Thinning the Herd
by Ricky Ginsburg

Carl Linnaeus, distant relative of the father of modern taxonomy, was returning to Africa to kill the last blue rhino. Several panicked gate agents at Heathrow had phoned security upon seeing the rifle in his carry-on bag, almost causing an abrupt end to his mission. A friendly Sky Marshall, also headed south, agreed to lock the weapon in a forward compartment. Linnaeus surrendered the extra clip of ammunition from his khaki field jacket before taking his first class seat.

“It’s been eleven months since my last trip to the Serengeti,” he proclaimed to the gray suited businessman tapping the laptop in the aisle seat. “You know, it’s not as luxurious a job as one would think. Keeping track of the extinctions and mutations is hard enough, and now with all of this gene splicing, who knows what sort of ill mannered creatures will crawl out of a test tube. Man can’t just leave well enough alone.” Linnaeus untied his tired, calf length hiking boots and stowed them under the seat. Fortunately for his temporary neighbor, the faded red argyle socks had been selected from the clean pile of laundry.

The businessman nodded and continued typing, his earpods blocking out the sounds he had no wish to hear. He did notice that the strangely dressed man in the window seat was talking and granted him a nod or two.

“Ceratotherium caelurus is such a grotesque beast. A blue rhino? To what end, Lord, where does this silly animal fit into the plan?” he asked. Linnaeus frowned to no one in particular, “You remember Capra pyrenaica, the Peruvian Ibex? No question in anyone’s mind, that was a mistake. Ibex have no place in the Peruvian mountains. Mountains are home to rams and eagles, soaring birds of prey. Ibex belong on the plains where they can prance and dance not some stilted hillside where they’ll constantly fall over. Good riddance, I said, took over a month to get the last one.”
His neighbor closed his laptop. Maybe if he pretended to nap the yammering would stop for a while and he could finish his expense report without offending this chatty charlie. He tilted back his seat, threw the yapper another gracious nod and closed his eyes. Linnaeus pulled the airline magazine from the seat pocket in front of him and attacked the crossword puzzle.

---

Linnaeus planned to spend the night in Dar es Salaam before heading out to the great East African plains. He had booked the Explorer suite in the Kilimanjaro Hotel; only the best for a world traveler such as himself. The hotel had the finest of Dar’s Indian chefs cooking tandori chicken spicy enough to unroll a Maharaja’s turban. A meal of the red tinted meat and some freshly baked chapatti with a bowl of sweet mango chutney would be his last completely civilized meal for a week.
Here, on the coast of the fragrant Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from his prey, he could already sense the great cerulean beast. He was sure that during dinner he could feel the rhino’s uneasiness as the breeze suddenly shifted back to the east. It was only the briefest of moments until the westerly wind off the bay again carried the fish-laden scents of a busy seaport. As the damp night air passed the table, his own essence hitched on for the long ride out to the plains. The rhino would remember; Linnaeus was not a man that you easily forgot.

He wasn’t quite sure whether the deep, booming voices of a chorus of football-sized African bullfrogs outside his window or the onslaught of the tandori chicken woke him so early into the morning. Perhaps there was someone knocking at his hotel door. Linnaeus threw off the thin covers and sat in the protection of the mosquito netting for a long breath. The bullfrogs continued their hymnals several stories below; across the street a pair of car doors slammed in unison. The dim light of the hotel hallway filtered under his door, unblocked by anyone’s shoes. He called out nonetheless.

“Hello? Is someone knocking, perhaps riffing, rapping on my hotel door? Hello?”
Only silence answered. He was about to continue his interrupted dream when the blue rhino called out, “Linnaeus? Is that you? I thought I sensed your pattern. You are close my old friend, I can tell.”

“Caelurus, you hideous horned monster, I can hear you as clear as these damned bullfrogs. You don’t have to shout.”

“A thousand pardons but I’ve called out twice already. You know just how hard it is to bring my thoughts down to your level. Are you here or is this some long distance magic that you are working?”

“I’m in Dar you blue bugger. I’ve come to finish the task.”

“Ah, so it’s true. I heard the gossip about you and the Dodo.”

