‘The hell of it is,’ I said to Pop, ‘when I’m in the hills I’m sure the bastards are down there on the salt. The cows are in the hills but I don’t believe the bulls are with them now. Then you get there in the evening and there are the tracks. They {have} been on the lousy salt. I think they come any time.’
‘Probably they do.’
‘I’m sure we get different bulls there. They probably only come to the salt every couple of days. Some are certainly spooked because Karl shot that one. If he’d only killed it clean instead of following it through the whole damn countryside. Christ, if he’d only kill any damn thing clean. Other new ones will come in. All we have to do is to wait them out, though. Of course they can’t all know about it. But he’s spooked this country to hell.’
‘He gets so very excited,’ Pop said. ‘But he’s a good lad. He made a beautiful shot on that leopard, you know. You don’t want them killed any cleaner than that. Let it quiet down again.’
‘Sure. I don’t mean anything when I curse him.’
‘What about staying in the blind all day?’
‘The damned wind started to go round in a circle. It blew our scent every direction. No use to sit there broadcasting it. If the damn wind would hold. Abdullah took an ash can to-day.’
‘I saw him starting off with it.’
‘There wasn’t a bit of wind when we stalked the salt and there was just light to shoot. He tried the wind with the ashes all the way. I went alone with Abdullah and left the others behind and we went quietly. I had on these crepe-soled boots and it’s soft cotton dirt. The bastard spooked at fifty yards.
‘Did you ever see their ears?’
‘Did I ever see their ears? If I can see his ears, the skinner can work on him.’
‘They’re bastards,’ Pop said. ‘I hate this salt-lick business. They’re not as smart as we think. The trouble is you’re working on them where they are smart. They’ve been shot at there ever since there’s been salt.’
‘That’s what makes it fun,’ I said. ‘I’d be glad to do it for a month. I like to hunt sitting on my tail. No sweat. No nothing. Sit there and catch flies and feed them to the ant lions in the dust. I like it. But what about the time?’
‘That’s it. The time.’
‘So,’ Kandisky was saying to my wife. ‘That is what you should see. The big {ngomas}. The big native dance festivals. The real ones.’
‘Listen,’ I said to Pop. ‘The other lick, the one I was at last night, is fool-proof except for being near that {bloody} road.’
‘The trackers say it is really the property of the lesser kudu. It’s a long way too. It’s eighty miles there and back.’
‘I know. But there were four {big} bull tracks. It’s certain. If it wasn’t for that lorry last night. What about staying there to-night! Then I’d get the night and the early morning and give this lick a rest. There’s a big rhino there too. Big track, anyway.’
‘Good,’ Pop said. ‘Shoot the rhino too.’ He hated to have anything killed except what we were after, no killing on the side, no ornamental killing, no killing to kill, only when you wanted it more than you wanted not to kill it, only when getting it was necessary to his being first in his trade, and I saw he was offering up the rhino to please me.
‘I won’t kill him unless he’s good,’ I promised.
‘Shoot the bastard,’ Pop said, making a gift of him.
‘Ah, Pop,’ I said.
‘Shoot him,’ said Pop. ‘You’ll enjoy it, being by yourself. You can sell the horn if you don’t want it. You’ve still one on your licence. ‘
‘So,’ said Kandisky. ‘You have arranged a plan of campaign? You have decided on how to outwit the poor animals?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How is the lorry?’
‘That lorry is finished,’ the Austrian said. ‘In a way I am glad. It was too much of a symbol. It was all that remained of my {shamba}. Now everything is gone and it is much simpler.’