Chapter three

Droopy's country, when we reached it that evening, after a hot ride

through red-soiled, bush-scrubby hills, looked awful. It was at the edge of

a belt where all the trees had been girdled to kill the tsetse flies. And

across from camp was a dusty, dirty native village. The soil was red and

eroded and seemed to be blowing away, and camp was pitched in a high wind

under the sketchy shade of some dead trees on a hillside overlooking a

little stream and the mud village beyond. Before dark we followed Droopy and

two local guides up past the village and in a long climb to the top of a

rock-strewn ridge that overlooked a deep valley that was almost a canyon.

Across on the other side, were broken valleys that sloped steeply down into

the canyon. There were heavy growths of trees in the valleys and grassy

slopes on the ridges between, and above there was the thick bamboo forest of

the mountain. The canyon ran down to the Rift Valley, seeming to narrow at

the far end where it cut through the wall of the rift. Beyond, above the

grassy ridges and slopes, were heavily forested hills. It looked a hell of a

country to hunt.

'If you. see one across there you have to go straight down to the

bottom of the canyon. Then up one of those timber patches and across those

damned gullies. You can't keep him in sight and you'll kill yourself

climbing. It's too steep. Those are the kind of innocent-looking gullies we

got into that night coming home.'

'It looks very bad, ' Pop agreed.

'I've hunted a country just like this for deer. The south slope of

Timber Creek in Wyoming. The slopes are all too steep. It's hell. It's too

broken. We'll take some punishment to-morrow.'

P.O.M. said nothing. Pop had brought us here and Pop would bring us

out. All she had to do was see her boots did not hurt her feet. They hurt

just a little now, and that was her only worry.

I went on to dilate on the difficulties the country showed and we went

home to camp in the dark all very gloomy and full of prejudice against

Droopy. The fire flamed brightly in the wind and we sat and watched the moon

rise and listened to the hyenas. After we had a few drinks we did not feel

so badly about the country.

'Droopy swears it's good, ' Pop said. 'This isn't where he wanted to go

though, he says. It was another place farther on. But he swears this is

good.'

'I love Droopy, ' P.O.M. said. 'I have perfect confidence in Droopy.'

Droopy came up to the fire with two spear-carrying natives.

'What does he hear? ' I asked.

There was some talk by the natives, then Pop said: 'One of these

sportsmen claims he was chased by a huge rhino to-day. Of course nearly any

rhino would look huge when he was chasing him.'

'Ask him how long the horn was.'

The native showed that the horn was as long as his arm. Droopy grinned.

'Tell him to go, ' said Pop.

'Where did all this happen? '

'Oh, over there somewhere, ' Pop said. 'You know. Over there. Way over

there. Where these things always happen.'

'That's marvellous. Just where we want to go.'

'The good aspect is that Droopy's not at all depressed, ' Pop said. 'He

seems very confident. After all, it's his show.'

'Yes, but we have to do the climbing.'

'Cheer him up, will you? ' Pop said to P.O.M. 'He's getting me very

depressed.'

'Should we talk about how well he shoots? '

'Too early in the evening. I'm not gloomy. I've just seen that kind of

country before. It will be good for us all right. Take some of your belly

off, Governor.'

The next day I found that I was all wrong about that country.

We had breakfast before daylight and were started before sunrise,

climbing the hill beyond the village in single file. Ahead there was the

local guide with a spear, then Droopy with my heavy gun and a water bottle,

then me with the Springfield, Pop with the Mannlicher, P.O.M. pleased, as

always to carry nothing, M'Cola with Pop's heavy gun and another water

bottle, and finally two local citizens with spears, water bags, and a chop

box with lunch. We planned to lay up in the heat of the middle of the day

and not get back until dark. It was fine climbing in the cool fresh morning

and very different from toiling up this same trail last evening in the

sunset with all the rocks and dirt giving back the heat of the day. The

trail was used regularly by cattle and the dust was powdered dry and, now,

lightly moistened from the dew. There were many hyena tracks and, as the

trail came on to a ridge of grey rock so that you could look down on both

sides into a steep ravine, and then went on along the edge of the canyon, we

saw a fresh rhino track in one of the dusty patches below the rocks.

'He's just gone on ahead, ' Pop said. 'They must wander all over here at

night.'

Below, at the bottom of the canyon, we could see the tops of high trees

and in an opening see the flash of water. Across were the steep hillside and

the gullies we had studied last night. Droopy and the local guide, the one

who had been chased by the rhino, were whispering together. Then they

started down a steep path that went in long slants down the side of the

canyon.

