A Time to Kill
Our 2021 safari to the Hammond Ranch within SVC was a mixed-bag safari for the three of us. Lou Hallamore had guided me to a problem elephant in 2008, and I looked forward to a special hunt focused on culling mature buffalo bulls to improve the herd genetics and food for the locals. Then, as usual, I had requested that if a problem animal surfaced during my cull hunt, then we would pull off the culls immediately and follow up on the problem animal regardless of specie. This is always a stipulation on my safaris, but one that can’t be predicted, so you just make the request, bring the proper rifle if it does, and then just forget about it until and if it does. It did.
Debbie Gracy of Gracy Travel is a masterful travel agent for safari travelers. She knows the “ins and outs” of every airport and travel condition one might encounter. Years and safaris ago South Africa (RSA) changed their gun import laws. The new one that finally applied to me concerned traveling with two rifles of the same caliber. For years I had traveled with two .375 H & H rifles, the Ruger RSM bolt action, and Chapuis double rifle. I was proficient and confident with each, as the Ruger RSM shoots every load with equal precision, while the Chapuis is quick handling and accurate at its intended range. This arrangement allowed me to take a myriad of loads and bullets which kept me prepared for any situation. While booking our airfare in late 2020, Debbie informed me that she could no longer get me through South Africa with two .375 caliber rifles. I had to make a choice between three options, trade off one rifle, take a .375 and a smaller caliber, or fly through Ethiopia thereby avoiding transit through South Africa altogether. Each option had its pros and cons. I had so many memories in each rifle it seemed impossible to trade off one or the other, the bolt action was shouldered for my only elephant and first buffalo, plus scores of plains game. The Chapuis holds two great memories for me, the shot I made on Mike’s running buffalo across the Limpopo River sands on its way to the Kruger. That running shot at more than 150 yards dumped that bull tail over nose. Then several days later it poleaxed the PAC buffalo on the boundary of the Triangle sugarcane fields with only feet to spare.
After careful deliberations, it seemed Hershel needed a double rifle for his buffalo hunt, so I decided to sell him the Chapuis so he could build some memories with it as well. Hershel practiced with it ahead of the safari, but he never really got comfortable with it. That is just the way it is, some hunters like them, and some don’t. Once the trade was made a replacement rifle was needed. After all considerations, I settled on the 450-400 3 ¼-inch cartridge. It was selected for its pedigree and my deep appreciation for originality. It was the first big game cartridge to make the transition from black powder to smokeless powder. They penetrate a bit better than the .375 H & H, while minimizing muzzle blast. It was also one of the most common dangerous game calibers for several decades. However, with time more modern cartridges entered the market. W.J. Jeffery offered a similar cartridge in 1902 which became known as the 450-400, based on his proprietary .404 cartridge….naturally. It was shorter and a bit larger in case diameter. For some reason, the shorter, thicker Jeffery cartridge has lived on while the archaic 450-400 3 ¼ went the way of sailing ships and transistors. Still, to some, like me, the old way is the only way…… within reason. It was within reason since I already loaded my own ammunition. Now I just had to find a suitable double rifle I could afford in safari-ready shape and the supporting reloading components. In retrospect it was easier than one might expect. First, through the Guns International website, I found a nice old Charles Lancaster manufactured around 1915, plus its owner Jim Forzley agreed to sell me his
reloading dies with the rifle. It looked great on delivery to me. However, after a few shots, something just wasn’t right. I sent it to J.J. Perodeau and he tried to help, but we just didn’t have enough time to sort through the issues, as my specifications required a “safari-ready” rifle. Jim was very gracious in accepting the return, and so my hunt for another 450-400 3 ¼-inch continued. Weeks later another one surfaced from Michael Merker Riflemakers of Henderson, North Carolina. We made a similar deal, and within a couple of weeks it arrived, and it too was a beauty. Even better, this rifle, a Charles Boswell, was made in 1930, and by then they realized they could safely shoot the 450-400 3 ¼ on a smaller receiver, thus saving several pounds. Within days I was practicing with it, but its sights were far from the modern iron sights found on my Chapuis. The Boswell had a tiny black front post to be bracketed by an equally small black V notch. If I had 20-10 vision, I could use the three separate fold-up leaf sights for accurate shooting out to three hundred yards. Field practice indicated my aging eye wasn’t even good enough for fifty-yard hits at high noon. Shooting a black buffalo in the shade at dusk or dawn became a real concern. Still, hell-bent on a traditional double, I had no intention of adding a conventional telescopic sight with rings. As noted elsewhere, that is the same to me as a motorcycle with a sidecar. That picture just doesn’t work no matter how you turn it, or from any distance. I recalled Lou now used a reflex sight. Through emails, Lou guided me to a Trijicon reflex sight with 1 MOA. J.J. had one available in his shop in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. I sent up the rifle. He mounted it with his custom adapter plate and dovetailing so when it is removed it is almost impossible to detect an optic was ever mounted. This rifle was quickly coming together, with months to spare before our departure.
