Short Stories, Page 2

  In the orchard bush they found a herd of impala, and leaving the car they stalked one old ram with long, wide-spread horns and Macomber killed it with a very creditable shot that knocked the buck down at a good two hundred yards and sent the herd off bounding wildly and leaping over one another’s backs in long, leg-drawn-up leaps as unbelievable and as floating as those one makes sometimes in dreams.

  “That was a good shot,” Wilson said. “They’re a small target.”

  “Is it a worthwhile head?” Macomber asked.

  “It’s excellent,” Wilson told him. “You shoot like that and you’ll have no trouble.”

  “Do you think we’ll find buffalo tomorrow?”

  “There’s a good chance of it. They feed out early in the morning and with luck we may catch them in the open.”

  “I’d like to clear away that lion business,” Macomber said. “It’s not very pleasant to have your wife see you do something like that.”

  I should think it would be even more unpleasant to do it, Wilson thought, wife or no wife, or to talk about it having done it. But he said, “I wouldn’t think about that any more. Anyone could be upset by his first lion. That’s all over.”

  But that night after dinner and a whisky and soda by the fire before going to bed, as Francis Macomber lay on his cot with the mosquito bar over him and listened to the night noises it was not all over. It was neither all over nor was it beginning. It was there exactly as it happened with some parts of it indelibly emphasized and he was miserably ashamed at it. But more than shame he felt cold, hollow fear in him. The fear was still there like a cold slimy hollow in all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick. It was still there with him now.

  It had started the night before when he had wakened and heard the lion roaring somewhere up along the river. It was a deep sound and at the end there were sort of coughing grunts that made him seem just outside the tent, and when Francis Macomber woke in the night to hear it he was afraid. He could hear his wife breathing quietly, asleep. There was no one to tell he was afraid, nor to be afraid with him, and, lying alone, he did not know the Somali proverb that says a brave man is always frightened three times by a lion; when he first sees his track, when he first hears him roar and when he first confronts him. Then while they were eating breakfast by lantern light out in the dining tent, before the sun was up, the lion roared again and Francis thought he was just at the edge of camp.

  “Sounds like an old-timer,” Robert Wilson said, looking up from his kippers and coffee. “Listen to him cough.”

  “Is he very close?”

  “A mile or so up the stream.”

  “Will we see him?”

  “We’ll have a look.”

  “Does his roaring carry that far? It sounds as though he were right in camp.”

  “Carries a hell of a long way,” said Robert Wilson. “It’s strange the way it carries. Hope he’s a shootable cat. The boys said there was a very big one about here.”

  “If I get a shot, where should I hit him,” Macomber asked, “to stop him?”

  “In the shoulders,” Wilson said. “In the neck if you can make it. Shoot for bone. Break him down.”

  “I hope I can place it properly,” Macomber said.

  “You shoot very well,” Wilson told him. “Take your time. Make sure of him. The first one in is the one that counts.”

  “What range will it be?”

  “Can’t tell. Lion has something to say about that. Won’t shoot unless it’s close enough so you can make sure.”

  “At under a hundred yards?” Macomber asked.

  Wilson looked at him quickly.

  “Hundred’s about right. Might have to take him a bit under. Shouldn’t chance a shot at much over that. A hundred’s a decent range. You can hit him wherever you want at that. Here comes the Memsahib.”

  “Good morning,” she said. “Are we going after that lion?”

  “As soon as you deal with your breakfast,” Wilson said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Marvellous,” she said. “I’m very excited.”

  “I’ll just go and see that everything is ready.” Wilson went off. As he left the lion roared again.

  “Noisy beggar,” Wilson said. “We’ll put a stop to that.”

  “What’s the matter, Francis?” his wife asked him.

  “Nothing,” Macomber said.

  “Yes, there is,” she said. “What are you upset about?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Tell me,” she looked at him. “Don’t you feel well?”

  “It’s that damned roaring,” he said. “It’s been going on all night, you know.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me,” she said. “I’d love to have heard it.”

  “I’ve got to kill the damned thing,” Macomber said, miserably.

  “Well, that’s what you’re out here for, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I’m nervous. Hearing the thing roar gets on my nerves.”

  “Well then, as Wilson said, kill him and stop his roaring.”

  “Yes, darling,” said Francis Macomber. “It sounds easy, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Of course not. But I’m nervous from hearing him roar all night.”

  “You’ll kill him marvellously,” she said. “I know you will. I’m awfully anxious to see it.”

