“Do you smell it?” Whitebeard asked.

         The young female wildebeest raised her nose and sniffed. “Yes, Grandpa. It smells like water. It’s the river, isn’t it?”

         “Yes, it is. We’ll cross tomorrow.

         “Grandpa, I want to cross with my friends.”

The old gnu shook his grizzled head. “No. Stay with me.”

The Grumeti River was full of hungry crocodiles lying in wait for the annual migration of the wildebeest and zebras. Last year was his granddaughter’s first crossing, and he had kept her safe by staying in the middle of the herd. She was too young to know what the screams at the front of the herd meant.

It was time for a lesson.

         “Do you remember the nursery rhyme your mother taught you, Quickfoot?”

         “’Course I do.” The young gnu closed her eyes and recited

         Logs with eyes, bad surprise,

So is wind that talks.

If grass tips waver, don’t stop to savor

The smell of tender stalks.

“Very good,” Whitebeard said. “Do you have any idea what it means?”

“My friend Bighorn said it’s just a nonsense rhyme. His mother made him learn it.”

“Uh huh. By the way, have you seen Bighorn lately?”

Quickfoot tossed her head impatiently. She could tell that her grandfather was in a teaching mood. He never would just tell her something, but kept asking her questions until the right words came out of her mouth. It was annoying, but on the other hand, she did tend to remember the lesson.

The old gnu asked another question. “I bet your friends want to be the first across the river, don’t they?”

“Well, sure. It’s cool to stand there and watch the herd slog through all that muddy water. The water is nice and fresh for the first ones.”

“I guess it’s important to be cool, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. Everybody knows that, Grandpa. Why don’t you?” Quickfoot was still young enough to think that her friends knew more than the grown-ups.
         “Oh, I do, sweetheart, but you know what’s even more important than cool? Staying alive, that’s what. Do you know what the ‘logs with eyes’ are?”

“Trees don’t have eyes, and a log is just a dead tree,” said Quickfoot, proud of her knowledge.

“’Logs with eyes’ are crocodiles, Quickfoot. They look like logs floating in the water until they raise their heads. Then you can see their eyes and the rows of sharp teeth. That’s why they are a bad surprise.”

Quickfoot shuddered. She had no idea that’s what the rhyme meant. Now she realized what the commotion was at the edge of the herd when they crossed the rivers. She also realized that she hadn’t seen Bighorn since the final crossing at the end of last summer, and she’d been wondering why none of her friends had mentioned him. She promised her grandfather that she would cross with him.

The next day the vast herd reached the Grumeti River as Whitebeard had predicted. Quickfoot was milling around with a group of her friends when a young male named Longtail asked, “Look, Quickfoot, isn’t that your grandfather over there?”

Whitebeard was standing several yards away. The old gnu was one of the herd leaders. Longtail thought he might challenge him next year after he grew a little bigger and stronger. Quickfoot’s grandfather was old, but still formidable.

 Whitebeard tossed his head in the “come here” gesture. The granddaughter thought briefly about pretending she hadn’t seen him, but she remembered that she’d said she would cross the river with him. She pawed the ground, annoyed at having to leave her friends. Her foot kicked up a little cloud of dust that joined the big cloud from thousands of hooves pounding the dry ground. Quickfoot gave a snort to clear her nostrils and made her way to her grandfather’s side.

“Come with me, Quickfoot. I want you to see this.” Whitebeard led her to a rise off to the side of the migratory path that sloped down to the river and said, “See how low the river is? There hasn’t been much rain this spring. This is good for us because the river is not as wide, so we won’t be in the water as long. Also, there is less river for the crocodiles to hide in. Now watch. The first gnus are getting ready to cross.”

Quickfoot saw her friends make their way to the front of the herd, prancing and watching each other. Suddenly Longtail charged into the river. Several of her friends followed, and the entire herd began to move as a whole. Upstream, five logs pushed off the shore and began moving rapidly toward the animals. A long knobby tail suddenly thrashed in the water and Longtail disappeared beneath the surface. Then the other logs grew eyes and teeth, and huge jaws clamped down on more wildebeest. As more and more of the herd entered the water, Quickfoot saw that the crocodiles were picking off the animals on the edges of the moving mass. Now she understood why her grandfather didn’t want her up front.

“Let’s go now,” Whitebeard urged. “We’ll join the herd and work our way toward the middle before we get into the water.”

         A little later Quickfoot and Whitebeard were standing safely on the other side of the Grumeti River. They were soon joined by Quickfoot’s mother Goodeyes, who was happy to see them safe. Quickfoot asked, “Mama, remember that nursery rhyme you taught me? The one that begins with ‘logs with eyes’?”

         “Of course, dear. Why do you ask?”
         “I know now what the ‘logs with eyes’ are, but what does the next line mean?”

         “’Wind that talks’ means wind that brings us news. Remember what I taught you about smells? How certain animals have smells? The smells are the news. They tell us about everything around us, like danger.”

         At that moment the wind shifted direction. Whitebeard raised his head and sniffed. “And that is lion!” he said. They looked around. While they were talking, the herd had moved off quite a ways, leaving them standing by themselves. Gnus should not do that on the open plains.

Goodeyes said, “Quickfoot, do you remember the next two lines? ‘If grass tips waver, don’t stop to savor the smell of tender stalks?’ It means you should watch the grass. If you see it move, it means there is something in there trying to hide.”

“Like over there, Mama?”

Under a group of trees the tips of the tall grass were moving, even though the wind was not blowing at the moment.

Goodeyes cried, “Exactly like that! Run!”

The three gnus started running as fast as they could. Suddenly a pair of lionesses burst out of the grass after them. A gnu can run as fast as a lion, but the lion reaches its top speed sooner, which means that if the lion does not catch the gnu within the first hundred yards or so, the gnu has a chance to get away. Unfortunately, the three gnus had let the lions get closer than they should. As they ran toward the herd, Whitebeard look back over his shoulder and saw that the lionesses were gaining. He slowed down and the two cats soon caught him.

As they ran toward the safety of the herd, Quickfoot and Goodeyes did not realize that Whitebeard was no longer with them. The herd, alerted to the presence of the two cats, wheeled to face the enemy, the larger males standing at the front with their horns lowered.

         The herd watched sadly as Whitebeard fought bravely, but he was no match for two hungry lionesses. The battle was soon over.

         “I thought Grandpa could run faster than that,” Quickfoot said.

         “He can, dear. He was one of the fastest gnus in the herd.”

         “Then how did the lionesses catch him?”

         “You know the Gnu Story, don’t you? The one your grandfather told me when I was young like you, and I told you?”

Quickfoot shuffled her feet. She remembered something about a cheetah, but she hadn’t been paying very close attention.

“I forgot it, Mama.”

“Quickfoot, you should listen. When older gnus are telling you something, it’s usually for a reason. The story goes like this—a cheetah is chasing two gnus. One gnu says, ‘We’re dead. We can’t outrun a cheetah.’ The other one says, ‘I don’t have to outrun the cheetah. I just have to outrun you.’”

“Oh.”

There was a long pause. Then it dawned on the young gnu what her mother was trying to tell her.

“Oh!”

“That’s right, dear. Your grandfather let the lionesses catch him so we could get away.”

Quickfoot looked down sadly. She had learned a lot today.

“Uh, Mama? Do you know any other rhymes?”  

The End

For Clancy Ehnat on her 9^th birthday.