The Hallamores can trace their family back to 1066 in England. Lou has two sons, George and Clive. Each excellent hunters in their own right. Lou earned his professional hunter status in 1980 after the war for independence in which he served as a Master Sargent. He refers to that era as “the good old bad days”
of his country. Later, Buzz Charlton would apprentice under Lou. Clive apprenticed under Roger Whittall, who was instrumental in creating the SVC, with a hunting resume par excellence. Several years ago, Clive supervised Tanya Blake through her final practical examination where she earned very high marks and gained her professional hunting license for all classes of Zimbabwean game. The point of all of this is to illustrate that Zimbabwean professional hunters are regarded as the best in Africa, and if you are charmed and hardworking, a few people can still learn their trade from the torchbearers from the day when the torch was much brighter. Lou, George, and Clive have a long history with the Hammond Ranch. They personally have culled more than five hundred buffalo off this ranch when the owner thought that beef cattle were more profitable than the native wild ones. Well, that reversed itself…it is pretty easy to understand that beef cattle can be ranched most anywhere grass grows, but there is just one wild Africa. God and Africa can be very forgiving as long as a flicker of light remains. From the flicker left years ago the Hammond Ranch is now back to its former glory with a sustainable Big Five population, as well as sustainable herds of plains game native to the region.
This PAC hunt started by surprise, as all legitimate PAC hunts will. It was the fourth day of our 12 day safari. Lou and I had left camp at 7:30 am as per Lou’s daily routine. We departed the main camp to the east and then turned due north on the main road that transects the Hammond Ranch. Tanya and Hershel left behind us. Tanya took a more direct east trail to the main road before turning north. We hit the main road maybe a quarter of a mile apart, with Tanya intersecting it further south. The weather had changed twice since we had arrived. Our first day was rather hot. The long treks on the spoor of
buffalo left sweat rings on our hats. The days since were overcast and gray with occasional mist. This day, the fourth, was clearer and a bit on the cold side.
Just yards after connecting with the main road and turning north towards the Senuko II concession, Tanya and Hershel crossed the track of a Cape buffalo dragging a hind leg. Tanya speculated that it was a bull, based on the size of the hoof print. She discussed with Hershel the possibility of following it up. If they found it, then they would need to kill it as it was clearly wounded from something. If they shot it, then Hershel would need to claim it as his trophy buffalo. It was a bad gamble as Hammond has plenty of trophy buffalo. They decided to call Clive and report the find, as under any scenario someone had to follow up the fresh track to prevent its likely attack on the first humans it encountered. Clive was aware of my desire to follow up on any PAC animal, so he radioed Lou with the report. Tanya marked the crossing with a towel on a roadside bush and proceeded with Hershel towards a couple of pans that herds of buffalo were frequenting.
It was approximately 7:45 am when Lou received the radio message from Clive. Clive relayed the approximate location of the spoor to Lou. It was close and fresh. Lou, rather than driving straight to the spoor, made a beeline to the camp manager’s office, which took about ten minutes. He asked me to wait in the Land Cruiser while he sorted out the situation. He returned and let me know that Graham Connear, the Concession Manager, had granted us permission to follow up the wounded buffalo, and if killed would be free of charge since we were doing the concession a favor. That is the way ethical operations run. You don’t get that everywhere.
