. When the bulls were no more, they took the females, often leaving the young elephants motherless. Mowambi’s heart ached for the small, clumsy babies left to die on their own.

His head was hot and clammy now. His mind was fading in and out, almost into unconsciousness. And, in the heat and clutter of his fever, he had a vision. A big elephant came to him, crashing through the forest, its huge ears flapping, ivory tusks swinging from side to side. It stormed toward him, crushing down branches, pounding the earth with each step, shaking the ground so hard it rattled him. Then it stopped and stared in his eyes, its huge head swaying from side to side. In an instant, as quickly as the elephant had come, it turned and charged off into the forest.

Mowambi was startled awake by a noise. The bird again, the big, yellow hornbill. This time, it was perched on a rock below him. It was blazing hot and the thin shadow of the thorn tree was fully behind him now. He looked down the wash and saw the men closer, laboring up, their rifles slung confidently on their shoulders.

“You want to eat me now, don’t you?” Mowambi said to the bird. “Uende! Go away again. I do not die yet.”

He picked up a small stone with his good arm, and tossed it at the bird. Pain rose sharply in his side. The stone bounced off a rock near the bird, and the bird flew off again, as he did last time, over the saddle and down, laughing mockingly as it vanished over the rise.

“Where do you go, bird?” Mowambi asked.

He stretched his neck, trying to look over the small rise in the saddle. He could not see far beyond the curvature of the rock; only the sheer wall on the other side.

He grabbed a stone and tossed it over the saddle, not far enough to drop into the steep hole beyond. He threw a second stone, and the pain in his side roared so intensely that he almost blacked out.

This time, though, Mowambi heard the rock tumble, bounce, echo, bounce again, and then splash. He threw another, and again there was a bounce, an echo, a bounce again, and a splash.

And Mowambi began to laugh loud–his high-pitched, joyous laugh. It would be the perfect plan, he thought. The perfect place.

At first, he went for the pack closest to him. It was scarcely an arm’s length away, but it was on his bad side, the side that had been killed by the bullet, and although he could move his left arm, it was almost numb, and his left leg was lifeless.

He felt his left thigh with his slender fingers. Nothing. Through all his years, it had been a good leg. He had traveled many miles on it, across the savannah, in the desert, through the mountains.

“Wake up, leg,” he said. “No time to sleep.”

But it was usingizi–dead–the worst kind of sleep. His only choice was to twist across his body and reach for the pack with his right. He was reluctant to try it, the pain might cause him to pass out. Yet the men were coming up and he knew he had to move quickly. So he reached for it, at first stretching slowly, testing the pain, pacing himself through it. Then he made himself fall over on his side, in the direction of the pack. His slender left shoulder hit the rocky ground and he clenched the pack-strap in his good hand, gripping it tightly, and dragged it toward him. He took a second, resting his face in the good earth.

It is truly not bad, he thought. When I stop, the pain goes away.

He pulled himself up and rolled the pack over his dead leg, the full weight of it, nearly seventy pounds, coming against it. He was glad it was asleep now. The bullet must have completely smashed the big nerve.

Over his good leg next, and down to the rocky ground. Then he began to push and roll it up the small grade of the saddle. He turned sideways and pushed with his right leg. He dragged himself along the rock to get closer, always pacing himself, sweating and gritting his teeth through the pain. He took the stick and pushed the pack as high as he could so that it reached the peak of the small rise.

The pack was long and cylinder-shaped. Mowambi knew it would roll easily once it started down. He inched himself forward. Smiling, then wincing with pain, then smiling again, tasting victory. He reached out and placed the stick against the bag, holding it there as he readied himself. Then he pushed hard, extending his arm fully. The pack tumbled, began to roll, and fell through the open air.

There was a huge splash, and Mowambi smiled widely. He thought of an old East African saying: Kusika si kusna–hearing is not seeing. But what he heard was mzurisana–very, very good. The splash was loud and wonderful, as good as seeing. It must be deep, he thought. It has to be very deep!

“Do you see, Mr. Rick?” he said aloud.

Hurrying now for the other pack, he dragged himself across the stone, pulling with his one good arm, pushing with his one good leg, laughing hard against the pain. His bad arm had no feeling, but he folded the numb hand around the stick and dragged it, looking back frequently to see if the stick was still there.

