The hunt for freedom

The Hunt for Freedom

By Charlie Wilkins

Alan wanders in, nodding good morning, picking up his waiting cup of coffee, cupping it close to his face. He breathes deeply into it, enjoying the warmth and steaming his glasses. After a few moments he puts down his cup and cleans his glasses on the bottom of his shirt. He is a stickler for keeping his glasses clean, but only when hunting. In town it looks like birds have nested on his lenses.

 “Enough condensed milk?” I ask.

 “Too much” he says “You know I am cutting down on the sugar.”

 “Not while you’re hunting!” I say, but then see the little smile he gets when he is playing me. I laugh, my first of the morning, and it is good.

We don’t eat breakfast before we head out. It will slow us down, both in getting out into the field, and in moving around in the bush. We crunch through some rusks.

 “Ready?” says Alan. I nod and lever myself off the kitchen counter, heading to my room. It is now bright enough to see where I put my feet, which is about as early as we like to go hunting.

I am still admiring my bow when Alan comes out his room. He grunts “Gadget freak”. We walk to the road.

“Morning. Samson” I say, and Alan nods deeply.

 “Morning Alan, morning Keith” says Samson.

Samson nods towards the road he has come down from the staff camp. “Impala and kudu, near the river. They will be there for another hour.” He waits as Alan and I look at each other and silently confer. It is my turn to lead, but I am after warthog to barbecue on a spit and we haven’t seen any near the river. Alan is really keen for a good kudu, for wide and deep curling horns in his bar.

 “Good kudu, Samson?” I ask.

“ Nearly trophy” he says, knowing what Alan wants.

“Good, we go for the kudu” I say. I know that Samson is conservative about trophy size, that the kudu have been hunted hard, and that I can always buy a sheep for the spit.

 My hands check my belt. Knife is there, water bottle is full so it won’t gurgle, my hunting pouch is in place. I check my pockets out of habit, worry a little when I find they are empty and then relax as I remember that my phone and car keys are in my belt pack.

 We walk down the road towards the staff camp. We do not talk, just settle into the steady, energy saving stride that will see us through the day.

Samson turns onto a game trail well before we get to the river, Alan behind Samson, me at the rear. Alan and I pride ourselves on our bush eyes, on being able to spot game before it spots us, but Samson rules. The position of lead honours him.

Our pace is fast silent. Samson is confident the kudu will not have moved this far away from the river, so we move quickly while we can. The sun has peeped above the horizon and we are able to see deep into the bush, away from the sun, but not to the east. Samson is leading us up sun of the kudu.

 Samson slows as we climb a small hill. Our eyes are scanning through gaps in the trees for any sign of the kudu in the river valley. We are still about 500m from the river, but there is more open ground down there.

 The impala have moved though the river, shallow at this time of year, and are slowly making progress away from us. The youngsters, nearly fully grown now, still bounce and chase each other in life delight, enjoying the fresh morning air.

We stop at the firebreak that runs down to the river, hanging just on the edge of bush. Alan takes out his binoculars, Samson and I rely on our eyes. We scan the river for about five minutes before Samson spots the kudu on the edge of the thickest bush near the river, contentedly chewing.

 “Good one” Alan exclaims under his breath, when he finds it through the binoculars. My excitement rises and suddenly the world is more clearly in focus, my senses alive and keen. This is why hunting beats game viewing.

  We stalk for an hour, moving very slowly, trying to keep in the edge of the bush where we can see without being seen. Alan and I are wearing camo, Samson a deep green overall.

 Every so often we catch a glimpse of the kudu bull. He is cautious, browsing half as much as he scans his surroundings, earning his age.

The going is easy. Game trails free of twigs and stones guide us down to the river. We see enough of the kudu to make confident decisions, but there is enough cover and we are sufficiently downwind that we aren’t forced onto our stomachs, or need to take chances and move blindly.

 A stream bed offers an easy approach to the kudu. We have hunted this ground before, we know the stream bed runs about 20m away from where the kudu was last browsing.

 Samson chooses to move back to where he can see the kudu. He directs and I relay instructions to Alan.

Dense bush obscures Alan’s view so he concentrates on being quiet and staying low. Samson’s arm is confident, tracing the direction to the kudu. It is slowly moving upwind, but moving away from us.  He directs Alan forward.

Alan moves around a bend in the streambed, out of sight. I look back for Samson’s guidance and discover he has joined me. We follow Alan to the bend and see him lying against the bank, looking under the bush, motionless. Samson and I join him on our hands and knees, me arriving last, having nursed my bow as I crawled. We are stuck. The kudu has moved across the open space in front of us to the next clump of bush, about 60m away. Too far for a shot, even for Alan.

