Green Hills of Africa

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.

&nbsp
; 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
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  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