It is hot. A kind of hot I thought I knew. But I didn't. It was the kind of heat that saps the strength from your body. It's about 40 minutes to sunset and the heat is like wool muffling your whole body. I'm sitting in a makeshift hide along a waterhole, the hide is woven from thornbushes and dry reeds. It provides some shade, and I am thankful for any of it.
The last water bottle was gone long ago and I am looking down at this muddy waterhole like it is a '97 Perrier-Jouet in a chilled champagne flute. There is no sound but the tiny gasps of sweat hitting the sand at my feet and insects whining and buzzing around me. It has been silent like this for a good 20 minutes since the leopard cleared his throat somewhere behind me in the bush.
And then a sound so quiet that it instantly has me doubting I really heard it...and another, just maybe a bit louder. I am now hyper alert. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Not a sound, not bit of change in the scenery. And then I see it, a small jet black object that was not in the brush to my right just a moment ago. It's a large, wet eyeball. My eyes sharpen their focus and now I can pick out alternating black and white marks on that amazing face, but I cannot see the sweep of the twin javelin horns.
And just like that, the animal takes a single step forward and I see her completely. A young female gemsbok, the oryx of legend. Twin, slender, 26" horns adorn her beautiful head. I don't move, I concentrate on the feel of the arrow nocked on the string, the feel of the grip in my left hand. She moves forward fluidly, followed by another eight or ten cows from this herd. The last out of the bush is the herd matriarch, the one the guides told you about. You know her immediately from the scars on her withers where she fought free of the young male lion years back.
She pauses behind the others as they drink. She is not easily fooled as her head slowly turns back and forth scanning the thin brush around the waterhole. It is almost as if she is flaunting those long, narrow horns of hers, the lovely pale tips at the very ends almost 38 inches from the bases. The bulls that seek her out have much thicker bases, much more mass to the horns, but they are often shorter from being worn down. At last, she decides it is time to get her share of the dwindling resource this waterhole offers. She walks right in front of the hide, pauses a moment before her head drops to drink. She is quartered slightly away from me and for a moment I almost lift the bow arm, but something holds me.
Her head snaps back up to alert a half inch before her lovely muzzle touchs the water. I realize I have been holding my breath for longer than I would have thought humanly possible, but I can't exhale now. The rest of the herd raise their heads as their thirst is quenched and the matriarch takes this as her opportunity to drink. I exhale very slowly as her head slowly lowers to the water. Her muzzle touches the water and concentric rings ripple from the contact. Her throat pumps once, twice, and I slowly raise the bow and inhale. My lungs are full as I hit full draw and the point of aim settles behind her near shoulder. Softly the air seeps from my lungs and the string has slipped off my fingertips, almost of it's own accord....
