The Story

A SWELL VELDT
By Doc Walton

The rain beat down heavily on the African veldt, a swell veldt if I ever saw one. Miles Everhard the noted pretty good white hunter stood outside the tent of Lady Cynthia Sackable and inquired in a voice loud enough to be heard above the din if Lady Sackable might not care for a spot of company. Shooing Noblong Ndive her personal porter and parasol bearer, who at that very moment had been applying insect repellent slowly and diligently to her backside – an area most vulnerable on the veldt or so he had said – out the rear tent flap, Cynthia hailed back at Miles to do come in as she was ever so lonely.
Abandoning his umbrella purchased through the mail order Snobs-Are-Us catalog Whitecrest, U.K. to the night, Miles slipped through the tent’s front flap and found Lady Sackable had arranged herself on her cot in a fashion that suggested she had, well, arranged herself on her cot. She was seated directly in its center, nightgown somewhat askew with bedding pulled to cover this and that but allowed a peek of the other thing. Her mosquito net lay tantalizingly open, but she had little fear of the nightly nippers and felt particularly safe on her backside where there were simply oodles of protection.
Positively ravishing thought Miles as he shook the moisture from his water repellant White Hunter Jungle Garb, the official off field garb of the Nairobi Nasties, the local futbol club, and the thought was so compelling that he took the next moment to just blurt out the words that had rushed to his suddenly fevered brow. “I say Lady Ess, beastly night this. Have you got anything for a fevered brow?” Being British, the concept of getting to the point without first mentioning the foul weather had been completely erased from his DNA.
“Would a spot of gin help? And do call me Cynthia” said Lady Sackable. “And while you’re at it, getting the gin and calling me Cynthia that is, be a dear boy and freshen this as well.” She handed Miles her own nearly full glass. “I’ve a bit of a fever myself.”
Miles strode to the dressing table and poured two healthy droughts from the Deep Rock Gin Dispenser and drank his off in long full swallows, because that’s how manly white hunters take their spirits. That, and of course, furtive swigs from their flasks when out in the bush and large things toothy are about. The gin had the immediate effect of stiffening Miles resolve and reducing the impact of his British reserve to the point where he was able to get beyond both the weather and his fevered brow.
“About tomorrow,” he said, handing over Cynthia’s tumbler of gin, “if this blasted rain” – apparently the weather thing was still with him – “lets off, I think we will be able to find you your rhino. I know how anxious you are to get the horn.”
“Oh just ever so eager Miles. I must get horned before Lord Sackable returns from the bush or I dare say I won’t get horned at all. You know how possessive he gets. He’ll be wanting all the horning for himself.”
Lady Sackable said this while leaning back on her pillows and placing a forearm across her brow in a manner that suggested just how distraught she was at the prospect of going much longer without a horn. “Do come sit by me Miles and tell me of your plan.” She added this last as an after thought, though it was not quite the thought she was after.
Miles for his part was approaching a state resembling all of a tither and couldn’t believe his good fortune. He did have a plan of course, well not really a plan, more of a vague hope and it had nothing to do with rhinos in the morning though he thought “rhinos in the morning” a catchy sort of a phrase. Miles knew that when a swarthy, hairy chested, white hunter enters a woman’s tent on a swell veldt he does not go there without conquest a forethought. Miles, lacking swarth and sporting but a small patch of chest hair was nevertheless hoping a light embrace might be possible. Something on the order of “buck up old girl, I’ll find a horn for yet” while perhaps placing a comforting arm ‘round her shoulders. If luck then held, violin music would swell mysteriously up and there would be locking eyes, trembling lips and passionate words not needing to be said.
Taking the proffered seat next to the object of his desires, Miles was about to employ his ploy when Cynthia quite suddenly took his hand in hers, put them on her thinly night-gowned lap and looking up at him earnestly said, “My word, your brow actually is quite fevered.”
“It’s nothing really” Miles shot back. “Touch of jungle fever, I suspect. Happens all the time.” And then something that sounded like har har, eh what and wouldn’t you know. Miles was growing a bit tense, if by tense one conjures the phrase stiff as a lamppost.
Lady Sackable, gazing at Miles meaningfully, shifted all four of their hands from her lap to his where she hoped to discover a local uprising and was not disappointed as she in turn said, “Yes, I quite understand.” And “I’ve heard it’s really quite common when two people are alone…all alone…in a tent on a swell veldt in the dark of the night…and there’s rain shushing all about them…and…the lanterns are glowing softly…and… gin is available in large quantities…to be suddenly stricken with all sorts of tropical fevers and…” she added, fearing her point was too subtle, “the only known cure as far as I can surmise… starts like this.” She moved their hands again, this time to her breasts which were not quite heaving yet as heaving is such a tough go when four hands are involved. She removed her own, the top ones, to achieve the proper quota and allow the heaving to commence in earnest. This abrupt departure of her knowing hands left Mile’s uncertain mitts plastered there alone to enjoy the aforementioned heaving which is as you know an up and down sort of thing. While he took this simple pleasure Lady Sackable searched his eyes for signs that he had caught her drift. She found them opened quite wide and unblinking no sign of life apparent, so she just let her gaze slip to his lap where the evidence of his comprehension was becoming clearer. Or as she was more likely to put it, ever so clear.
It was at this moment, this inevitable moment when hunter and prey come together in that age old joining that symbolizes man’s ultimate destiny, the fate of the world and heaps more poetic nonsense along those lines, that the lion who had been nipping about the camp in search of scraps, handouts or the hands themselves, decided to enter the tent.

