Today," said Zwei, "we are hunting gemsbok.  We will do this on a ranch with very thick brush.  Although it's thick, the ranch is crisscrossed by many roads, so we can keep the bakkie near us wherever we go."  Zwei talked a bit more about how the hunt would go.  As he talked, I was again reminded of my Montana mule deer hunt.  We would, he said, drive the roads looking for a herd of gemsbok, and when we spotted them we would get out of the truck and make a stalk.  We would also take a tracking dog with us, since gemsbok can go a long way when wounded.

The drive from camp was about 15 minutes, and this time we didn't stop to talk to the rancher when we entered his property.  It looked like he was already out in his fields for the day, so we decided to go on in and start hunting.  As we approached the area we would hunt, we saw two giraffes, the first that I had seen on this trip.  We paused for pictures, then continued on our way.  Once we were on the network of roads that Zwei had told me about I climbed up on the high seat and began to look for gemsbok.  As Zwei had said, the land was indeed very thick and a bit more hilly than the previous terrain that we had hunted.

In the first couple of hours of driving around, I saw impala, kudu, steenbok, warthogs, hartebeest, and wildebeest, but none of the scimitar horned gemsbok.  We crossed the roads back and forth looking for them, but the sun was high in the sky before we got our first sight of a herd of these beautiful animals.

We parked the truck, leaving Jacob in the driver's seat with his radio on in case we needed him to come get us.  Zwei and I got out and made a short stalk to try to get close enough to get a decent look at the herd.  We slipped through the thorny brush as quietly as we could, both of us obtaining a few good scratches in the process.  I look down now, a month later as I rewrite this journal entry, and I can still see the fresh scars on my hands from those very thorns.  I look at them and hope that they will not fade too quickly, for they are a reminder of my time in Africa.

As we approached the herd I began to hear them snorting softly.  We each got our binoculars and began to take a careful look at each animal in the group.  Some of them, I could see, were better than others, but I was unable to determine if any of them were shooters or not.  Zwei finally said, "I think we can do better.  There is another herd somewhere in this area, and there are usually some better bulls with that group.  Let's go back to the truck and move on."

So we repeated the process, moving up and down the many roads until at around 1:00pm we finally came across the other herd.  "Ok," said Zwei.  "The second one from the right.  He's a good one; let's try to get him."  We made another short stalk, but this time the animals got wind of us before we got close.  They fled.

This is a shot of how thick the brush country was that we were hunting in

We got on their trail, finding the fresh tracks in the gritty soil easily enough.  We followed them for a mile or so before we got another look at them.  This time the herd was standing in heavy brush, but one of them was just visible through a break in the branches between us.  He was facing us head on.  "That's him," said Zwei.  "Aim at his chest, just below the nose."

I found the animal in my scope, breathed out, and fired.  The herd exploded in the bush and was gone.  I heard a rustling in the thicket behind us and turned to see Jacob coming to join us.  He had the little tracking dog with him, and we began to look for spoor, but at first we could find nothing.  We spread out, and soon Jacob and Zwei were out of sight.  I occasionally got a glimpse of the dog moving through the brush, and soon Jacob called out that he had found a spot of blood. 

We looked for more sign, again spreading out with Zwei ranging far ahead, me in the middle, and Jacob moving off to the east.  The dog was running freely, and once in awhile I would stop to listen to see if I could hear him bark.  We moved further and further apart, each going deeper into the bush.  I paused and listened to the silence, amazed at how quiet everything was.  Jacob and Zwei were nowhere in sight.

Although I was concerned about the minimal blood that we were finding, I took some time to savor the moment.  To be standing alone in Africa, in thick brush.  I wondered if I was slightly worried about being this deep in the brush, this far from my guides, but I found that I was fine with it.  Indeed, I was glad to have been sent alone to do some of the tracking. 

I started moving again, and the bush in front of me virtually exploded as a big warthog came running out, startled by my approach.  He ran by me not five feet away, and I swear he was grinning as he went past.  He looked just like a cartoon, with big tusks and a grey hide and that silly smile on his face.  He was eating up ground, running in a half circle past me, and was gone as quickly as he appeared.  I laughed and knew that this was something I would remember forever.

I moved on, again trying to find sign in the dry dirt.  I heard a whistle off to my right, and paused.  It came again: definitely human.  I whistled back and began walking in that direction.  I had walked a long distance, longer than I would have thought, before I heard the whistle again, this time just yards away.  I stepped out of the thicket and found Jacob waiting for me.  "You must come with me now," he said in his thickly accented baritone. 

I followed, hoping that they had found my gemsbok.  Jacob didn't say anything else for awhile; he just walked, and I walked along behind him.  I know we walked for at least a mile and a half when he finally turned to me and said, "I look for de bakkie."  The truck.  He couldn't find the truck.  My tracker was lost.

I shook my head, at least inwardly, and laughed.  The truck was back in the other direction, over a mile from where we were now.  He hadn't told me where we were going, or I would have set him straight earlier on.  I was about to tell him where the truck was when the radio buzzed.  Zwei was calling.  I couldn't follow the conversation in Afrikaans, but I did hear the word "bakkie" several times and "dumb" at least twice.  Zwei was not happy that Jacob could not find the truck.  He told him where it was, then signed off.

"Wait here," said Jacob.  All too happy to oblige, I sat down in the shade on the side of the road and watched him jog off back toward where we had parked.  He was gone for a half hour or so, and as I wandered around the little area I was waiting in I found a porcupine quill laying in the red dirt of the road.  I picked it up, the first of several that I would find and smuggle home in the bottom of my luggage.

Jacob finally arrived with the truck, and once I was aboard we drove over to where Zwei was waiting for us with the tracking dog.  He had found a blood trail, very sparse, but easy enough to follow.  We stayed on that trail until sunset, moving in and out of the thick brush.  Twice my spirits rose when we came across deep pools of red blood in the dirt where the gemsbok had rested.  Twice they sunk as the animal moved on, seemingly unhindered by his wound. 

Zwei and Jacob, on the trail of the gemsbok

We followed the trail for many miles, once or twice getting within sight of the gemsbok herd through the thick brush.  We were never able to discern which animal was hit before they would get wind of us.  As sunset began to approach, Zwei called for reinforcements and we headed for the back entrance to the property.  Within fifteen minutes Hannes drove up with John, the zebra tracker, in the truck with him.

John, Jacob, and Zwei fanned out and got on the trail again while I climbed into the back of Hannes's truck and we drove the roads trying to find the herd.  Twice more we came across them, and twice more we were unable to determine which animal was ours.  When it was too dark to hunt any more, John called on the radio to say that he had marked the last blood spot, to which we agreed we would return in the morning.

At camp that night we dined on kudu steak, a delicious meal made better by the fine African sauces that went with it.  Hannes ate with us, as did Tyge Floyd, the Texan who was also in camp that week.  The mood was a little heavier around the camp that night knowing that we had a wounded animal in the bush, but it was still an enjoyable evening. 

The intention here is not to disparage Jacob.  He was a fine tracker and did a great job for me all week, but his weak point was that he didn't pay attention to the places we parked the bakkie.  Around the campfire that night, Tyge remarked, "You know, it's pretty bad when a white boy from South Carolina can find the truck and a black tracker can't."