He laughed at the thought of himself crawling across the ground like a worm. Stretching out, then inching forward—just like a worm! A worm that would defeat the hunters! He had walked great distances in his time. How he could barely make ten feet to where Mr. Rick and the other pack lay. He was glad he had watched worms and understood their movement.

No time to laugh, worm, he thought. Time to work!

Stretching out, he extended himself completely and reached for the pack with the stick. For a moment, everything went black. Then he came to. He looked down-canyon, but was too low to see the hunters.

“I must hurry,” he told himself. “They are close.”

Then he stretched for the pack again.

The strap, still on Rick Johnson’s arm, had a nice loop in it that stood out. He tried to snag it with the end of the stick.

“Come on, stick. Come on, fimbo. Take it.”

He jabbed and poked, finally catching it. Then he pulled on it with his good arm. He reached up with his numb arm as well, holding the stick with both hands now, and pulled back hard. The pack slid from Mr. Rick’s limp arm, and began to come away, pulling the dead man’s arm with it.

“Don’t worry, friend! I come join you soon,” Mowambi said, softly.

He yanked on the stick again, this time with all his strength, and the pack came loose from Rich Johnson’s shoulder. He drew it in close enough to where he could grab it into his chest.

It was the greatest chore, inching the pack back uphill. Every time he stopped to rest, the thought of the wonderful splash it would make gave him strength to go on.

When he reached the saddle, and pushed the pack down the other side, he held his breath until he heard the deep splash—then he let his head fall back and laughed high and fast. Finally, limp and exhausted, he lay back against the flat rock, resting his head on the earth, his one good arm outstretched above him. After a few moments, he let gravity roll him back down to his original position, pulling himself against the stone, and waited.

It was not long before he heard the hunters approaching and could see their white safari hats topping the rocks below him.

“Habari! Karibu!” Mowambi said, in the nicest form of welcome.

The men came in slowly, cautiously, circling around Mowambi, and around the body of Rick Johnson. Two of them pointed their rifles at Mowambi. One of the bushmen poked at the corpse with the barrel of his gun.

“Wafu,” he said. “Dead.”

Then they looked at the wound in Mowambi’s side.

“It’s not bad,” Mowambi lied. “Sijambo! I’m fine.”

One white man, the mzungu, had curly red hair, narrow eyes and a pug nose. He turned to the bushmen and spoke in Swahili.

“Kutafuta wao! Kuta wao! Look for them! Find the ammunition!”

The bushmen immediately began searching the area, behind the rocks and in crevices, up higher in the wash, too, where it steepened. One bushman backtracked down the wash from where they had come.

The other white man, thinner and taller, with a big black mustache, looked at Mowambi.

“Where are they?” he asked. “The bullets, the popoo! Ramia!”

Mowambi smiled at him, showing him his missing teeth. He laughed at him, with his high, ridiculous laugh, until the pain from his wound made him stop.

“How do you kill now, with no bullets? How do you kill? No more elephants. No more buri. No more, pembe,” Mowambi said, using the Swahili words for tusks and ivory.

One bushman was now halfway down the wash. The pig-faced white man yelled to him in Swahili. The bushman looked up, raised both hands in the air, and shook his head.

The other white man walked to the top of the saddle, where another of the bushmen stood looking down the steep cliff at the water below. When the white man saw the water, he turned back and looked at Mowambi.

“Too bad,” Mowambi said. “Too bad no more ivory.” He was laughing, laughing and choking on the blood that erupted in his mouth.

“Kufisha,” said one of the bushmen. “Kill him.”

The man with the mustache picked up a rock and tossed it into the pool of water. It splashed so loud they all could hear it. Then he walked back down beside the other white man and stood before Mowambi.

“Black bastard,” the black-mustached one spoke. “Bastards.” He kicked at Mowambi.

Mowambi was ready. He wanted to force them to end it now. His side was hurting badly. Also, he didn’t want to be left for the hyenas.

It would be the white man with the narrow eyes of a wild pig, he thought. The ngizi.

The pig-faced one stepped forward now, his rifle barrel low to the ground. Then he raised the barrel to Mowambi’s face. Mowambi laughed again, high and silly. His mind went into a dreamlike state, and he saw the large elephant in his vision, charging through the forest. He saw the young elephants playing in the mud holes. He saw Mr. Rick, behind a pair of dark sunglasses, laughing and smiling. He saw the packs, full of bullets at the bottom of the pool, soaked and wrecked. Then he saw a white flash, and he saw no more.

