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My Gold Medal Warthog
"Keiler!", the tracker half-shouted, pointing at a direction at something that my old eyes could not focus on. Armin brought up his binoculars and studied the dark form more than 500 yards away. Nathan and Sven, with their young eyes, also had picked up the warthog, dark against the yellow knee-high grass.
"A big boar. He's the one you want."
A few Afrikaans words of instruction to the Oziel, the Herero driver/tracker, that he should park the truck and wait for further word. He and the boys would remain. Gerson, Armin, and I would go after the keiler.
"Take the little one", Armin referring to the smaller caliber of my two rifles, the Remington Model Seven chambered for the .308 Winchester cartridge. I loved this little rifle, lightweight, shortly barreled, mounting a fixed 4 power "cheapie" rifle scope, it has been my choice of firearm whenever I would go into the Blacktail Deer woods of Oregon.
I chambered a round after stepping off the truck and followed the swiftly moving tracker and PH. Arms out from his side, testing the wind, feeling the slight breeze as it blew across the sweaty surface of his arms, Armin plotted our stalking route that would bring us close to the pig, giving me an opportunity to take a killing shot. We shifted our approach to the right, giving the pig a wide berth so that he would not wind us. Coming to long brush-lined culvert that divided the grass field, we took advantage of the cover to travel closer. When we emerged from cover we were still about 200 yards from the still unsuspecting. Walking fast in a half-crouch, almost like a duck waddle, my stomach muscles complained, not having much exercise to tone my midriff since my cancer operation a couple of years ago. The temperature on my watch read 84 F and sweat ran down my brow.
Then I saw what looked like a boar warthog, then two, dark brown spots, barely visible above the grass. We stopped, Armin glassing again, sizing up the quarry. Now I had what I thought was the pig in my sight. Move a little closer. Stop. The tracker set the shooting sticks into the ground and I come up behind to place the forestock of Remington on the Vee.
"Do you see it?"
"That one on the right?"
"No, the warthog is the one a little to the left."
I realized that I was looking at a dark mound of dirt or a small scrub bush. The warthog that the PH had found for me was directly to the front of my rifle, about 120 yards. I peered through the scope and found him looking at us. Poor vision kept him from running as wild animals would do when they sense danger. He could not smell us, even though his olefactory senses were acute, for we were downwind of the animal. I brough the crosshairs to intersect a third down from the top of his back behind the shoulder. With my thumb I clicked the safety to the off position, breathing easy, I watched him holding deathly still for me.
He didn't go down with the first shot but I knew it was a killing blow. I heard the slap of the bullet hit his fat body. He ran to my left for about 35 yards then he stopped to look back at his tormentor. This time I held the crosshairs right on his shoulder and he went down for good.
Grinning widely, whooping, and shaking hands, the three of us approached the animal. Still we respected its wild instinct to battle unto death, a cartridge in the chamber readied to anchor it if it should rise again but there was no need for a third.
I looked around me, the wide yellow field, the blue of the afternoon sky. I was in Africa.
rainydayhunter@yahoo.com
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