We wait. Soon the kudu moves into the bush, heading across the wind, enjoying spring’s fresh green shoots. We move.

Samson takes us along the riverbed until we are close to the other side of the bush. We move upwind, just in cover, silently, close to the ground, listening as much as we are looking. My breathing roars.

The flash of Samson’s palm down at his boots stops us mid crouched stride. My forty year old back protests, but there is only discipline now. Any movement can spook our prey, so we make like rocks.

The hand faces down and bounces, gently. We lower ourselves to our bellies. Only Samson can see, or hear, the kudu. We wait, necks creaking as our raised heads stay still, our eyes flicking across the bush.

The kudu shakes its head, and is suddenly visible. It is looking away from us. Alan rolls gently and slowly to his left and starts leopard crawling past Samson, heading for a small bush about 10 metres away, cradling his bow on his forearms. Every time the kudu stops chewing he freezes.

He rises slowly to his knees behind the bush, keeping his head down. Gently he takes an arrow from the quiver and eases it onto the string, careful to avoid the twang as it slips into the nock and then clips on his release.

Alan leans to his right, raises his bow, eases back to an upright position where he can aim at the kudu and draws. As he does so, I hear the arrow sliding over the arrow rest.

So does the kudu.

Its head snaps round and it is looking straight at Alan. Animals can jump the string, can react fast enough to move before the arrow reaches them. Our rule is: never shoot at an animal that is looking at you.

Alan cannot move now, he has to outwait it. He draws an eighty pound bow, and even with the let off he is under considerable strain. Soon he begins to shake.

With awe inspiring control he lets down from full draw. The kudu blinks and turns back to browse. Alan rests a minute, comes to full draw again. The same small noise and the kudu turns to watch.

Again, Alan holds until he starts to shake. The kudu starts to browse when he lets down.

Another rest, longer this time.

I can see Alan is tired when his draw starts with a jerk.

That same small noise and the kudu is watching before Alan gets to full draw.

Alan strains and holds as long as he can, but eventually he is shaking so badly that the arrow falls off the rest and rattles down the riser.

The kudu makes a cloud of dust, then disappears into it.

Samson and I are rolling with laughter as Alan collapses onto his back. Soon he starts to shake and then his roaring laugh rolls across the river valley.

“What an animal” he eventually says. “Cocky as Scotsman with a whisky in his hand, and as smooth as if that whisky was 20 years old.”

We sit smiling at each other for a few comfortable moments, then get up, brush ourselves off and head down to the river, alert, but not fully hunting. The game around us will have disappeared.

It is my turn, and we head towards the plains that are about a kilometre upriver. The bush on the edges of the plains normally have several families of warthog, and they forage on the plains. The further we move away from the kudu surprise, the more our alertness rises.

The walk out of camp in the afternoon is always a gentle awakening to the bush. The lourie in the background is now movement in a tree. The wind shifting of the acacia branches attracts attention, checking for an animal.

Alan spent an hour up the hill looking for the kudu, after our usual hearty brunch, and found it crossing into the deep bush further up the river, so we know where we are going. I had a snooze. We are silent in the heaviness of the sun, walking around the low hanging thorn trees, dust rising from our quiet boots, the scent drifting into my nostrils, playing notes of Africa.

Samson slows as we approach the river. We ease to a stop before the edge of the clearing. There is no sign for minutes, then an ear flickers and it snaps into focus. Samson backs slowly and leads us round to the left, downwind.

The stalk is long and hot, the day baked earth scorching in the open as we crawl behind a low screen of bushes. Samson raises his head. His eyes aren’t scanning so he can see the kudu.

We wait.

The signal to rise has us gently on all fours, in single file behind an anthill. The kudu’s horns give us just enough notice and we freeze as he moves into the bush. We wait until he is hidden, then crawl some more.

He browses and we crawl. He stops and we freeze.

The distance closes.

He disappears in a clatter of stones, and we hear his hooves clicking amongst rocks. He is walking along the dry streambed.

Samson is up into a crouch and we are moving to our left. The growth at the edge of the streambed provides enough cover for Alan to kneel, knock an arrow and come to full draw. The kudu has stopped, side on, his head raised as he picks leaves delicately on the far bank.

A perfect shot, except for the branch covering his heart. Alan shuffles quietly to his left.

There is a long grating sound and a muffled grunt. Alan disappears, landing in a shower of rocks and dust. His head jerks up, but the kudu is gone.

“My knee” he says quietly, violently. He is lying on his bow.