We stopped. I had not seen P.O.M. was limping, and in sudden whispered

family bitterness there was a highly-righteous-on-both-sides clash,

historically on unwearable shoes and boots in the past, and imperatively on

these, which hurt. The hurt was lessened by cutting off the toes of the

heavy short wool socks worn over ordinary socks, and then, by removing the

socks entirely, the boots made possible. Going down-hill steeply made these

Spanish shooting boots too short in the toe and there was an old argument,

about this length of boot and whether the bootmaker, whose part I had taken,

unwittingly first, only as interpreter, and finally embraced his theory

patriotically as a whole and, I believed, by logic, had overcome it by

adding on to the heel. But they hurt now, a stronger logic, and the

situation was unhelped by the statement that men's new boots always hurt for

weeks before they became comfortable. Now, heavy socks removed, stepping

tentatively, trying the pressure of the leather against the toes, the

argument past, she wanting not to suffer, but to keep up and please Mr. J.

P., me ashamed at having been a four-letter man about boots, at being

righteous against pain, at being righteous at all, at ever being righteous,

stopping to whisper about it, both of us grinning at what was whispered, it

all right now, the boots too, without the heavy socks, much better, me

hating all righteous bastards now, one absent American friend especially,

having just removed myself from that category, certainly never to be

righteous again, watching Droopy ahead, we went down the long slant of the

trail toward the bottom of the canyon where the trees were heavy and tall

and the floor of the canyon, that from above had been a narrow gash, opened

to a forest-banked stream.

We stood now in the shade of trees with great smooth trunks, circled at

their base with the line of roots that showed in rounded ridges up the

trunks like arteries, the trunks the yellow green of a French forest on a

day in winter after rain. But these trees had a great spread of branches and

were in leaf and below them, in the stream bed in the sun, reeds like

papyrus grass grew thick as wheat and twelve feet tall. There was a game

trail through the grass along the stream and Droopy was bent down looking at

it. M'Cola went over and looked and they both followed it a little way,

stooped close over it, then came back to us.

'Nyati, ' M'Cola whispered. 'Buffalo.' Droopy whispered to Pop and then

Pop said, softly in his throaty, whisky whisper, 'They're buff gone down the

river. Droop says there are some big bulls. They haven't come back.'

'Let's follow them, ' I said. 'I'd rather get another buff than rhino.'

'It's as good a chance as any for rhino, too, ' Pop said.

'By God, isn't it a great looking country? ' I said.

'Splendid, ' Pop said. 'Who would have imagined it? '

'The trees are like Andre's pictures, ' P.O.M. said. 'It's simply

beautiful. Look at that green. It's Masson. Why can't a good painter see

this country? '

'How are your boots? '

'Fine.'

As we trailed the buffalo we went very slowly and quietly. There was no

wind and we knew that when the breeze came up it would be from the east and

blow up the canyon toward us. We followed the game trail down the river-bed

and as we went the grass was much higher. Twice we had to get down to crawl

and the reeds were so thick you could not see two feet into them. Droop

found a fresh rhino track, too, in the mud. I began to think about what

would happen if a rhino came barging along this tunnel and who would do

what. It was exciting but I did not like it. It was too much like being in a

trap and there was P.O.M. to think about. Then as the stream made a bend and

we came out of the high grass to the bank I smelled game very distinctly. I

do not smoke, and hunting at home I have several times smelled elk in the

rutting season before I have seen them, and I can smell clearly where an old

bull has lain in the forest. The bull elk has a strong musky smell. It is a

strong but pleasant odour and I know it well, but this smell I did not know.

'I can smell them, ' I whispered to Pop. He believed me.

'What is it? '

'I don't know but it's plenty strong. Can't you? '

'No.'

'Ask Droop.'

Droopy nodded and grinned.

'They take snuff, ' Pop said. 'I don't know whether they can scent or

not.'

We went on into another bed of reeds that were high over our heads,

putting each foot down silently before lifting the other, walking as quietly

as in a dream or a slow motion picture. I could smell whatever it was

clearly now, all of the time, sometimes stronger than at others. I did not

like it at all. We were close to the bank now, and ahead, the game trail

went straight out into a long slough of higher reeds than any we had come

through.

'I can smell them close as hell, ' I whispered to Pop. 'No kidding.

Really.'

'I believe you, ' Pop said. 'Should we get up here on to the bank and

skirt this bit? We'll be above it.'

'Good.' Then, when we were up, I said. 'That tall stun' had me spooked.

I wouldn't like to hunt in that.'

'How'd you like to hunt elephant in that? ' Pop whispered.

'I wouldn't do it.'

'Do you really hunt elephant in grass like that? ' P.O.M. asked.

'Yes, ' Pop said. 'Get up on somebody's shoulders to shoot.'

Better men than I am do it, I thought. I wouldn't do it.

