Page 69 - WTP Vol. XIII #3

stretch of tawny back, holding the horns in both hands, his face stretched in a grin. The bull’s black eyes no longer mirror their surroundings—they have matted over, tacky and staring. The air smells of musk and iron.
This would be a good time to say I’m not really a hunter. That’s not why I came to a South African hunting reserve. I came because we had planned it last year. We are not a thing anymore. But I like to stick with a plan. And I had already paid for the non- refundable ticket from Dallas to Johannesburg and the reservations here.
And maybe I was curious about what the modern hunt is like. If it’s anything like Hemingway wrote about—the lion and buffalo coming out of the bush snorting and foaming to run down the hunters. The drama and bubbling blood and deep fears about cow- ardice and hopes of bravery—as though facing down a lion has anything at all to do with real bravery. And I feel like the modern world offers very few practi- cal applications for facing down actual lions. Only of course men still think it does.
This is my second day going out in the Land Cruiser with Jabu and Andreis, who humor me in my desire to see the animals, but not kill them. Even though they clearly think it a pointless endeavor. Who would fly more than thirty-six hours to Johannesburg, then cram themselves in an old Land Cruiser for the four- hour drive north to Vaalwater in the Waterburg, just to look at the animals—while they are still alive?
I can’t help but stare at the dead kudu as Jabu works the Land Cruiser carefully back out of the woods. Terry sits with his foot on its shoulder, holding one of the almost four-feet long horns so it doesn’t jostle around and stab someone. Up close the fur is dense and mealy looking—crawling with small ticks.
When we crest the ridge out of the woods Andreis stiffens for a moment, standing up in the back of the Land Cruiser and leaning over the front bar. He taps on the top of the cab. “Jabu—what is that? Waterbuck?”
Jabu stops and peers out the open window. “The big one, I think.”
I can’t even see what they are talking about, until in the distance something the color of the long pale gold grass separates itself—the thick horns becoming distinct from the profile of a shrubby tree I need to ask the name of.
“We need to leave him another year,” Andreis says.
“He’ll be good for the herd.”
I don’t say, but think how similar that biological drive also is in humans. The tall ones with the white teeth and good hair and thick muscles—instinctively seen as good breeding stock, whether it is true or not. Because animals don’t have to account for things like does this particularly good-looking specimen actually have the personality of a dung beetle?
And perhaps more dangerous still are the ones that are maybe not the most spectacular physical speci- mens, but are charming. Charismatic. Quick-silver tongues in social situations. Those are the ones I fall for. Worse, those are sometimes the ones that fall for me. Especially the last-born men, usually the same men that have been told by mothers and sisters to “just find a nice girl.” Those with the “baby” gene that seems to be amplified in males, and the tendency to allow others to do the heavy lifting because it’s been done for them so often. I am a first born. My back will do all the heavy lifting, and did, for two and three years respectively. This, of course, mostly works out for the other person. That will burn you after a while, and even I am not that stubborn.
They’ve all been better off afterwards—revenge moti- vation a real thing. Which is more than I can say for myself. The electrician who couldn’t live without me is now making millions of dollars a year. Employing ten people. The yard is kept short and neat. He built the fucking sidewalk he said he’d build the two years we lived there together. He filled in the ravine.
After, my mom reminded me that we tend to choose partners who reflect what we think we deserve. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that.
~
The Toyota jolts me as the engine growls and it creeps forward, bumping over the grassy hillocks and rocks. Jabu’s long arm sticks out the driver’s window. “Zebra.”
It takes my eyes a few seconds to find them. I’d al- ways thought the black-and-white stripes counter- intuitive—so different from the tawny coats and soft white spots of the fawns that blend so perfectly into the sun-dappled foliage I’ve almost run right by them on the trails. But now I see the zebras flitting away, and they are almost impossible to distinguish from the slants of sun and shadow in the trees and the dusky beige base of the dry grasses. Their brays and short, high-pitched barks ricochet into the rustling mid-day sun.
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