Ahead of Sean, Matatu gave a cry that made his nerves jump. Sean knew what it meant and he ran forward, passing Claudia, and stopped beside Matatu.
"Well, all right!" He clapped Matatu's shoulder and went down on one knee to examine the earth.
"What is it?" Riccardo sounded alarmed, but Sean lifted his head and grinned at him.
"It's him. Tukutela. We've cut his spoor again just where Matatu predicted we would." And he touched the marks of the huge pads whose weight had crushed the brick lets of dried mud to talcum powder. The spoor was so clear that the difference between the bull's rounded front feet and the more oval hind feet was immediately apparent, and the forward edges of each footprint were nicked by his toenails.
"Still heading straight for the swamps." Sean stood and shaded his eyes against the glare as he followed the direction of the spoor.
Not far ahead another line of trees was drawn like a pencil along the horizon where a narrow curved finger of higher ground reached out across the plains.
"In a way we are fortunate," Sean remarked. "A few years ago there were so many herds of buffalo and game on these flats that Tukutela's spoor would have been wiped out in a few hours by their hooves. Now, since the Frelimo government converted them all to army rations, Tukutela is the only living thing for miles around."
"How far behind him are we?"
"We've made up a bit of ground." Sean lowered his hand from his eyes and turned to him. "But not enough, and if the uglies catch us out here in the open.... Luckily Tukutela's spoor is headed straight for the line of trees ahead. They will give us some cover."
He gestured to Matatu to take the spoor once again.
Now the expanse of the wide plain was dimpled with old anthills, mounds of clay thrown up by colonies of termites, some of them the size of a large cottage. Tukutela's spoor meandered between them. However, the line of growth was by now so close that they could make out individual trees. The finger of high ground formed a natural causeway from the edge of the forest across the wide plains to the beginning of the true swamps. There were ivory nut palms, bottle-stemmed palms, and low palms with their fan-shaped leaves, mixed with wild fig. On the highest ridge of the long causeway grew a few massive baobab, with trunks of elephantine gray bark.
With relief Sean followed the spoor of the old bull off the plain and into the trees of the isthmus. Here the elephant had stopped to dig out the juicy roots of an Bala palm and drop a pile of spongy yellow dung.
"The elephant rested here," Matatu explained, lowering his voice to a whisper. "He is an old man now and he tires easily. Here he stood to sleep, see how he shuffled his feet in the dust, and when he awoke he dusted his body. See where he scooped it up with his trunk and threw it over his back."
"How long did he stay here?" Sean asked. Matatu leaned his head to one side as he considered the question.
"He rested here until late yesterday afternoon when the sun was there."
Matatu pointed ten degrees above the western horizon.
"But when he went on he went more slowly. He feels safer now that he is close to the swamps. We have gained on him."
Sean exaggerated Matatu's estimate as he passed it on to Riccardo and Claudia. He wanted to encourage them. "We are making really good gains on him now." He put on a cheerful, confident air. "We might even catch up with him before he gets into the deep swamps, if we don't waste any time."
The spoor headed down the isthmus and the old bull had fed quietly as he moved along it, keeping up on top of the low ridge where the bush was thickest. Directly ahead of them stood another gigantic baobab tree. Its bark was gray and folded and riven as the old bull's hide.
For the moment Sean had left Riccardo's side and moved up to his original position behind Matatu. He wanted to caution the tracker not to set too fast a pace, but before he could speak he heard a strange, guttural cry behind him and he whirled around.
Riccardo's face was swollen and congested with blood. His eyes blazed and seemed to start from their sockets. Sean thought he was suffering from some kind of seizure, but he was pointing ahead, his hand, shaking with violent emotion.
"There he is," he croaked, in a thick unnatural voice. "For God's sake, can't you see him?"
Sean whirled and followed the direction of his outstretched arm.
"What is it, man?"
He was looking ahead, and he did not see Riccardo turn to Pumula and snatch the Rigby rifle off his shoulder, but he heard the metallic clash of the bolt as Riccardo chambered a cartridge.
"Capo, what the hell are you doing?" He reached out to restrain him, but Riccardo shoved him backward. Sean was in unprepared and off balance, and he staggered and almost fell.
Riccardo ran forward to the head of the line, stopped, and threw up the rifle.
"Capo, don't do it." Sean was sprinting to catch him, but the Rigby crashed out and the barrel jumped high, driving Riccardo back a pace with the heavy recoil.
"Have you gone crazy?" Sean could not reach him before he had fired again, and the heavy bullet tore a flurry of white wet bark from the trunk of the baobab. The echoes of the shot rolled across the plains.
"Capo." Sean reached him and seized the rifle, forcing the muzzle up toward the sky just as Riccardo fired the Rigby for the third time.
Sean wrested the weapon out of his grip.