Day 29 of 31

The wrong of three tracks

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Another flat in the night. A cold strong wind at first light. Six twenty-five at the spot the big bull had crossed the road — no print on the gravel, no footmark on the sand. Our only chance is his line from where we left him last night. Three hours later we are fifty meters from the cruiser. His line crossed the road and came back.

Our fourth flat in the night. Warm at first, then a hard cold wind before dawn. I told Felix I wished we had two more weeks — we now knew where the big bulls were living, and three days was not going to be enough. Good times go fast.

Six twenty-five at the spot where the big bull had crossed the road last night. No spoor on the gravel — he had walked the tall centre where the grass swallowed his print. The trackers quartered everywhere looking for a clean footmark on soft sand. Nothing. Our only chance was his line from where we had left him.

First light at the crossing point, day 29 — No print on the gravel. We took his line from yesterday instead

One point three kilometers in we reached the lucky pan. He had stopped to drink. We lost his track there — the same way so many other pans had taken it from us. The trackers spent nearly an hour before they called three separate big-bull tracks leaving the pan: one north, one west, one east.

At the lucky pan — three tracks leaving — North, west, east — and no way to tell which print was his

We chose east, because that was the direction he had come from. A fifty- fifty that it was our bull, and — given the raisin-berry thicket and the elephants inside it — a fifty-fifty of finding him at all. We took the odds.

Three hours of lost-and-found and we were fifty meters from the cruiser — his line had crossed the road and come back. Felix thought we would have him.

At twenty to ten, three elephants in an opening. None of them the right bull. At a quarter past ten a fourth joined them. Fifteen minutes later a big bull at the edge of a thicket, asleep under a shade tree. Small tusks through the binoculars. Not our bull.

Behind him, deeper in the thicket, a taller bull — his left tusk long. We circled in: Robert, Felix, Tum, me. Twenty-five meters out. Tall — a foot taller than normal. Four and a half foot left tusk. Nineteen inches at the base. Tapered at the tip. The Colgate bull from day nineteen. The first bull of the safari we had seen twice.

Colgate bull at close range, day 29 — Colgate — from day nineteen, a hundred kilometers away. Seen twice

Colgate started walking toward us, feeding. We backed off fast — we did not want to shoot him. He closed to fifteen meters of where I had been standing before he crossed our scent-line, lifted his head, and both bulls went fast.

Colgate walking at fifteen meters before catching wind — Fifteen meters before he caught our scent — and both bulls ran

A young bull showed up when we were looking for a shady place for lunch. We tried for more; none. After lunch, two cows at the edge of a thicket, playing in a big mud hole. Felix said there would be more cows in the thicket. A consolation afternoon.

Cows at the mud hole, afternoon day 29 — Wrong track. Part of elephant hunting — you wrote the bet, you lose some

We took the wrong track. Disappointed — but this is elephant hunting, and Felix and I both said so.