you move. I was not sure of their size either, but I judged the range to be
all of three hundred yards. I knew I could hit one if I shot from a sitting
position or prone, but I could not say where I would hit him.
Then Garrick again, 'Piga, B'wana, Piga!' I turned on him as though to
slug him in the mouth. It would have been a great comfort to do it. I truly
was not nervous when I first saw the sable, but Garrick was making me
nervous.
'Far?' I whispered to M'Cola who had crawled up and was lying by me.
'Yes.'
'Shoot?'
'No. Glasses.'
We both watched, using the glasses guardedly. I could only see four.
There had been seven. If that was a bull that Garrick pointed out, then they
were all bulls. They all looked the same colour in the shadow. Their horns
all looked big to me. I knew that with mountain sheep the rams all kept
together in bunches until late in the winter when they went with the ewes;
that in the late summer you found bull elk in bunches too, before the
rutting season, and that later they herded up together again. We had seen as
many as twenty impalla rams together upon the Serenea. All right, then, they
could all be bulls, but I wanted a good one, the best one, and I tried to
remember having read something about them, but all I could remember was a
silly story of some man seeing the same bull every morning in the same place
and never getting up on him. All I could remember was the wonderful pair of
horns we had seen in the Game Warden's office in Arusha. And here were sable
now, and I must play it right and get the best one. It never occurred to me
that Garrick had never seen a sable and that he knew no more about them than
M'Cola or I.
'Too far,' I said to M'Cola.
'Yes.'
'Come on,' I said, then waved the others down, and we started crawling
up to reach the edge of the hill.
Finally we lay behind a tree and I looked around it. Now we could see
their horns clearly with the glasses and could see the other three. One,
lying down, was certainly much the biggest and the horns, as I caught them
in silhouette, seemed to curve much higher and farther back. I was studying
them, too excited to be happy as I watched them, when I heard M'Cola whisper
'B'wana.'
I lowered the glasses and looked and there was Garrick, taking no
advantage of the cover, crawling on his hands and knees out to join us. I
put my hand out, palm toward him, and waved him down but he paid no
attention and came crawling on, as conspicuous as a man walking down a city
street on hands and knees. I saw one sable looking toward us, toward him,
rather. Then three more got to their feet. Then the big one got up and stood
broadside with head turned toward us as Garrick came up whispering, 'Piga,
B'wana! Piga! Doumi! Doumi! Kubwa Sana.'
There was no choice now. They were definitely spooked and I lay out
flat on my belly, put my arm through the sling, got my elbows settled and my
right toe pushing the ground and squeezed off on the centre of the bull's
shoulder. But at the roar I knew it was bad. I was over him. They all jumped
and stood looking, not knowing where the noise came from. I shot again at
the bull and threw dirt all over him and they were off. I was on my feet and
hit him as he ran and he was down. Then he was up and I hit him again and he
took it and was in the bunch. They passed him and I shot and was behind him.
Then I hit him again and he was trailing slowly and I knew I had him. M'Cola
was handing me cartridges and I was shoving shells down into the
damned-to-hell, lousy, staggered, Springfield magazine watching the sable
making heavy weather of it crossing the watercourse. We had him all right. I
could see he was very sick. The others were trailing up into the timber. In
the sunlight on the other side they looked much lighter and the one I'd shot
looked lighter, too. They looked a dark chestnut and the one I had shot was
almost black. But he was not black and I felt there was something wrong. I
shoved the last shell in and Garrick was trying to grab my hand to
congratulate me when, below us across the open space where the gully that we
could not see opened on to the head of the valley, sable started to pass at
a running stampede.
'Good God,' I thought. They all looked like the one I had shot and I
was trying to pick a big one. They all looked about the same and they were
crowding running and then came the bull. Even in the shadow he was a dead
black and shiny as he hit the sun, and his horns swept up high, then back,
huge and dark, in two great curves nearly touching the middle of his back.
He was a bull all right. God, what a bull.
'Doumi,' said M'Cola in my ear. 'Doumi!'
I hit him and at the roar he was down. I saw him up, the others
passing, spreading out, then bunching. I missed him. Then I saw him going
almost straight away up the valley in the tall grass and I hit him again and
he went out of sight. The sable now were going up the hill at the head of
the valley, up the hill at our right, up the hill in the timber across the
valley, spread out and travelling fast. Now that I had seen a bull I knew
they all were cows including the first one I had shot. The bull never showed
and I was absolutely sure that we would find him where I had seen him go
down in the long grass.