“Didus ineptus, what a stupid thing to do to a bird; no means of flight. God should have taken more care with his creating. At least the Penguin can swim. I should have finished with you as well on that trip. It was only your luck that I ran out of cartridges.”

There was a long pause as the wind shifted and the telepathic link was lost in some distant lightning.

Linnaeus was on a quest to rid the world of all of God’s mistakes. Not the human ones, of which there were just too many for one man to dispatch in a single lifetime. No, Homo sapiens in all of its incarnations, was safe from his sights. But there were thousands, perhaps millions, of sole survivors walking and stumbling the earth wasting precious natural resources for their lone survival. Some had found shelter in zoos and protected habitats around the globe. But many were roaming the jungles and plains and isolated mountainsides where a man with the knowledge, weapon and money to spend could eventually find them.

He had killed hundreds of these useless beasts over the years. Kept healthy by his constant travel on and off the paved roads of the globe, Linnaeus looked far younger than his nearly eighty years. His skin color and boots were matching shades of too much sun but there were more wrinkles on a starched shirt than on his face. He was no stranger to the frozen tundra of the Mongolian desert, having eaten the last Mongolian swallow for a midnight snack some years back. Early in his twenties, Linnaeus spent a month ridding the island of Honshu of its last chicken thieving gray wolf. Japanese farmers paid him a king’s ransom in pearls for once again making their hen houses secure from that evil creature. The two hours he spent in Cincinnati hunting the last carrier pigeon with a bow and arrow earned him a key to that city. The great white hunters had gone the way of the Bali tiger long before Linnaeus crossed her off his list.

There was a soft rushing inside his ears. Caelurus was back.

“I would have thought that time and travel would have softened you old man,” he said. “There has to come a time when the cause loses its last supporter. You’ve killed so many species that I thought you had forgotten about me.”

“Does an elephant ever forget? No Caelurus, my list is my bible. There’s only one way to be removed from it.”

“What do you gain from killing me Linnaeus?”

“It’s not what I gain; it’s what the world loses. Your death, while important to you, is meaningless in the overall scheme of God’s plan. But it saves the food you eat for some far more important species. It provides air to breathe and water to drink for animals that are not examples of the creator’s misguided whimsy. Your very existence is a waste of precious resources. You are a mistake and I am the eraser. If I were to let you live out your lonely life you would leave no offspring, no legacy for anyone to recall. You are unique and that is your loss because no one can mate with you. There is no female to bear your child; it’s just not possible.”

“Darwin says otherwise,” the blue rhino argued.

“Darwin is an idiot. He should have gone down with the Dodo. Anyone who truly believes that a man can evolve from a monkey would be better off driving a hack on the streets of London and preaching front seat politics to German tourists.”

“But what if he’s correct? What if I could mate with another rhino?”

“At your age? You’re probably shooting blanks by now. You should have thought of that years ago. But either way it’s impossible. God probably made you sterile from the beginning.”

The rhino was silent as the dusty wind blew across the crater floor. Tumbleweeds and field mice scattered at its urging. Darwin, a student of Linnaeus, had told him of the possibility of cross breeding decades ago. It was survival of the fittest and the gene pool would prevail in the long haul.

“Linnaeus I think you are nothing more than a confused old man on a foolish mission. Perhaps in the days it takes you to find me your clouds will clear and let some sun shine into that thick gray skull. We will talk one more time before this hunt comes to an end.” Caelurus, the last blue rhino, let the connection fade into the night sky.

---

The drive from Dar es Salaam to Ngorongoro was normally a four day roller coaster ride over washboard roads of hard packed clay. Tom, the best driver unlimited cash could rent, knew several shortcuts through Maasi villages, places that the tourists skirted carefully around in their overfilled minivans. Several well placed twenty pound notes helped cut the miserable drive by a full day with this routing. Throughout the trip Linnaeus marveled at the wealth of animal life running free over the dusty plains. Here were delivery truck size Cape Buffalo lumbering from dry river bed to dry river bed in search of muddy midday relief from the searing heat of a cloudless Tanzanian afternoon. Thompson’s Gazelles with long, ringed horns, sharp enough to pierce a hunter’s leather jacket, raced the wind and leapt in constant ballet throughout the tall grass. And everywhere they turned, monkeys of all species, Darwin’s fools, hung in trees and cluttered the roadway. Chattering little pseudo-humans with far more intelligence than his student had ever displayed.

