Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 3 2 "Would you kill an elephant for us, Gordon?" H ALF A WORLD AWAY, I was laying out clothes for an extended stay in Africa when the email came. Gordon and I had made plans a year earlier for me to spend an entire hunting season with him, to travel from South Africa to Zimbabwe and back to South Africa before finishing out the season in Mozambique. I'd get to hunt along the way, and hopefully, with the extended time, I would have enough material to build a book chronicling a season in the life of a PH. The text of the email was simple: "Want to try for an elephant again while you're here?" "Whatcha got?" "We've got reports of another bad one in the same area that we hunted the last year. Don't know for sure that it's the same one, but it might be. "Lets give it a try." "Bring your .416 and this one's yours. I've got a couple of clients coming in—a Frenchman and one of the guys you met in Vegas. They'll hunt first, and they've both invited you to do a ride-along with them if you want to. Then you're up." "Deal." In a few days I was on my way, following my own well-worn tracks from home to the Atlanta airport where I jumped a Delta flight to Johannesburg and overnighted there before catching a South African Air flight to Victoria Falls. As expected, Gordon was waiting there, and as soon as we had the obligatory beer at Stanley's Bar, we headed for his elephant camp on the banks of the Zambezi. A couple of weeks later the two clients had gone, both having killed without incident other than a momentary fright when one big bull's askari circled our little group and slipped in from the side. It was clear that he briefly considered the idea of a surprise flank attack, but the Tribal Council. He knew that it was a formality, but it was a necessary one. The Council would agree with whatever he recommended, but he needed to be mindful of the politics. He hated to do it. No one knew how he hated it, but he was old and he had lived here for a long time. Since before the flood of settlers. Since before the battle over precious resources brought the people and the elephants into constant conflict. In those days, seldom did an elephant kill. He often wondered if things weren't better then than now, but this was now and that couldn't be changed and the stake was no less than the lives of the children. And the lives of their parents. And it must be done. Two days after the Council meeting Ezekiel sent for Gordon Stark. Gordon was a PH, the head of Nhoro Safaris, and an experienced hunter who knew elephants and how to hunt them. Gordon also knew the area intimately, having hunted it for years, and had clients who could legally kill elephants on non-trophy permits. They brought big guns that could deal with the animals, unlike the ineffectual AKs used by the poachers and even some of the game people. Over the years Gordon and his clients had killed many elephants and Ezekiel knew that he could be relied upon to solve the problem. T he author killed the dangerous young rogue during an exciting nighttime encounter when the bull returned to feed in the natives' maize field.