"Hell!" He snapped his fingers with chagrin. "I didn't think to bring
any."
"See what I mean? Amateur. I did."
They talked on until late, and at last Nicholas glanced at his
wrist-watch and stood up.
"Long after midnight. I am scheduled to turn into a pumpkin at any
moment. Goodnight."
"There are still two days of the festival before the tabot is taken down
to the river. Nothing we can do until then.
What are your plans
"Tomorrow I am going back after that damned little Bambi. It has made a
fool of me twice already."
"I am coming with you," she said firmly, and that simple declaration
gave him a disproportionate amount of pleasure.
"Just as long as you leave Tamre at home," he warned her as he stooped
out through the door.
The tiny antelope stepped out from the deep shadow of the thorn thicket,
and the early morning sunlight gleamed on the silky pelt, It kept
walking steadily across the narrow clearing.
Nicholas's breathing quickened with excitement as he followed it with
the telescopic sight. It was ridiculous that he should feel so wrought
up with the hunting of such a humble little animal, but his previous
failures had sharpened his anticipation. Added to that was the peculiar
passion that drives the true collector. Since he had lost Rosalind and
the girls, he had thrown all his energy into the building up of the
collection at Quenton Park. Now, suddenly, procuring this specimen for
it had become a matter of supreme importance to him.
His forefinger rested lightly on the side of the trigger guard. He would
not fire until the dik-dik came to a standstill. Even that walking pace
would make the shot uncertain. He had to place his bullet precisely, to
kill swiftly but at the same time to inflict the least possible damage
to the skin.
To this end he had loaded the Rigby with full metal jacket bullets -
ones that would not expand on impact and open a wide wound channel, nor
rip out a gaping hole in the coat as they exited. These solid bullets
would punch a tiny hole the size of a pencil that the taxidermist at the
museum would be able to repair invisibly.
He felt his nerves screwing up as he realized that the dik-dik was not
going to stop in the open. It made steadily for the thick scrub on the
far side of the clearing. This might be his last chance. He fought the
temptation to take the shot at the moving target, and it required an
effort of will to lift his finger off the trigger again.
The antelope reached the wall of thorn scrub -and, the moment before it
disappeared, stopped abruptly and thrust its tiny head into the depths
of one of the low bushes.
Standing broadside to Nicholas, it began to nibble at the pate green
tufts of new leaves. The head was screened, so he had to abandon his
intention of going for that shot.
However, the shoulder was exposed. He could make out the clear outline
of the blade beneath the glossy red-brown skin. The dik-dik was angled
slightly away from him, in the perfect position for the heart shot,
tucked in low behind the shoulder.
Unhurriedly he settled the reticule of the scope on the precise spot,
and squeezed the trigger.
The shot whip-cracked in the heavy heated air and the tiny antelope
bounded high, coming down to touch the earth already at a full run. Like
a rapier rather than a cutlass, the solid bullet had not struck with
sufficient shock to knock the dik-dik over. Head down, the dik-dik
dashed away in the typical frantic reaction to a bullet through the
heart. It was dead already, running only on the last dregs of oxygen in
its bloodstream.
"Oh, no! Not that way," Nicholas cried as he jumped to his feet. The
tiny creature was racing straight towards the lip of the cliff. Blindly
leaped out into empty space and flipped into a somersault as it fell,
dropping from their sight, down almost two hundred feet into the chasm
of the Dandera river.
"That was a filthy bit of luck." Nicholas jumped over the bush that had
hidden them and ran to the rim of the chasm. Royan followed him and the
two of them stood peering down into the giddy void.
"There it is!" She pointed, and he nodded. "Yes, I can see it."
The carcass lay directly below them, caught on an islet of rock in the
middle of the stream.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'll have to go down and get it." He straightened up and stepped back
from the brink. "Fortunately it's still early.
We have plenty of time to get the job done before dark.
I'll have to go back to camp to fetch the rope and to get some help."
It was afternoon before they returned, panied by Boris, both his
trackers and two of the skinners. They brought with them four coils of
nylon rope.
Nicholas leaned out over the cliff and grunted with relief "Well, the
carcass is still down there. I had visions of it being washed away." He
supervised the trackers as they uncoiled the rope and laid it out down
the length of the clearing.
"We will need two coils of it to get down to the bottom he estimated
and joined them, painstakingly tying and checking the knot himself. Then
he plumbed the drop, lowering the end of the rope down the cliff until
it touch the surface of the water, and then hauling it back and
measuring it between the spread of his arms.
"Thirty fathoms. One hundred and eighty feet. I won't be able to climb
back that high," he told Boris. "You and your gang will have to haul me
back up."
He anchored the rope end with a bowline to the hole of one of the wiry
thorn trees. Then he again tested it meticulously, getting all four of
the trackers and skinners to heave on it with their combined weight.
"That should do it," he gave his opinion as he stripped to his shirt and
khaki shorts and pulled off his chukka boots. On the tip of the cliff he
leaned out backwards with the rope draped over his shoulder and the tail
brought back between his legs in the classic. absed style.
"Coming in on a wing and a prayerP he said, and jumped out backwards
into the chasm. He controlled his fall by allowing the rope to pay out
over his shoulder, braking with the turn over his thigh, swinging like a
pendulum and kicking himself off the rock wall with both feet. He went
down swiftly until his feet dangled into the rush of water, and the
current pushed him into a spin on the end of the rope. He was a few
yards short of the spur of rock on which the dead dik-dik lay, and he,
was forced to let himself drop into the river. With the end of the rope
held between his teeth he swam the last short distance with a furious
overarm crawl, just beating the current's attempt to sweep him away
downstream.
He dragged himself up on to the island and took a few moments to catch
his breath, before he could admire the beautiful little creature he had
killed. He felt the familiar melancholy and guilt as he stroked the
glossy hide and examined the perfect head with the extraordinary
proboscis. However, there was no time now for regrets, nor for the
searching of his hunter's conscience.
He trussed up the dik-dik, tying all four of its legs together securely,
then he stepped back and looked up. He could see Boris's face peering