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Lord Sackable, the Earl of Erstwhile, head of Sackable Safaris and chair of the Let Them Eat Scones Society was enjoying his own gin and gin after a long day of beating about the bush. His section of the swell veldt, some twenty miles away, was free of rain and after having cheerfully flogged a porter or two and cursed the rest he had retired to his tent to await his dinner and the arrival of a village virgin. He had become accustomed to having each of these on a regular basis as he was, after all, very rich.
“Bongo,” he bellowed at his headman, because that’s what he’d heard wealthy Earls do, bellow. “Isn’t that blasted dik-dik done yet?” Dik-dik was his favorite and he had been able to shoot one earlier in the day after his bearers had trapped it and tied it to a tree. He’s gotten a quite nice photo of himself afterwards, holding up the dik-dik’s head and posing triumphantly.
“No Sahib, a few minutes more are required” Bongo shouted back. He called the Earl Sahib because that was his name, Sahib Sackable, and the two were on a first name basis. He rolled the spit a quarter of a turn and added a blast of his own saliva to the dik-dik browning over a low fire. Bongo, having served a stint with an impoverished and consequently mannered Earl, had become accustomed to “I say, would you be so kind as” and hence did not approve of bellowing.
“Well hurry it up then” Sackable bellowed even louder. “I’m quite starving in here.”
Bongo glanced angrily over his shoulder at the Earl’s tent before unzipping his trousers to add a bit more to the dik-dik’s natural juices.

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The lion was as lions go not very big, which accounted in part for his traveling alone. Not being able to whip up, as it were, on his fellow pridecats he had been relegated to the kitty end of the dining table and the pickings there were usually quite slim, a bit of grizzle, the odd bone and such. He was forced, therefore, to seek out dietary supplements in the form of food he could steal from smaller animals and edibles he found just lying about. The latter, as one might suspect, was most in abundance when humans camped on the veldt. Leo we will call him, because it means lion in one of those everyday African dialects such as Swahili or Zodiaci, didn’t particularly like humans as they smelled ghastly and moved about on their hind legs like bizarre, featherless, flightless birds. A gray maned old timer had once told him that in a pinch men were edible, but not nearly as tasty as warthog. Leo had no desire to find out if this was true, but his growling gut compelled him to push his way through the tent flap and into this odd human cave.
“Shreeeeek” screamed Lady Sackable or rather something like it. The actual sound eludes transcription here as there were notes available only to dogs and banshees.
“Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell” was Mile’s contribution, one that was admittedly a bit of a broken record at that.
The most startled of the participants, however, was Leo as the teeming rain had eliminated any warning odors and he had burst into the tent unaware of its peopled condition. Before he had time to think, never his strong point anyway, a short series of loud frightened roars had forcefully escaped his throat. Animal translators would later determine these sounds to mean either “Oh My God” or in the case of MGM, “Relax and Enjoy the Movie.”
For a brief moment, three lives flashed before six eyes and then Miles, a man of action, acted. He leaped behind Lady Sackable, clutched her shoulders and pushed her forward as a human shield. Years later, remembering this day he would still feel no remorse for his actions, because, as he was quick to point out, “Come on! It was a lion!
Fortunately for Miles his less than heroic performance went unnoticed by our heroine as at the very moment of the deed, Lady Sackable fainted dead away. The consequence of her leaving the consciousness scene was that Miles was abruptly caught with a dead weight on his hands and in trying to adjust stumbled backwards and onto the bed, pulling Lady Ess atop him. They had just hit the mattress when Noblong entered the room.
Noblong having heard the shouts, the screams and the roars had grabbed his gun and come running apace. He was not a particularly valiant type, but if his meal ticket was becoming a meal he felt he should at the very least see if there was something he could do. He threw back the tent flap, stepped in and took immediate note of the riot on the bed-cot. He was about to contemplate the black mail possibilities of that situation when he took secondary note of the lion in the room. In fact, “Lion In The Room” was the exact phrase that lit up his thoughts in flashing neon. As fast as Noblong had entered the tent his departure was many times faster. The only action visible to the human eye between the coming and the going was when he threw his gun in the lion’s general direction; an action that diverted Leo’s attention from the dinner arranging itself on the bed-cot.
A fleeing thing is a frightened thing and hence to a lion’s way of thinking, prey. Instinct demanded chase, so Leo bounded out the door and after the running man. His chances of catching the fleet African, however, were approaching nil as Noblong was half Kenyan, half Ethiopian. Any track and field aficionado will tell you that these people weigh nothing at all and are as a result not slowed much by gravity. Miles, on the other hand, felt both gravity and Lady Sackable’s softly lumpy weight as he lay plastered to the bed-cot. Looking over her fair shoulder he had seen the lion bolt off in pursuit of Noblong and his fear factor had dropped from a high of “I’m going to die now” to its present “what if it comes back?” Even with the latter in mind, he took a deep breath and lay back to enjoy the feel of Lady Sackable’s contours against his own. What allowed him to do this was the realization that his shield was still in place.