Samson walks down the right bank, and returns with the arrow, now missing its broadhead.

“You shot the tree” he says “The broadhead is stuck, do you have your pliers?”

I hand mine over my Leatherman, and turn to Alan. “You OK?”

“I wrenched my knee” he says, grimacing and rolling to a sitting position. He bends his left leg, reaches for my hand and I pull him upright while he keeps his right leg straight. He tentatively puts weight on the leg, grimaces again and takes two short steps.

“I can walk, but it won’t be fast.”

“No problem. I’ll help you to the road. Samson can fetch the vehicle.”

“You go with Samson, I’ll make it home on my own.”

“No way. The sooner you get off that leg, the quicker it will heal.”

I get a grateful look. Being on the wrong side of forty brings wisdom, even to men.

Samsom returns with the broadhead, hands it to Alan and the pliers to me.

“Thanks, Samson, looks like I can use it again.”

Samson agrees to our plan and heads off. We make our way to the road with me walking ahead choosing the smoothest path. We get there before Samson.

“Its feeling better already. Lets keep walking.”

I look sceptically at Alan, but his face is relaxed so I go along. I watch him as we walk and see the look of terror on his face when a machine gun lets rip from half way up the hill. He dives into the ditch on the side of the road, landing in the green water left by the early spring rains.

The machine gun revs higher and becomes the engine of the Willy’s Jeep Samson is restoring. He hasn’t found a muffler for the exhaust pipe yet.

I laugh so hard I have to sit down, tears streaming down my face. I am vaguely aware that Alan is trying to stand up.

“Shut the fuck up!” he screams at me.

My laughter shuts off. His face is contorted with anger, and he is shaking.

“Whoa, gently. What’s up?”

His face is suddenly impassive.

“Nothing” he snaps out and looks away. He starts marching down the road to camp, wobbling as his knee goes weak on him.

“ Hey, Alan, wait. What’s the matter?”

He ignores me. I run and catch up with him. He keeps stalking, looking straight ahead, muscles in his face tense.

Samson appears behind us, but cannot get past as Alan is in the middle of the road. After a few moments I move to the side of the road and wait for Samson.

“Thanks, Samson, Alan appears to be OK now, but he is really upset. I’ll follow him back to camp. We’ll see you tomorrow.” I raise my voice to be heard above the unmuffled engine. “The Jeep is looking good!”

He grins, revs the engine and brakes into his U-turn. I grimace at the racket.

Alan spins around and glares at him, but Samson is concentrating on getting the Jeep safely through the bush back onto the road. He spins back, nearly falls as his knee gives way and is back to stalking again.

I follow, catching up with him.

“What’s the matter, Alan?”

No reaction at all.

I glance at him occasionally. I have never seen him like this.

Alan disappears into his room, slamming the door. I check the time. 16:30, too early to start on the supper I planned for tonight and too early for a beer. I decide to change the meal and head into the kitchen to make bread.

The fire has burnt down to coals perfect for cooking. I use the shovel to distribute an even layer under the grill and put the lamb chops on, well salted and peppered. I open the camping oven. The bread has risen beautifully and is browning well.

As I settle into my chair and pick up my beer, Alan’s door opens. He is still in his hunting gear, dry now, his hair all over the place, creases on his face and he is blinking like he just woke up. He hobbles slowly to his chair, hardly putting any weight on his sore knee. The process of sitting down takes a lot longer than usual.

I get up and fetch him a beer. He doesn’t look at me when I hand it to him, but his face is a lot more relaxed. I turn the lamb chops over and sit down again.

We watch the fire. When the lamb chops are cooked I take them and the bread into the kitchen, serve, and bring the food and another beer for Alan out to the fire.

We eat in silence. Alan puts his plate onto the table between us and settles back into his chair. I do the same.

“Would you mind switching off the light, Keith?” asks Alan. “My knee…”

“Sure.”

The stars leap closer. I pick up my fleece from the back of my chair and put it on before sitting down. The fire glows strongly, enough to keep my front warm.

Silence stretches.

Alan sighs deeply. Then again. He shifts in his chair.

“Keith, I am sorry for this afternoon” he says.

“No problem” I say.

More sighs. I wait.

“That Jeep sounded like a machine gun and I was back in the army, in a firefight.”

“It gave me a shock, too.”

“But that wasn’t what caused the problem. It was the smell of death. There was a dead tortoise in the ditch.” His voice hitches, like he’s crying. I look at him sharply. The orange glow from the embers turns the twin tracks of tears on his face to gold. He keeps his eyes on the fire.

“I never saw a tortoise” I say.