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TAMPA REVIEW Celebrating 60 Years of Literary Publishing

Frank Scozzari — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:47:44 -0400

Frank Scozzari
January 1, 2014 by utpress Leave a Comment

TOO OLD FOR WAR
by Frank Scozzari
Old Makatiku looked wearily upon the young Kantaku. A pillar of youth he was, standing more than two meters in height with broad shoulders, a head full of shiny black hair, skin that was taut and clear, and muscles that rippled like the palms in a tree. His shadow stretched out over the African earth like that of a giraffe. And from his seated position in his thatched throne, Makatiku knew he looked old and weak and worn from a life lived fully.
That was me, Makatiku thought, staring up at the young shujaa warrior, forty years past. But I was taller, and even stronger, and I did not have this look of pity in my eyes.
“You must answer,” demanded Kantaku.
The council sat anxiously waiting. Makatiku glanced over at them. Among them were the elders and friends, and the many brave warriors he had fought alongside in the internecine wars, all in their colorful, ceremonial tunics.
If only there was a way out, gracefully, Makatiku thought.
He glanced back at the towering young Kantaku.
But there was none.
Every spear has two edges and each side cuts with equal depth, he knew. If he agreed to the challenge, he would face a humiliating defeat. He was no match for a man one third his age. After all his wonderful years of ruling with dignity and judicious benevolence, having his face rubbed in the dirt now was something he could not bear. Is this a fit way to end it? The thought of it offended his soul. Yet if he refused, he would have to abdicate the throne. It was law.
Kantaku stood waiting. And behind him was his entourage of young Maasai warriors.
“Are you sleeping?” Kantaku asked impatiently.
“I am thinking.”
And then a pleasant thought came into Makatiku’s head and small grin formed on face. Could young arrogance be so foolish?
And when Makatiku did speak, everyone seemed a bit mystified by his confidence and the cleverness in his eyes.
“I accept the challenge,” he spoke loudly. “It is a great tradition and it is the people’s right to see the challenge answered. Although I doubt that you are up to the task. I doubt that you or any of your young followers have the strength or the will or the intelligence to win such a match.”
A sigh came from the council, and similar exclamations from all the villagers who were gathered around. Kantaku too seemed a bit surprised by Makatiku’s willingness to accept the challenge but welcomed his words nonetheless.
“Okay then, let’s get on with it,” he said.
“There is one condition, however,” Makatiku added.
“Yes?”
“I would like to choose my own weapon.”
“Weapon?” Kantaku asked.
The young Maasai warriors standing behind Kantaku exchanged curious glances.
“Yes, I ask that I be allowed to choose my own weapon in this case.”
Kantaku looked over at the council. It had been more that fifty years since a challenge for the throne had been decided by a fight with weapons, a fight to the death. The Kenyon and Tanzanian governments had long since outlawed the practice, and tribal leaders throughout the Maasai Mara had come to accept the notion of a bloodless succession.
“Do you accept my request?” Makatiku asked.
“A request for weapons is evidence of your antiquity. You are an old man stuck in old ways.”
“Nevertheless,” Makatiku said calmly. “It is in the book of laws and has never been distorted. Though foreign governments have tried to rid us of our ways, the rules have never changed. It is the challenger’s choice of weapons. But in this case, I ask that I be allowed to choose my own weapon.”
Kantaku glanced over at the council expecting some form of intervention from them, but there was none.
“I know tradition,” he replied.
“Only women and politicians desire weaponless fights,” Makatiku said. “Though it is the warrior who chooses peace over war, it is also the warrior who chooses bloodshed over defeat and humiliation. Yes?” As Makatiku said this he ran his eyes over the crowd of villagers. “And it is the warrior who accepts death over dishonor, even from a foe.”
Kantaku remained silent. For nearly a minute he remained silent, then he looked over at the council members and raised his chest high. “I accept, old man,” he said, confident.
Makatiku nodded his head, pleased.
And then there is the issue of an aged body. Makatiku thought. What an abomination it would be if no animal sought his meat! In all his years, he had seen it less than a dozen times. There was the remembrance of Old Nampushi, who had died of some terrible, western disease and had been left in the sun for the buzzards, but no buzzards came. And how a spotted hyena came by and sniffed his dead body and walked past it without even taking a simple bite. This will never do. A corpse rejected by scavengers was considered to have something wrong with it and was cause for great social disgrace.
He dropped his eyes down to the red dirt beneath him.
