Chapter Five- Buffalo

 Everyone turned in immediately after supper, and the first order of business the next morning was to zero the rifles, after which the parties split up. Dudley was taking out the primary client and his taxidermist, while Carl took his two hunters to Kalsiga. Troy and I had orders to meet Carl at Kalsiga with lunch, and we arrived there at mid morning with the food.

Just after we arrived Carl pitched up with the client and an average waterbuck they had taken, something around 22 or 24 inches. The trophy was pretty badly shot up, with several rounds in the paunch, and the client was bleeding from a cut on the bridge of his nose. I assumed the cut was from his scope, and Carl, who can communicate more with a facial expression than most men can speak, silently let us know this was going to be a long hunt. The client however, was ecstatic, and was smiling broadly while shaking hands and thanking anyone who got within reach, as this was is first African trophy.

   Carl wanted the trophy taken immediately to the skinners at main camp, and so we skipped lunch and began the long drive back on that brutal track some people called a road.

   With nothing else on the agenda we stayed in camp the rest of the day, waiting to see what the plan would be, and getting acquainted with Danny, who was tinkering on the Land Rover. He had taken an instant liking to the idea that the Hi-Lux was his. He didn’t like us borrowing it to perform our duties, despite the fact that he had nowhere to go.

   The following morning was filled with camp chores, and after hanging a new light in one of the chalets we headed out to check the leopard baits. We ran across Carl, who had shot a poacher’s dog and wanted us to place in on a leopard bait, and while on our way to do that we came across Kirk, who had taken a buffalo with his client. We transferred the buffalo to our truck, which was no easy task, and then turned back for camp to get it to the skinners. Kirk followed, in an attempt to locate Carl and relay the location of the buff they had found that morning, and we all ended up parked under a tree while the professionals conferred. The clients were having the time of their lives, and as the newly minted slayer of buffalo related the tale all the trackers gathered in the road to have a smoke. Suddenly there was a great deal of commotion and a few screams, as a very large puff adder had crawled out of the bush and into the midst of the boys. One of the trackers managed to pin the snake with the shooting sticks he carried, and as he danced around in agitation Kirk grabbed a machete from the back of his truck and beheaded the unlucky reptile.

   With that the gathering ended, and as the hunters went their separate ways, Troy and I took the buffalo to the skinning shed. It was average, in the high 30s, and had been well hit.

   Leaving the truck at the shed to be cleaned out, I walked through the kitchen area and out into the main camp compound, while Troy stopped off at the kitchen.

    I passed through the doorway into camp and something on the ground caught my eye. I looked down and realized I had stopped within striking distance of a light green snake that was reared up and swaying slightly. Oh crap. We sized each other up, and while he wasn’t very big, maybe a meter in length, he was too close for me to feel good about the situation. As we both froze, I could only think to yell for Troy. He responded casually, apparently not picking up on the stark terror I’m sure I communicated. I responded with one word, “snake”, and he came running. Slowing as he walked through the doorway from the kitchen, his first comment was to identify the snake as a young cobra, and in the next breath he rather casually decided no, it was a boomslang instead.

   The ground in the main compound is swept bare by the camp boys everyday, which meant there was nothing to grab as a weapon, and Troy ran off to find a large stick, leaving me and the snake to stare at each other. I could hear Troy rummaging through the pile of firewood that was beyond the kitchen, no doubt selecting just the right stick, and yelling that he would be right back.

At that, I could swear the snake shrugged at me, then dropped to the ground and slithered towards the bush at the edge of camp, near the cliff that overlooks Zhomba. The snake had made it to cover before Troy returned, and he spent a fruitless half hour beating the bushes trying to flush out the boomslang. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except we had a lot of people in camp, and leaving a crawling death sentence so close to the bar and fire pit might be bad for business.

   We had lunch in camp by ourselves, and then ran downstairs to pick up a few things for the camp.

   In the heavily populated area around the township stores it’s a common sight to see all manner of livestock on the roads, including goats, donkeys and chickens, along with the occasional cow. One must take great care when driving to not hit any of these animals, as the villagers depend on them to survive, and any road kill is always deemed the fault of the driver. There’s an informal fine, or fee structure enforced when a domestic animal is killed, and there were stories of villagers waiting by the side of the road for days to collect the fee from the offending driver.

   All the company vehicles had a very large logo on both doors, and there was no hiding who we were.

   The guys in camp kept an informal tally of who had hit animals on the road, and as we headed Downstairs for Danny, a large flock of chickens ran out into the road directly in front of me. There was no time to react, and looking behind us we saw half a dozen or so flopping around in their death throes.  Troy rather sardonically commented that I was now on the scoreboard, and on the return trip I slowed at the spot, expecting to have to pay up. The chickens were all gone, but no one was waiting for us, and there was nothing else to do but continue on.

   On our return, Danny announced that he had the Land Rover running, and tomorrow we would be able to use that instead of his truck.

   The evening was spent with the hunting party trading stories of the day, and discussing the political situation in Zimbabwe. News had come over the bush radio that the government was increasing fuel prices by 80% effective immediately, and the fear was this could devastate what was left of the economy. Dudley spent most of the evening radio time on the air with Mike, going over the company supply of diesel and figuring out how to best deal with the situation. Hunts had been booked with fees already published, and it wasn’t going to go over too well to add a fuel surcharge to cover the new cost.