“You were too busy rolling around laughing” he says, with an attempt at a chuckle. It doesn’t really work. “It was just under the water, right in front of me.”

“You’re crying over a dead tortoise?”

He shudders and his mouth pinches.

“No, memories.”

I wait for a while, watching him watching his memories. I venture another question “I didn’t realise the army was that bad for you?”

“It wasn’t.”

I wait for a long time. Eventually he sighs and looks at me.

“I remembered killing Chris.”

It takes me a moment to sort through the Chris’s we have known. “Chris, Chris Watson? From university? The guy who died in the motorcycle accident?”

“My best mate.”

“But that was an accident.”

“Sort of. It was more that I left him to die.”

“How?”

“Do you know the full story?”

“Only that they found his bike and his body near Camperdown. I wasn’t part of your group then.”

Alan turns to look at me, pain on his face.

“I challenged him to a race. Last one to the Pietermaritzburg town hall buys breakfast. We had done it few times before. He needed a piss. The last time I saw him alive he was ripping his fly open in the garden.”

He drinks from his beer.

“He never arrived. I sat and waited for about half an hour, growing suspicious that he had pulled a fast one and gone home to bed. Eventually I phoned home. We lived together in an apartment on the Berea. Someone picked up the phone and dropped it. I yelled at him, until I heard him snoring again. I was so mad. I steamed for a while, then headed down to Ramsgate to meet Tamara and her folks.”

His face contorts, and the stream of tears grows wider.

“Chris had crashed, but he didn’t die, not straight away, on Saturday morning. I found him on Monday evening, at the bottom of a hill on the old road. He loved the bends, and must have given up on winning and decided to enjoy the ride. There was a splash of Kawasaki green on a tree. I found it easily. The bloke who answered the phone was a friend of his, drunk. I forgot Chris said he was crashing at our place. And I left him to die.”

I wait, then ask gently “How did you leave him to die?”

“Chris was in a ditch, filled with water, smelling like the ditch this afternoon. But he didn’t land there. Both his legs were horribly broken, with bones sticking through the skin. He’d crawled up the hill, about twenty metres, leaving a trail of blood. He left me a message about half way up, written in the mud with a stick. I found it when I went down to fetch his helmet.”

Alan’s shoulders hunch and his head drops to be covered by his hands. A muffled sob shakes his body, then another. A long string of snot streams from his nose before dropping to the ground. There are no more sobs. I put my hand on his back and he flinches.

“I went back to him and just sat next to him, sobbing. It was dark before I could stop. I haven’t cried since then, not once.”

His head rises until he is looking at me, pain everywhere.

“I didn’t go looking for him. He was there for hours. I could have found him, rescued him. I didn’t trust him, and I left him to die.”

I take my hand off his back and grip both his between mine.

“What did the message say?”

“‘Don’t blame yourself Alan.’ It was written so clearly, carefully. He knew he wouldn’t make it, knew I wasn’t coming. And I didn’t.”

His head drops again and he sobs, the spasms getting more and more intense until he has to gasp for breath. His hands are still in mine, clenched into iron, tension in his body. He sobs for long time, the tension slowly easing, the pool of snot growing, until there are only occasional shudders. Then he sighs, deep and free, and looks up at me with a cracked smile.

“Sorry.”

I squeeze his hands. “No problem.”

“I need the toilet” he says and rises unsteadily.

“Do you need a hand?”

“No.”

He hobbles slowly to his room, and is gone some time. His door opens as I give up on him coming back and start to rise.

“Oh!” he says. “You going to bed?”

I change my mind. “No, just making coffee. You want?”

His head tilts a little as he looks at me. “You never have coffee at night.”

“No, but you do.”

“Thanks” he says, and starts the journey to his chair.

I make him the biggest cup of coffee I can find, and put in extra condensed milk, comfort food. He smiles gratefully when I hand it to him, only a little cracked now.

We sit in silence. The full moon rises, it’s silver light cutting the shadows into his face. He gazes at the last glowing embers. He has put on his big winter jacket, and is huddled deeply into it. My fleece is starting to feel thin.

I stand to go and fetch my blanket coat.

“Go to bed, Keith” says Alan. “I’m going to sit here and let this happen. I can’t hold it buried anymore.”

He is looking up at me, and the tears on his face now silver tracks.

“You sure?”

“Bring me what’s left of the Old Brown sherry and a glass, and I will be fine. I’ll yell if I need you.”

I look carefully into his eyes, and see enough peace to believe him. I do as he asks, and head off to bed.

“Morning Keith” Alan says, walking with only a trace of a limp into the kitchen and picking up his coffee.

