Death in the Long Grass by Peter Hathaway Capstick

Author:Peter Hathaway Capstick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

4

Cape Buffalo

The man who was about to die padded softly along the narrow trail, tiny puffs of reddish dust spurting from beneath his crude, auto-tire sandals. He carried his spear easily across his right shoulder as he walked, the honed edges of the iron head flickering with the golden light of late afternoon. Wiping the sheeting sweat from his scar-welted forehead, he thought about the pot of sorghum beer that would be in the shade of his hut, another two miles down the path, and licked his leathery lips. He thought he could almost taste the sharp flavor on the back of his tongue as he passed the deep, conbretum thicket, its waxy, green leaves masking deep caverns of shade.

Terror grabbed his chest with the first grunt, short and hard from the tangle to his right. It was close, too close, the man knew as he froze, watching the branches shake as the snorts came nearer. He found his legs in a burst of adrenalin panic as the buffalo broke cover, black, hooked head up, pale gray eyes locked on his. Too frightened to shriek, the man dropped his spear and ran for his life, the thunder of flatiron hooves hammering just over his shoulder. Thirty yards ahead a large muSassa tree overhung the path with fluffy, green arms, and hope flooded into the terrified man. He was only two paces from the leap that would save him when the flats of massive horns smashed into the small of his back, driving him against the base of the tree with terrible power. Instantly, the bull hit him again, crushing his upper chest against the rough bark, splintering ribs and clavicles like a lizard under a heavy boot. The man was probably dead before his shattered form could fall over. That was just as well.

Foam blowing over his boiler-tank chest, the buffalo sprang back for a moment, then charged, hooking the cadaver on an icepick horn and dragging it back onto the path. For long minutes he chopped the man like chicken liver with axe-edged hooves the diameter of salad plates. Then, the way a dog will act with a dead snake, he methodically ground what was left of the corpse into the earth by rolling his ton of weight upon it again and again. Satisfied, the gory hulk grunted again and backed off a few paces, watching to see that his victim did not move. Ten minutes passed before he turned and made his way back into the thicket where he lay down, pondering the maggot-crawling, festering wound on his hip.

An hour later, returning from a successful kudu hunt with two clients and four of my native staff, we found the body lying in the trail. We had come from the opposite direction, dry and tired after long hours of tracking, and it wasn’t until I had stared at the remains for several seconds that I was even able to recognize what it was. You will see better-looking bodies in plane crashes.

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