“It’s excellent,” Wilson told him. “You shoot like that and you’ll have no trouble.”
“Do you think we’ll find buffalo tomorrow?”
“There’s a good chance of it. They feed out early in the morning and with luck we may catch them in the open.”
“I’d like to clear away that lion business,” Macomber said. “It’s not very pleasant to have your wife see you do something like that.”
I should think it would be even more unpleasant to do it, Wilson thought, wife or no wife, or to talk about it having done it. But he said, “I wouldn’t think about that any more. Any one could be upset by his first lion. That’s all over.”
But that night after dinner and a whisky and soda by the fire before going to bed, as Francis Macomber lay on his cot with the mosquito bar over him and listened to the night noises it was not all over. It was neither all over nor was it beginning. It was there exactly as it happened with some parts of it indelibly emphasized and he was miserably ashamed at it. But more than shame he felt cold, hollow fear in him. The fear was still there like a cold slimy hollow in all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick. It was still there with him now.
It had started the night before when he had wakened and heard the lion roaring somewhere up along the river. It was a deep sound and at the end there were sort of coughing grunts that made him seem just outside the tent, and when Francis Macomber woke in the night to hear it he was afraid. He could hear his wife breathing quietly, asleep. There was no one to tell he was afraid, nor to be afraid with him, and, lying alone, he did not know the Somali proverb that says a brave man is always frightened three times by a lion; when he first sees his track, when he first hears him roar and when he first confronts him. Then while they were eating breakfast by lantern light out in the dining tent, before the sun was up, the lion roared again and Francis thought he was just at the edge of camp.
“Sounds like an old-timer,” Robert Wilson said, looking up from his kippers and coffee. “Listen to him cough.”
“Is he very close?”
“A mile or so up the stream.”
“Will we see him?”
“We’ll have a look.”
“Does his roaring carry that far? It sounds as though he were right in camp.”
“Carries a hell of a long way,” said Robert Wilson. “It’s strange the way it carries. Hope he’s a shootable cat. The boys said there was a very big one about here.”
“If I get a shot, where should I hit him,” Macomber asked, “to stop him?”
“In the shoulders,” Wilson said. “In the neck if you can make it. Shoot for bone. Break him down.”
“I hope I can place it properly,” Macomber said.
“You shoot very well,” Wilson told him. “Take your time. Make sure of him. The first one in is the one that counts.”
“What range will it be?”
“Can’t tell. Lion has something to say about that. Don’t shoot unless it’s close enough so you can make sure.”
“At under a hundred yards?” Macomber asked.
Wilson looked at him quickly.
“Hundred’s about right. Might have to take him a bit under. Shouldn’t chance a shot at much over that. A hundred’s a decent range. You can hit him wherever you want at that. Here comes the Memsahib.”
“Good morning,” she said. “Are we going after that lion?”
“As soon as you deal with your breakfast,” Wilson said. “How are you feeling?”
“Marvellous,” she said. “I’m very excited.”
“I’ll just go and see that everything is ready.” Wilson went off. As he left the lion roared again.
“Noisy beggar,” Wilson said. “We’ll put a stop to that.”
“What’s the matter, Francis?” his wife asked him.
“Nothing,” Macomber said.
“Yes, there is,” she said. “What are you upset about?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Tell me,” she looked at him. “Don’t you feel well?”
“It’s that damned roaring,” he said. “It’s been going on all night, you know.”
“Why didn’t you wake me,” she said. “I’d love to have heard it.”
“I’ve got to kill the damned thing,” Macomber said, miserably.
“Well, that’s what you’re out here for, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But I’m nervous. Hearing the thing roar gets on my nerves.”
“Well then, as Wilson said, kill him and stop his roaring.”
“Yes, darling,” said Francis Macomber. “It sounds easy, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not afraid, are you?”
“Of course not. But I’m nervous from hearing him roar all night.”
“You’ll kill him marvellously,” she said. “I know you will. I’m awfully anxious to see it.”
“Finish your breakfast and we’ll be starting.”
“It’s not light yet,” she said. “This is a ridiculous hour.”
Just then the lion roared in a deep-chested moaning, suddenly guttural, ascending vibration that seemed to shake the air and ended in a sigh and a heavy, deep-chested grunt.
“He sounds almost here,” Macomber’s wife said.
“My God,” said Macomber. “I hate that damned noise.”
“It’s very impressive.”
“Impressive. It’s frightful.”
Robert Wilson came up then carrying his short, ugly, shockingly big-bored .505 Gibbs and grinning.
“Come on,” he said. “Your gun-bearer has your Springfield and the big gun. Everything’s in the car. Have you solids?”
“Yes.”
“I’m ready,” Mrs. Macomber said.
“Must make him stop that racket,” Wilson said. “You get in front. The Memsahib can sit back here with me.”
They climbed into the motor car and, in the gray first daylight, moved off up the river through the trees. Macomber opened the breech of his rifle and saw he had metal-cased bullets, shut the bolt and put the rifle on safety. He saw his hand was trembling. He felt in his pocket for more cartridges and moved his fingers over the cartridges in the loops of his tunic front. He turned back to where Wilson sat in the rear seat of the doorless, box- bodied motor car beside his wife, them both grinning with excitement, and Wilson leaned forward and whispered,
“See the birds dropping. Means the old boy has left his kill.”
On the far bank of the stream Macomber could see, above the trees, vultures circling and plummeting down.
“Chances are he’ll come to drink along here,” Wilson whispered. “Before he goes to lay up. Keep an eye out.”
They were driving slowly along the high bank of the stream which here cut deeply to its boulder-filled bed, and they wound in and out through big trees as they drove. Macomber was watching the opposite bank when he felt Wilson take hold of his arm. The car stopped.
“There he is,” he heard the whisper. “Ahead and to the right. Get out and take him. He’s a marvellous lion.”
Macomber saw the lion now. He was standing almost broadside, his great head up and turned toward them. The early morning breeze that blew toward them was just stirring his dark mane, and the lion looked huge, silhouetted on the rise of bank in the gray morning light, his shoulders heavy, his barrel of a body bulking smoothly.