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The next morning, a typical African morning out there on the swell veldt where the sun shines brightly, the birds sing gaily and there’s a lot of that sort of thing going about, Sahib Sackable reached for his bottle of eye-opener and found it gone.
“Blast” he bellowed to no one in particular, followed by “Bongo, where the devil are you?” which was more specific but an equal waste of time, because you see, at that very moment Bongo was miles away sampling Sackable’s gin with the rest of the Earl’s porters. After a series of further expletives, each one louder than the last, the Earl burst from his tent with both malice and mayhem a forethought only to find that there was nothing and no one upon which to deposit either. He was alone in the bush, adrift on the swell veldt.

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Back at the base camp Miles and Cynthia had somewhat recovered from the night’s ordeal and although feeling a trifle fatigued from lack of sleep they were both also feeling the glow of life that comes from having survived a near death sort of thing. When one has gone through that with another person there is an emotional bond that grows between the two. Sort of like soldiers in war, but in this case rather more physical. You could say there was love in the air, but with the rain departed the “blasted bugs,” the “bloody bugs” and the “buggered bugs” were all rising from the grass and love was struggling to find air space of its own.
When Cynthia had awakened from her swoon the night before the first thing she saw was Miles standing in the center of the tent holding Noblong’s gun at the ready. He looked so gallant she had nearly swooned again. Instead she crossed her arms on her formerly heaving bosom and gave forth with a heartfelt, “Oh Miles.”
Miles himself had noticed the gun while flipping Cynthia onto her backside – she had gotten quite heavy – and thought it might be even more useful than a human shield. He had just picked it up and was looking at the tent entrance when Lady Sackable came round and sighed “Oh Miles” in such a way that he knew she had not witnessed his less than leading man behavior. He sensed that they could not pick up where they had left off at the lion’s appearance, but felt he still might have a shot at a good clutch and a tight embrace. Though Cynthia was willing, this proved an awkward task as Miles would not put down the gun.
Now, over bowls of Congo Puffs, a rice based cereal with flakes shaped like tiny poachers, the almost love birds eyed each other furtively for fear a held glance might embark them on a path to things that shouldn’t be done while the sun was shining. It was at this nearly tender moment that the swift Noblong reappeared and announced that while tracking the lion, harrumph harrumph, he had picked up the spoor of a rhino.
“Let me see it at once” cried Miles.
“One doesn’t see a spoor sir, one follows it” you bumbling British nitwit, replied Noblong, with the unquoted part being unspoken but truly felt.
“I see, I see, yes of course” said Miles not having a clue and in fact, visualizing something along the lines of a bread crumb trail. “Well then my good man, do lead on.”
And off they happily traipsed, across the swell veldt.