Nor was burial an option, he knew. It was harmful to the earth. To place a rotting corpse in the ground was to defile the earth.
“Also,” he said, “I will need five kilos of ox fat and blood, placed in the care of my good friend Jakaya.”
Makatiku turned and looked over at his old friend who sat with the other elders on the high council.
Jakaya nodded his head.
Kantaku looked at Makatiku curiously.
“It is not for me,” Makatiku said.
Kantaku chuckled. “We will see who it is for, old man. Anything else?”
“Nothing.”
Kantaku signaled two young boys, who hurried away to the butchery to gather the five kilos of fat and blood.
“And the weapon you will choose?” Kantaku asked, his voice now conveying a tone of disgust.
“I would like to know the weapon you choose first, if that’s permitted.”
“Okay, if it is your wish,” Kantaku said.
He looked around at all the villagers, knowing anticipation was building.
“A long spear,” he said boldly.
The young warriors exchanged spirited words, voicing their pleasure at his choice.
A long spear was the ideal weapon for mortal combat between two men. Its long shaft enabled a thrust from a great distance. Its barbed headpiece, once in, could not be retrieved, at least not without causing substantial additional damage. And when thrown properly, it could pierce the stretched cowhide of a Maasai shield.
“And you?”
“A simi.”
“A simi?”
“Yes, a simi,” Makatiku said firmly.
A lively discussion erupted, not only among the young warriors, but among the council members as well. A simi was not a weapon designed for warfare. It was a simple tribal knife with a blade not longer than fifteen inches, used ritualistically or for skinning animals.
“This is silliness,” Kantaku said.
“It is the weapon I choose,” Makatiku replied.
Kantaku looked back at the warriors behind him. Then he glanced over at the council members. Makatiku sat quietly, joking with the idea of it in his head.
What form of trickery is this? Kantaku wondered.
All his life he had been taught to be suspicious of gifts from adversaries, and he was wary of Makatiku now, of his deception and cunning. Weapon, a simi was not; yet skillful Makatiku was, in the art of combat and killing. Kantaku’s father had told him all the stories, of how Makatiku had overcome a group of five Kaputiei warriors by hiding in the dead, rotting corpse of a water buffalo, and how he had sprung from the corpse with bow and arrows and killed all of them. And how he had been chased once into a steep canyon by a herd of crazed elephants, only to start an avalanche that crushed and killed most of them. His feats of bravery were legendary, and his acts of cunning something to be wary of. For Makatiku to choose a simi now, in a fight that would determine the end of his reign and perhaps the end of his life, surely there was some form of trickery behind it.
And he could throw a knife, Kantaku thought, further than the length of any long spear. And its two-sided blade was perfect for finding a place to stick after sailing end over end through the air.
Makatiku sat quietly in his rickety throne, waiting.
“And I will take a tall shield,” Kantaku said, unflinchingly, “along with my long spear.”
Again the warriors nodded their heads and voiced their approval.
“It is a wise choice,” was all Makatiku said.
A tall shield, two-thirds the length of one’s body, was capable of deflecting a barrage of arrows. It could easily deflect a single, hand-thrown knife.
Despite his arrogance, which comes along with youth, Makatiku was fond of Kantaku and tolerated his youthful ambitions. Of this new generation of warriors, a generation that Makatiku did not like or understand, with cell phones and a desire to live in cities, Kantaku stood apart. It was he who most cherished the traditional ways. And he who was most clever. The others were merely warriors in name and appearance, Makatiku thought, who posed for photographs and dressed the part only to satisfy the expectations of the safari lodges.
It is not an easy thing, Makatiku thought, to make way for a new generation of warriors, some of whom had exchanged their spears for cricket bats and text books. It was a contradiction, he thought, to accept the new; a contradiction of all he was and all he knew, and of all that his father and grandfathers were, and all that they knew.
But this one, perhaps, had a chance, he thought, watching Kantaku’s eyes, if he was forced to eat hyena. He noticed a digital watch on the wrist of one of the warriors. Ah! The New World! It is a pity that life must evolve, and change, and end. And that the flames of youth burn out so quickly. And standing way in the back was another young warrior wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, no doubt given to him by one of the safari tourists. He quickly removed the cap when he caught Makatiku’s eyes upon him.
Yes, too many changes have passed, Makatiku thought.
