‘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.