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Well, thought Sahib Sackable while streaming last night’s used gin on a handy bush and taking stock of his desolate surroundings, I didn’t get to be an Earl for nothing. It required a lot of luck, money and being carefully born to just the right parents. I’ll have to use all those skills now to get me out of this fix.
“Bongo you bloody bumbler” he shouts aloud. “Bring me the cell phone.” But there is no Bongo and there is no phone and along with noticing that his shoes are getting wet comes the realization that he is doing two things into the wind. The second is shouting.

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Male lions are not particularly noted for their sense of scent, nor for their keen eyesight or fleetness of foot. If one thinks about it he will note that most of the film footage of the species has them lying about taking the sun and awaiting delivery of their dinner by their female counterparts. In this respect they are much like male humans. Why the females of either species puts up with this is cause for wonder, but it is just so, and a thought in passing like the one Leo was having as he prowled about the swell veldt trying to pick up the scent or sight of anything at all edible. Leo, as noted before, has neither mate nor pride and has to fall back on his own prowess as a hunter to survive. Were the lion documentarians to stumble on Leo as a subject, the footage of his prowess might well be titled, Blind Luck.
The bright African morning had found Leo equidistance between the trackers and the lost Earl. There was, in fact, a rhino with a bad temper – which is a bit like saying a leopard with spots – snuffling about and Leo wanted no part of that program. His choice was to move towards the trackers who had already made a mess of one night or toward the faint, odd scent arriving from upwind; a scent British pub goers would recognize as used Tanqueray, but to a lion a scent that meant man made. As there were no other potential food sources in evidence, Leo loped off to investigate the smell.

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Okay, the blasted sun rises where? asked Sahib Sackable to himself. As far as he could tell the only answer was…in the sky. He was looking up and to his chagrin the sun was looking down. Neither appeared to be moving. Sahib quit staring at the yellow ball and spun around a couple of times in a full circle. This action, combined with the bright little spots in front of his eyes acquired by the sun watching gave him a bit of the same buzz that was his familiar state when gin was available. “That way,” he said aloud, pointing confidently to his fore. “That way.” He then spun about anew, but missed a full 360 by degree or two, a thing which left him trotting off diagonally to “that way.” No matter. His current course had him intersecting with Leo in roughly four hours. They could both use the company.

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As the intrepid troop – one can’t say troop these days without first saying intrepid even if, as here, the word meaning bold or fearless misses the mark by a mile or so – trekked across the swell veldt in search of its destiny or at least a good camping spot and Sahib Sackable and Leo the lion closed the distance to their rendezvous with fate or a near miss, Sahib’s headman, Bongo, was having second thoughts. Sure the Earl was a first class English prig and sure he bellowed constantly and made outrageous demands, but you had to balance that against his other attributes, the good ones which were – here Bongo had cause to pause – which were, which were…paychecks! Sackable always paid at the end of his safaris amounts called variously “a pittance, a trifle, chump change or slave wages,” but he did always pay. Now with the Earl’s gin neatly polished off, Bongo’s anger had subsided and his head was clearing between throbs. He was beginning to feel pangs of something he couldn’t quite grasp, so he paused again for further introspection. He quickly tossed off guilt, remorse and regret because, after all, the gin had been good and the Earl was…well, we’ve been over that, and he skipped the entire my brother’s keeper thing along with the whole question of loyalty. What he settled on finally, and didn’t feel a bit bad about, was avarice, greed and complete self interest. It was the Earl himself who had schooled him in these traditional western values and he supposed there was a bit of a debt owing there. How many times had he heard old Sackable say, “money makes the veldt go round.” It was this thought that convinced him. Snatching up his rifle and gear and waving moompow to his companions Bongo set off to save the Earl and of course, more importantly, his paycheck.

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Rhinos are not a particularly social animal. Rarely will you catch them clustered around the water cooler discussing Desperate Mouse Lives with others of their kind before setting off about their daily routines. No, they prefer solitude to company which in the grand scheme of things is probably to the betterment of all as rhinos are quite cranky at the sight of the rising sun. Their attitude ascends from cranky steadily along to irritable during the day and I would be remiss if I failed to point out the completely appalling dispositions they achieve by nightfall. It was, therefore, as Miles Everhard squinted through his binoculars at the great black beast pawing clouds of dust around him that he was looking at an animal it would be fair to say who was not in a cheerful mood.
Miles made one of those slow dry swallows lacking a trace of liquid that end in an audible gulp and reached for his flask.
“What is it, Miles?” said Cynthia, intercepting the flask and taking a belt herself. Lady Sackable was a modern woman and thus believed that the fair sex was quite capable of doing whatever men were doing and especially if men were doing shots. “What do you see?”
“Oh nothing really Lady Ess, just the longest horn I’ve ever spied, quite intimidating actually, and the fellow sporting it looks somewhat menacing as well. Here then, take a look for yourself.”

