Frikkie jumped on the radio to alert the rest of our party to the discovery. While we waited, we went through the plan of how the next steps would be conducted and what to look out for as we went. I loaded a fourth shell into my rifle and secured the safety.
Shortly the cavalry arrived in the form of Joseph, our second tracker, and Yvan carrying his father’s 470 NE Heym 88B as backup. After a brief huddle, we advanced into the veld in much the way I had always imagined, trackers out front scanning the terrain for spoor, and the three hunters following behind. However, it wasn’t long before we realized that this would be no ordinary track, but a maze of tracks and back tracks that would disappear and reappear without rhyme or reason. Thirty minutes into the track, we fanned out in all directions looking for spoor.
Tracking Can Be Easy in the Sand, Not So in the Grass and Brush
“Walk down the trail and see if she went that way” Frikkie instructed as we crossed a game road cut through the block. He circled to my left, Joseph to the right, and Chris in the distance behind. Yvan stood guard with the 470, eyes and binoculars searching for a feline outline. Chris found the track, and we were off again following the spoor.
This continued, losing and regaining the tracks, over and over for hours. Her trail went on and on, winding like a great serpent through the golden thigh high grass around almost each tree and every bush. At one point, the diverging and converging trails gave the impression that there were two lions spoor intertwined. We worked the spoor over through lunch, over 5 miles by the time we stopped. It was about 1300 when Joseph discovered an explanation to the madness in the sand,
she was hunting.
Zebra Panic in the Distance
Earlier that morning while rounding the block, I had spotted zebra racing wildly in the distance. “They really are a spooky bunch,” I had thought earlier as we were several hundred yards away from the frenetic action. With the newfound knowledge of our quarry’s activities, and the plethora of single toed hoof marks, she was likely the cause of the pandemonium. We continued on the spoor, until it crossed the cut line into the next block. We called for a lunchtime pickup. After a quick ride, piled in the Prado, we were back in the bakkie’s headed for camp. The wind was blowing at a steady 30 miles per hour as we pulled up to the gate.
“The tracks won’t last long in this wind,” Frikkie lamented.
It would be a quick lunch as we waited for her to retire in the midday sun.
Joseph, left, and Chris, right, scan the ground
At 1430 we were back out as the sand whipped up and down the cut line. In less than an hour the tracks that were once so boldly etched were now almost erased. Chris and Joseph climbed onto the front bumper as Yvan assumed the role of driver. Together we rolled around the block to search out for fresher tracks. An hour later, we dismounted, and the search continued, much as before, in maddening circles and erratic splines. The trail cut from on block to the next and back again, ever vanishing. Each time we would regroup, we all acknowledged that “this one is different,” as the search would resume.
Around 1700, with the shadows growing long, first contact was made. Frikkie, using his intuition built by decades of experience, decided to look up from a circle of tracks in the sand.
“She’s over there,” he smirked as his eyes made contact with her outline.
It took me nearly 30 seconds to spot her shadowy figure nearly 200 yards in the distance. At the moment we all made eye contact, she fled. The game of cat and mouse had now climbed to an apex in the afternoon sun. Our stamina renewed pace and our pace quickened as we followed hot on the trail. Another 30 minutes of tracking, saw the day drawing to a close, and our wayward prey once again had given us the slip.
We fanned out along the roadbed, much as before, looking for our heading. Joseph picked up the track, heading North, and we began to follow. Chris however, guided by his own internal compass, turned South. A whistle from behind caught our attention. An excited Chris flagged us down as we turned around at the sound.
It was in this moment we realized the cause for his excitement; she was close. A moment later we realized that she was not only close, but she was
here. Just to our left, she was laying in the shade not 20 yards from an unarmed Chris. Although what transpired did not take more than a minute, it would feel like an hour in my mind.
“Do you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Rifle ready?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to aim for the neck like we talked about, wait for her to turn,” Frikkie whispered.
I would be using Frikkie’s shoulder instead of the sticks that were in the now prone Chris’ hands. “Are you nuts???,” I thought, but not loud enough to hear, as I placed the front of the rifle on Frikkie’s left shoulder.
“Can you see her?”
“Only the top of her head,” I coughed.
“We’re going to climb up out of the road and see if we can get a shot,” he responded.
We marched in tandem up the edge of a sandy embankment, Frikkie grasping my barrel, and I holding the grip, safety still latched. As we reached the top of the bank, the silhouette of her neck and shoulders came into view. The safety went off. My breathing slowed. I reminded myself that the safety of myself and my party relied on a perfect shot. The crosshairs settled on the centerline with the wind in my face. I slipped the bullet in between her vertebrae as she looked to her right off into the veld. As the rifle recovered from the recoil, I saw here figure slump from view. I chambered another round, almost putting the cigarette hot casing down Frikkie’s neck. Frikkie stepped out from under the gun.
“Good shooting, now top off your magazine. It’s the dead ones that kill you.”
Rifle refilled; we three approached the downed lion. The slow death rattle of her final exhales sounded like a slumbering giant I did not wish to wake. However, this giantess would not awake from her final slumber. The shot was nearly 80 yards in the fading light of the desert sun. It was the only shot needed.
Last slumber of the giantess
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