  “Finish your breakfast and we’ll be starting.”

  “It’s not light yet,” she said. “This is a ridiculous hour.”

  Just then the lion roared in a deep-chested moaning, suddenly guttural, ascending vibration that seemed to shake the air and ended in a sigh and a heavy, deep-chested grunt.

  “He sounds almost here,” Macomber’s wife said.

  “My God,” said Macomber. “I hate that damned noise.”

  “It’s very impressive.”

  “Impressive. It’s frightful.”

  Robert Wilson came up then carrying his short, ugly, shockingly big-bored .505 Gibbs and grinning.

  “Come on,” he said. “Your gun-bearer has your Springfield and the big gun. Everything’s in the car. Have you solids?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m ready,” Mrs. Macomber said.

  “Must make him stop that racket,” Wilson said. “You get in front. The Memsahib can sit back here with me.”

  They climbed into the motor car and, in the gray first daylight, moved off up the river through the trees. Macomber opened the breech of his rifle and saw he had metal-cased bullets, shut the bolt and put the rifle on safety. He saw his hand was trembling. He felt in his pocket for more cartridges and moved his fingers over the cartridges in the loops of his tunic front. He turned back to where Wilson sat in the rear seat of the doorless, box-bodied motor car beside his wife, them both grinning with excitement, and Wilson leaned forward and whispered,

  “See the birds dropping. Means the old boy has left his kill.”

  On the far bank of the stream Macomber could see, above the trees, vultures circling and plummeting down.

  “Chances are he’ll come to drink along here,” Wilson whispered. “Before he goes to lay up. Keep an eye out.”

  They were driving slowly along the high bank of the stream which here cut deeply to its boulder-filled bed, and they wound in and out through big trees as they drove. Macomber was watching the opposite bank when he felt Wilson take hold of his arm. The car stopped.

  “There he is,” he heard the whisper. “Ahead and to the right. Get out and take him. He’s a marvellous lion.”

  Macomber saw the lion now. He was standing almost broadside, his great head up and turned toward them. The early morning breeze that blew toward them was just stirring his dark mane, and the lion looked h
uge, silhouetted on the rise of bank in the gray morning light, his shoulders heavy, his barrel of a body bulking smoothly.

  “How far is he?” asked Macomber, raising his rifle.

  “About seventy-five. Get out and take him.”

  “Why not shoot from where I am?”

  “You don’t shoot them from cars,” he heard Wilson saying in his ear. “Get out. He’s not going to stay there all day.”

  Macomber stepped out of the curved opening at the side of the front seat, onto the step and down onto the ground. The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward this object that his eyes only showed in silhouette, bulking like some super-rhino. There was no man smell carried toward him and he watched the object, moving his great head a little from side to side. Then watching the object, not afraid, but hesitating before going down the bank to drink with such a thing opposite him, he saw a man figure detach itself from it and he turned his heavy head and swung away toward the cover of the trees as he heard a cracking crash and felt the slam of a .30–06 220-grain solid bullet that bit his flank and ripped in sudden hot scalding nausea through his stomach. He trotted, heavy, big-footed, swinging wounded full-bellied, through the trees toward the tall grass and cover, and the crash came again to go past him ripping the air apart. Then it crashed again and he felt the blow as it hit his lower ribs and ripped on through, blood sudden hot and frothy in his mouth, and he galloped toward the high grass where he could crouch and not be seen and make them bring the crashing thing close enough so he could make a rush and get the man that held it.

  Macomber had not thought how the lion felt as he got out of the car. He only knew his hands were shaking and as he walked away from the car it was almost impossible for him to make his legs move. They were stiff in the thighs, but he could’ feel the muscles fluttering. He raised the rifle, sighted on the junction of the lion’s head and shoulders and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened though he pulled until he thought his finger would break. Then he knew he had the safety on and as he lowered the rifle to move the safety over he moved another frozen pace forward, and the lion seeing his silhouette now clear of the silhouette of the car, turned and started off at a trot, and, as Macomber fired, he heard a whunk that meant that the bullet was home; but the lion kept on going. Macomber shot again and everyone saw the bullet throw a spout of dirt beyond the trotting lion. He shot again, remembering to lower his aim, and they all heard the bullet hit, and the lion went into a gallop and was in the tall grass before he had the bolt pushed forward.