We went along the grassy right bank, on a sort of shelf, now in the

open, skirting a slough of high dry reeds. Beyond on the opposite bank were

the heavy trees and above them the steep bank of the canyon. You could not

see the stream. Above us, on the right, were the hills, wooded in patches of

orchard bush. Ahead, at the end of the slough of reeds the banks narrowed

and the branches of the big trees almost covered the stream. Suddenly Droopy

grabbed me and we both crouched down. He put the big gun in my hand and took

the Springfield. He pointed and around a curve in the bank I saw the head of

a rhino with a long, wonderful-looking horn. The head was swaying and I

could see the ears forward and twitching, and see the little pig eyes. I

slipped the safety catch and motioned Droopy down. Then I heard M'Cola

saying, 'Toto! Toto! ' and he grabbed my arm. Droopy was whispering,

'Manamouki! Manamouki! Manamouki! ' very fast and he and M'Cola were frantic

that I should not shoot. It was a cow rhino with a calf, and as I lowered

the gun she gave a snort, crashed in the reeds, and was gone. I never saw

the calf. We could see the reeds swaying where the two of them were moving

and then it was all quiet.

'Damn shame, ' Pop whispered. 'She had a beautiful horn.'

'I was all set to bust her, ' I said. 'I couldn't tell she was a cow.'

'M'Cola saw the calf.'

M'Cola was whispering to Pop and nodding his head emphatically.

'He says there's another rhino in there, ' Pop said. 'That he heard him

snort.'

'Let's get higher, where we can see them if they break, and throw

something in, ' I said.

'Good idea, ' Pop agreed. 'Maybe the bull's there.'

We went a little higher up the bank where we could look out over the

lake of high reeds and, with Pop holding his big gun ready and I with the

safety off mine, M'Cola threw a club into the reeds where he had heard the

snort. There was a wooshing snort and no movement, not a stir in the reeds.

Then there was a crashing farther away and we could see the reeds swaying

with the rush of something through them toward the opposite bank, but could

not see what was making the movement. Then I saw the black back, the

wide-swept, point-lifted horns and then the quick-moving, climbing rush of a

buffalo up the other bank. He went up, his neck up and out, his head

horn-heavy, his withers rounded like a fighting bull, in fast strong-legged

climb. I was holding on the point where his neck joined his shoulder when

Pop stopped me.

'He's not a big one, ' he said softly. 'I wouldn't take him unless you

want him for meat.'

He looked big to nie and now he stood, his head up, broadside, his head

swung toward us.

'I've got three more on the licence and we're leaving their country, ' I

said.

'It's awfully good meat, ' Pop whispered. 'Go ahead then. Bust him. But

be ready for the rhino after you shoot.'

I sat down, the big gun feeling heavy and unfamiliar, held on the

buff's shoulder, squeezed off and flinched without firing. Instead of the

sweet clean pull of the Springfield with the smooth, unhesitant release at

the end, this trigger came to what, in a squeeze, seemed metal stuck against

metal. It was like when you shoot in a nightmare. I couldn't squeeze it and

I corrected from my flinch, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. It

pulled off with a jerk and the big gun made a rocking explosion out of which

I came, seeing the buffalo still on his feet, and going out of sight to the

left in a climbing run, to let off the second barrel and throw a burst of

rock dust and dirt over his hind quarters. He was out of shot before I could

reload the double-barrelled 470 and we had all heard the snorting and the

crashing of another rhino that had gone out of the lower end of the reeds

and on under the heavy trees on our side without showing more than a glimpse

of his bulk in the reeds.

'It was the bull, ' Pop said. 'He's gone down the stream.'

'N'Dio. Doumi! Doumi! ' Droopy insisted it was a bull. 'I hit the damned

buff, ' I said. 'God knows where.

To hell with those heavy guns. The trigger pull put me off.'

'You'd have killed him with the Springfield, ' Pop said.

'I'd know where I hit him anyway. I thought with the four-seven I'd

kill him or miss him, ' I said. 'Instead, now we've got him wounded.'

'He'll keep, ' Pop said. 'We want to give him plenty of time.'

'I'm afraid I gut-shot him.'

'You can't tell. Going off fast like that he might be dead in a hundred

yards.'

'The hell with that four-seventy, ' I said. 'I can't shoot it. The

trigger's like the last turn of the key opening a sardine can.'

'Come on, ' Pop said. 'We've got God knows how many rhino scattered

about here.'

'What about the buff? '

'Plenty of time for him later. We must let him stiffen up. Let him get

sick.'

'Suppose we'd been down there with all that stuff coming out.'

'Yes, ' said Pop.

All this in whispers. I looked at P.O.M. She was like someone enjoying

a good musical show.

'Did you see where it hit him? '

'I couldn't tell? ' she whispered. 'Do you suppose there are any more in

there? '

'Thousands, ' I said. 'What do we do, Pop? '

'That bull may be just around the bend, ' Pop said. 'Come on.'

We went along the bank, our nerves cocked, and as we came to the narrow

end of the reeds there was another rush of something heavy through the tall

stalks. I had the gun up waiting for whatever it was to show. But there was

only the waving of the reeds. M'Cola signalled with his hand not to shoot.

'The calf, ' Pop said. 'Must have been two of them. Where's the bloody

bull? '

'How the hell do you see them? '

'Tell by the size.'

Then we were standing looking down into the stream bed, into the

shadows under the branches of the big trees, and off ahead down the stream

when M'Cola pointed up the hill on our right.