Miles and Cynthia exchanged flask and binoculars with Miles getting several quick swigs in the process while Lady Ess adjusted focus on the distant rhino. When at last the image sharpened she jumped back at the seeming closeness of the great beast.
“Oh my word,” she exclaimed as she regained her composure and refitted the glass to her eyes. “He’s magnificent. I’ve never seen such a horn. Oh Miles I must get my hands on it.”
“And so you shall if I have anything to say about it and I do have something to say about it” Miles declared boldly.
What he said next though, was a shock to no one who knew him well. He called out in the best I’m in charge here tone he could muster, “Noblong Old Sock, come over here. I’ve got a job for you.”

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It was not going well for Lord Sahib Sackable who now thought of himself as Lord I Need A Drink as he stumbled across the vast veldt. Some of the spots he was seeing before his eyes took to landing on parts of his exposed skin and nipping him viciously while the others remained in place despite his efforts to wave them away. Bongo and his boys had slipped off with the Earl’s gin, but had left him otherwise well provisioned. Unfortunately, where the Earl was least equipped was between his ears, the place where good sense had been replaced with bad temper. Without Bongo to lead him about the bush, Sahib was hopelessly inept.
It would be difficult to say which of his many mistakes was his first, but among the early ones was the discharging of many rounds of ammo into the air. The Earl had done this not in hopes that someone might have heard and rushed to his rescue, but rather in an angry fit of pique that to him required noise above the decibel levels usually achieved by his bellowing. When his own ears had begun to ring from the sustained barrage he had put down the rifle, the only weapon left to him and taken note of the many shell casings fallen to the ground. I wonder if he thought, and then checking confirmed how many bullets were in fact left. They totaled three.
As the day wore on and warmed on as well, Sackable began to discard the few possessions he had brought along. Back pack and utility belt were abandoned first and then pieces of seemingly unnecessary clothing, jacket, scarf, pith helmet and whatnot were left strewn behind him. The lord was not accustomed to carrying much beyond himself and when fatigued not even that. They don’t call them bearers for nothing was his motto at such times. In a little less than two hours he had reduced his burden to rifle, canteen and a mounting surliness that rivaled the fabled rhinos. Beastly it was and beastly it would remain.

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When Bongo arrived at the Earl’s deserted campsite he feared at first that Sackable might have been carried off by one of the swell veldt’s various predators. A quick reading of the signs though, well not so much the signs, but rather the actual tracks, told him his employer was safe and had set off on a path to, he thought in error, no place in particular. A more thorough study of the tracks had indicated that the earl had done so in some haste, but not before spinning about and then performing what appeared to be dance steps. Bongo placed his own feet in Sackable’s footprints mimicking their movements and quickly realized he was performing the Watusi, a dance his own tribe had invented to amuse white people shooting movie footage. In private they waltzed.
Slinging his rifle onto his shoulder Bongo set out after the Earl. He could tell from the general direction his tracks pointed to that his former boss was headed for difficulties; perhaps even real trouble if that’s another way of saying a horrible, painful death. Ahead lay lion country, rhino country, leopard country, hyenas, wild dogs and a mean species of impatient buzzards. Ahead lay The Great Water Hole where all the veldt’s toughest creatures came to bathe, drink and annoy each other. The bumbling but still bellowing Earl was making a beeline, which if you’ve ever watched bees is not the straightest of lines, towards this the veldt’s most dangerous place. If he didn’t stop to take on pollen like the aforesaid bees, he’d be there in no time at all.

