I wrote this short story when I was in my mid-twenties for a creative writing course at Harvard.  I thought I had lost it, but when cleaning out my office I found an old disk drive with the file still on it that I nearly threw away before checking to see what was on it on a whim.  Here it is, twenty years later.

Sunset

           

I.

            I’ve always loved the sunsets in Africa.  It is my favorite part of the day, after the porters have pitched camp, and Henny whistles to one to set up a folding table with a starched white tablecloth several yards away from the campfire, preferably in the shade of an acacia, and I sit with Brock the guide and Henny the head gun bearer and we sip Cape Smoke whiskey out of tin cups with no ice and smoke cheap cigars Brock found somehwere in Jo’burg and formulate our next plan of action, which usually entails Henny and Brock arguing about whether to go into the hills or into the valley or which spoor to chase or what caliber rifle to use. 

            I’ve been hunting with Henny for twenty years, since I was a pretentious thirty five years old and already heading my first oil company in Beaumont.  He was equally precocious at eighteen, with the feather headband of the Matabele nobleman around his proud head, and his chest puffed-up with bravado and greased arms bulging with veins.  “I will take you to buffalo,” I remember him saying to me as I stepped off the ship at Capetown, my first step on African soil.  He said this to my surprise, as that was exactly what I’d come to do.  The Cape buffalo was the most dangerous of the Big Five to hunt, so of course I wanted to hunt that first.  “I am not afraid,” he said as he followed me through the wharf.  I remember people telling me the air smelled of spice.  That was romantic.  But I found the air smelled of dung -- and sewer, always sewer.  “All these other porters are like little girls with tight legs and yellow backs when it comes to the buffalo.  I will take you, no?”

            “You will take me, yes,” I said as I stopped and turned to him.  He smiled wide, his teeth white but edged with yellow tinge, betraying tobacco and strong coffee.  “Pick ten good men for porters, men who are also not afraid of buffalo.  We’ll get supplied and victualled at Johannesburg.  I’ll find a guide there, too.”  His looked down.  But he knew as well as I did that I needed a white guide to get the necessary concession papers from the government.  I got my white guide, and my concessions, and my buffalo. Guides came and went, but in the ensuing twenty years I always hunted with Henny from that time forward.

            Brock is as good a guide as I’ve had.  He has guided and outfitted us for the past four years.  He’s British, and therefore knows the utility and value of keeping a civilized camp:  a stocked bar, good linens, tins of truffles, goose paté, and a usually well-rounded humidor and extra wine wrapped in wet rags to keep them cool.   I take much, perhaps overindulgent pleasure in these delights, particularly now.

            The Cape Smoke is going down smoothly.  Our usual evening trio is joined this hunt by a special fourth, Louise, my youngest child and only daughter.  Her long curly brown hair is pulled back into a thick clump with a plastic clip.  Her face is tanned to a dark bronze by the fierce African sun, accentuating eyes the color of boiling honey--eyes that are wise beyond her twenty years.  She is wearing a crisp white cotton shirt tucked into khaki shorts and hiking boots.  I glance over at her as she rocks back casually in her chair, her long dark legs propped up on the table as she listens to the usual banter, an easy smile on her face.  She is beautiful.

            Henny retorts to something Brock said, “You’re a yapping hyena.  The wind comes from the west, so we must run from the rising sun tomorrow to keep our scent behind us.”

            “I realize that, you ignorant bushman,” says Brock with a half-smile, “but we can’t cross the Zambezi River.  Civil war going on over there.  Bloody nasty.  And besides, John’s concession is only for Botswana.”  Young Brock wears the guides’ uniform of khaki shirt and pants with an ammunition belt over his shoulder and a Colt .45 at his hip.  Henny wears nothing but a leather thong of buffalo hide and a feather headband signifying that he is of the tribe of Lobengula. 

            Henny looks to me for help.  “We cross the great river, Babu?” he asks in pleading.  He knows that traveling with the wind cuts our odds dramatically for seeing game.  I reluctantly shake my head.  I would like nothing more than to cross the Zambezi and to hell with the civil war.  But I can’t be careless with the lives of our porters, or my daughter. He rolls his eyes and throws up his hands in exasperation.

            “I’m sorry, Henny.  We can risk casting our scent, but not the war.”  I was soothing.  “But maybe the winds will change.  Maybe we’ll see a springbok for Louise to shoot.”

            “Springbok, merde!”  Henny says in scorn.  He takes a long draw from his cheroot, then lets the smoke drift out of this mouth as he speaks.  “I came to hunt elephant.  Maybe I send for my grandmother and she find springbok for you.”

            Brock laughs, “She’d probably pitch camp faster than you could.”  Brock pours himself another dram of whiskey.  “We’ll break camp at an hour before sunrise, and head east by northeast.  You hear that, Henny, east, so take a bearing on your compass.”

            “I don’t need white man’s petty machines to know what direction I am going, Mr. Brock.  I am Matabele,” he says simply.

