Ngui shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. We were both very serious now and there was no White Man to speak softly and knowingly from his great knowledge, nor any White Man to give violent orders astonished at the stupidity of his “boys” and cursing them on like reluctant hounds. There was only one wounded leopard with terrible odds against him who had been shot from the high branch of a tree, suffered a fall no human being could survive and taken his stand in a place where, if he retained his lovely and unbelievable cat vitality he could maim or grievously injure any human being who came in after him. I wished he had never killed the goats and that I had never signed any contracts to kill and be photographed for any national circulation magazines and I bit with satisfaction on the piece of shoulder bone and waved up the car. The sharp end of the splintered bone had cut the inside of my cheek and I could taste the familiarity of my own blood now mixed with the blood of the leopard and I said, “Twendi kwa chui,” the statesman’s plural imperative, “Let us go to the leopard.”
It was not very easy for us to go to the leopard. Ngui had the Springfield 30-06 and he had also the good eyes. Pop’s gun bearer had the .577 which would knock him on his ass if he shot it and he had as good eyes as Ngui. I had the old, well-loved, once burnt-up, three times restocked, worn-smooth old Winchester model 12-pump gun that was faster than a snake and was, from thirty-five years of us being together, almost as close a friend and companion with secrets shared and triumphs and disasters not revealed as the other friend a man has all his life. We covered the enlaced and crossed roots of the thicket from the blood spoor entry to the left, or west end where we could see the car around the corner but we could not see the leopard. Then we went back crawling along and looking into the darkness of the roots until we reached the other end. We had not seen the leopard and we crawled back to where the blood was still fresh on the dark green leaves.
Pop’s gun bearer was standing up behind us with the big gun ready and I, sitting down now, started to shoot loads of No. 8 shot into the cross-tangled roots traversing from left to right. At the fifth shot the leopard roared hugely. The roar came from well into the thick bush and a little to the left of the blood on the leaves.
“Can you see him?” I asked Ngui.
“Hapana.”
I reloaded the long magazine tube and shot twice fast toward where I had heard the roar. The leopard roared again and then coughed twice.
“Piga tu,” I said to Ngui and he shot toward where the roar had come from.
The leopard roared again and Ngui said, “Piga tu.”
I shot twice at the roar and Pop’s gun bearer said, “I can see him.”
We stood up and Ngui could see him but I could not. “Piga tu,” I told him.
He said, “Hapana. Twendi kwa chui.”
So we went in again but this time Ngui knew where we were going. We could only go in a yard or so but there was a rise in the ground the roots grew out of. Ngui was directing me by tapping my legs on one side or the other as we crawled. Then I saw the leopard’s ear and the small spots on the top of the bulge of his neck and his shoulder. I shot where his neck joined his shoulder and shot again and there was no roar and we crawled back out and I reloaded and we three went around the west end of the island of rush to where the car was on the far side.
“Kufa,” Charo said. “Mzuri kubwa sana.”
“Kufa,” Mthuka said. They could both see the leopard but I could not.
They got out of the car and we all moved in and I told Charo to keep back with his spear. But he said, “No. He’s dead, Bwana. I saw him die.”
I covered Ngui with the shotgun while he cut his way in with a panga slamming at the roots and brush as though they were our enemy or all our enemies and then he and Pop’s gun bearer hauled the leopard out and we swung him up into the back of the car. He was a good leopard and we had hunted him well and cheerfully and like brothers with no White Hunters nor Game Rangers and no Game Scouts and he was a Kamba leopard condemned for useless killing on an illegal Kamba Shamba and we were all Wakamba and all thirsty.
Charo was the only one who examined the leopard closely because he had been mauled twice by leopards and he had shown me where the charge of shot at close range had entered almost alongside the first bullet wound in the shoulder. I knew it must have as I knew the roots and the bank had deflected the other shots, but I was only happy and proud of us all and how we had been all day and happy that we would get to camp and to the shade and to cold beer.
We came into camp with the klaxon of the car going and everyone turned out and Keiti was happy and I think he was proud. We all got out of the car and Charo was the only one who stayed to look at the leopard. Keiti stayed with Charo and the skinner took charge of the leopard. We took no photographs of him. Keiti had asked me, “Piga picha?” and I said, “Piga shit.”
Ngui and Pop’s gun bearer brought the guns to the tent and laid them on Miss Mary’s bed and I carried the cameras and hung them up. I told Msembi to put the table out under the tree and bring chairs and to bring all the cold beer and Coca-Cola for Charo. I told Ngui not to bother about cleaning the guns now but to go and get Mthuka; that we would drink formal beer.
Mwindi said that I should take a bath. He would have the water in no time. I said that I would bathe in the washbasin and to please find me my clean shirt.
“You should take big bath,” he said.
“I’ll take big bath later. I’m too hot.”
“How you get all the blood? From chui?”
This was ironic but carefully concealed.
“From tree branches.”
“You wash off good with blue soap. I put on the red stuff.”
We always used Mercurochrome instead of iodine if we could get it although some Africans preferred iodine since it hurt and so was considered a stronger medicine. I washed and scrubbed the scratches open and clean and Mwindi painted them carefully.
I put on my clean clothes and I knew Mthuka, Ngui, Pop’s gun bearer and Charo were putting on their clean clothes.
“Did chui come?”
“No.”
“Why everybody make so happy then?”
“Very funny shauri. Very funny hunt all morning.”
“Why you want to be African?”
“I’m going to be Kamba.”
“Maybe,” said Mwindi.
“Fuck maybe.”
“Here come your friends.”
“Brothers.”
“Brothers maybe. Charo not your brother.”
“Charo my good friend.”
“Yes,” Mwindi said sadly, handing me a pair of slippers that he knew were a little tight and watching to see how much they hurt when I put them on. “Charo good friend. Have plenty bad luck?”
“How?”
“Every way. And is a lucky man.”
I went out to join the others, who were standing at the table with Msembi in his green robe and green skullcap standing ready with the beer in the faded green canvas bucket. The clouds were very high in the sky and the sky was the highest sky in the world and I looked back over the tent and could see the Mountain high and white above the trees.
“Gentlemen,” I said and bowed and we all sat down in the chairs of the Bwanas and Msembi poured the four tall beers and the Coca-Cola of Charo. Charo was the oldest so I ceded to him and Mwindi poured the Coca-Cola first. Charo had changed his turban to one slightly less gray and he wore a blue coat with brass buttons fastened together at the throat with a blanket pin I had given him twenty years before and a natty pair of well-repaired shorts.