Lou returned to camp to pick up Amato. He was Lou’s most trusted tracker, though by now he had earned his place as Lou’s driver. He was also steady in the face of danger. When he carried a rifle, he carried Lou’s .458 Ruger RSM, one of Sturm Ruger’s second-generation safari rifles. In this case Lou asked him to be both tracker and rear guard with his .458 Winchester. Speaking of vintage Ruger RSM
rifles…. Tanya carries one of Sturm’s originals, likely made when Sturm worked out of his original gunsmithing shop. Several of my safari hunting friends, as well as myself own the mid-1990s RSMs, which are his third-generation safari grade rifles. The difference? Well, Tanya’s, handed down from her grandfather and one of the only heirlooms remaining after the war veterans confiscated their 200,000- acre citrus farm, was clearly handmade and included controlled round feeding. It was made in the early 1960s. Lou’s was purchased in the 1970s. It looked similar to the later ones but included a push feed action. Lou had carried that rifle until his William Evans .470 NE replaced it in the late 1990s. He had shot hundreds of buffalo and other dangerous game with it. The push feed action never failed. Back to the task at hand.
Now our attack posse included Takesure, Clement, Amato and Joe, the camp game scout. We arrived at the mark in the road and the towel in the bush around 8:15 am. The drag mark was easy to see as we drove up on it. The towel in the bush was not needed but appreciated. Lou and his scouts assessed the spoor. They found in addition to the drag a few drops of blood, and determined the right hind leg, if looking tail to nose, was the affected extremity. We quickly gathered our gear while Lou assigned duties. Takesure and Clement would track ahead of Lou, I was to follow Lou while Amato and Joe protected us from a rear ambush.
We left the Land Cruiser on the main road and entered the bush around 8:40 am. In short order, Amato found the buffalo’s spoor. Takesure and Amato began the tracking. It took forty-five minutes to gain five hundred yards on the buffalo’s trail. Eventually, Amato found when it had laid down. Amongst the weight-depressed grass were several drops of blood no larger in diameter than half the size of a number two pencil eraser. How do those guys find that stuff? After thirty years of following trackers, I am still in awe. The buffalo had found a dense patch of bush with scrub trees at its back and waist-high tangle grass in which to rest. It lay in such a way as to observe its track.
When tracking wounded dangerous game every direction must be guarded before the next steps are taken. As previously noted, an attack from the rear is just as likely as from the front. Wounded dangerous game instinctively know they are leaving markers for nature’s cleanup crew to follow, so turning back on their trail to protect themselves against an attack from their flank is standard preservation procedure. In case you have not heard, nature’s cleanup crew is very effective in Africa. It is rare that even one night is survived when blood spoor is trailed. It is, for this reason, it is so important to find trophy animals shot during the afternoon hours. If lost to the darkness they will likely be eaten in full over the course of the night. This being lion and leopard country meant the wounded buffalo ahead of us would be constantly checking its trail, thus the addition and importance of Amato with Lou’s .458 Winchester covering our rear.
Our approach was apparently detected, as it had sprung from its lair as we approached. The fact that it fled, rather than attack, was a clue for Lou. It supported Tanya’s and Lou’s original thoughts that it was a bull rather than a large cow, as cows usually charge on the first encounter, while bulls are more patient and wait for the best possible ambush, or at any rate until they more clearly understand their pursuer.
Clement & Takesure remained on the spoor ahead of us, occasionally having to circle to reacquire the spoor in the thick grass and acacia thickets. At times, well most of the time, our visibility was limited to twenty yards stretching our nerves beyond our visibility most of the time.