   The following morning Troy and I checked our leopard baits, but nothing was feeding. The problem was the dry air at this time of year, which basically cured the zebra quarters into biltong, and there wasn’t enough smell to attract the cats.

Kirk was taking his client to the plains near the town of Gokwe today for a zebra, and we’d have some fresh baits we could then hang.

   There wasn’t anything pressing for us to do while waiting for Kirk to return with a zebra, so I retired to my hut to write some letters, which I intended to send out with the pilot when he returned to Harare. I thought I heard the Land Rover running, and walking over to the kitchen I discovered that Danny had some how brought it to life. He declared that he had found a fuel problem that was now fixed, really, and we could start using the Rover. Troy and I grabbed the tractor driver, whose name was Jackson, and took the Rover out for a test drive. Heading down the camp road towards the tar, we had made it about 2 kilometers when the Rover died, and of course it wouldn’t start again. Standing in the deep sand, trying to figure out what was causing the problem, we realized two donkeys that were kept in camp had followed us down the road. One of them was blind, and they spent most days wandering around camp grazing, unknowingly being held in reserve as bait for lions or leopards, should we run out of zebra and baboons and impala.

With nothing else to do we began the walk back to camp, and as the donkeys followed I got the bright idea to ride one. I had gotten my hand into the mane of the blind one and had just swung my leg over his back when Troy gave it a stick across the rump, which caused the donkey to buck and bray, dumping me onto the ground. The donkeys both ran all the way back to camp, and Troy had a great laugh at my expense.

   Once in camp we took the 2 ton supply truck back to the stuck Rover, but it didn’t have enough power to pull the Rover through the deep sand, so we had to get the one remaining Land Cruiser in camp and with the 4 wheel drive we managed to retrieve the Rover. The look on Danny’s face was priceless as we once more dragged that damn scrap metal into camp.

   The next day was do or die for the remaining buffalo hunter, as the party was scheduled to leave for the camp in Shangoni for tsassabi in 24 hours.

   We were up well before dawn, and while Carl and the client headed towards Kalsiga I went with Kirk and his tracker to scout the other side of the river delta, at an outlook we called Buffalo View. Located about 3 kilometers from Kalsiga, the View is at the opposite end of the same escarpment on which main camp sits. The View rises about 200 feet almost straight up, and offers a spectacular look at the Ume, and the flood plain that sits on either side of it. On our side of the river the terrain is flat for roughly a kilometer or so back from the river bank, and is thickly covered with acacia trees, ilala palm, jess bush and numerous other vegetation that offered excellent cover for buffalo, elephants, waterbuck, bushbuck and leopards as well. We would spend many hours glassing from this place, and many stalks began from it’s base. The climb was a challenge for me, and I usually had to stop at the half way point to catch my breath. Kirk, on the other hand, would stroll to the top, his hands thrust into the pockets of his parka, and breathing through his nose as though he had just walked through his living room. I never once saw him break a sweat.

This particular morning we had gotten to the top of the View before 6, and immediately spotted a herd of 50 buffalo just across the river, feeding in the jess. We watched as Kirk glassed each bull, and he spotted one that would go about 40", but not much drop. As we watched the herd two shots rang out from the direction of Kalsiga, and then two more. Kirk raised Carl on the radio and learned they had two buffalo down, a bull and a cow.

Climbing down to the Land Cruiser, we drove to the general direction of the shots, and found Carl’s Cruiser parked near the river. Tracking him in from there was easy, and we heard two more shots on our way in.

When we found the hunting party we learned the story.

   The client, who carried a Browning .338, had insisted on using his rifle to hunt buffalo. Carl had tried to talk him out of it, and the compromise had been that Carl would back up the client with his .416 Taylor as soon as the client had fired.

   Early on they had gotten into a herd of buff feeding along the river, and the client had fired at a bull, with Carl backing him up immediately. Apparently Carl’s solid had passed through the bull, which dropped immediately,  and struck a cow in the neck, and both hunter and professional had fired again at the cow. The third pair of shots we heard were the insurance being paid on the cow.

   Later Kirk and I discussed the incident and Kirk’s position was he would never allow a client to shoot at a buffalo with such a light caliber.

   The hits from the .338 weren’t good in any event. We hoped the butchers could recover the rounds so we could judge their performance, but they were never found.

   It was now 7am and we had two buffalo to recover from very heavy bush. We set about cutting a road from the first kill to the second, and then another path out to the man road for camp. It meant cutting down trees and clearing any brush that might damage the Cruisers, and while I was working on a tree the skinner who was working next to me had just bent over a small bush when he suddenly jumped back a good 2 meters. I knew what that meant, and I backed away slowly, as did everyone else. Carl spoke with the skinner, and then walked over to the bush, bent over, and pulled out a Rock Python by the tail, stretching it full length, which was about 3 meters. The snake was skinny with loose drab colored skin, and it seemed pretty lethargic. Carl felt it simply hadn’t fed in awhile, and warned me to stay away from the business end, as they inflict very painful bites. The clients took some pictures, we finished up the trail, and in short order the entire procession was en route back to camp with two buffalo....