            Brock absently slaps at a fly on his neck.  “Well I suppose your Matabelein witchcraft can run those Land Rovers over there without petrol.  But just the same, I’d appreciate it if your men fuel them up from the auxiliary tanks, if you please, just to be safe.”

            “Merde!”  Henny smirks and then mumbles something that I’m sure is vulgar in Dutch.  He stamps out his cheroot on the heel of his bare foot and walks back to the campfire to give the instructions for tomorrow’s march to the porters.  Brock and Louise haggle over the menu for the next few days:  osterich eggs and boar ham for breakfast, jerky and bread for lunch, antelope backstrap tomorrow night, etc., and finally Brock stands up and bids us good evening.

            When he is out of earshot, Louise strides over to where I’m planted in a folding chair, watching the sunset. She gives me a sideways glance.  I stop her with my hand.  “I’m feeling fine.  Please, out here can we let it go.”

            “I’d be happy to let it go if I knew how you were actually feeling.”

            I put on my best smile.  “Like a million bucks in Krugerants.”  I thump my chest.  “Good as gold.”

            “Please, don’t joke.” 

            “I’m fine, really, please don’t worry yourself.”  It has been ten years since I’ve had a woman to fuss over me.  I miss it.  I think of her mother and have that instantaneous pang I get every time I think of Laura.  Lord, has it been ten years since she’s been gone?  Louise was nine when we buried her.  In many ways Louise was my rock that got me through it, moreso than my sons. 

            “I can tell you’re in pain, and don’t bother denying it,” she says indignantly while swishing a fly from her cheek.  “But don’t expect any pity from me, especially since you’re running around in the bush chasing a poor old crippled elephant when you should be in a hospital getting treatment.”

            We sit in silence for awhile.  The sun is down, and I can only make out the outline of her face against the endless horizon.  I finally break the silence, lamely: “He’s not crippled. A chipped tusk.  Look, I don’t picture myself lying around watching soap operas in a hospital bed.”  I am growing tired of arguing with everyone about how I should spend my last days on earth.  Louise reaches into her shirt pocket and pulls out a pack of Marlboro Lights and crushes out a cigarette.  I am shocked by this, but I don’t know why.  Certainly she’s old enough to make her own decisions.  I change the subject, letting the cigarette go.  “Hey, you ready to hunt tomorrow?”

            “I don’t want to shoot a springbok or anything else.”

            I act hurt.  “But honey, you’re on a hunting safari.  Don’t you want to shoot anything?”

            “Hell no!” she cries.  “Barbaric.  I just wanted to be with you. Enjoy your company.”  One last time, she stops herself from saying as she puffs away. Then she tries on her little girl voice.  “Do you really have to shoot an elephant, daddy?  I mean, they’re so majestic and wonderful, I really don’t see how you can live with yourself.”

            I pour myself another dram of Cape whiskey from the decanter.  I look out into the bush and say quietly, “Honey, the elephant is the last of the Big Five for me.  This old bull’s given us hell that last couple of seasons.  He’s almost impossible to track.”

            “Really?  Let him be.  This business of hunting elephants gives me a sick feeling.  It’s not right.”

            A twinge of anger burns up my throat, but it cools almost immediately.  She’s my daughter.  “Sweatheart, let me tell you something.  It is right, it truly is.  The Botswanan government has a good wildlife preservation program.  Due to overpopulation, they cull over a hundred elephant a year.  They do it with machine guns.   They carve them up to feed the poor.  I know it sounds ghastly but if they didn’t do it, those elephant would die the slow death of starvation and rot in the bush.  But the most important part of this program is to allow hunters to come in and buy concessions in limited numbers, at the tune of fifteen thousand dollars per elephant, and they use that money to fund their preservation efforts for endangered species.  So you see, it is the right thing to do.  And trust me, the elephant I’m after would be a fair hunt, and he’s old as Moses -- provided I can find him.”

            Louise sits there in stubborn silence for several minutes.  She is so much like me at times it makes my heart swell with pride.  Yet she reminds me in many ways of Laura when she was young:  such an idealist, so headstrong.  Laura would be proud to see her daughter now, so pretty and smart like she was.

            With a sigh she says, “I don’t like it, daddy.  I wish you’d just leave him alone.”

            “Let it go, Louise.”   I grasp at my fatherly authority like a lifeline when I need it.  I can feel the heat of those brown eyes with specs of yellow regarding me through the darkness with ire.

            We sit in the dark for another twenty minutes in silence staring at the thick clumps of stars, African stars, which like everything else here are overly sublime, and I am convinced by this remarkable spectacle that there is a heaven.  I start to wonder if Laura is up there gazing down and laughing at me acting like a fool chasing this old bull all over Botswana.  But soon the hyenas start into their ominous cries, giving the night an eerie quality that stays with me through my nightmares.

II.