The second encounter was at just such a place. The buffalo had found a patch of grass and bush head high to us. It was more grass and vines than forest thornbush. Our visibility was between two and six gun lengths. The trackers lost the spoor in the tangle. We had been on the trail for about two hours at this point. The track was leading to the east towards the Senuko II boundary. More specifically there was a water pumping station named Arda, and we were getting closer to it as well. Amato and Joe remained at the edge of the brush patch protecting us from a charge from our rear. Lou and I stopped in the face deep brush, in constant awareness of everyone’s location in case we had to shoot. The bent grass and occasional footprint indicated the buffalo was circling within the thicket, they do this when they are looking for a place to lay down. Since the spoor did not exit the thicket Lou and the trackers knew the buffalo was laying down within yards of us. The thicket spanned approximately twenty yards in all directions. The trackers were circling on the trail of the buffalo that was actually lying-in wait within thirty yards of our stress-fatigued minds and muscles, as we were about to find out. The trackers enlarged their circle, ten minutes passed, and we kept a death vigil with all our senses. Lou and I stood back to back so we could cover as much area as possible. With both trackers about fifteen yards south of us, we heard the buffalo flush from its second lair. The sound of breaking brush signaled its quick departure from between us and Amato. It goes without saying our complete stalk to this moment was in the thickest semi-forest the wounded buffalo could find. This by no means resembled those manicured pine forest plantations the well healed hunt amongst for quail on the east coast plantations. This was more like a crouching crawl through Freddy Krueger’s fog-covered cemetery.
After the busting branch sounds of the departing buffalo fully dissipated into the near distance, Lou pulled me in for a little bush trivia on Syncerus caffer caffer. This was its second exit from its pursuers. Lou’s little trivia point concluded with, “This is a bull and he will not flee a third time, the next time he will charge us.”
Our posse re-assembled on the perimeter of the brush patch. Lou looked us each in the eye and explained the situation just described in my private briefing. At the conclusion of this soliloquy Joe, the camp scout decided to inform us that he had left the radio in the Land Cruiser and needed to quickly head back there to ensure its safety on the main road. Lou was none too happy with this development. Well, he could not go alone so Amato had to escort him back to the main road. With them went our third rifle and rear-guard protection. It was about 10:30 am. Now it was my duty to protect us against a charge from our rear. I worked the tang safety on my almost 100-year-old Charles Boswell .450 400 3 ¼ Nitro Express (NE) for the umpteenth time and then aimed it at a few ghosts in the trees just to make sure the steel barrels were still straight.
Takesure and Clement picked up the trail. At times the telltale drag mark was ever so short in distance, perhaps two to four inches as it passed a barren spot of dry soil, then even less frequently the trackers would find a speck of blood. Later the thicket opened somewhat so we could see the likely path of the
wounded buffalo as much as thirty yards ahead of us. We felt really safe at this point….but it didn’t last long. Thirty minutes later we were in a dry creek bed. Lou didn’t like the terrain. We followed the spoor into it, then along the dry creek bed for a few yards, our heads were about equal to the creek bank above us. Lou quickly pulled us out of the creek bed. He ordered the trackers to find the spoor while we waited. They had trouble re-locating it. We were now very close to the Senuko II concession border. The spoor has led us several miles to the east. After a few minutes, they found the track and we dipped back into the bottom of the dry creek and then up the other side. Lou took a few steps and then cursed himself. He had just made a huge mistake. He led us up the creek bank with no forward visibility until our eyes broke the horizon. Just the advantage a cagey old bull likes as a start toward a death charge. Supporting this assessment, if you recall, was this exact scenario that precipitated my first PAC buffalo follow-up. In that case, the two game scouts were patrolling a dry creek bed about eight feet deep, on the boundary of the Triangle sugar plantation just outside Chiredzi when the bull, wounded from a recent lion attack, charged down the bank on top of them. The ambush was so sudden the scouts never even fired a single round from their AK 47.
We marched on; I trailed a bit back from Lou. We passed through scattered acacia trees with six-to-ten-inch diameter trunks. The ground was less smothered with grass tangle now. Our feet tread upon a pebble sprinkled hard pan. We picked up a drag mark every ten minutes or so. The temperature was perfect. Throughout the tracking, I was neither cold nor hot. It was just after 11:00 am now and food, which on most days dominates my daily schedule, hadn’t even pierced the back of my mind. I carried ten additional candlestick-sized cartridges on my belt if needed. Since coming out of the creek bed we had doubled back on our track and then followed a serpentine course toward the Arda pump station. It is usually staffed by one of the Hammond Ranch fieldhands. It was literally on the border with the Senuko II concession.
