By Thomas Signoretti
Our names aren’t important. Our gear, the baggage we bear, our place of origin—irrelevant. Right now, the taste of the air, sheer vertices, the cracks in our skin and the audible shackle of our hands as we shake the chill in an attempt to remain unseen. We’re strangers to these mountains, silently dancing among our newfound element: Patient.
I don’t understand Celsius—never have. Carry the one, subtract 30? Still unsure. South Africans don’t speak Fahrenheit, so I’m lost in translation, singing hot air into my palms, adrift in the back seat of Rad’s Landcruiser as we navigate the sea of tall grass at 5,000 feet.
Kevin sits ready in the front seat, one in the chamber, with the muzzle resting on the rolled down window. The trails drive—but not without their obstacles. Every so often, we’ll jump a boulder and Kevin’s handguard digs itself into Rad’s passenger side door, chipping the paint a little more each time. Rad stares holes into Kevin’s head as Kevin sarcastically blames it on Rad’s driving. The crisp breeze climbs up through the open window into the backseat and callously eats away at my eyes. My vigilance cuts the ice, and I keep my undivided focus on the horizon.
The truck squeals to a halt. I reach for the door as Rad gingerly refers to his worn-out brakes as “Fucking Cunts.” I don’t speak Zulu, but I think it means, “How embarrassing.” Turns out, South Africans fix their brakes by violently kicking the pedal through the floor and into the engine block. This time it didn’t seem to work.
Before I could open my door, Kevin is outside tightening his sling. I slide out of the truck and my boots sink two inches into the mud. It’s been raining in the Winterberg Mountains for the first time in 10 years, so the cliffs bleed red with clay. I can’t feel my toes, so maybe the thick glue-like mud will provide some insulation on our journey forward.
Behind us, I see mountains; to the left and right—mountains. But what lay ahead is naked sky. I find this interesting. No one speaks—Rad zips up his coveralls, grabs his shooting sticks and starts walking as Kevin folds his Fix. I hit record and follow suit. Low, slow, and single file. The mud cakes to our soles, but we mentally shake the weight. Floating past the tall yellow grass, we move skyward. We reach what seems to be the horizon, and for a moment only the hunters are in my viewfinder. Skylined. The harsh light saturates my lens and silhouettes them and for a moment, mere apparitions. A few more feet and I see Kevin’s posture shift and vibrate. I inch closer to peer over his shoulder, and my entire world broadens. We stumble onto what seems to be the edge of the earth.
Suddenly, we are cliffside overlooking complete majesty. The valleys and plains of what appears to be the entirety of Africa lie before us: panoramic and peripheral. The setting sun vividly illuminates every nook and bevel of untouched earth. Pinks and blues shut out the greens. A gold mirage hovers above, bringing forth the cyan mountains from impossibly far out in the distance. Shadows dance in the absence of light. The fringe shutters and speaks in contrast. The vastness breathes as I do. Suddenly, I forget the cold, the weight of my boots, the cracks in my lip. I forget the past, the before and find myself steady; completely enchanted by the beauty before me. Kevin’s face looks no different than mine. He too has fallen prisoner to blissful vertigo. I forget that I am on the clock, and quickly snap out of it.
Kevin and Rad perch upon the cliff-like gargoyles, still and unwavering stone creatures searching for eternity across the canopy. Their binoculars sewn tightly to their eyes as if extensions of their body. Rad knows these lands, he’s studied the habits of the trees and the
animals that hide beneath them. As he glasses the hillside, he looks for nature to repeat itself, to show itself, to become another target of circumstance. Kevin keeps to Rad’s shadow; he knows if Rad finds what he’s looking for he has but a moment to react.