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Noblong would probably not have complied if not for the outside hope of one day returning to the pre Miles ritual of anointing Lady Ess’s backside with insect repellent. But here he was, nevertheless, crawling through the bush, getting ever closer to an always angry rhino with the vague intent of somehow frightening the beast towards Miles and Lady Sackable, a duo who were at that very moment risking their lives, more or less, some twenty feet up a very stout tree. “Don’t worry,” Miles had assured him, if anything goes wrong, we’ll do…something.”
The rhino, for his part, was trying very hard to focus on the brush some fifty yards to his front. His eye sight like that of all rhinos fell far short of twenty-twenty and though he regretted this lack he knew it would be light years before rhinos could qualify for the laser and he was too vain for glasses. Something was moving out there and he thought it best to trot over and get a closer look.
Noblong’s eyesight though not eagle-like was sufficient to tell him that when a rhino appears larger and larger it most likely means he’s drawing closer and closer. This bit of information was duly processed in Noblong’s frightened crania and followed by the necessary action, mindless flight. Noblong bolted from his hiding place and made haste for the hunter’s tree.
As noted earlier, when a thing flees lions read prey and give chase. Rhinos are not carnivorous and therefore the concept of prey quite eludes them. When a rhino espies a fleeing object he pursues purely for the hell of it. It’s something to do and breaks the monotony of, well, being a rhino. Shifting to its highest gear the great armored looking beast made for the fleeing blur with a chance for goring and stomping at the forefront of its mind. These activities, two of its favorites, were also useful in passing the time. Even with his aforementioned fleet feet, whether Noblong would make it to the safety of the tree was going to be a near thing.
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Miles and Cynthia, both propped comfortably on a fat limb in the shade of a broad leafed tree, finished off Mile’s flask and were embarking on their long postponed second embrace. Cynthia was thinking, at last at last my hero at last, while Miles wondered what he was going to do now that he’d taken his last swig of courage. They were completely oblivious to Noblong’s plight as they cooed and balanced precariously on their lofty perch. They might have even billed and cooed had they known what the former was, but in truth what with the balancing required they were busy enough. When Noblong’s shouts alerted them to the dilemma below, Miles retracted a hand from a soft spot on Lady Ess that might have been one of her good ones - difficult to tell through the thick foliage – and reached for his gun. Cynthia, similarly alerted by Noblong’s cries, made note of the hard charging rhino and stretched for her own flask carefully stashed in her boot for emergencies like wild animals charging or Mile’s flask coming up empty.

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Sahib Sackable was kneeling at waterside to fill his depleted canteen when the shot rang out from over the hill on the far side of the Great Watering Hole. The affect this sound had on the Lord was a rising of spirits, a renewal of hope and a predictable bellow of “it’s about bloody time. Putting down his canteen and picking up his rifle he quickly fired an answering shot into the air and began to ford the GWH which was really just a wide part of a small river that traversed its way on a winding course across the swell veldt. He had taken no more than ten or twelve steps from the bank when a second harsh sound reached his ears; a sound as frighteningly familiar as the gunshot. Though the water in which he stood was quite warm and reached to mid thigh he was suddenly chilled to the bone. With shoulders hunched and teeth tightly clenched, Sahib Sackable turned to confront his fear in the dramatically slow motion fashion common to bad actors in B movies. He had just achieved a full look back when the lion made its leap and the outsized crocodile slipped out of its guise as driftwood and under the water’s surface.

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Leo had been closing steadily on Sackable throughout the day and finding no other potential food on the trail he determined to appease his lion sized appetite with large chunks of Earl. He had crept within can’t miss striking distance at the very moment Sackable dipped to fill his canteen, but was brought up short by the blast of gunfire from over the hill. When the Earl answered with his own blast, Leo quite rightly decided to abandon the chase. He was not cowardly, just reluctant to approach noise makers louder than himself. When next, however, the bellowing Earl began to slosh out into the stream like dinner cleansing itself before being served, Leo changed his mind again, sprinted from his covering bush and throwing caution to the wind leapt to the attack.

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The croc, of course, had just been biding its time.

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Miles shouldered his rifle, aimed carefully, pulled the trigger and missed by a mile. The sharp clap of the rifle did cause the rhino to pause in its charge and that pause allowed Noblong to make it to the safety of the hunter’s tree, up which I might add, he scrambled in a manner to make even critical monkeys proud.
The rhino, though foiled in its pursuit by hesitation, returned quickly to its bad tempered gallop and swerved to miss the tree only because the sound of the second shot drew its interest to the far side of the hill. This interest coupled with the effort it takes to apply the brakes to a rhino at full tilt boogie, caused a denser cloud of anger to inhabit its brain and its charge went on unabated.