He had seen it all, the erosion of customs over many years, from one governmental program to another, each designed to strip his people of their traditional ways. And the unstoppable inflow of technology, like a giant dust storm of locusts that he could not keep out. Commercial cotton and synthetic clothing had long since replaced the traditional calf hide and sheep skin, and the beadwork was no longer made of stone or wood or ivory, but glass or plastic. He glanced down at the feet of the warriors and realized that half of them wore sandals soled with pieces of motorcycle tires, and one even wore a pair of Nikes.
And too came the digital age. It was all too much, this new world that invaded his land and had swept through his people like a foreign disease. He recalled the electric pumps brought in by the new government to filter their water, and what happened when they broke and they had no water for three days because the unfiltered water now made them sick. And how the doctors poisoned their children with injected medicines, making them ill for one week when they were otherwise well; and how lion hunting was banned by the Kenyan government. What kind of obscenity is that? And yet fee-paying trophy hunters were granted permits to hunt lions under a new government plan to create a wildlife corridor, which essentially evicted tribes of his flesh in northern Tanzania. We cannot kill the lions to protect our herds, yet foreigners can hunt them for trophies? It was not a world that Makatiku liked, or wanted to be in.
“Bring two tall shields,” Kantaku said, motioning to a junior warrior.
The young warrior, a boy not more than fifteen years old, went off to gather the weapons, but Makatiku stopped him.
“Wait,” he said. “It is not my desire.”
Kantaku looked on, waiting.
“I would like a short shield,” Makatiku said.
The sound of snickering came from the villagers. Again he mocks me! Kantaku thought. He ran his eyes through the crowd, tightening his upper lip. “Follow his wishes,” he said with a tone of disgust, and the boy hurried off to gather the weapons and shields.
“Anything else?”
“No. It is quite enough.”
Nothing more was said, and the boy returned quickly with the simi, the long spear, and the two shields. And now it was time for Makatiku to rise from his thatched throne and face his young challenger. And he did so gloriously, but slowly, feeling the pains of his arthritic joints. He rose to a height equal to that of Kantaku, and despite his age of nearly sixty-two years, his shoulders were still broad, his muscles still lean and well-defined. He wore a kunga of red and blue, and pink cotton, which wrapped loosely around his trim waist and angled down over one shoulder, across his large, protruding chest. Everything about him symbolized tradition, and the customs of old, and the seniority of his rank, and the success of his reign; from his graying, long hair, that was woven in thinly braided strands and fell to the middle of his back, to his multiple, brightly colored anklets, which numbered no less than ten. His earlobes were pierced and stretched in a manner reserved only for royalty, and there was the symbolic beadwork that embellished his body and told of his meritorious past, of a life lived long and fully.
The boy handed Makatiku the short knife and the small shield. Makatiku examined the knife, running his finger along the edge of it. It had a finely honed metal blade and a wooden handle with a cowhide grip. Then he studied the small shield, flipping it over and looking at the face of it. It is correct, he thought. It bore the sirata of a red badge that signified great bravery in battle and was only permitted to be painted on the shields of the highest of chiefs. Still, it was a decorative piece at best, meant only to be hung outside one’s door to indicate one’s presence. Less than twenty inches in diameter, it was not designed for warfare.
The boy gave the long spear and the tall shield to Kantaku. The shield, made of stretched and hardened buffalo hide sewn to a wooden frame, nearly cloaked his entire frame. The spear, made from the finest dark ebony wood, rose more than a meter above his head.
There was laughter among the villagers, and Kantaku realized how ridiculous it must have looked.
Makatiku smiled broadly and ran his eyes through the crowd. His considerable stature dwarfed the small shield and simi in scale, he knew, even more so than their actual size. He glanced over at the council members and nodded his head appreciatively. Then he raised the shield and knife high above his head to the applause of the villagers.
Kantaku waited for the applause to subside.
“Now you must answer,” he spoke loudly.
Makatiku stared at him. Could young arrogance really be so foolish? he thought. Then, seeing the muscles on Kantaku’s chest tighten and his shoulders flex, Makatiku’s face became gaunt and serious. It is time!
He quickly squatted down into a combat stance, holding the small shield firmly in front of his chest and the short knife high and aggressively above his head.
Kantaku likewise firmed his stance, ducking low behind his large shield and raising his spear into a throwing position.
The two men stood there momentarily, opposite one another on a small mound of earth, the old and the new. The time for talk had ended. The differences between the traditional and modern were past them now, and Kantaku did not wait. He was certain Makatiku had a plan and would spring it upon him quickly if he gave him the chance.
