‘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.