They spent the following day hastily assembling the personnel and equipment for their flying column. They picked out a string of six ponies, and three pack mules. Then, with the high spirits of schoolboys escaping the surveillance of their headmaster, they rode northwards.
In the late afternoon of the third day they were following the course of a small unnamed river when there was a shout from the Masai trackers, who were a hundred yards ahead. They gesticulated and pointed at a swift feline shape that had broken out of a patch of scrub and was darting away across the open floodplain, heading for the cover of the thicker forest beyond.
‘What is it?’ Kermit rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his hat.
‘Leopard,’ Leon told him. ‘A big tom.’
‘It has no spots,’ Kermit protested.
‘You can’t see them at this distance.’
‘Can I ride him down?’
‘Gunfire won’t disturb any lions that hear it,’ Leon assured him, ‘not like elephant. They have the curiosity of cats. A few shots might even attract them.’ Kermit needed to hear no more. He let out a wild cowboy yell and, with his hat, urged his mount into a mad gallop, at the same time drawing Big Medicine from her boot under his right knee and brandishing it over his head.
‘Here we go again, folks.’ Leon laughed. ‘Another stealthy, carefully planned stalk with Sir Quick Bullet.’ He kicked his own horse into a gallop, and raced in pursuit. The leopard heard the commotion, stopped and sat on his haunches, gazing back in astonishment. Then he realized how precarious his situation was, whipped around and raced away, stretching out with each bound, long, sleek and graceful.
‘Yee-ha! Up and at him!’ Kermit howled, and even Leon was infected by the excitement of the headlong charge.
‘View halloo! Gone away!’ He gave the old fox-hunting cry and lay flat along his pony’s neck, pushing him hard, both hands on the reins. The rush of the wind in his face was intoxicating. Abandoning all restraint they raced each other across the plain.
The nose of Leon’s pony was creeping up to the level of Kermit’s boot. He looked back under his own armpit, saw Leon gaining, slapped his hat against his mount’s neck and banged his heels into its flanks. ‘Let’s move!’ he urged it. ‘Come on, baby. Get the lead out!’ At that moment his horse stepped in a suricate hole. Its right fore snapped, with a sound like a whiplash, and it went down as though it had been shot through the brain. Kermit was thrown high and clear. He hit the ground with his shoulder and the side of his face. His rifle flew from his hand and he rolled like a ball under the pounding hoofs of Leon’s horse. Leon pulled the mare’s head around and they just managed to avoid stepping on Kermit. She responded to the pressure of reins, bit and spur, tossing her head violently. They rode back to the downed rider. Kermit’s horse was struggling to rise but its foreleg was fractured clean through just above the fetlock joint, the hoof dangling loosely. Kermit was lying still, stretched out on the hard earth.
He’s killed himself. God! What am I going to tell the President? Leon agonized, as he kicked his feet out of the stirrups. He threw his right leg over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. He ran to Kermit, but by the time he reached him his friend was sitting up groggily. The skin had been scoured from the left side of his face, his eyebrow was torn half off, and hung over his eye in a loose flap, and the eye itself was bunged up with dust.
‘Mistake!’ he mumbled, and spat out a mouthful of blood and mud. ‘That was a big mistake!’
Leon laughed with relief. ‘You trying to tell me it wasn’t deliberate? I thought you did it just to impress me.’
Kermit ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘No teeth missing,’ he announced, speaking as though his palate was cleft.
‘Luckily you fell on your head or you might have damaged yourself.’ Leon knelt beside him, took his head between both hands and turned it from side to side, examining the eye. ‘Try not to blink like that, or grit will scratch the eyeball.’
‘Easily enough said. How about “try not to breathe” as your next stupid instruction?’
Ishmael galloped up on his mule and handed Leon a waterbag.
‘Hold his eye open, Ishmael,’ Leon ordered, then poured water into it, sluicing out most of the mud. Then he handed the bag to Kermit. ‘Rinse your mouth and wash your face.’ The two Masai were squatting close at hand where they could have a good view of the proceedings, which they were discussing with relish. ‘Will you two hyenas stop gloating, and set up the pup tent, then lay out Popoo Hima’s blanket roll. I want to get him out of the sun.’
While they helped Kermit into the little tent, Leon drew the big Holland from its boot on his saddle and shot the maimed horse. He made it seem cold and clinical, but his empathy with horses was intense, and even though it was a mercy killing, it tore at his conscience.
