With a snort and a toss of their ungainly heads the buffalo started to
run.
Bruce picked the leader and aimed for the neck in front of the plunging
black shoulder. Leaning forward against the recoil of the rifle he fired
and heard the bullet strike with a meaty thump. The bull slowed,
breaking his run. The stubby forelegs settled and he slid
forward on his nose, rolling as he fell, dust and legs kicking.
Turning smoothly without taking the butt from his shoulder, swinging
with the run of the second bull, Bruce fired again, and again the thump
of bullet striking.
The buffalo stumbled, giving in the legs, then he steadied and galloped
on like a grotesque rocking horse, patches of baldness grey on his
flanks, big-bellied, running heavily.
Bruce shifted the bead of the foresight on to his shoulder and fired
twice in quick succession, aiming low for the heart, hitting each time,
the bull so close he could see the bullet wounds appear on the dark
skin.
The gallop broke into a trot, with head swinging low, mouth open, legs
beginning to fold. Aiming carefully for the head Bruce fired again. The
bull bellowed - a sad lonely sound - and collapsed into the grass.
The lorries had stopped in a line behind the Ford, and now from each of
them swarmed black men. jabbering happily, racing each other, they
streamed past Bruce to where the buffalo had fallen in the grass beside
the road.
'Nice shooting, boss,' said Ruffy. 'I'm going to have me a piece of
tripe the size of a blanket.'
'Let's make camp first.'
Bruce's ears were still singing with gunfire. 'Get the lorries into a
ring.' IT see to it.' Bruce walked up to the nearest buffalo and watched
for a while as a dozen men strained to roll it on to its back and begin
butchering it. There were clusters of grape-blue ticks in the folds of
skin between the legs and body.
A good head, he noted mechanically, forty inches at least.
'Plenty of meat, Captain. Tonight we eat thick!' grinned one of his
gendarmes as he bent over the huge body to begin flensing.
'Plenty,' agreed Bruce and turned back to the Ranchero.
In the heat of the kill it was a good feeling: the rifle's kick and your
stomach screwed up with excitement. But afterwards you felt a little bit
dirtied; sad and guilty as you do after lying with a woman you do not
love.
He climbed into the car and Shermaine sat away from him, withdrawn.
'They were so big and ugly - beautiful,' she said softly.
'We needed the meat. I didn't kill them for fun.' But he thought with a
little shame, I have killed many others for fun.
'Yes,' she agreed. 'We needed the meat.' He turned the car off the road
and signalled to the truck drivers to pull in behind him.
Later it was all right again. The meat-rich smoke from a dozen cooking
fires drifted across the camp. The dark tree tops silhouetted against a
sky full of stars, the friendly glow of the fires, and laughter, men's
voices raised, someone singing, the night noises of the bush insects and
