However, the bleeding had not been profuse and they found less than a dozen droplets on the grass or balled on the dry earth.
"Flesh wound," Sean grunted. The drift of the breeze must have pushed the bullet off the vital areas of the man's body.
"Who do we follow, Tukutela or the poachers?" Job wanted to know. "The poachers will be halfway back to Lusaka by now." Sean grinned. "Follow the elephant!" he ordered Matatu.
They tracked Tukutela across the river-bed and up the farther side of the valley. After his first panicked rush, the old bull had settled down into that swinging stride that ate up the ground at a prodigious rate, and which he could keep up for days. He was boring away toward the east, toward the Mozambican border, deviating only slightly from his course to take a gap in a line of hills or to climb the easier gradient when there was no pass.
They ran hard on his spoor. Not having to take precautions against ambush, they could push themselves to the limit, but the elephant was pulling away from them and the day was wasting.
The sun was casting their long shadows ahead of them.
There was no defined border with Mozambique, no fence or cut line through the forest, but a sixth sense warned Sean that they had crossed.
He was about to give orders to halt when Job whistled softly and made a cut-out signal with his left hand. Matatu pulled up and nodded his head in agreement, and the three of them bunched up and stood looking along the faint spoor that ran ahead of them into the darkening eastern forest.
"Mozambique," Job said. "He has gone away." And the others did not deny it.
"He still goes fast." Matatu spat on the spoor. "Faster than any man can run. We will not see Tukutela again this year."
"Yes, but there will be another season," Sean said. "Next year, he will range back into the national park and come again in the new moon across the Chiwewe River. We will be waiting for him."
"Perhaps." Matatu took a pinch of snuff from the duiker-horn container that hung around his neck. "Or perhaps the poachers will find him again, or he will walk onto a land mine in an old battlefield in Mozambique, or perhaps he will die of his own great age The thought filled Sean with melancholy. Tukutela was a part of the old Africa. Sean had been born too late fully to experience that era. He had been able to glimpse only vestiges of it, yet he had a deep, nostalgic reverence for the history and past of his continent.
It was all going so fast, trodden under the greedy rush for power by the thoughtless hordes of the emerging nations, by the unbridled tribal rivalries and the lawlessness of this new age. Once again Africa was becoming the dark continent, but this time without the glory of its natural treasures-the wild game was decimated, the forests hacked down for fuel, the very earth abused by primitive and animal husbandry, and the Saharan desert each year marching southward. Tukutela was one of the very few real treasures.
Sean turned back. He had wanted that elephant. He had wanted him with the utmost parts of his being. Now, as he turned back into the west, the disappointment weighed down his legs and his heart, and he went heavily.
A little before midnight they found Riccardo and Claudia sleeping on a mattress of cut grass, under a lean-to shelter beside a fire that had burned down to coals, while Pumula sat guard at the second fire, close by.
Riccardo came awake the instant Sean touched his shoulder, and he scrambled up eagerly. "Did you find him? What happened?
What about the poachers?"
"He's gone, Capo. Across the border. We chased off the poachers, but Tukutela got clear away," Sean told him. Riccardo sagged back on the grass mattress and listened in silence while Sean described the chase and the contact with the poachers.
Claudia sat close to her father, and when Sean told them how Tukutela had crossed into Mozambique, she slipped her arm around his shoulders in a gesture of comfort.
"All right." Sean stood up. "There is one of my hunting tracks that cuts through about five miles south of here. Matatu and I will go back to fetch the truck, and Job will lead you to the track. I'll meet you there. Should take us four or five hours."
By the light of the stars alone, Matatu led Sean for four hours through forest and dense bush, bringing him at last unerringly to where the truck was parked.
It was another hour's drive to the rendezvous, where they found Claudia, Riccardo, and the others sitting beside a fire on the verge of the rough track. They climbed wearily into the truck, and Sean turned back and headed towards camp. It was four in the morning, over twenty-four hours since they had set out on the hunt with such high hopes.
They drove in silence for a while, Claudia asleep on her father's shoulder. Then Riccardo asked thoughtfully, "Do you know where Tukutela, has gone?"
"Beyond our reach, Capo," Sean told him grimly.
"Seriously." Riccardo was impatient. "Is there one of his regular haunts where he will be headed?"
"That's rough country in there," Sean murmured. "Chaos and confusion. Villages burned and deserted, two armies fighting each other, with Mugabe's lads joining in."
"Where has that elephant gone?" Riccardo insisted. "He must have an established range."
Sean nodded. "We have worked it out, Job, Matatu, and I. We reckon he holes up from July to September in the swamps below the Cabora Bossa dam. Then in late September or the beginning of October, he crosses the Zambezi and heads north into Malawi, into the dense rain forest around Mlanje. He hides there until after the rains break and then comes south again, crosses the Zambezi near Tete and goes back into the Chiwewe National Park again."
"So he'll be heading for the swamps now?" Riccardo asked.
"More than likely." Sean nodded. "We'll get another crack at him next season, Capo."
At dawn they reached camp, where there were steaming hot showers and freshly ironed clothes ready for them, and a huge breakfast spread in the dining tent. Sean loaded crispy bacon and fried eggs onto their plates.
"When we have finished breakfast, we'll catch up on some of the sleep we missed last night, sack out until lunchtime."
"Suits me," Claudia agreed readily.
"Then we'll have a conference. We must work out our plans for the rest of the safari. We still have almost three weeks. We can try for another bull elephant. I can't offer you anything like Tukutela, but we might be able to find a sixty-pounder for you, Capo."
"I don't want a sixty-pounder," Riccardo said. "I want Tukutela."
"Don't we all, but let's drop it now." Sean's irritation was undisguised. "We can't do anything about it. Let's just drop the subject."
"What if we crossed the border and followed him into the swamps?" Riccardo did not look up from his eggs and bacon, and Sean studied his face before he laughed mirthlessly.
"For a moment you had me worried. I thought you meant it.
We'll get Tukutela next season."
"There isn't going to be another season," Riccardo told him.
You know damn well Geoffrey Manguza is going to pull your license and take Chiwewe away from you."