The gold aura settles into a blue haze as the clouds roll in and cast over the plains. The dark lifts from the ground as the sun skips stones across the peaks of the mountains. Twilight. Suddenly, Rad taps Kevins shoulder and points to the valley below. Fallow deer are grazing in a clearing between some trees. Within what seems to be a single second, Kevin is prone and adjusting his sights. At just over 500 yards, he listens to the wind, he feels every foot of elevation; watching his target. Slow. He anticipates every shift in the buck’s graze. Steady. Kevin gently pulls the trigger past its first stage. Silence. With a sharp inhale of the jagged breeze, he pulls the trigger. The crack of the muzzle bounces off the cliffs and out to oblivion. Direct hit. The fallow stumbles and falls right where he stood. And as the deer shakes the last bit of life from his bones, Kevin exhales with humble pride.
At last light, we haven’t the time to kiss each other and hold hands; our goal now is recovery. On any hunt, this is not an ideal time of day to have an animal down so far away. From where we are standing on the cliff, we have to take the trails back down and around the mountain to get to him. So, Kevin clears his weapon, Rad mentally maps out our next move and we are back in the truck.
In the mountains, the trails coil like snakes and dive like loons. They are steep and unguarded. From the window of the truck my point of view is simply vertical. Most days, it’s easy to forget about the sudden drop with Rad at the helm; he’s traveled these narrow roads for a lifetime and giving him your faith feels natural. But today the mountains are thick with moisture, the rain has left the earth soft and slick. Today, Rad is outside his range of comfort—and so are we.
Slowly, the truck moves down the trails. Sharp corners slide the truck sideways, the mud fills the treads of the tires turning them to sleds. One wrong move, and we are taking a much faster route down. With a focus like broken glass, Rad pushes forward.
Half way down, the pucker is almost too much to handle. I am anticipating the truck flipping. Kevin looks back at me and without speaking says: “We should get out of the truck.” I don’t think he wanted to be the one to say it aloud, so I said it for him.
“Rad, stop the truck … I’m going to ride on the back, just in case I have to jump off.” Without hesitation, Kevin follows suit. Usually, Rad would say something sarcastic and emasculating, but this time, he simply stopped the truck. He knew that this situation wasn’t fully in his control.
Kevin and I stand side by side on the rear bumper of the truck holding tightly to the truck rack with one hand each. My free hand clutches my camera, and his free hand grips a freshly opened beer. Our boots dig deep into the bumper and we agree that this is not how we die. It may be how Rad dies, but not us. For a while, we make light of our situation, Kevin giggles as he drinks his beer. But then, on a narrow straight away across the cliff face the trail cants downward. The truck is moving steadily, but the mud is too slick, the truck starts to slide toward the edge. I look for the softest landing before I jump. It’s all acacia, but it’s better than the rocks 75 feet down. Rad has no choice but to accelerate through the section of shifting earth.
Knuckles white, the earth breathes as I do; uncertain. Suddenly, I forget the cold, the weight of my boots, the cracks in my lip. I forget the past, the before and find myself uneasy. Days before, I watched Kevin stare down a Cape buffalo at nine yards; he didn’t flinch. At this moment, I see fear in his eyes for the first time.
Miraculously, Rad powers through the tilted road and we come out unscathed on the other side. Rad hops out and says, “That’s about as much slip and slide as I could handle!” It’s dark, we find our fallow 100 yards off of the road, and he’s absolutely beautiful. Even in the lowest of light, Kevin admires the palms for a solid five minutes, soaking in every moment of his exceptional hunt. He thanks the deer for its sacrifice and loads it onto the stretcher.
Back at the truck, Rad jumps from the bed with his special ‘end of day’ hardcase. Inside are glasses and various forms of whiskey. He kindly asks everyone if they want ice, and fixes us all an ice-cold bourbon. For the next hour, we laugh and joke about our hunt, reminiscing on the potent beauty that took our breath from us, the frost that soaked our skin, the exhilaration of a perfectly placed shot and almost sliding off of a cliff to our untimely demise. We call this a “Sundowner” and it’s what we all look forward to every morning when we set out on the next adventure.
Our names aren’t important. Our gear, the baggage we bear, our place of origin—irrelevant. Right now, the taste of the air, sheer vertices, the cracks in our skin and the audible shackle of our hands as we shake the chill in an attempt to remain unseen. Strangers to these mountains, silently dancing among our newfound element: Grateful.