They stopped each night in a Maasi village where Tom would negotiate hut and cot and a hot meal for prices that would make a Hilton blush. It was no surprise that the Maasi were the wealthiest people in Tanzania. There was safety with the tribesmen and a guarantee that they would leave with all their belongings when the morning awoke. It was money well spent.

The hunter and his chauffeur reached the crater late in the afternoon of the third day. The down roads were now switched to up as hordes of zebra stripped Land Rovers loaded with shutter snapping tourists, most wearing bush hats with dangling price tags, inched their way up from the valley floor. They would have to wait until morning to begin the hunt. Tom trundled off in search of a camp site where they could spend the night. He pitched camp under a centuries old Baobab tree as the sun slid down the rim of the eastern crater wall. Linnaeus set the sights on his Winchester .408 for a close in kill. Tomorrow was Sunday; he preferred to fix God’s mistakes on Sunday. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Linnaeus had considered dressing now and leaving for the crater lest his quary find some safe haven. But the walls of the Ngorongoro crater were over a quarter of a mile high and the steep switchbacks were blocked with heavy gates at night. Very few animals ever left the valley. The caldera floor, over 200 square miles, contained hundreds of thousands of animals, all named by someone in his family. Unfortunately for the rhino, he was the only one that was blue, there was no where to hide.

Tom set about cooking dinner for his employer over a portable gas stove. He had traded several pairs of fresh cotton socks in the last village for a chicken and a small basket of fresh rapini and broccoli. He satisfied his hunger with some bread and a jar of sweet jam while Linnaeus picked apart the roasted fowl and quickly swallowed the slimy vegetables.

There was no need for air conditioning in the large canvas tent. The cool night air blew through the flaps and tempered the heat. The cots were primitive but comfortable, at least they weren’t moving. Linnaeus zipped closed the mosquito net and choked the lantern down to a dull glow.

“Will you kill him tomorrow, the blue rhino?” asked Tom, “Will you kill Caelurus?”

“We’ve got to find him first, nashia, my trusted friend. He knows we are here and he will have to decide if the fight will come to him or whether he will strike first.”

“Mungu mtukufu wants him to die? Bwana speaks to God?”

“He is one of God’s mistakes. He doesn’t want him to die he wants me to correct the mistake. This is the only way to fix the world, Tom.”

“These are things that I need not understand. Amelala fofofo, sleep soundly bwana.”

Linnaeus closed his eyes and the stars disappeared. He would sleep lightly under the African sky, even with the Winchester at his side.

The blue rhino watched from the valley floor as the lone campfire dimmed and finally disappeared on the crater rim above him. He settled into a stand of bulrush and dozed for several hours. He would speak with the hunter before dawn. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to change an old zealot’s mind.

In his dreams Linnaeus saw himself astride a young zebra. The animal’s stripes were still not fully blackened and long tufts of dark brown remained on its hind legs and neck. Below him the last Dodo lay still in the short grass; an arrow still piercing its heart. The blue rhino stood facing him, poised to charge. He lifted the Winchester rifle and centered the cross hairs on its sky blue forehead. The rhino charged but the zebra held steady. Linnaeus squeezed the trigger and waited for the powerful recoil to slam into his shoulder but none came, the rifle was empty. He awoke covered with a mixture of sweat and mosquito repellant.

“Linnaeus. Linnaeus!” Caelurus bellowed the hunter’s name.

“I’m awake. I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” he lied, “say your peace quickly, the dawn is blooming.”

“This could be your last dawn my friend,” warned the blue rhino.

“Perhaps, but my Winchester has much more range than your horn,” smirked Linnaeus. “Only one of us will watch the sun set this evening. The advantage is mine.”

“Am I your ticket to heaven, Linnaeus? Does my death on top of all the others you’ve killed secure you a place at the side of our creator? Do you really think that you can correct all of God’s mistakes in your short, miserable lifetime?”

