“I know you are not skilled hunters, but I sent you out to
Ogedei silenced his father with an upraised hand, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see a pair of the Great Khan’s guards react as if Ogedei had slapped his father. He ignored them, raising a finger to his lips. He turned his head slightly, enough to see his father’s face.
“Deer,” he mouthed, and pointed. Downstream, on the opposite bank, stood two good-sized does and a huge buck.
Genghis’s eyes followed his son’s finger, and with a nod, he motioned for the guards nearest the river to kneel. The familial discipline was forgotten as the group instinctively focused on their prey. The guards slowly lowered themselves to the ground; their swords were of no use in this hunt, and they were only in the way of the hunters. Jochi and Chagatai began to creep along the riverbank, their boots crunching softly on the river rock. Genghis unslung his bow and stepped toward the river, his eyes locked on the deer. Ogedei was at his side, bow ready as well, and as one they moved into the shallows, their boots submerging in the icy water.
The deer heard Jochi and Chagatai and looked up, presenting perfect broadside targets for Genghis and Ogedei. The two men were ready, and their bowstrings hummed at nearly the same instant.
Two arrows buried deep into the neck of the buck, the soft slap of the impacts nearly inaudible across the river. The does started, though, much closer to the sound, and bounded off, disappearing into the woods. The buck struggled to keep its footing and then pitched forward, falling into the river where it thrashed helplessly.
Ogedei whooped loudly and, raising his knees high with every step, splashed downstream as quickly as he could to stop the downed buck from floating away.
“Good shot,” shouted Chagatai. The guards whistled their appreciation, and Jochi even clapped as Ogedei splashed past.
The deer had stopped kicking, and the river was starting to tug at its body as Ogedei reached it. He stopped with a splash, made sure he wasn’t standing on loose rocks, and grabbed at the deer’s rack of antlers. “Help me,” he shouted.
“No!” Genghis’s voice cut across the water.
Bracing his feet, Ogedei looked back over his shoulder. Jochi and Chagatai were halfway across the river, and they too had stopped at the sound of their father’s voice.
“You two,” Genghis said, “go back to camp with the women; this is not your kill.”
Chagatai looked crestfallen immediately, and his shoulders slumped. Jochi hesitated.
“Go back!” Genghis roared, and Ogedei’s older brothers reacted quickly to their father’s tone and reversed their course. They stood, dripping, on the bank, unwilling to fully depart from the scene, and Genghis’s personal guard came down to stand with them as Genghis drew a great bone-handled skinning knife from his sash and strode into the river.
Ogedei felt his balance slipping, and he had to turn back to the dead deer. The buck was bigger than he had thought, and his grip wasn’t very good. He couldn’t pull it out of the river by its antlers. He needed to get in a better position, and as he was trying to get behind the animal’s hindquarters, his father appeared at his side and slung his left arm around the shoulders of the dead animal.
“Ready?” Genghis asked, his face close to Ogedei’s.
He could smell his father’s breath—meat, garlic, the slightly sour aroma of
“Lift!” shouted Genghis, and Ogedei stumbled back, the buck’s body lurching toward the bank. He stumbled over his own feet and slammed hard to the ground, the buck’s antlers jabbing him painfully in the thighs. The deer’s head lay in his lap, its body mostly out of the river.
Genghis stepped up onto the bank and looked down at Ogedei, a peculiar expression on his face.
“What?” Ogedei asked. Then, taking his father’s expression as disapproval, he contended, “If we’d kept talking, the deer would have heard—”
Genghis shook his head. “That was the right decision,” he said. “I am not angry that you interrupted me.”
Ogedei tried to reason what his father was thinking.
“Why did you choose the buck?” Genghis asked.
Ogedei glanced at his brothers and the guards, and made a snap decision.
Genghis waved off the apology. He sank down to the ground beside Ogedei. He pushed the skinning knife into the ground between them, and then he looked back across the bank at the other men. “Do you know what your brothers would have done?”
Ogedei wasn’t sure of the right answer, but sensed Genghis was going to tell him the answer anyway, and so he stayed silent.
“They would have known I would take the buck and they would have chosen a doe.”
Ogedei’s stomach knotted again, and suddenly he was the foolish stripling again. The one who had nearly shot one of his brothers, mistaking him for a deer. “We would have had more meat,” he said, the words burning in his throat.
“Yes, that’s right, Ogedei. We would have had more meat.”
Ogedei stared at the animal in his lap. He wanted to shove it away. The thrill of the kill was fleeing, and all that remained was the sickening shame of his own inability to think beyond his own desires.
“You took the buck because you wanted it,” Genghis said. “You wanted the prize it offered. You didn’t defer to me or ask my permission, and you didn’t hesitate.”
Ogedei looked at his father, but the Great Khan was still looking over the river, his eyes unfocused.
“You did,” his father said slowly, “exactly as I would have done.” He looked at Ogedei finally.
Ogedei stared at his father, searching his face for some explanation of the sadness he heard in his father’s voice. He sensed everything around him—the hardness of the buck’s antlers in his hands; the water of the river flowing beside them; his breath, in the cold morning air, mingling with his father’s; the deep lines around his father’s eyes that had been drawn there by the sun and the weight of his position; the sudden emptiness in his stomach as his fear and panic vanished—and he knew there was more to his father’s words than a simple compliment. For a moment, it was just the two of them on the riverbank, and the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Genghis nodded, and the moment passed. He pushed himself up from the grass and undid the leather tethers at his belt for the skinning knife’s sheath.
“What are you doing?” Ogedei asked.
“It’s not my kill,” said Genghis. He looked down at Ogedei once more, and then turned on his heel and walked into the river.
Ogedei looked at the knife in the ground. He recognized it as his grandfather’s. An object that predated him, predated even his father. He pulled the blade free of the wet earth. The metal glinted dully in the bright morning sunlight. It was a long blade, but weighted well, and it moved easily in his hand.
He pushed himself out from beneath the corpse of the deer and considered the animal’s bulk. Perhaps half the weight of a pony. It would take more than one trip to carry it back to camp, even after it had been parted. It would take the better part of the day to haul all the meat back to camp.
Ogedei looked across the river. Genghis had reached the far side, and one of the guards had given the Great Khan his cloak. “Hey,” he shouted. “One of you. Stay with me and help carry back this meat.”
A long moment followed where the only sound was the river gurgling between them, and then Genghis threw back his head and laughed. He shooed Jochi and Chagatai off, sending them back toward the camp, and two of the guards followed. Genghis spoke to the remaining pair, and the one who had given the Great Khan his cloak nodded. The Great Khan looked back at Ogedei one last time and then left, a guard following him.
By the time the remaining guard made it across the water, Ogedei had gutted the deer and was peeling the skin back from its haunches, revealing the lean meat beneath.