'Faro, ' he whispered and reached me the glasses.

There on the hillside, head-on, wide, black, looking straight towards

us, ears twitching and head lifted, swaying as the nose searched for the

wind, was another rhino. He looked huge in the glasses. Pop was studying him

with his binoculars.

'He's no better than what you have, ' he said softly.

'I can bust him right in the sticking place, ' I whispered.

'You have only one more, ' Pop whispered. 'You want a good one.'

I offered the glasses to P.O.M.

'I can see him without, ' she said. 'He's huge.'

'He may charge, ' Pop said. 'Then you'll have to take him.'

Then, as we watched, another rhino came into sight from behind a wide

feathery-topped tree. He was quite a bit smaller.

'By God, it's a calf, ' Pop said. 'That one's a cow. Good thing you

didn't shoot her. She bloody well {may} charge too.'

'Is it the same cow? ' I whispered.

'No. That other one had a hell of a horn.'

We all had the nervous exhilaration, like a laughing drunk, that a

sudden over-abundance, idiotic abundance of game makes. It is a feeling that

can come from any sort of game or fish that is ordinarily rare and that,

suddenly, you find in a ridiculously unbelievable abundance.

'Look at her. She knows there's something wrong. But she can't see us

or smell us.'

'She heard the shots.'

'She knows we're here. But she can't make it out.'

The rhino looked so huge, so ridiculous, and so fine to see, and I

sighted on her chest.

'It's a nice shot.'

'Perfect, ' Pop said.

'What are we going to do? ' P.O.M. said. She was practical.

'We'll work around her, ' Pop said.

'If we keep low I don't believe our scent will carry up there once

we're past.'

'You can't teil, ' Pop said. 'We don't want her to charge.'

She did not charge, but dropped her head, finally, and worked up the

hill followed by the nearly full-grown calf.

'Now, ' said Pop, 'we'll let Droop go ahead and see if he can find the

bull's tracks. We might as well sit down.'

We sat in the shade and Droopy went up one side of the stream and the

local guide the other. They came back and said the bull had gone on down.

'Did any one ever see what son of horn he had? ' I asked.

'Droop said he was good.'

M'Cola had gone up the hill a little way. Now he crouched and beckoned.

'Nyati, ' he said with his hand up to his face.

'Where? ' Pop asked him. He pointed, crouched down, and as we crawled up

to him he handed me the glasses. They were a long way away on the jutting

ridge of one of the steep hillsides on the far side of the canyon, well down

the stream. We could see six, then eight buffalo, black, heavy necked, the

horns shining, standing on the point of a ridge. Some were grazing and

others stood, their heads up, watching.

'That one's a bull, ' Pop said, looking through the glasses.

'Which one? '

'Second from the right.'

'They all look like bulls to me.'

'They're a long way away. That one's a good bull. Now we've got to

cross the stream and work down toward them and try to get above them.'

'Will they stay there? '

'No. Probably they'll work down into this stream bed as soon as it's

hot.'

'Let's go.'

We crossed the stream on a log and then another log and on the other

side, half way up the hillside, there was a deeply worn game trail that

graded along the bank under the heavily leafed branches of the trees. We

went along quite fast, but walking carefully, and below us, now, the stream

bed was covered solidly with foliage. It was still early in the morning but

the breeze was rising and the leaves stirred over our heads. We crossed one

ravine that came down to the stream, going into the thick bush to be out of

sight and stooping as we crossed behind trees in the small open place, then,

using the shoulder of the ravine as protection, we climbed so that we might

get high up the hillside above the buffalo and work down to them. We stopped

in the shelter of the ridge, me sweating heavily and fixing a handkerchief

inside the sweatband of my Stetson, and sent Droop ahead to look. He came

back to say they were gone. From above we could see nothing of them, so we

cut across the ravine and the hillside thinking we might intercept them on

their way down into the river bed. The next hillside had been burned and at

the bottom of the hill there was a burned area of bush. In the ash dust were

the tracks of the buffalo as they came down and into the thick jungle of the

stream bed. Here it was too overgrown and there were too many vines to

follow them. There were no tracks going down the stream so we knew they were

down in the part of the stream bed we had looked down on from the game

trail. Pop said there was nothing to do about them in there. It was so thick

that if we jumped them we could not get a shot. You could not tell one from

another, he said. All you could see would be a rush of black. An old bull

would be grey but a good herd bull might be as black as a cow. It wasn't any

good to jump them like that.

It was ten o'clock now and very hot in the open, the sun pegged and the

breeze lifted the ashes of the burned-over ground as we walked. Everything

would be in the thick cover now. We decided to find a shady place and lie

down and read in the cool; to have lunch and kill the hot part of the day.

Beyond the burned place we came toward the stream and stopped,

sweating, in the shadow of some very large trees. We unpacked our leather

coats and our raincoats and spread them on the grass at the foot of the

trees so that we could lean back against the trunks. P.O.M. got out the

books and M'Cola made a small fire and boiled water for tea.

