The Curious Life and Death of Don Fernando is a fable by Jack Rusher, published here Sunday, January 20, 2008. It is part of Stories.
Negotiating with the tribe of animals.
Part Four: The Ibex’s Bargin
While Atzo was living for a time with the mountain people, one of the mountain man hunters caught a young ibex in his snare. The ibex said, “Life is hard for my tribe. Food is scarce. Almost everything in the land hunts us. We live in constant fear. Could you take pity on me this one time, sir?”
The hunter answered, “No, my family needs meat and skins; you have both.”
“What if I could give you something else?”
The hunter chuckled. “What could you offer me?”
“I have milk.”
The man, who had tasted his wife’s milk, knelt down and suckled for a moment from the ibex’s teat. Her milk was sweet and good. He carried her back to his stone hut, drove a stake into the ground, and tethered her there.
An ibex.
The ibex was warm and safe near the man’s fire. His wife brought food and water for her each day. The man’s children kept her company. It was the best life she’d ever known.
After the moon had come and gone a few times, some other ibexes snuck up to the hut under cover of night to ask the first ibex what was going on.
“I am safe and sated for the first time. This is the life. I will speak with the hunter for you tomorrow, perhaps you can be as lucky as I am.”
The others talked amongst themselves and many of them decided that a little milk was a small price to pay for safety. Their only concern was that the rams of the tribe may not be welcome. In the morning, the hunter and the first ibex worked out a deal: if they promised that they and their descendants would stay forever, they could all come and be fed and protected from grey wolves and golden eagles, even the rams.
With so many ibex, the hunter created an animal corral and became a farmer.
At the beginning of their first spring on the farm, the ibexes were visited by some of their cousins.
“Came play with us in the mountains,” they said.
The ibexes liked this idea very much. They asked the farmer to let them out for the day, but he said, “We made a deal. You have to stay here.”
Some of the ibexes complained, but others reminded them of the wolves and the eagles. In the end, they agreed that, “A little freedom is a small price to pay for food and safety.”
Later that spring, the farmer took a ram from the corral and carried him off toward the high lookout point where the tribe of men went to dance around a big fire at night. The others asked after him the next day, but all the farmer said was, “He’s gone to a better place.”
Some goats.
A few summers later, the remaining wild ibexes came to see the tame ones — who had started calling themselves “goats” — at the corral one last time. The goats had changed so much that their wild cousins could hardly recognize or understand them anymore. All the ibexes were able to learn from the goats was that although they lived in constant fear of the farmer, they were safe from wolves and eagles.
When the ibexes were a good distance from the farm, they made a pact: “We must never speak to man again. He is too clever. His words trick us.” The goats never made an oath; they simply grew too afraid to speak.