The trackers tracked and we stayed on high alert. The trackers were approximately five yards in front of me, and Lou was right on their heels. We were in broken trees with good visibility. It was nearing the bottom of the hour, and good light filtered through the canopy. My double rifle was in my left hand and carried low as we walked in a crouch through the trees. The .450-400 3 ¼ NE was still new to me, so here I was with nothing but research between me and 2,000 pounds of determination topped with two hooks capable of unspeakable trauma guided by those coal black eyes, that once locked on….. don’t miss. At impact, its horns will jerk one way and then the other in hopes of ripping guts from the rib cage. In self-defense I had loaded the cartridge with 81 grains of IMR 3841, producing around 2,150 feet per second
at the muzzle, while delivering approximately 4,100-foot pounds of energy. On this day both barrels were loaded with 400-grain Woodleigh Hydrostatically Stabilized solid bullets. They feature a concave flat nose similar to the North Fork cupped solids I had so much confidence in on previous safaris. Further research uncovered John “Pondoro” Taylor’s endorsement. He claimed it to be adequate for all African game in the hands of an experienced hunter. Over the last one hundred years it had earned the reputation of being a penetrating cartridge fired at the relatively mild 2,150 fps. Just as in my first PAC Cape buffalo hunt, I had just two shots, but they could be fired very quickly.
Trying to fulfill my responsibilities I looked behind us as much as forward, as I was the only person left looking backward. The situation changed faster than a lightning strike. I had just completed a glance to our rear when chaos erupted ahead of me. The trackers were running to my left. Lou had just taken his attention off his two o’clock position to wave me up quickly. Our eyes locked as his right hand was telling me to quickly move up into position with him. His eyes and quickly gesturing hand told me everything I needed to know. Then he quickly turned back to where he was focused, while I tried to shuffle toward the front as fast as I could with several quick long strides. I shouldered my rifle amongst the strides. Time slows down at times like these. Events ooze through your mind like a river of molasses. I went through at least half of the ten thousand reasons I had in my mind to run back to camp as I completed my second step toward Lou. This is no exaggeration, and I have experienced this several times before in my life, though I presume few people ever experience it even once in their life and maybe that is for the best.
While those two to three strides were in motion, from the left side of my view I saw Lou return to his position in front of the charging bull. He didn’t hop aside or jump behind a tree. He was stationary with planted feet. He raised his rifle up to his shoulder. He stood erect, his facial expression expressed no fear, it was focused only on the business at hand. On the right-hand side of my view was unquestionably a big bull at full charge bearing down on Lou. They were so close in proximity to each other that both appeared within the same frame of my one good eye. My first thought was that the charging bull was already too close for me to shoot as I didn’t want my swinging second shot to swing into Lou. Then in a flash, I knew I had no choice but to shoot. My last fleeting thought was that I had to hit its brain or nothing. Three body lengths into the charge the bull’s head was another flash away from being obscured by a triple-trunked acacia tree. I had to fire before it went behind the tree trunks on its way to Lou’s guts. The triple-trunked tree was about nine feet from me, I was perhaps nine feet slightly behind Lou off his right shoulder after a couple of strides forward. The bull was at full charge. Its hooves could be heard pounding the ground like a thoroughbred nearing the finish line. In another body length, it would be partially obscured behind the triple-trunked tree. In two more body lengths, its horns would be coming out of Lou’s back as I shouldered my double between strides.
As I shouldered my double rifle Lou’s .470 thundered in the near distance to my eleven o’clock position. The torque from Lou’s 500-grain Barnes X bullet drove the bull’s head and neck in my direction. He got off this shot in the split second before hand-to-horn combat ensued. At the flash and as the bull’s head swung my way from the impact of Lou’s bullet, I fired my first shot, then a quick second, then the bull passed behind the triple-trunked tree. Now I was empty, both barrels had been fired and only smoke remained. I was now helpless to help Lou. Time froze. Lou, after his shot, remained stoic. His last position relative to the charge now froze forever in my mind’s eye. What will be…will be…the die had been cast.
The chips would now fall. When the bull re-emerged on Lou’s side of the tree its nose was already skidding along the ground. It skidded to a stop about three feet in front of Lou, or essentially at Lou’s feet, with me now about five feet away from Lou, still off his right shoulder. Lou’s rifle remained on his shoulder. He looked down at the lifeless bull. His facial expression changed to one of surprise as if he couldn’t actually believe we stopped it. While still poised to shoot he sunk an insurance shot into its spine for good measure as it lay before him. The bull’s death charge was so fast that Lou was not able to get off a second shot while it was on its feet. The bull didn’t twitch a muscle or bat an eyelash after it skidded to a stop at the end of Lou’s Willian Evans .470 NE. Its skid length was one full body length, which indicates its speed and the distance in which our first shots hit home.