The breeze was coming up and we could hear it in the high branches. It

was cool in the shade, but if you stirred into the sun, or as the sun

shifted the shadow while you read so that any part of you was out of the

shadow, the sun was heavy. Droopy had gone on down the stream to have a

look, and as we lay there, reading, I could smell the heat of the day

coming, the drying up of the dew, the heat on the leaves, and the heaviness

of the sun over the stream.

P.O.M. was reading {Spanish Gold}, by George A. Birmingham, and she

said it was no good. I still had the Sevastopol book of Tolstoy and in the

same volume I was reading a story called 'The Cossacks' that was very good.

In it were the summer heat, the mosquitoes, the feel of the forest in the

different seasons, and that river that the Tartars crossed, raiding, and I

was living in that Russia again.

I was thinking how real that Russia of the time of our Civil War was,

as real as any other place, as Michigan, or the prairie north of town and

the woods around Evan's game farm, of how, through Turgenev, I knew that I

had lived there, as I had been in the family Buddenbrooks, and had climbed

in and out of her window in {Le Rouge et Le Noir}, or the morning we had

come in the gates of Paris and seen Salcede torn apart by the horses at the

Place de Greves. I saw all that. And it was me they did not break on the

rack that time because I had been polite to the executioner the time they

killed Coconas and me, and I remember the Eve of St. Bartholomew's and how

we hunted Huguenots that night, and when they trapped me at her house that

time, and no feeling more true than finding the gate of the Louvre being

closed, nor of looking down at his body in the water where he fell from the

mast, and always, Italy, better than any book, lying in the chestnut woods,

and in the fall mist behind the Duomo going across the town to the Ospedale

Maggiore, the nails in my boots on the cobbles, and in the spring sudden

showers in the mountains and the smell of the regiment like a copper coin in

your mouth. So in the heat the train stopped at Dezenzano and there was Lago

de Garda and those troops are the Czech Legion, and the next time it was

raining, and the next time it was in the dark, and the next time you passed

it riding in a truck, and the next time you were coming from somewhere else,

and the next time you walked to it in the dark from Sermione. For we have

been there in the books and out of the books -- and where we go, if we are

any good, there you can go as we have been. A country, finally, erodes and

the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any

importance permanently, except those who practised the arts, and these now

wish to cease their work because it is too lonely, too hard to do, and is

not fashionable. A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art

endures for ever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not

fashionable. People do not want to do it any more because they will be out

of fashion and the lice who crawl on literature will not praise them. Also

it is very hard to do. So what? So I would go on reading about the river

that the Tartars came across when raiding, and the drunken old hunter and

the girl and how it was then in the different seasons.

Pop was reading {Richard Carvell}. We had bought what there was to buy

in Nairobi and we were pretty well to the end of the books.

'I've read this before, ' Pop said. 'But it's a good story.'

'I can just remember it. But it was a good story then.'

'It's a jolly good story, but I wish I hadn't read it before.'

'This is terrible, ' P.O.M. said. 'You couldn't read it.'

'Do you want this one? '

'Don't be ornamental, ' she said. 'No, I'll finish this.'

'Goon. Take it.'

'I'll give it right back.'

'Hey, M'Cola, ' I said. 'Beer? '

'N'Dio, ' he said with great force, and from the chop box one of the

natives had carried on his head produced, in its straw casing, a bottle of

German beer, one of the sixty-four bottles Dan had brought from the German

trading station. Its neck was wrapped in silver foil and on its black and

yellow label there was a horseman in armour. It was still cool from the

night and opened by the tin-opener it creamed into three cups, thick-foamed,

full-bodied.

'No, ' said Pop. 'Very bad for the liver.'

'Come on.'

'All right.'

We all drank and when M'Cola opened the second bottle Pop refused,

firmly.

'Go on. It means more to you. I'm going to take a nap.'

'Poor old Mama? '

'Just a little.'

'All for me, ' I said. M'Cola smiled and shook his head at this

drinking. I lay back against the tree and watched the wind bringing the

clouds and drank the beer slowly out of the bottle. It was cooler that way

and it was excellent beer. After a while Pop and P.O.M. were both asleep and

I got back the Sevastopol book and read in 'The Cossacks' again. It was a

good story.

When they woke up we had lunch of cold sliced tenderloin, bread, and

mustard, and a can of plums, and drank the third, and last, bottle of beer.

Then we read again and all went to sleep. I woke thirsty and was unscrewing

the top from a water bottle when I heard a rhino snort and crash in the

brush of the river bed. Pop was awake and heard it too and we took our guns,

without speaking, and started toward where the noise had come from. M'Cola

found the tracks. The rhino had come up the stream, evidently he had winded

us when he was only about thirty yards away, and had gone on up. We could

not follow the tracks the way the wind was blowing so we circled away from

the stream and back to the edge of the burned place to get above him and

then hunted very carefully against the wind along the stream through very

thick bush, but we did not find him. Finally Droopy found where he had gone

up the other side and on into the hills. From the tracks it did not seem a

particularly large one.

