The warrior arched his body, readying to sling his spear at my chest

 Laikipia

With a shriek, the warrior arched his body, readying to sling his spear at my chest. The tear-dropped javelin point flashed in the sun. In the heat, dust swirled up from the hooves of the young blood’s cattle invading my farm. In his hand, the seven-foot shaft lance quivered, ready, poised for release — and then he yelled again.

This is March 2015, I reminded myself, not AD 991 at the onset of the Battle of Maldon. I had asked the man to come with me to the police, where he would be arrested for trespass. The spear flashing was his response. He had pushed his cattle into what was left of my pasture, and many other herds had been there too for weeks — upwards of 7,000 beasts cropping the last of the grass. He and the other herders had vandalised the dry-stone walls that mark our boundaries. When our workers tried to push the cattle off, the young warriors had wielded their lances and swords and knobkerries and promised to murder them.