In the moments that followed the trackers returned while Lou and I celebrated our good fortune as the story could have ended so differently. I remember Lou mumbling something that meant, “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Well, the shit in this case occurred simply because Lou put his hunter, me, ahead of his own life. If Lou had never taken his eyes off the charging bull, he would have dispatched it at around twenty feet. It would have never gotten so close. But he took his eyes off the charging bull, turned back to wave me up and try to get me into position. When he turned his attention back to the bull, the bull was already within twenty feet and continuing his charge straight for him.
Lou spent plenty of time thinking and replaying the recent events. He circled the buffalo carefully, looking at its tremendous girth. The first area to receive his attention were the horns, which were heavy, wide and hooked. The slight softness between its horns indicated it was perhaps a year short of full maturity, but he said anyone would consider it a trophy bull. Then he and Clement moved to the hind quarters to try to determine why it was dragging a hoof.
As we stared at the dead bull, we tried to recount the recent events. Our conversation went like this. When Lou’s attention returned to face the charge, Lou remembered leveling his .470 NE straight into the face of the bull, now two body lengths from the bull’s planned triage site. The bull’s face was even with the height of his rifle, or to say the same height as Lou’s shoulders. As soon as his red dot acquired the bull’s face he fired. It rocked the big bull. His shot entered through the bull’s right eye and exited through the back of its neck, and then into its right shoulder as Lou stared fate in the face. Its head rocked and recoiled towards me as the 500-grain Barnes X bullet exploded its right eye, neck, and shoulder, though it had no suitable effect on the bull’s plan of attack or life span. I fired a split second later when my red dot bounced into position above its eye and below its boss as the impact of Lou’s shot presented me with a quartering brain shot, as the bull’s head recoiled from Lou’s 500 grains of bush justice. When my red dot connected to my “trigger sensor” somewhere in my brain, I pulled the trigger. My 400-grain Woodleigh Hydrostatically Stabilized bullet found its mark. The path of the solid bullet drove straight through the middle of the brain, killing it on impact. My shot was guided by the same Trijicon red dot Lou recommended to me before this hunt.
It was truly … a time to kill.
Thankfully, within a minute of our drama I recorded Lou’s verbal description of this ambush on my phone for all time. His summary comment was, “It was the shootout from hell.”
Then we stepped off the distance between its last breath and its ambush point, we found it to be approximately sixty feet. So, it had covered forty feet in the time Lou first saw the charge and he was able to get back on it after waving me up. In other stories I have written that, I on rare occasions, have a sixth sense when game is near. It did not occur on this occasion.
With these events in mind think about Lou’s actions for a minute. Augment your consideration with the fact that Lou said he hadn’t been ambushed like that as far as he could recall… ever. Now, Lou knew perfectly well his upside-down image was etched on the bull’s retina when he turned his back on the bull. He knew full well that in about three seconds one of two events would be history, as 2,000 pounds of muscle and horn bore down on him. What did he do? Lou turned his back on the charging bull to help is client make a memory.
Well, Lou’s first thought was for his hunter. He turned his back on the death charge in order to wave me up while black death locked in on him as its termination point. In about three seconds Lou was going to be the first person at the triage site. The only question that remained was…which of the two would be dead. Yet, he wagered 50% of his allotted three seconds to give me the experience of hunting the PAC animal reserved on my quota eight months ago. Who else would put themselves in that predicament? For his actions on that day, and his actions over a lifetime of professionally hunting dangerous game with clients of unknown abilities he is recognized as a giant among his peers. For a lifetime of seldom told heroics calculated to provide a lifetime of memories for his clients, like he did for me, Lou was recognized in 2020 as the Zimbabwean Professional Hunter of the Year. His recognition was based on a lifetime achievement record among his peers. His actions are of legend. It was my high honor to share this problem animal control hunt with him.