The outfit were all up and I shook off handshaking and thumb pulling
before we started down through the trees and over the edge of the gully and
to the meadow on a dead run. My eyes, my mind, and all inside of me were
full of the blackness of that sable bull and the sweep of those horns and I
was thanking God I had the rifle reloaded before he came out. But it was
excited shooting, all of it, and I was not proud of it. I had gotten excited
and shot at the whole animal instead of the right place and I was ashamed,
but the outfit now were drunk excited. I would have walked but you could not
hold them, they were like a pack of dogs as we ran. As we crossed the meadow
opening where we had first seen the seven and went beyond where the bull had
gone out of sight, the grass suddenly was high and over our heads and every
one slowed down. There were two washed-out concealed ravines ten or twelve
feet deep that ran down to the watercourse and what had looked a smooth
grass-filled basin was very broken, tricky country with grass that was from
waist-high to well above our heads. We found blood at once and it led off to
the left, across the watercourse and up the hillside on the left toward the
head of the valley. I thought that was the first sable but it seemed a wider
swing than he had seemed to make when we watched him going from above in the
timber. I made a circle to look for the big bull but I could not pick his
track from the mass of tracks and in the high grass and the broken terrain
it was difficult to figure just where he had gone.
; They were all for the blood spoor and it was like trying to make
badly-trained bird dogs hunt a dead bird when they are crazy to be off after
the rest of the covey.
'Doumi! Doumi!' I said. 'Kubwa Sana! The bull. The big bull.'
'Yes,' everybody agreed. 'Here! Here!' The blood spoor that crossed the
watercourse.
Finally I took that trail thinking we must get them one at a time, and
knowing this one was hard hit and the other would keep. Then, too, I might
be wrong and this might be the big bull, he might possibly have turned in
the high grass and crossed here as we were running down. I had been wrong
before, I remembered.
We trailed fast up the hillside, into the timber, the blood was
splashed freely; made a turn toward the right, climbing steeply, and at the
head of the valley in some large rocks jumped a sable. It went scrambling
and bounding off through the rocks. I saw in an instant that it was not hit
and knew that, in spite of the back-swung dark horns, it was a cow from the
dark chestnut colour. But I saw this just in time to keep from shooting. I
had started to pull when I lowered the rifle.
'Manamouki,' I said. 'It's a cow.'
M'Cola and the two Roman guides agreed. I had very nearly shot. We went
on perhaps five yards and another sable jumped. But this one was swaying its
head wildly and could not clear the rocks. It was hard hit and I took my
time, shot carefully, and broke its neck.
We came up to it, lying in the rocks, a large, deep chestnut-brown
animal, almost black, the horns black and curving handsomely back, there was
a white patch on the muzzle and back from the eye, there was a white belly;
but it was no bull.
M'Cola, still in doubt, verified this and feeling the short,
rudimentary teats said 'Manamouki', and shook his head sadly.
It was the first big bull that Garrick had pointed out.
'Bull down there,' I pointed.
'Yes,' said M'Cola.
I thought that we would give him time to get sick, if he were only
wounded, and then go down and find him. So I had M'Cola make the cuts for
taking off the head skin and we would leave the old man to skin out the head
while we went down after the bull.
I drank some water from the canteen. I was thirsty after the run and
the climb, and the sun was up now and it was getting hot. Then we went down
the opposite side of the valley from that we had just come up trailing the
wounded cow, and below, in the tall grass, casting in circles, commenced to
hunt for the trail of the bull. We could not find it.
The sable had been running in a bunch as they came out and any
individual track was confused or obliterated. We found some blood on the
grass stems where I had first hit him, then lost it, then found it again
where the other blood spoor turned off. Then the tracks had all split up as
they had gone, fan-wise, up the valley and the hills and we could not find
it again. Finally I found blood on a grass blade about fifty yards up the
valley and I plucked it and held it up. This was a mistake. I should have
brought them to it. Already everyone but M'Cola was losing faith in the
bull.
He was not there. He had disappeared. He had vanished. Perhaps he had
never existed. Who could say he was a real bull? If I had not plucked the
grass with the blood on it I might have held them. Growing there with blood
on it, it was evidence. Plucked, it meant nothing except to me and to
M'Cola. But I could find no more blood and they were all hunting
half-heartedly now. The only possible way was to quarter every foot of the
high grass and trace every foot of the gullies. It was very hot now and they
were only making a pretence of hunting.
Garrick came up. 'All cows,' he said. 'No bull. Just biggest cow. You
killed biggest cow. We found her. Smaller cow get away.'
'You wind-blown son of a bitch,' I said, then, using my fingers.
'Listen. Seven cows. Then fifteen cows and one bull. Bull hit. Here.'
'All cows,' said Garrick.
'One big cow hit. One bull hit.'
I was so sure sounding that they agreed to this and searched for a
while but I could see they were losing belief in the bull.
'If I had one good dog,' I thought. 'Just one good dog.'
Then Garrick came up. 'All cows,' he said. 'Very big cows.'
'You're a cow,' I said. 'Very big cow.'
This got a laugh from the Wanderobo-Masai, who was getting to look a
picture of sick misery. The brother half believed in the bull, I could see.
Husband, by now, did not believe in any of us. I didn't think he even
believed in the kudu of the night before. Well, after this shooting, I did
not blame him.
M'Cola came up. 'Hapana,' he said glumly. Then, 'B'wana, you shot that
bull?'