We were a long way from camp, at least four hours as we had come, and

much of it up-hill going back, certainly there would be that long climb out

of the canyon; we had a wounded buffalo to deal with, and when we came out

on the edge of the burned country again, we agreed that we should get P.O.M.

and get started. It was still hot, but the sun was on its way down and for a

good way we would be on the heavily shaded game trail on the high bank above

the stream. When we found P.O.M. she pretended to be indignant at our going

off and leaving her alone but she was only teasing us.

We started off, Droop and his spearsman in the lead, walking along the

shadow of the trail that was broken by the sun through the leaves. Instead

of the cool early morning smell of the forest there was a nasty stink like

the mess cats make.

'What makes the stink? ' I whispered to Pop.

'Baboons, ' he said.

A whole tribe of them had gone on just ahead of us and their droppings

were everywhere. We came up to the place where the rhinos and the buff had

come out of the reeds and I located where I thought the buff had been when I

shot. M'Cola and Droopy were casting about like hounds and I thought they

were at least fifty yards too high up the bank when Droop held up a leaf.

'He's got blood, ' Pop said. We went up to them. There was a great

quantity of blood, black now on the grass, and the trail was easy to follow.

Droop and M'Cola trailed one on each side, leaving the trail between them,

pointing to each blood spot formally with a long stem of grass. I always

thought it would be better for one to trail slowly and the other cast ahead

but this was the way they trailed, stooped heads, pointing each dried splash

with their grass stems and occasionally, when they picked up the tracks

after losing them, stooping to pluck a grass blade or a leaf that had the

black stain on it. I followed them with the Springfield, then came Pop, with

P.O.M. behind him. Droop carried my big gun and Pop had his. M'Cola had

P.O.M.'s Mannlicher slung over his shoulder. None of us spoke and everyone

seemed to regard it as a pretty serious business. In some high grass we

found blood, at a pretty good height on the grass leaves on both sides of

the trail where the buff had gone through the grass. That meant he was shot

clean through. You could not tell the original colour of the blood now, but

I had a moment of hoping he might be shot through the lungs. But farther on

we came on some droppings in the rocks with blood in them and then for a

while he had dropped dung wherever he climbed and all of it was

blood-spotted. It looked, now, like a gut shot or one through the paunch. I

was more ashamed of it all the time.

'If he comes don't worry about Droopy or the others, ' Pop whispered.

'They'll get out of his way. Stop him.'

'Right up the nose, ' I said.

'Don't try anything fancy, ' Pop said. The trail climbed steadily, then

twice looped back on itself and for a time seemed to wander, without plan,

among some rocks. Once it lead down to the stream, crossed a rivulet of it

and then came back up on the same bank, grading up through the trees.

'I think we'll find him dead, ' I whispered to Pop. That aimless turn

had made me see him, slow and hard hit, getting ready to go down.

'I hope so, ' Pop said.

But the trail went on, where there was little grass now, and trailing

was much slower and more difficult. There were no tracks now that I could

see, only the probable line he would take, verified by a shiny dark splatter

of dried blood on a stone. Several times we lost it entirely and, the three

of us making casts, one would find it, point and whisper 'Damu', and we

would go on again. Finally it led down from a rocky hillside with the last

of the sun on it, down into the stream bed where there was a long, wide

patch of the highest dead reeds that we had seen. These were higher and

thicker even than the slough the buff had come out of in the morning and

there were several game trails that went into them.

'Not good enough to take the little Memsahib in there, ' Pop said.

'Let her stay here with M'Cola, ' I said.

'It's not good enough for the little Memsahib, ' Pop repeated. 'I don't

know why we let her come.'

'She can wait here. Droop wants to go on.'

'Right you are. We'll have a look.'

'You wait here with M'Cola, ' I whispered over my shoulder.

We followed Droopy into the thick, tall grass that was five feet above

our heads, walking carefully on the game trail, stooping forward, trying to

make no noise breathing. I was thinking of the buff the way I had seen them

when we had gotten the three that time, how the old bull had come out of the

bush, groggy as he was, and I could see the horns, the boss coming far down,

the muzzle out, the little eyes, the roll of fat and muscle on his

thin-haired, grey, scaly-hided neck, the heavy power and the rage in him,

and I admired him and respected him, but he was slow, and all the while we

shot I felt that it was fixed and that we had him. This was different, this

was no rapid fire, no pouring it on him as he comes groggy into the open, if

he comes now I must be quiet inside and put it down his nose as he comes

with the head out. He will have to put the head down to hook, like any bull,

and that will uncover the old place the boys wet their knuckles on and I

will get one in there and then must go sideways into the grass and he would

be Pop's from then on unless I could keep the rifle when I jumped. I was

sure I could get that one in and jump if I could wait and watch his head

come down. I knew I could do that and that the shot would kill him but how

long would it take? That was the whole thing. How long would it take? Now,

going forward, sure he was in here, I felt the elation, the best elation of

all, of certain action to come, action in which you had something to do, in

which you can kill and come out of it, doing something you are ignorant

about and so not scared, no one to worry about and no responsibility except

to perform something you feel sure you can perform, and I was walking softly

ahead watching Droopy's back and remembering to keep the sweat out of my

glasses when I heard a noise behind us and turned my head. It was P.O.M.

with M'Cola coming on our tracks.