Pretty quickly Lou turned his attention to our extraction. It was at this point two important facts came to light. First, we had no radio, and second Lou had no specific idea where we were since the ranch scout, Joe turned back to with Amato. Lou worked with what he had, as pros do. Plus, he didn’t let his client influence his decisions. We were a bit thirty and hungry and I thought walking to a road would be the right idea. Lou was very clear in his response. No, said we were to maintain our position and eventually they will find us. Thinking about it, it made sense to have only one moving chess piece at a time. His cell phone offered him a faint signal, so he called his wife Jean back in Bulawayo, and she then called Graham at HQ, since Lou didn’t have his number in his phone. Graham radioed Clive with the news. Graham radioed Joe and Amato to meet him en route on the main road leading south from camp. Once they were together, they loaded into Graham’s Land Cruiser and with Joe’s help started towards us somewhere near the Arda pump station. It was just past noon and all we could do was sit and wait, which was a pleasure because the weather was absolutely perfect. If I was still so excited for the outcome I would have napped. I tried but I couldn’t. We speculated how long it would be since we had no idea where we were. Joe would have to make a guess based on where they turned back for the radio. But where had we gone in the hour since? We surely didn’t know.
While we waited, we inspected the bull in an attempt to determine why it was dragging its leg. It was not readily apparent. We found its hind leg was severely swollen, but the marks of a snare were absent. A fleshy crack at the junction of the upper hoof and ankle oozed blood. Apparently, its hoof had begun to separate from its leg from the dragging. Later, as we rolled it over for loading, we found a bullet wound high on its right rear hip. It had been shot the day before, who knows why?
Miraculously, and within short order, Graham, Amato and Joe found us. After about an hour we could hear the guys chopping a trail towards us ahead of Graham’s Land Cruiser. We were so happy to see them. It took about an hour to load the bull, guts, and all. We arrived at the skinning shed at around 2:00 pm.
I have experienced two full-on buffalo charges. Both charges were the definition of an ambush. Both charges started from about the same distance, which is to say about eight Cape buffalo body lengths. In my experience they can hit their target in approximately three seconds from that distance. If you have read any of my other books you will have picked up on one of my main axioms of caliber selection which is that mild recoiling rifles/cartridges permit better accurately and if nothing else a faster reacquisition of the target. In this case the first shot killed it but the mild recoiling 450-400 3 ¼ cartridge in a moderately heavy double rifle had me right back on the target for a follow up shot in less than a second thanks to its mild recoil. Still, even at that it was very hard to get back on the bull with any accuracy. Conversely, had I a 450 NE in my hands, for example, would I have had time to bring the barrels back down to the target after two feet of recoil in time to hit the bull’s brain with the second shot before it passed behind the triple trunked tree? The answer is no. The little 450-400 3 ¼ did its job perfectly and both shots left before the tree trunks interfered with my aim. Large calibers don’t stop charging buffalo, but they do turn them as we experienced. We also experienced the fact that after it turned the bull the bull quickly recovered and returned to Plan A, which was killing Lou as fast as it could. The lesson here is don’t count on a large caliber cartridge to say your life. The hunter can only count on a perfect shot.
The following pictures are included to simply make several points. First, the bull loaded in the back of Graham’s one-ton Toyota demonstrates the true size of the Cape buffalo bull. The game scout is standing the same distance from the camera as the bull. Compare the bull’s head and horns to the torso of the scout. If the bull gets to the victim’s torso, one hook of the horns will rip out what God meant to stay in.
The picture below depicts the difference between life and death. So, if you think you want to face a charging PAC Cape buffalo bull? Look closely and contemplate what a difference 4 inches makes. Lou’s eye socket shot with his .470 NE simply had no immediate effect or ultimate outcome. Above the eye socket and below the horn on the shadow line is the hole that stopped the charge.
Now with two PAC Cape Buffalo ambush kills behind me, I have been asked how I can hit the brain under such life and death conditions. In response the answer is straightforward and simple. They are close and you have no choice. So with a slight smile I look the questioner back in their eyes and say….”I’m a pretty good shot from six feet.”
As I have written, even the breath of Nyeti can kill you. Therefore, you must kill Nyeti before you smell its breath. So, when Nyeti’s breath nears, it is… A Time to Kill.