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Sahib Sackable got off one misaimed round before Leo’s leap knocked him onto the crocodile’s back and all three were submerged in the muddy waters of the GWH. What then commenced was an unpleasant thing to watch if one was nearby and a difficult thing to make out at all if one was watching from a distant hill as was the case with Sahib’s less than faithful headman, Bongo. Bongo had arrived there just in time to identify the figure being attacked as his soon to be former boss. Although not effectively out of range, Bongo feared hitting the Earl rather than the animals and eschewed popping off a shot of his own. He opted instead for a slow jog towards the combatants with the thought in mind that retrieval of any of Sackable’s body parts might be worth something to the Earl’s family. He was caught up short and more than surprised when Sackable somehow separated from the fray and although bleeding profusely from both here and there, made it to the far bank of the stream. He turned then to see if he was still being pursued and it was as he did so that Bongo saw the new danger and tried his best to shout a warning. The word that here suffices best is, alas…alas.

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“Oh Miles, don’t let him get away” said Cynthia to her hero who was staring fixedly at the flask in her hand. “I must get horned before the day is out.”
Miles sprung into action which is another way of saying he snatched the flask from Cynthia and drained what was left. Refortified, he then turned to Noblong and signaled let’s go, but the still frightened aspiring masseuse clung fiercely to his new best friend, a spot high in the tree he found too cozy to leave. Miles would have to go it alone, an option not high on his list of same, but a thing which after gazing again into Lady Sackable’s gin shiny but nevertheless adoring eyes, he did.

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When the rhino crested the hill and began its descent its speed increased immeasurably. There was no conceivable way it could stop before reaching level ground and the impact of its collision with Lord Sackable was, therefore, of such force that the Earl would have been air born for a record distance had he not been neatly impaled on the very horn so ardently coveted by Lady Sackable. The rhino’s momentum carried it and the Earl to the center of the stream where it joined the scrum being conducted by Leo and the croc. Mayhem, it must then be said, ensued.

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The sun was setting out of habit and the light was growing dim on the swell veldt when a tired but still jumpy Miles Everhard stumbled down the hill towards the GWH. There were night sounds springing up and Miles found their song less than comforting. At river’s edge he frightened buzzards from the bank and while examining their dinner discovered fragments of the day’s carnage; a bit of rhino, a bit of croc, a bit of lion, and an unfortunate trace of Earl. He wondered what had occurred.
A voice then rang out as voices are wont to do when darkness gathers on the veldt. “You there,” it said, “would you like to buy a rhino horn?” Bongo had been foiled in his search among the devastation for any recognizable and therefore salable chunk of his late employer. He had recovered the Earl’s rifle and in fact had used its last bullet to shoot the crock swimming off with a rhino horn locked securely in its jaws. Rhino horns he knew were valued in some quarters for their supposed aphrodisiac powers. When he had spotted Miles poking through the rubble that was once his boss he thought that here, perhaps, was one last chance to end the day with a profit and it was his voice that rang out with the offer of purchase. “It’s very big and I’ll sell it cheap” was his further come-on. Cheap being to him three or four times the horn’s actual worth. He was preparing his mind for the give and take of bargaining he thought about to commence when Miles shouted back a response that warmed his heart and gave truth to the phrase an ear to ear grin. What Miles said was, “Name your price.”
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The rain had begun again when Miles Everhard was once more beckoned into the inviting confines of Cynthia Sackable’s tent. He caught a quick glimpse of Noblong scurrying out the back flap and knew that Lady Ess’s backside was safe again from the wily mosquito. “Beastly night” he began, because some habits are never fully overcome, “but I have brought you a rather nice surprise.” He than watched as Cynthia arranged herself in that skillful way she had and she in turn watched him with, shall we say, mounting expectations.
“Oh do tell Miles,” she said. “I could use a surprise and you’re the man I want to surprise me most.”
Miles didn’t quite get that, but reached behind his back and brought forth the horn. Lady Sackable was heard to shriek with joy as she ran to her hero for a passionate embrace. Horns got momentarily in the way, for now there was more than one, but places were quickly found for all and a short while later further shrieks pierced the night. Lady Ess made some more noises as well.

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Outside the tent the rain continued in force and a bedraggled and still hungry Leo paused to consider the new noises coming from within. Although they didn’t sound quite human and might in fact be something to eat, he felt it best to pass on by. He turned and ripped off one last growl of disappointment then disappeared into the night. Far in the distance a one horned rhino snorted in answer. In the quiet that followed there was a notable absence of bellows. All had returned to normal on what was now a really swell veldt.


Doc Walton January, 2008