'For God's sake, ' Pop said. He was furious.

We got her back out of the grass and up on to the bank and made her

realize that she must stay there. She had not understood that she was to

stay behind. She had heard me whisper something but thought it was for her

to come behind M'Cola.

'That spooked me, ' I said to Pop.

'She's like a little terrier, ' he said. 'But it's not good enough.'

We were looking out over that grass.

'Droop wants to go still, ' I said. 'I'll go as far as he will. When he

says no that lets us out. After all, I gut-shot the son of a bitch.'

'Mustn't do anything silly, though.'

'I can kill the son of a bitch if I get a shot at him. If he comes he's

got to give me a shot.'

The fright P.O.M. had given us about herself had made me noisy.

'Come on, ' said Pop. We followed Droopy back in and it got worse and

worse, and I do not know about Pop but about half-way I changed to the big

gun and kept the safety off and my hand over the trigger guard and I was

plenty nervous by the time Droopy stopped and shook his head and whispered

'Hapana'. It had gotten so you could not see a foot ahead and it was all

turns and twists. It was really bad and the sun was only on the hillside

now. We both felt good because we had made Droopy do the calling off and I

was relieved as well. What we had followed him into had made my fancy

shooting plans seem very silly and I knew all we had in there was Pop to

blast him over with the four-fifty number two after I'd maybe miss him with

that lousy four-seventy. I had no confidence in anything but its noise any

more.

We were back trailing when we heard the porters on the hillside shout

and we ran crashing through the grass to try to get a high enough place to

see to shoot. They waved their arms and shouted that the buffalo had come

out of the reeds and gone past them and then M'Cola and Droopy were

pointing, and Pop had me by the sleeve trying to pull me to where I could

see them and then, in the sunlight, high up on the hillside against the

rocks I saw two buffalo. They shone very black in the sun and one was much

bigger than the other and I remember thinking this was our bull and that he

had picked up a cow and she had made the pace and kept him going. Droop had

handed me the Springfield and I slipped my arm through the sling and

sighting, the buff now all seen through the aperture, I froze myself inside

and held the bead on the top of his shoulder and as I started to squeeze he

started running and I swung ahead of him and loosed off. I saw him lower his

head and jump like a bucking horse as he comes out of the chutes and as I

threw the shell, slammed the bolt forward and shot again, behind him as he

went out of sight, I knew I had him. Droopy and I started to run and as we

were running I heard a low bellow. I stopped and yelled at Pop, 'Hear him?

I've got him, I tell you! '

'You hit him, ' said Pop. 'Yes.'

'Goddamn it, I killed him. Didn't you hear him bellow? '

'No.'

'Listen! ' We stood listening and there it came, clear, a long, moaning,

unmistakable bellow.

'By God, ' Pop said. It was a very sad noise.

M'Cola grabbed my hand and Droopy slapped my back and all laughing we

started on a running scramble, sweating, rushing, up the ridge through the

trees and over rocks. I had to stop for breath, my heart pounding, and wiped

the sweat off my face and cleaned my glasses.

'Kufa! ' M'Cola said, making the word for dead almost explosive in its

force. 'N'Dio! Kufa! '

'Kufa! ' Droopy said grinning.

'Kufa! ' M'Cola repeated and we shook hands again before we went on

climbing. Then, ahead of us, we saw him, on his back, throat stretched out

to the full, his weight on his horns, wedged against a tree. M'Cola put his

finger in the bullet hole in the centre of the shoulder and shook his head

happily.

Pop and P.O.M. came up, followed by the porters.

'By God, he's a better bull than we thought, ' I said.

'He's not the same bull. This is a real bull. That must have been our

bull with him.'

'I thought he was with a cow. It was so far away I couldn't tell.'

'It must have been four hundred yards. By God, you {can} shoot that

little pipsqueak. '

'When I saw him put his head down between his legs and buck I knew we

had him. The light was wonderful on him.'

'I knew you had hit him, and I knew he wasn't the same bull. So I

thought we had two wounded buffalo to deal with. I didn't hear the first

bellow.'

'It was wonderful when we heard him bellow, ' P.O.M. said. 'It's such a

sad sound. It's like hearing a horn in the woods.'

'It sounded awfully jolly to me, ' Pop said. 'By God, we deserve a drink

on this. That was a shot. Why didn't you ever tell us you could shoot? '

'Go to hell.'

'You know he's a damned good tracker, too, and what kind of a bird

shot? ' he asked P.O.M.

