The first bull — seventy pounds, crawling in at eighteen meters

Two bulls a hundred meters off the road at seven twenty-five. One looked very interesting. They heard the cruiser and walked. As we readied, the wind shifted. A road-side elephant had turned into a hard chase.

Thirty minutes of brisk walk and run in thick bush. I had been watching Felix’s pace for days: for every four of his paces the trackers took five and I took four. Now we were running. I was at my limit, short of breath, keeping up. Five kilometers in an hour through thorn and thicket. Countless thorns in my fingers. Cuts everywhere on my arms and legs. At eight-forty we caught them in a low opening.

We moved in slowly, crawling — they could see a man standing at a long distance. Three hundred meters of crawling. Three bulls. The biggest body was a sixty-pound. A fifty-pound. And the lead bull — a seventy. Right tusk two and a half feet, almost blunt from rubbing. Left tusk tapered slightly.

Felix had been worried about me all week. He would not be able to re-sell a leftover permit this late in the season. I had come for a hundred-pounder, not a seventy — but this morning was not about a number on a scale. We had run and brisk-walked and crawled more than eight kilometers in a short time, and I had enjoyed every second of it.

I decided to take the bull.

Fifty meters from them, the biggest bull caught our movement and walked closer to check us. We sat down on the ground. He stared for five minutes, then walked away. The wind favored us all morning; we moved only when they moved.

Twenty more minutes of crawling to the nearest bush — eighteen meters from them. They did not notice. They were in the shade of an acacia, feeding and resting. The seventy-pounder stood broadside, closest to us.

I made a side brain shot. The shot was a little high — the bullet partly damaged his brain or nerve. The bull went down, struggled to stand. I made two more shots to finish him.