He thrust his spear back, holding it cocked high to the side of his head, and with perfect aim, not wanting to give Makatiku time to strike first, he thrust it forward with all his might.
At the same moment Kantaku released it, Makatiku dropped his shield and short knife to his side and pushed his chest forward. He stood there, poised and relaxed with his chest exposed as if it were impenetrable to the spear.
The blade of the barred spearhead flashed in the morning sunlight. All the villagers looked on in wonder as the spear soared through the air and hit him squarely in the chest, slicing through his flesh and bone and coming out his back.
For a perceptible instant, Makatiku remained upright, impaled by the spear. It was as though his body defied gravity, held high by the soul and the pride of a great chief. Then he dropped to the ground, dead.
The dazed villagers looked on in disbelief, as did Kantaku. The suddenness of it was shocking. Their great king, the fierce warrior who had fought and won so many battles, had not even lifted a finger to fight. His natural abilities to dodge and deflect, and to counterstrike, were not invoked at the time he needed them most. Though he had out-maneuvered all enemies in the past, he had left them now, strangely, without a strategic plan.
Jakaya summoned the young warriors.
“Mnakamata!” he said.“Take him.”
The spearhead was quickly removed. The shaft had snapped when Makatiku fell to the ground, making it easy to extract. The warriors gathered him up, and upon Jakaya’s directions, carried him to a place outside the village, down near where the river flowed out onto the savannah. The five kilos of ox fat and blood was also brought down and set beside the chief’s body.
“Enda!” Jakaya shouted to the young warriors. “Go! Go away!”
And they did so, solemnly, without looking back.
Jakaya knelt down and took a moment to look over his fallen friend. His face was sullen and old, and had the dark lines that come with age. His face was gray with all the signs of death, but his expression still revealed a regal presence. He was king, once more, Jakaya thought. And now was cut the umbilical cord between heaven and Earth.
With a wooden ladle, Jakaya covered Makatiku’s body with the ox fat and blood. He covered every inch of it, making sure no place was left exposed. Then he sprinkled the body with beads of black, green, red, yellow, and white, which mimicked the colour sequence seen in the animal life cycle. He added more white for the decade of peace he had brought to his tribe; and blue for the colors of the waters which ran clean and fresh until the machines of government polluted it; and more red for the warrior’s blood and bravery, which Makatiku had witnessed many times. A good death is its own reward.
“Come feast little Oln’gojine,” Jakaya said. “Come taste the meat of a great warrior.”
Jakaya left, back to the village, to the cluster of mud houses where he hung Makatiku’s small, red shield, and his simi, outside his inkajijik. Then he went to join the others in the celebration of the new chief.
Though Kantaku sat in the thatched throne in full ceremonial dress, he found no joy in his heart. He had achieved the throne, but had not won a victory. Even in death, Makatiku mocked him. He laughs now, he thought. There, down by the river of life, he revels in laughter!
The coronation was quite subdued. Though all the villagers gathered for the festival, it was not full of song and dance like the great celebrations of the past.
“It was Makatiku who threw the spear,” one of the villagers said.
Kantaku looked down at him and quietly hung his head.
“Makatiku is still King,” another villager said.
Down by the river Makatiku’s body lay in the hot African sun. All day it lay there, and by late afternoon the tsetse flies had gathered and the smell of the fermenting ox blood rose across the savannah. Before the sun had completely set, three spotted hyenas came across him. They encircled him and sniffed the earth around him and the kunga that wrapped him. Their nostrils filled with the scent of human, but there was also the smell of the ox blood and fat, and when they tasted the meat, they found it to be unique and flavorsome. On through the night they feasted, gnawing down on the bone and flesh and stealing chunks from one another. By morning when the villagers returned, nothing remained of Makatiku but a stain on the earth.
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Pushcart Prize nominee Frank Scozzari resides in Nipomo, a small town on the California central coast. His award-winning short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including South Dakota Review, Oklahoma Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Ellipsis Magazine, The Nassau Review, and The MacGuffin, and have been featured in literary theater.

Posted in: Fiction Tagged: Fiction, frank scozzari

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