Hunting Tale
So over the years, this story received a lot of flack, and as it goes with old-fashioned stories, the people who narrate it neglected to speak about their participation in the hunting tale. They were embarrassed to declare their own foolishness.
I am the third or fourth generation, and I am not going to lie about the story to you like that.
So don’t sit by the fire and say Brett told the story. No, instead say you heard it from someone who knew someone who was there. By that, I mean now, at the big hunt.
It took place very long ago when people still called a leopard a tiger. When hunters and farmers shot them because they were a pest and not because they are endangered species. The story takes place in the Kologha mountains somewhere between Stutterheim and Hogsback.
Those dense indigenous bushes with the wet fog that made everything look and feel different. It was a world notorious for its stories and its superstitions.
People believed there were mystical creatures in those bushes, and if you hadn’t hunted alone, you better not judge. There is a kind of feeling you get when you walk in those bushes somewhere, or you hear a leopard’s gnarl.
The four hunters find themselves at a fire one evening. Because the bushes were so dense, they camped in an old forest animal path for the night and built a shelter on three sides behind them. You do not want to sit in the dark with your back to the bushes. So they barbecued some meat and talked about the tiger they are hunting.
As usual, Uncle Samuel is full of himself and, according to him, a tiger expert.
No tiger can outwit him as he had already slaughtered a tiger with his bare hands and Joseph Rodgers. His right arm in the tiger’s jaws, and entirely with his left hand beheaded the animal
Yes no … Tiger’s child he comprehends. That skin lies on his porch.
The bottle of hardwood, fuelled by Fancy and his cousin Frankie, is making another shot, and the stories get more significant, and the creatures get stronger and more vicious. They had no fear for a tiger with four heads
Somewhere, branches crackle in the dark shadows where the fire’s light fades at night. The four men are alerted but silent. No one wants to look around too hasty or reach for his gun. They hold their pose.
Uncle Norris questions aloud how much rain they can expect this month.
The river runs poorly and is almost dry?
The other three whispered that they don’t know, but listened intently to the commotion coming their way.
Then there is a rustle in the bushes, but it sounds quite far away. “Probably a buck,” mumbles Uncle Norris.
Everyone reaffirms his words as if they were sitting in the front seats of the church. Uncle Samuel gets up and takes his gun. He says he just wants to make sure there’s no dust in the barrel.
He sat down beside the fire with the gun over his knees, for a moment forgetting what he wanted to do with the gun barrel.
In the footpath a noise of breaking branches came their way, sounding like the devil running behind a grindstone. A huge leopard male chases down a huge bush-pig in the trail, at full speed towards the four hunters.
No one knows to this day who had the biggest fright that night, but I think they shared the terror almost; equally, leopard and bush pig included. When that bush pig swerved around the corner where the shelter stood, there was no chance of stopping and turning around.
He leapt over the fire, through the rear branch fence without taking a tread wrong. The men at the camp-fire flattened the rest of the branch shelter, getting out of the way.
Behind the bush-pig was the tiger, adding more terror to the hunters.
The tiger tried to avoid the camp-fire, but the speed and degree he came flying around the corner didn’t do much for his balance. With a ferocious blow of pain, he landed inside the fire on his paws with a roar and shot up like a rocket, disappearing behind the bush pig with a smoke streak.
Fancy and Frankie were back on the bottle, pouring a shot for each. Fancy had a bottle of white schnapps in his hand. Not a drop wasted. Uncle Norris picked up his hat and slowly got up behind the branches. Uncle Samuel’s gun lay burning in the fire where he threw the weapon himself. Uncle Samuel was still lying on his back when Uncle Norris dryly remarked, “It’s a pity you didn’t have the Joseph Rogers ready, Samuel …”
Nobody said anything about the wet spot in front of Uncle Norris’ pants, frightened that he may swear at them in a strange language.
- Joseph Rogers — Every boy and man had such a knife at one time. Just ask around. Without this cutting knife, the history of our country would surely have been different
- Author: Mattheus Frederik