“No, not all of the errors will be erased but enough to make a difference,” replied the hunter. “No one will mourn your loss Caelurus, the memory of your existence will blow away with the dust from your bones in the wind. I will take some small pleasure in crossing your name off my list.”

The blue rhino paused to gather the courage for what was to come next. “What about my son, Linnaeus? Will you kill him as well?”

“Your son? In the three days it has taken me to travel you have produced a son? Not even the scientists with their Petri dishes could work that sort of magic. What are you talking about Caelurus? You have no son because you have no mate. There is only one blue rhino.”

“You should spend more time with your student, Linnaeus. Darwin has given the species the ability to breed amongst the genus. It has been a dozen years since I mated with Simum.”

“Impossible!” shrieked Linnaeus, “Ceratotherium simum cannot possibly bear your child, she is white and you are blue. Other than a horn and four stubby legs, you have nothing in common. Simum can’t even cross with her gray neighbors in this valley. You are lying Caelurus and you are wasting my time. The hunt begins at dawn; your last day is growing shorter.”

Linnaeus left the comfort of the tent and stood on the sun baked soil looking up at the fading stars. The blue rhino could not be telling the truth. He had no son to carry on his species. If he did then Caelurus would not be the last blue rhino and his species would have to continue. But this could not be. Darwin was a fool to let the animals believe that they could crossbreed. He would have stern words for his student when he returned to London. What’s next he wondered – elephants bedding down with field mice? He shed the doubts from his mind and went in search of an outhouse.

Tom had started a fresh pot of paint peeling local coffee on the far side of the Baobab tree by the time he returned and was cracking a large egg into a pan. “Did you sleep well, bwana?” he asked.

“Like the dead, nashia, like the dead. The wide open space of the African sky is my silent lullaby. The soft breeze is a woman’s tender hands. It was a peaceful night and we are well prepared, God will be pleased.”

“I spoke with the rhino last night, bwana. He is telling the truth. There is a child, a son with a hide as blue as the crystal clear waters of Lake Manyara.”

Linnaeus was lost for words. He knew that Tom was Maasi but he was unaware that any mind other than his had ever had contact with the blue rhino. But this was Africa and events transpired here that were impossible to recreate anywhere else. The shock quickly dissipated. “He lies to you, nashia; there can be no offspring of the blue rhino without a blue female. He is seeking an ally in the battle for his life. Remember how the Dodo claimed a daughter with the penguin? No, Caelurus is an old useless beast who will say anything to grasp a few more years. There is no child to carry his species forward and by this evening there will be no more blue rhinos to bother either of us.”

Sunlight had begun to crackle through the limbs of the massive tree above them. Tom moved quickly to pack their gear into the Land Rover. The switchbacks would soon open and they needed to be ahead of the daily rush of camera laden tourists for the ride down into the valley of the Ngorongoro crater. Linnaeus checked and rechecked the sights on the powerful .408 Winchester rifle. He loaded the clip with his most powerful rounds and put several extra clips in his khaki pockets. He would never have that dream again.

---

The ride down the switchbacks is one of the most exciting parts of a visit to the Ngorongoro crater. Tourists squeal as the threadbare tires of ancient Jeeps and Land Rovers with only two working gears come within inches of the perilous drop to the valley floor. The shear walls of the extinct volcano’s rim are teeming with life. Fire hose size green and violet snakes slither and hiss as you pass them. Spiders as large as your fist crawl everywhere. Linnaeus had made this trip often. His mind was focused on the solution of his problem. He brushed a large brown spider off his shoulder without a glance.

Tom headed north as they reached level ground. All of the rhinos would be at a watering hole several miles away. It was the best place to start the search for the blue one. As they bounced across the non-existent road the sound of their motor scattered a herd of Dik-dik and chased a flock of Pink Flamingos into the air. Linnaeus sighted one of the birds and tracked it across the sky. They were not his prey this morning; he let them fly off into the distance. They passed a pride of lions just getting into the lazy part of the day. He was certain that one of them whispered the word ‘tourists’ as they approached. Several of the females struck a fearsome pose with bared fangs drooling saliva onto matted paws. The hippo pool was full of Bentley-shaped bathers this morning. The tourist tugs still working their way down the switchbacks gave the hippos plenty of time to wash and prep for the cameras. One of them yawned as Linnaeus’ Rover stuttered past.