'Isn't he a beautiful bull? ' P.O.M. asked. 'He's a fine one. He's not

old but it's a fine head.'

We tried to take pictures but there was only the little box camera and

the shutter stuck, and there was a bitter argument about the shutter while

the light failed, and I was nervous now, irritable, righteous, pompous about

the shutter and inclined to be abusive because we could get no picture. You

cannot live on a plane of the sort of elation I had felt in the reeds and

having killed, even when it is only a buffalo, you feel a little quiet

inside. Killing is not a feeling that you share and I took a drink of water

and told P.O.M. I was sorry I was such a bastard about the camera. She said

it was all right and we were all right again looking at the buff with M'Cola

making the cuts for the headskin and we standing close together and feeling

fond of each other and understanding everything, camera and all. I took a

drink of the whisky and it had no taste and I felt no kick from it.

'Let me have another, ' I said. The second one was all right.

We were going on ahead to camp with the chased-by-a-rhino spearman as

guide and Droop was going to skin out the head and they were going to

butcher and cache the meat in trees so the hyenas would not get it. They

were afraid to travel in the dark and I told Droopy he could keep my big

gun. He said he knew how to shoot so I took out the shells and put on the

safety and handing it to him told him to shoot. He put it to his shoulder,

shut the wrong eye, and pulled hard on the trigger, and again, and again.

Then I showed him about the safety and had him put it on and off and snap

the gun a couple of times. M'Cola became very superior during Droopy's

struggle to fire with the safety on and Droopy seemed to get much smaller. I

left him the gun and two cartridges and they were all busy butchering in the

dusk when we followed the spearsman and the tracks of the smaller buff,

which had no blood on them, up to the top of the hill and on our way toward

home. We climbed around the tops of valleys, went across gulches, up and

down ravines and finally came on to the main ridge, it dark and cold in the

evening, the moon not yet up, we plodded along, all tired. Once M'Cola, in

the dark, loaded with Pop's heavy gun and an assortment of water bottles,

binoculars, and a musette bag of books, sung out a stream of what sounded

like curses at the guide who was striding ahead.

'What's he say? ' I asked Pop.

'He's telling him not to show off his speed. That there is an old man

in the party.'

'Who does he mean, you or himself? '

'Both of us.'

We saw the moon come up, smoky red over the brown hills, and we came

down through the chinky lights of the village, the mud houses all closed

tight, and the smells of goats and sheep, and then across the stream and up

the bare slope to where the fire was burning in front of our tents. It was a

cold night with much wind.

In the morning we hunted, picked up a track at a spring and trailed a

rhino all over the high orchard country before he went down into a valley

that led, steeply, into the canyon. It was very hot and the tight boots of

the day before had chafed P.O.M.'s feet. She did not complain about them but

I could see they hurt her. We were all luxuriantly, restfully tired.

'The hell with them, ' I said to Pop. 'I don't want to kill another one

unless he's big. We might hunt a week for a good one. Let's stand on the one

we have and pull out and join Karl. We can hunt oryx down there and get

those zebra hides and get on after the kudu.'

We were sitting under a tree on the summit of a hill and could see off

over all the country and the canyon running down to the Rift Valley and Lake

Manyara.

'It would be good fun to take porters and a light outfit and hunt on

ahead of them down through that valley and out to the lake, ' Pop said.

'That would be swell. We could send the lorries around to meet us at

what's the name of the place? '

'Maji-Moto.'

'Why don't we do that? ' P.O.M. asked.

'We'll ask Droopy how the valley is.'

Droopy didn't know but the spearman said it was very rough and bad

going where the stream came down through the rift wall. He did not think we

could get the loads through. We gave it up.

'That's the sort of trip to make, though, ' Pop said. 'Porters don't

cost as much as petrol.'

'Can't we make trips like that when we come back? ' P.O.M. asked.

'Yes, ' Pop said. 'But for a big rhino you want to go up on Mount Kenya.

You'll get a real one there. Kudu's the prize here. You'd have to go up to

Kalal to get one in Kenya. Then if we get them we'll have time to go on down

in that Handeni country for sable.'

'Let's get going, ' I said without moving.

Since a long time we had all felt good about Karl's rhino. We were glad

he had it and all of that had taken on a correct perspective. Maybe he had

his oryx by now. I hoped so. He was a fine fellow, Karl, and it was good he

got these extra fine heads.

'How do you feel, poor old Mama? '

'I'm fine. If we {are} going I'll be just as glad to rest my feet. But

I love this kind of hunting.'

'Let's get back, eat, break camp, and get down there to-night.'

That night we got into our old camp at M'utu-Umbu, under the big trees,

not far from the road. It had been our first camp in Africa and the trees

were as big, as spreading, and as green, the stream as clear and fast

flowing, and the camp as fine as when we had first been there. The only

difference was that now it was hotter at night, the road in was hub-deep in

dust, and we had seen a lot of country.