'Yes,' I said. For a minute I began to doubt whether there ever was a
bull. Then I saw again his heavy, high-withered blackness and the high rise
of his horns before they swept back, him running with the bunch, shoulder
higher than them and black as hell and as I saw it, M'Cola saw it again too
through the rising mist of the savage's unbelief in what he can no longer
see.
'Yes,' M'Cola agreed. 'I see him. You shoot him.'
I told it again. 'Seven cows. Shoot biggest. Fifteen cows, one bull.
Hit that bull.'
They all believed it now for a moment and circled, searching, but the
faith died at once in the heat of the sun and the tall grass blowing.
'All cows,' Garrick said. The Wanderobo-Masai nodded, his mouth open. I
could feel the comfortable lack of faith coming over me too. It was a damned
sight easier not to hunt in that sun in that shadeless pocket and in the sun
on that steep hillside. I told M'Cola we would hunt up the valley on both
sides, finish skinning out the head, and he and I would come down alone and
find the bull. You could not hunt them against that unbelief. I had had no
chance to train them; no power to discipline. If there had been no law I
would have shot Garrick and they would all have hunted or cleared out. I
think they would have hunted. Garrick was not popular. He was simply poison.
M'Cola and I came back down the valley, quartered it like bird dogs,
circled and followed and checked track after track. I was hot and very
thirsty. The sun was something serious by now.
'Hapana,' M'Cola said. We could not find him. Whatever he was, we had
lost him.
'Maybe he was a cow. Maybe it was all goofy,' I thought, letting the
unbelief come in as a comfort. We were going to hunt up the hillside to the
right and then we would have checked it all and would take the cow head into
camp and see what the Roman had located.
I was dead thirsty and drained the canteen. We would get water in camp.
We started up the hill and I jumped a sable in some brush. I almost
loosed off at it before I saw it was a cow. That showed how one could be
hidden, I thought. We would have to get the men and go over it all again;
and then, from the old man, came a wild shouting.
'Doumi! Doumi!' in a high, screaming shout.
'Where?' I shouted, running across the hill toward him.
'There! There!' he shouted, pointing into the timber on the other side
of the head of the valley. 'There! There! There he goes! There!'
We came on a dead run but the bull was out of sight in the timber on
the hillside. The old man said he was huge, he was black, he had great
horns, and he came by him ten yards away, hit in two places, in the gut and
high up in the rump, hard hit but going fast, crossing the valley, through
the boulders and going up the hillside.
I gut-shot him, I thought. Then as he was going away I laid that one on
his stern. He lay down and was sick and we missed him. Then, when we were
past, he jumped.
'Come on,' I said. Everyone was excited and ready to go now and the old
man was chattering about the bull as he folded the head skin and put the
head upon his own head and we started across through the rocks and up,
quartering up on to the hillside. There, where the old man had pointed, was
a very big sable track, the hoof marks spread wide, the tracks grading up
into the timber and there was blood, plenty of it.
We trailed him fast, hoping to jump him and have a shot, and it was
easy trailing in the shade of the trees with plenty of blood to follow. But
he kept climbing, grading up around the hill, and he was travelling fast. We
kept the blood bright and wet but we could not come up on him. I did not
track but kept watching ahead thinking I might see him as he looked back, or
see him down, or cutting down across the hill through the timber, and M'Cola
and Garrick were tracking, aided by every one but the old man who staggered
along with the sable skull and head skin held on his own grey head. M'Cola
had hung the empty water bottle on him, and Garrick had loaded him with the
cinema camera. It was hard going for the old man.
Once we came on a place where the bull had rested and watched his back
track, there was a little pool of blood on a rock where he had stood, behind
some bushes, and I cursed the wind that blew our scent on ahead of us. There
was a big breeze blowing now and I was certain we had no chance of
surprising him, our scent would keep everything moving out of the way ahead
of us as long as anything could move. I thought of trying to circle ahead
with M'Cola and let them track but we were moving fast, the blood was still
bright on the stones and on the fallen leaves and grass and the hills were
too steep for us to make a circle. I did not see how we could lose him.
Then he took us up and into a rocky, ravine-cut country where the
trailing was slow and the climbing difficult. Here, I thought, we would jump
him in a gully but the spatters of blood, not so bright now, went on around
the boulders, over the rocks and up and up and left us on a rim-rock ledge.
He must have gone down from there. It was too steep above for him. to have
gone over the top of the hill. There was no other way to go but down, but
how had he gone, and down which ravine? I sent them looking down three
possible ways and got out on the rim to try to sight him. They could not
find any spoor, and then the Wanderobo-Masai called from below and to the
right that he had blood and, climbing down, . we saw it on a rock and then
followed it in occasional drying splatters down through a steep descent to
the meadow below. I was encouraged when he started down hill and in the
knee-high, heavy grass of the meadow trailing was easy again, because the
grass brushed against his belly and while you could not see tracks clearly
without stooping double and parting the grass to look, yet the blood spoor
was plain on the grass blades. But it was dry now and dully shiny and I knew
Green Hills of Africa Page 18