Overhead, hundreds of birds had taken flight from tree limbs squawking and whistling as they reorganized their communities for the day. Linnaeus ducked as a flight of rainbows buzzed their Land Rover before landing in some tall scrub to their left. Tom turned and smiled at his passenger; this was a dalili nzuri, a good omen indeed. Linnaeus wondered for whom?

Tom slowed the Land Rover and shifted into high range and two-wheel drive. If they were going to tangle with a rhino he wanted all the speed the Land Rover could muster. A charging rhino of any color could topple a small truck with ease. The best plan would be to get out of the way, quickly. They made a slow pass around the beast-encrusted lake as all eyes followed them like gigantic horned hawks. Huge gray and white rhinos snuffed and turned their heads to look at each other. If there was conversation it was not for the humans to hear. A large white rhino lumbered out of the water to chew on some prairie grass at its edge, coming a bit too close to their path. Tom circled slowly away from the shoreline careful to leave them running room. Linnaeus pulled the binoculars from their leather pouch and began a slow sweep across the field of view.

Caelurus stepped from behind a grove of Eucalyptus trees a hundred yards to the west and turned to face the hunter. Tom brought the Land Rover around to meet the rhino head on. The blue rhino was much larger than the whites and grays in the watering hole; even from this distance he dwarfed them. Linnaeus clicked open the safety and wrapped the leather sling around his arm. He stood on the passenger seat, his back braced against the foam-wrapped roll bar. He snugged the rifle’s thickly padded shoulder rest into his right shoulder.

“Get us closer, Tom. I want to see his eyes. I want to make sure he knows it’s me.”

“He knows bwana. He will charge if we get closer and you will lose the shot.”

“Closer, Tom, closer now! I’ve got to see his eyes!” Linnaeus leaned toward the rhino, ready to fire.

Tom put the Land Rover in gear and moved them forward almost halfway to the motionless animal. Linnaeus flipped open the scope and centered the blue rhino in the crosshairs. He took a deep breath and then another, letting the last one escape his lips slowly and deliberately. His finger smoothly compressed the trigger…

A lightning bolt of blue charged from the stand of Eucalyptus coming straight at the Land Rover at thoroughbred speed. Tom grabbed the rifle barrel as the crack of the primer split the almost silent scene. The shot went wide to the left splintering a large tree limb into toothpicks. Linnaeus fell back in the seat as Tom jammed the transmission into reverse and stood on the gas pedal. But it was not fast enough. The blue rhino, son of Caelurus and Simum, crashed into the front left wheel and flipped the car over like a Matchbox toy. He backed off and was about to charge again when Caelurus spoke, marching quickly towards the overturned vehicle.

“Are they God’s mistakes or do they belong to Linnaeus? Can the mistakes that God made correct themselves or do they need man’s help, Linnaeus? How many have you killed? How many species have you ended in your misguided quest for perfection, Linnaeus? Tell us, tell us all, please.”

Linnaeus looked at the two blue rhinos and shuddered. This was just not possible. Where did this second blue rhino come from and how?

“This is my son, Linnaeus. His mother is pure white. That awful blue recessive gene that you sought to eradicate is much more dominant than you thought. Darwin was right; you should listen to your student more often. He doesn’t give as much power to your god as you do my friend.” The great blue rhino stepped forward and crushed the powerful rifle with one step. Together, father and son pushed the Land Rover over on to its wheels.

“Go home, Linnaeus, go home to your laboratory and your books and your students.

This insane mission of yours is over. This is a place of survival of the fittest according to Darwin and you just don’t have what it takes.” The two rhinos slid into the muddy water of the watering hole to wash up for people who came to shoot them with cameras and not with rifles. Caelurus shouted over his shoulder, “There were two Dodos, Linnaeus, and there will be more.”

Tom put the Land Rover in drive and headed back towards the crater rim and the only upward moving switchback. “It’s over bwana. Darwin has won.”

Linnaeus looked at him, still shaken, and smiled, “Darwin, my ass.”

 

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