Twelve-year-old Namelok can't tell anyone about the mother black rhino and her baby that she found in the bush while collecting firewood for her Maasai tribe. She vows to protect them always, visit them often, and to keep them secret.

But when her initiation into womanhood threatens her secret visits, Namelok must say goodbye to her precious animal friends. Before she can, though, she makes a horrifying discovery, one that sends her on a harrowing journey into the bush in a desperate search for poachers and the justice they deserve.

Cristina Kessler has written a powerful and authentic story of a young girl's love for a rhino mother and her baby, and of her courage to challenge tradition to defend them.

Namelok always savored her early afternoons when she went in search of firewood. Each day she wandered farther, knowing the dangers that could lie in wait, but always lured on by the calls of the birds singing a dozen different songs, by the possible natural secrets hiding behind the next small hill or clump of acacia trees. She loved her freedom and the distance between her and all others, especially in these days when dissension between young and old ruled the home enkangs .

She loved the sounds of the bush. The low sweet throb of mourning doves calling "work harder--work harrrrdddderrr," the screeching of guinea fowl, and the comforting whish of wings as a flock of egrets passed overhead. The constant buzz of the cicadas made her feel safe, for they only stopped when danger was near.

Her slender neck was covered in a bead choker of many colors. Red, blue, green and white symbolizing the things most important to her Maasai culture--blood, sky, good pastures and milk. A layer of three large, stiff beaded necklaces, each bigger than the one before, circled her neck and softly clicked together on her shoulders as she wandered along the outside border of the dense growth of acacia trees. Her long dangling earrings made of beaded hide sometimes caught on her necklaces as she stooped and bent to collect her wood. She was glad of the gentle slap, slap from her leather sandals, for the ground was thick with giant nasty thorns protruding from fallen branches, strewn across the path. All the dead wood lying about was a treasure trove.

Stopping at a pile that she had already made, she bent to grab a branch too long to carry on her back. With a swift snatch she picked it up, the longest in the pile, stepped on it in the middle and pulled the end up, snapping it in two.

Humming to herself, she worked her way slowly but noisily around the copse of dense brush. "If no one else knows of this place, then I can come every day for months, the wood is so plentiful," she said to her shadow splayed across the trees. She laughed aloud at the thought of her mother, who had told Namelok more than once that talking to oneself was not a good thing.

"Only old crones and people not quite right in the head speak in conversations of one," her mother had scolded her just that morning. "Talk to me. Talk to your father. Talk to your three sisters, or your siblings from your father's other wives--but do not talk to yourself."

Out in the bush she was free to converse with herself, or the trees, or the dipping hornbills as they flew overhead. "Free!" she called out to the herd of graceful Thompson gazelles grazing nearby. So caught up was she with her mumbling and chuckling that she didn't know when the silence she suddenly noticed had actually begun. Not a cricket was buzzing, and even the birds seemed to be holding their breaths. Cocking her head to one side to listen she began a slow but penetrating look into the tangle of limbs and bushes. That's when she saw it, a dark mound deep in the bush.

Namelok watched as the black mound moved its head back and forth, its quivering nostrils sucking in the air and foreign scent while its ears flicked independently from front to back, listening in all directions. Its sides bulged, and with a sudden puffing snort, it kicked away a few large branches, then dropped to the earth, its breathing rapid and ragged. Its sides heaved.

The young Maasai girl froze, then whispered with complete awe, " Emuny Narok "--a black rhino. Father had taught her about each animal before letting her go into the bush alone. Now she tried to focus on his words of the past, rather than the

angry ones he would voice if he knew how far she had wandered from the family's enkang . "Namelok-ai," he had said long ago, "each animal must be met differently. Never run from the elephant, just freeze. And if you meet the hippo, climb up a tree or rock."

"I know that he respects all animals in the wild, and reveres the cow, but what did he tell me about the black rhino?" she whispered under her breath. Namelok thought hard as she watched the bulging beast that was making no move toward her, or away. When it dropped to the ground, the girl

smiled widely as she realized what was going on. In a voice loud enough for the struggling rhino to hear her she said, "Push, mother. Push hard!"

Then she remembered the encouraging sounds her father always gave his she-cows giving birth, and from a place she didn't know inside herself, out rolled a long deep sound, something she had never uttered before, "Currrr currrr," which made the mother relax. They both took a deep breath, and her father's words about the rhino came to her. "The white ones," he had said, "are larger and calmer, with big heads close to the ground for grazing. They live together, like our family groups. The black rhinos are smaller and fierce, and live alone in the bush. Their heads are smaller, far off the ground. Like its cousin the white rhino, it is nearly blind, but the black rhino is always ready to attack, so they are the ones to worry about."

"Not this one," Namelok said to the bush as the cicadas began to buzz once again and birdcalls filled in the silence. A loud grunt, almost like the puffing snort that precedes a charge, came from the struggling female. The rhino, whose ears could hear danger at a long distance, dropped her head to the ground. If the low murmur she had

heard a moment before was dangerous, so be it. The labor pains were coming quickly in a rapid series of contractions. All of the rhino's attention was focused on getting the birth over with as quickly as possible. She knew she was in great danger during the process.

"Push, mother," the young girl called, a little louder this time. "Push harder. I'll watch for the lion," she tried to reassure her. She didn't know if it was her imagination, but it seemed like the rhino relaxed a degree, her head resting on the ground.

"Push," Namelok called again. She had seen her father and brothers help the she-cows in their herd give birth. She had even helped her father's third wife, Nasieku, give birth to her newest

half-sister, still to be named. Remembering the experience clearly she called again, "Push harder," hoping her voice floating across the hot African afternoon would help.

With a push that Namelok nearly felt from afar, a small black head popped out from the panting mother's birth canal. It glistened in the sunlight, slick with mucus. Another loud groan and

giant push produced the front legs, held together like the tightly tied legs of a calf waiting to be branded. One more push and out popped the rest of the tiny black animal, lying on the ground like a sopping pile of laundry.

The mother rhino took a deep breath, then jumped to her feet and whirled around to her freshly born baby. Taking one quick look in all directions, lingering for a split second on the tall shape in the distance, the mother rhino licked her baby clean. As she swiped at the gooey calf with long tongue strokes, it struggled to stand, its little legs, not a minute old, churning the air as it tried to rise. With a concentration as intense as Namelok had ever seen, the mother licked her baby clean, gently encouraging it to lie

still for a few moments. When the mucus and blood were gone, the mother tenderly rubbed her nose along her baby's body, then with her head carefully nudged it until the baby stood on its four wobbly legs.