Assegai

Leon understood that and laughed. ‘Come out of the darkness, my fine warrior friend, and let us see your brave face.’ Loikot came into the firelight and took his seat between Leon and Manyoro.

‘Loikot, when we travelled together to the railway line you showed me the tracks of a big elephant.’

‘I remember,’ Loikot answered.

‘Have you seen that elephant since then?’

‘When the moon was full I saw him as he browsed among the trees close to where I was camped with my brothers.’

‘Where was that?’

‘We were herding the cattle near the smoking mountain of the gods, three full days’ journey from here.’

‘It has rained heavily since then,’ Manyoro said. ‘The tracks will have been washed away. Besides, many days have passed since the moon was full. By now that bull might be as far south as Lake Manyara.’

‘Where should we begin the hunt if not at the place where Loikot last saw him?’ Leon wondered.

‘We should do as Lusima counsels. We should follow the wind,’ said Manyoro.

The next morning, as they descended the pathway down the mountain, the breeze came from the west. It blew soft and warm down the Rift Valley wall and across the Masai savannah. High clouds sailed above, like a flotilla of great galleons with sails of shimmering white. When the party reached the valley floor they turned and went with the wind, moving swiftly through the open forest at a steady jog-trot. Manyoro and Loikot were in the van, picking over the myriad game tracks that dotted the earth, pausing to point out to Leon those that warranted special attention, then moving on again. Slowly Ishmael fell back under his enormous burden until he was far behind.

With the wind at their backs their scent was carried ahead and the grazing game herds threw up their heads as they caught the taint of man and stared at them. Then they opened their ranks and let the men pass at a safe distance.

Three times during the morning they cut the spoor of elephant. The wounds the beast had left on the trees where they had torn down large branches were white and weeping sap. Clouds of butterflies hung over massive mounds of fresh dung. The two trackers wasted little time on this sign. ‘Two very young bulls,’ Manyoro said. ‘Of no account.’

They went on until Loikot picked out another sign. ‘One very old cow,’ he opined. ‘So old that the pads of her feet are worn smooth.’

An hour later Manyoro pointed to fresh spoor. ‘Here passed five breeding cows. Three have their unweaned calves at heel.’

Just before the sun reached its meridian Loikot, who was in the lead, stopped suddenly and pointed out a mountainous grey shape in a patch of sweet thorn forest far ahead. There was movement and Leon recognized the lazy flap of huge ears. His heartbeat quickened as they turned aside and worked their way out to get below the wind before they moved closer. They could tell by its bulk that it was a very large bull. He was feeding on a low bush and his back was turned to them so that they were unable to see his tusks. The wind held fair, and they came up softly behind him, closing in until Leon could count the wiry hairs in his worn tail and see the colonies of red ticks that hung like bunches of ripe grapes around his puckered anus. Manyoro signalled Leon to be ready. He slipped the big double rifle off his shoulder and held it with his thumb on the safety catch as they waited for the bull to move and allow them a sight of his tusks.

This was the closest Leon had ever been to an elephant, and he was awed by its sheer size. It seemed to blot out half the sky, as though he was standing beneath a cliff of grey rock. Suddenly the bull swung around and flared his ears wide. He stared directly at Leon from a distance of a dozen paces. Dense lashes surrounded small rheumy eyes and tears had left dark runnels down his cheeks. He was so close that Leon could see the light reflected in the irises as though they were two large beads of polished amber. Slowly he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, but Manyoro squeezed his shoulder, urging him to hold his fire.

One of the bull’s tusks was broken off at the lip while the other was chipped and worn down to a blunt stump. Leon realized that Percy Phillips would cover him with scorn if he brought them back to Tandala Camp. Yet the bull seemed poised to charge and he might be forced to fire. Night after night over the past weeks, Percy had sat with him in the lamplight and lectured him on the skills required to kill one of these gigantic animals with a single bullet. They had pored together over his autobiography, which he had titled Monsoon Clouds Over Africa. He had devoted an entire chapter to shot placement, and illustrated it with his own lifelike sketches of African game animals.