The first wildebeest for the pot

We left camp at five-forty heading north, looking for tracks along the way. Five kilometers shy of the Khaudum boundary we came on three young bulls playing together a couple hundred meters off the dirt road. One of them broke off and made a mock charge at the cruiser — a ribbon of showmanship from a bull who hadn’t yet grown into his own body.

We drove west along the park boundary, then south past a pan where Robert had seen a good roan and a big kudu the year before. At a quarter to nine Robert glassed a fifty-four-inch kudu bull a long way out. We spent thirty minutes stalking him; he saw us first and went.

At nine-ten Ralph spotted a wildebeest resting in brush almost a kilometer out. Felix said the bushmen hadn’t had meat since November. An old bull for the pot — that was the bar. We closed the distance through cover until we ran out of it, and stood four hundred meters off a herd we still couldn’t separate into bulls and cows.

Felix made the call to walk at them in a line. The herd drifted. At a hundred and fifty meters an old bull came out from behind a bush into an opening, clear of the rest, facing us. I took the frontal chest shot with the .416. He jumped and ran twenty meters before collapsing.

Fifteen minutes after we drove off, a second herd. One of the bulls was impressive — but still in his prime, and we had enough meat now for a few days. We let him walk.

After lunch we drove south toward the Hereroland boundary. The sky ahead went black, and the wind came up, and then the rain arrived like a decision. Every man on the back of the cruiser was soaked through by the time we turned for camp. It rained at camp through the night.