A big name in the London financial sector, the man had turned up looking like Allan Quartermain and had wanted to hunt elephant. Subdued after taking a mature bull, that had not been a clean kill, he had taken himself back to town and the airport and left behind every piece of his African adventure kit at the lodge, including the rifle. Wanting and doing were two entirely different things. The man hadn’t known that elephants cry. That they shed tears and express fear as you stand over them, see your own reflection cast in their glossy, intelligent eye and finish them off at close range. He hadn’t known that fact, but he soon did, and from that moment, he had looked haunted by his actions. Hollowed out by guilt and regret.
The rifle, which to the uninitiated looked like a traditional side by side shotgun, wasn’t equipped with a telescopic sight, but Romo wasn’t planning on hunting at long range, just merely keeping themselves out of the food chain. The open iron sights were adjustable out to three-hundred yards. The Anderson Wheeler was an old school piece of kit, but packed an enormous punch.
At the summit of the ridge, they were afforded the expansive view of the plateau. The flat ground spread out before them to the next line of hills some twenty-miles distant. Interspersing the flatness were clumps of trees and thorn bushes, as well as sporadic boulders the size of family cars. They seemed to shimmy in the heat haze. The sky above the distant summit graduated from washed-out blue, to the darkest, clearest azure imaginable.
“Dulla said that he saw the man firing down the side of the gulch. The ground is flatter, like a billiard table, and there are no obstructions for the entire line of sight out to six-thousand metres.”
“What?” Romo looked at his younger sibling. “He’s not even firing from an elevated position?”
“No.”
The older man shook his head. “This gets better and better,” he said. He took off his hat and used it to shield his eyes from the sun as he squinted into the distance. “I can’t see him,” he said.
Vigus shrugged. “Maybe he’s gone back, eh ‘bro?”
Romo shook his head. He studied the terrain, then stopped and stared. “You got the field glasses?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
“What’s up?”
Romo squinted. “There’s something down there. There are bushes and rocks in the way, but the shape is wrong.” He shouldered the rifle and aimed. He wasn’t taking a shot, just gauging the distance using the blade of the foresight and a rock he knew to be at least six-feet tall. “About one and a half klicks.”
“What is it?”
“I think he’s prone, eh? I think he’s lining up on a shot.”
“Are we going down there to take a look, or what?”
“Yeah. Let’s see what this gamie can do.”
The two men made their way down the slope, a slightly steeper gradient than their ascent. There were more rocks too, and progress was slow as both men kept their wits about them. There were leopards in these rocks, baboons also, and both were fearsome predators. The baboons were worse, they could mass in numbers quickly and if they reached twenty or more, then the men would be in real trouble. Baboons feared nothing in a large enough group.
Snakes like the puff adder and black mamba liked the shade afforded from direct sunlight and the morning warmth of the rocks as they heated in the sun. In the day, they nestled in the tufts of grass and under thorny bushes. Both creatures were game changers if they bit an unsuspecting leg. Black Mambas had been known to chase people down and bite for no apparent reason. They were also Africa’s deadliest snake.
“Can you see him now?” Vigus asked. He looked in the direction his brother had been studying. “I can’t see shit, bro.”
“No. We’ve dropped too much now,” he replied. “But I’ve got the area marked. When we hit the plateau, it’s five-hundred paces or so to the rocks. He was behind them, twenty paces out, I reckon.” He shrugged. Distances were relative in the African sun; the man may well be fifty-metres out from where he had best guessed.
Vigus dropped down, the shotgun raised to his shoulder, Romo followed suit with the double rifle. He frowned across at his brother.
“Lions,” Vigus explained. “Two females, both large.”
“The Biedmet pride,” Romo replied. “No other prides come in here. They haven’t been here for weeks either.”
“There are two males nearby, juveniles. Banished, lucky not to have been killed by the old male. It may be time to take out the old fella and let the other two fight it out for the crown. When is our next lion client coming in?”
“Two weeks,” the younger brother said. “I’ll mark down a sighting on the map when we get back. Those two juveniles follow the pride for scraps. The old male would make a great trophy.”
“Good. Get Dulla to start tracking the pride. If they’re here, then it will be a good score for the next client.”
Both men remained crouched, not wanting to risk being seen. They would wait and see what the two lionesses did before moving onwards. They did not
