By Steven Davis
We were tracking a wounded gemsbok. Found the initial track. Good blood, good spoor. The blood has a way of seeping into that African red sand and drying … sometimes too quickly. We followed it for a bit but had to retrace back and forth. The spoor joined the tracks of a larger moving herd of gemsbok. Damn.
We got on-line and did sweeps. The old classic infantry style. About 35-50 meters apart, all moving slowly, probably an overall 100 meter spread. Head moving between the ground for spoor, in front for threats, side to side to check on the team members to the left and right, and behind to make sure nothing was hunting us.
One tracker on the left, me second left, the other tracker middle, PH second to right, and my buddy off far to the right. The PH with his .375 would protect the right and he wanted me to protect the left with my .300 Win Mag. Definitely sufficient for most things in Africa but I’m not bringing anything less than a .375 H&H on the next trip.
We were pushing forward in a beautiful late day, early evening. Red and gray sky, feeling and hearing the wild around us. While I was no experienced tracker yet, I was learning the tracks and signs. You pick up on a lot when you let natural instincts kick in and listen to what the wild is telling you.
We got to the point where the terrain forced us to break up a bit. The tracker and I on the left naturally pushed a bit out on the left flank. Slowly moving forward, we became a bit more isolated from the rest of the group. Soon, we were getting close to tall grass. To be honest, I didn’t think anything of it. My mind just took it in with the rest of the scenery. Did I think there was something in there? Honestly, no.
Suddenly I heard rustling in the tall grass to the front left. I was about 15 yards away, walking closer. My mind registered the noise as the sound of an animal rising from a bedded position. Finally. We had found the poor wounded gemsbok. I readied my rifle to take the shot from about 10 yards or so. I had taken the scope off at the beginning of the stalk just in case, so I was relying on the express sights I had on the rifle. But, that rustling just felt … big. Bigger than expected for a gemsbok. You spend enough time around animals and you start sensing size through noise.
All at once the animal came into view. Big, muscled, a mixture of dark and dusty black. The size of a car. I found myself face to face with a sizable male bull buffalo, now running towards me and closing the distance fast. Jesus they are big that close. Honestly, I had no overt reaction. I stood there like a boxer about to start a boxing match where there was no chance of victory. I didn’t retreat or run, and didn’t let off a freak stray defensive shot. A .300 Win Mag round would have to be perfectly placed to be of much use in that situation. The PH with his .375 was a good bit down the line, so it was pretty much just me and that buffalo. In the blink of an eye, almost a 50/50 chance … he decided to cut right just before he got to me. He thundered just next to and not directly on top of me. Was it a charge? I won’t pretend it was if it wasn’t. But he didn’t need to actually charge being that close; he just had to turn slightly back towards me and he would have run me over. I would have been like the poor SOB who accidentally walks in front of a bus and gets flattened.
I turned and looked behind me and saw him still galloping off in the other direction. He was about 20 meters away when my heart jumped up into my throat for a couple seconds. That’s when the gravity of the situation kicked in and my brain caught up with my natural instincts. It was exciting and somewhat … awakening? … all at the same time. I just laughed a bit and smiled. Are you supposed to do that? Who knows? Either way, I kept on walking forward. Though, I did grip my rifle a bit more deliberately, as it was possible he’d come back, and if he did, I decided I’d rather fire off a round than take a second chance at playing chicken with a buffalo.
We didn’t run into him again.
Once we got to the end of the sweep, the PH came over, cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, chuckling.
“You ran into that buffalo, ay?”
“Yes I did. Did you see him?”
“Yeah, we saw him running away out in front. Don’t worry though, we would have seen you too. You would have been flying 30 feet up in the air. Couldn’t have missed ya.”
We all laughed. I had the biggest grin plastered on my face the rest of the day. Not the first time I’ve been accidentally close to death, and hopefully not the last.