  Macomber stood there feeling sick at his stomach, his hands that held the Springfield still cocked, shaking, and his wife and Robert Wilson were standing by him. Beside him too were the two gun-bearers chattering in Wakamba.

  “I hit him,” Macomber said. “I hit him twice.”

  “You gut-shot him and you hit him somewhere forward,” Wilson said without enthusiasm. The gun-bearers looked very grave. They were silent now.

  “You may have killed him,” Wilson went on. “We’ll have to wait a while before we go in to find out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let him get sick before we follow him up.”

  “Oh,” said Macomber.

  “He’s a hell of a fine lion,” Wilson said cheerfully. “He’s gotten into a bad place though.”

  “Why is it bad?”

  “Can’t see him until you’re on him.”

  “Oh,” said Macomber.

  “Come on,” said Wilson. “The Memsahib can stay here in the car. We’ll go to have a look at the blood spoor.”

  “Stay here, Margot,” Macomber said to his wife. His mouth was very dry and it was hard for him to talk.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Wilson says to.”

  “We’re going to have a look,” Wilson said. “You stay here. You can see even better from here.”

  “All right.”

  Wilson spoke in Swahili to the driver. He nodded and said, “Yes, Bwana.”

  Then they went down the steep bank and across the stream, climbing over and around the boulders and up the other bank, pulling up by some projecting roots, and along it until they found where the lion had been trotting when Macomber first shot. There was dark blood on the short grass that the gun-bearers pointed out with grass stems, and that ran away behind the river bank trees.

  “What do we do?” asked Macomber.

  “Not much choice,” said Wilson. “We can’t bring the car over. Bank’s too steep. We’ll let him stiffen up a bit and then you and I’ll go in and have a look for him.”

  “Can’t we set the grass on fire?” Macomber asked.

  “Too green.”

  “Can’t we send beaters?”

  Wilson looked at him appraisingly. “Of course we can,” he said. “But it’s just a touch murderous. You see we know the lion’s wounded. You can drive an unwounded lion—he’ll move on ahead of a noise—but a wounded lion’s going to charge. You can’t see him until you’re right on him. He’ll make himself perfectly flat in cover you wouldn’t think would hide a hare. You can’t very well send boys in there to that sort of a show. Somebody bound to get mauled.”

  “What about the gun-bearers?”

  “Oh, they’ll go with us. It’s their shauri. You see, they signed on for it. They don’t look too happy though, do they?”

  “I don’t want to go in there,” said Macomber. It was out before he knew he’d said it.

  “Neither do I,” said Wilson very cheerily. “Really no choice though.” Then, as an afterthought, he glanced at Macomber and saw suddenly how he was trembling and the pitiful look on his face.

  “You don’t have to go in, of course,” he said. “That’s what I’m hired for, you know. That’s why I’m so expensive.”

  “You mean you’d go in by yourself? Why not leave him there?”

  Robert Wilson, whose entire occupation had been with the lion and the problem he presented, and who had not been thinking about Macomber except to note that he was rather windy, suddenly felt as though he had opened the wrong door in a hotel and seen something shameful.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why not just leave him?”

  “You mean pretend to ourselves he hasn’t been hit?”

  “No. Just drop it.”

  “It isn’t done.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, he’s certain to be suffering. For another, someone else might run onto him.”

  “I see.”

  “But you don’t have to have anything to do with it.”

  “I’d like to,” Macomber said. ‘‘I’m just scared, you know.”

  “I’ll go ahead when we go in,” Wilson said, “with Kongoni tracking. You keep behind me and a little to one side. Chances are we’ll hear him growl. If we see him we’ll both shoot. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll keep you backed up. As a matter of fact, you know, perhaps you’d better not go. It might be much better. Why don’t you go over and join the Memsahib while I just get it over with?”

  “No, I want to go.”

  “All right,” said Wilson. “But don’t go in if you don’t want to. This is my shauri now, you know.”

  “I want to go,” said Macomber.

  They sat under a tree and smoked.

  “Want to go back and speak to the Memsahib while we’re waiting?” Wilson asked.

  “No.”

  “I’ll just step back and tell her to be patient.”

  “Good,” said Macomber. He sat there, sweating under his arms, his mouth dry, his stomach hollow feeling, wanting to find courage to tell Wilson to go on and finish off the lion without him. He could not know that Wilson was furious because he had not noticed the state he was in earlier and sent him back to his wife. While he sat there Wilson came
up. “I have your big gun,” he said. “Take it. We’ve given him time, I think. Come on.”