‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but all hell’s broken out. Kermit Roosevelt wants you to have the job as his hunter to replace Frank Mellow and has talked his father into allowing it. They didn’t consult me so I have no choice but to agree.’ He glared at Leon. ‘You aren’t yet dry behind the ears. You haven’t dealt with lion, leopard or rhino yet, and I told the President so. But he’s sick and didn’t want to listen. Kermit Roosevelt is a wild and reckless young rascal, just like you. If you get him hurt, you and I are finished. I’ll never have another client, and I’ll strangle you slowly with my bare hands. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir, I understand very well.’
‘All right, go ahead. I can’t stop you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Leon began to leave, but Percy stopped him.
‘Leon!’
He turned back in surprise. Percy had never before called him by his first name. Then, with even greater surprise, he saw that Percy was smiling. ‘This is your big chance. You’ll never have another like it. If you’re lucky and clever, you’ll be on your way to the top. Good luck.’
The next day Leon and Kermit rode out at large, not seeking any particular quarry animal but ready to take on whatever the day brought forward. ‘If we found a lion, a big black-maned old male, that would be my dream come true. Not even my father has taken one of those.’
‘You may have to wait until we leave Masailand,’ Leon told him. ‘This country’s extremely unhealthy for big black-maned lions.’
‘How’s that?’ Kermit looked intrigued.
‘Every young
‘I reckon I’d take the girl before the fur bonnet.’ Kermit laughed. ‘But you have to admire that kind of courage. They’re a magnificent people. Look at your man, Manyoro. He moves with all the grace of a panther.’
Manyoro was trotting ahead of the horses but at that moment he pulled up and leaned on his spear, waiting for the horsemen to come up. He pointed across the open plain ahead at the huge dark shape that stood on the edge of a clump of bush. It was almost a mile away, its outline insubstantial through the shimmer of heat haze.
‘Rhino. From here it looks like a big bull.’ Leon fished out of his saddle bags the pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars that Percy had given him in recognition of his promotion from apprentice to fully fledged hunter. He focused the lenses and studied the distant shape. ‘It’s a rhino, all right, and the biggest one I’ve ever seen. That horn is unbelievable!’
‘Bigger than the one my father shot five days ago?’
‘I’d say much, much bigger.’
‘I want it,’ said Kermit, vehemently.
‘So do I,’ Leon agreed. ‘We’ll circle out under the wind and stalk him from those bushes. We should be able to get a clean shot for you from thirty or forty yards.’
‘You sound just like Frank Mellow. You want me crawling around on my hands and knees, or wriggling along on my belly like a rattlesnake. I’ve had enough of that.’ Kermit was already trembling with excitement at the prospect of the hunt. ‘I’m going to show you how the old frontiersmen used to hunt bison back out west. Follow me, pardner.’ With that, he clapped his heels into the flanks of his mare and bounded away across the plain, galloping straight at the distant animal.
‘Kermit, wait!’ Leon shouted after him. ‘Don’t be a fool.’ But Kermit did not glance back. He drew Big Medicine from the rifle boot under his knee and brandished it on high.
‘Percy’s right. You’re a wild and reckless rascal,’ Leon lamented, as he urged his own horse in pursuit.
The rhino heard them coming but his eyesight was so weak that he could not place them immediately. He switched his whole massive body from side to side, kicking up dust and snorting ferociously, peering about with myopic piggy eyes.
‘Yee-ha!’ Kermit let out a cowboy yell.
Guided by the sound, the rhino focused on the shape of horse and rider and instantly burst into a charge, coming directly at them. Kermit stood high in the stirrups, raised his rifle and fired from the back of the galloping horse. His first bullet flew high over the rhino’s back and kicked up dust from the plain two hundred yards behind it. He reloaded with a quick pump of the lever and fired again. Leon heard the meaty thump of the bullet slapping into the beast’s body but could not see where it had hit. The rhino did not even flinch from the shot but tore in to meet the horse.