“You look good this morning” I say.

“Two days rest and it’s nearly fixed. Its nice to know that I am not as old as I sometimes feel.”

Samson appears behind Alan, silent. Alan jumps then laughs when Samson reaches past him to pick up his coffee.

“One day I am going to scare you just like that” he growls, taking another bite of his rusk.

“Last day, Samson, and my knee won’t let me chase that kudu. Can we sit in the dam hide and see what comes along?”

“Sure” says Samson. “Are you going to join us, Keith?”

“I had enough of sitting in a hide yesterday, thanks. Do you mind if I hunt alone today?” Samson is responsible for what we do while we are on the farm, so it is up to him.

He hardly hesitates, a measure of our relationship “That will be fine. Take your mobile phone.” I have his number.

“Great. I’ll stay on the east side of the hills so I don’t disturb animals around the dam. I’ll give you a call if I shoot anything too big to carry.”

We finish our coffee and Alan and I head back to our rooms to fetch our gear.

I wave as I head out in the opposite direction to them. Alan waves back, Samson nods.

The bush is quiet, even the insects seem to be holding their breath. I crouch to pick up the arrow. It has a brownish tinge to it. It smells of semi-digested leaves.

I do a mental review of the shot. The bushbuck was facing me, its head obscured by the branch it was feeding on. I used the second sight pin, range was about thirty metres. The arrow was on target, then the bushbuck turned and jumped and I lost sight of the arrow. It must have moved before the arrow hit, and the arrow hitting it in the guts.

I sit heavily and wait. The adrenalin will wear off and the bushbuck will lie down. Chasing it will only keep it moving, keep the adrenalin flowing.

After more than half an hour I start trailing. Stomach contents and blood spots are regular enough to make it easy.  I judge that it is hard hit and won’t last long.

Unnaturally the bushbuck heads uphill, but then drops over the ridge into dense bush in the valley beyond. Home territory.

I move slowly, watching the bush more than the spoor, campfire lore about the dangers of a wounded bushbuck suddenly clear in my mind.

The spoor leads into a clearing and I stop. It takes me a few moments to work out why. The insects and birds are quiet again. The bushbuck is close.

I study the opposite end of the clearing. It is long and narrow and I can see that the spoor leads straight down the centre. I crouch to look under the bushes, but they grow to the ground at the edges of the clearing and I can see nothing.

I check the arrow in my bow, again, and clip the release aid to the string. A quick mental review of walking at full draw makes me choose not to do that. I step into the open.

There is a noise to my left and I spin rapidly, coming to full draw. It is a puff adder, leaving his sun patch for the safety of the bush. I relax, walking into the centre of the clearing.

An explosion of leaves from my right has me turning and drawing in time to catch the charge of the bushbuck on my right leg. There is a sharp, cold sensation in my right thigh as I fall backwards, carried by the force of the impact. My bow flies from my hands as I break my fall. I feel a tearing in my thigh and my leg twists. The bushbuck has buried its horn in my thigh and is wrestling to get out.

I bend forward and grip it around the chest, lifting it off the ground. It starts to struggle wildly. I drop my weight on top of it, rolling to minimise the pressure on its horn in my leg. My right arm is holding it down, my left is under me. I shift more on top of the bushbuck so that I can hold it by sheer weight. My knife is on the right hand side of my belt.

The bushbuck’s struggles lessen. I can hear it blowing hard. It must be near death, but not near enough. I wiggle my left hand over its hindquarters and dig my elbow into its stomach. It stiffens and blows. I whip my right arm from around its chest and grab my knife, plunging it three, four, five times into its chest. It shudders and goes still.

We lie together for a while, until I am certain that it is dead. My adrenaline rush fades, the pain grows and the clearing comes back into focus. I gather my courage and look down at my leg.

The horn is buried to the hilt in the outside of my right thigh. There isn’t much blood, in spite of the wound now gaping with the bushbuck’s struggles. I try to sit up and the pain explodes. The leverage of the whole bushbuck is too much.

Pulling the knife from its chest, I cut the head off. It takes only a couple of minutes, my love of big hand made knives paying off. The pain abates as I sit up, supporting the weight of the head. A couple of experimental tugs show that it is not going to come out. Not and with me staying conscious.

A check of my mobile phone shows no bars, but there is a signal. I try calling Alan, but we cannot hear each other. I text him, giving him the bare bones of what happened and detailed directions on where I am. It takes a long time to send, and the wait for his reply has my stomach rising into my chest. I try to make myself comfortable.

My phone buzzes as his reply arrives: I am coming.

I wait, confidently, for my friend.

THE END