Ivory Nation, Andy Maslen [e manga reader .txt] 📗

a billion stars, Gabriel Wolfe began talking. As the insects chittered, and the eternal battle between the eaters and the eaten gathered pace, he issued instructions and made suggestions for the following day’s sport.

By seven, they were on the move again. One of the Congolese had been away before dawn, scouting ahead, tracking the herd. He’d reported back as the rest were eating breakfast.

In a ramshackle patois incorporating French, English, Swahili and Afrikaans, he communicated that the elephants were no more than a mile to the north, foraging in a patch of grassland by a waterhole.

Witaarde turned to Gabriel.

‘This is it, my friend. Time to show what you’re made of. Because I tell you, man, all that army BS counts for nothing out here. You shoot straight, you kill a tusker and you take the ivory. Then I know I can trust you.’

Gabriel nodded grimly. The hunt was nearing its climax.

54

Witaarde settled his bush hat lower over his brow. The sun was blinding, and even with the yellow-lensed hunting sunglasses, its glare was terrific. Like staring into a furnace.

He signalled with a finger to his lips to the lead Congolese, a guy called Amadou, to go ‘all quiet’. The kaffir nodded and started signing orders to the other three. They grinned and nodded. You had to give it to those Congolese kaffirs, they enjoyed the sport.

Ahead, the grass speared skywards, increasing from waist-height to over eight feet tall. Somewhere among those breeze-disturbed stems the elephants were grazing.

He saw the topmost branches of an acacia swish violently from side to side, then still. Soft snuffling and parping little calls denoted the presence of babies. No good for ivory but the meat was supposed to be good. Maybe we’ll get our new friend to put a .416 Rigby into their little skulls. See if he’s man enough.

They were downwind of the beasts and he drew their musky stink deep into his lungs before exhaling quietly. Dung, mostly, and something else, something weirdly like human sweat.

Imagine God creating such a huge animal and then loading its face with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of ivory. He gave us dominion and with that much money available, it’s our duty to put it to better use.

He looked left and right. The Congolese had vanished. Just him and the Englishman. You playing me for a fool, Gabriel? Or are you serious about helping us? Soon we’ll know. And if I don’t like what I see? Well, one more corpse out here won’t make a difference either way.

It had caused him a moment’s pain handing over his father’s rifle. But the Englishman needed the Dakota to make a clean, one-shot kill. Witaarde had taken one of the kaffirs’ AKs to replace it. Now he held it across his body like a damn guerrilla in one of the northern wars. He patted the 629 in its holster on his right hip. Always good to have backup.

The Englishman slid between two clumps of the monstrous grass, turning to Witaarde and signalling with his eyes. Witaarde had no trouble reading it. They’re in there. I’m going in.

He nodded and pointed his right index finger. Then he followed close behind, the AK’s muzzle pointing at the midpoint of the Englishman’s spine. Don’t let me down now, Gabriel.

He felt a buzzing in his head, and a high-pitched whine. Bloody mosquitos. He slapped at his right cheek.

The Englishman turned and put a finger to his lips. He beckoned Witaarde forward with a crooked finger.

‘There they are,’ he whispered, close to Witaarde’s still-buzzing right ear. ‘A bull, a cow and two calves. We kill them all at once, OK?’

‘Yah, good plan.’

‘I’ll take the bull. You kill the other three. Make certain of it, Mandela.’

The buzzing intensified for a second. Witaarde shook his head at the mention of the dead president’s name. He scowled. He didn’t need an Englishman telling him how to kill elephants.

The Dakota had more than enough power to punch through the skull, but the puny little 7.62 mm rounds he’d be shooting didn’t. Not singly. He flicked the fire selector switch to full auto. It wouldn’t be clean, but it would be lethal.

He watched the Englishman silently raise the Dakota to his shoulder. He settled his cheek against the worn-smooth stock and sighted on the bull. Witaarde saw his trigger finger as if through a magnifying glass.

Extreme close-up. Tightening around the trigger. The innocent-looking curve of steel beginning its short journey.

He realised he was holding his breath, let it out in a controlled exhalation as silent as any he’d ever breathed.

He raised the AK and aimed at the cow, ready to rake her and her babies with a blistering hail of bullets.

They fired together. A massive bang from the Dakota and from his AK an insane, juddering series of blasts that merged into a deafening roar. The bull toppled, blood spurting from a head wound, dead centre between its eyes.

He held his finger down on the trigger until the mag was empty. Dropped it out and slammed a new one home and emptied that, too, the red-hot barrel spewing lead into the fallen mother and babies. The corpses jerked and jumped as the rounds smashed through flesh and bone.

The AK’s bolt smacked home on an empty chamber.

Ears ringing, Witaarde let the smoking AK drop to the ground. His nose itched with the smell of burnt propellant and hot brass. The coppery smell of blood was thick in the air.

The Englishman picked up the chainsaw. Grinning at Witaarde over his shoulder, he walked over to the dead bull. He kicked the massive head. With a flowing movement, he pulled the chainsaw’s starter cord.

The machine kicked into life with a cough. A harsh rasping filled the air. The Englishman blipped the throttle a couple of times, then bent and hit the first tusk with the blade. It bit deep and the engine note deepened then started singing and screaming as he sliced into the skull to take off the tusk.

The second