            I wake at three in the morning in high pain -- not the constant and droning ache that is becoming so much a part of my life that I hardly notice it, but the hot needles that stab at my insides and rack my torso until, finally, when I think I can’t take it anymore and start to fumble for my medication (I try not to take it too much because it gives me a hangover and makes me itch that’s almost as bad as the pain), it crescendos, and draws thankfully back to its normal permanent level.

            Since further sleep is out of the question, I wipe the marbles of sweat from my forehead with a damp kerchief and step out to rekindle the cooking fire and brew some coffee.  To my relief I find Henny already involved in that endeavor and he pours a thick black stream into my tin cup.  “I see you, Babu.”

            “I see you too, Henny.”  The roasted aroma of the coffee mixes with that dewy-honey odor of the mornings peculiar to the bush, giving the cool air a sweet musky smell, like a wet puppy or the sweat of a child, and it lifts my spirits:  for I am here, I am alive, and I am on a hunt that gives me purpose, a goal; and as long as I have one I care about I know I can’t die.

            We sip our java in silence and let the steaming liquid slowly carry the icy clouds from our heads.  Henny speaks first, in the French, “Es-tu malade?  You look old for your years, Babu.  You must sleep more.”  Henny is unaware of my sickness, but he’s not stupid and nothing gets by him.

            “You are so clever to observe that, Henny, when I take coffee with you at three-thirty.  I must recommend you to the dean at my alma mater at Harvard Business School.”  I don’t want them to know about my ‘maladie.’

            Henny puts a dark cheroot between his teeth and leans into the fire to light it.  He rocks back on his heels and smiles.  “Is this place you call Harvard a place for wise men?”

            “Either that or a place where people tell each other how wise they are.”

            “Then you must have passed many moons there, Babu, for you believe yourself to be very wise.”  It is his turn to be sardonic, and mine to switch to English.

            “How is your family, Henny?”

            “Trés bien, Monsieur.  My boys have grown up strong, have married women with fat cattle.  And how are your boys?  Are they selling the black gold like you?”

            “My oldest son John has risen fast through the company, on is own merit.  The younger boy, Mike, is running around Europe with nothing but a backpack and a train pass, apparently to find himself.  I only hear from him when he needs money.”

            “Europe, ha!”  Henny spits into the fire.  “Europe is not the place to find out your soul, unless you’re a dressmaker.  Bring him to Africa and leave him with me.  I will show him who he is.”  White teeth gleam at me over the firelight.  “What about your girl, Babu, is she to marry?”

            I laugh, “Not any time soon, Henny, at least not that I know of.  She graduates from college next fall.”

            Henny frowns at her failure to marry.  “And then what, Babu?”

            I consider this and realize I’ve been so busy administering my illness that I haven’t even asked her what her plans are.  “Who knows what a woman thinks?” I say vaguely, and Henny nods and seems to understand.

            The fire pops and sizzles, and we slip into silence for a long while.  Then I ask the inevitable,  “Have you heard any gossip about the great one with the chipped horn?”

            Henny puffs on his smoke for a moment, deliberately building suspense.  Entertainment holds a high value in the bush.  “Not in a long time, Babu,” he says finally, trying to dampen my high hopes.  “I fear he has died of old age, like you will if you don’t rest more.”

            “I don’t need a nurse-maid, Henny, just a gunbearer who knows where the great one is.  He’s not dead.”

            “If you say so, Babu.”

            I empty my cup and hold it out for more.   As he fills my cup I say, “Look, Henny, I need this kill.  I want this kill.  It’s very important to me.”

            He considers this for a moment while he doodles with a stick in the dirt.  “I’ll send my best scouts out today in different directions to scan the entire valley.  If the great one with the broken tooth has been within one hundred kilometers of this camp in the last two weeks, we will catch his spoor and we will track him…if he hasn’t crossed the river already.” He throws his stick into the fire.
            “I want this kill, Henny,” I repeat.

            He looks me straight in the eye and says evenly, “Every kill is important to me, Babu.  If your elephant is alive, I will find him.”

III.

            Louise and I are riding in the lead Rover of the caravan, sitting high in the seats bolted on the roof.  It is a wonderfully cool day, with a strong breeze.  Within an hour Brock taps on the roof and we see his hand pointing out the window to the north, and we spot a group of Impala making their elegant leaps and bounds through the brush and Grevy’s Zebra grazing on the sweet grass.  Louise shrieks with delight and snaps pictures while I pan the valley below with my Zeiss glasses.

            At noon we break for lunch.  The porters circle the Rovers and we lay down a blanket and picnic on the soft grass.  Henny slices a sweet onion and we eat it with jerky and tough French bread while Brock takes a bearing and consults his map. 

            “Brock, put down that map and make yourself really useful by opening a bottle of wine.”  Yes, I am very indulgent these days.  Why not?  “Fetch the ’81 bottle of Clariche Chardonnay, there’s a good fellow.”  I smile at Louise, “We’ll just pretend like it’s chilled.”

            “Oh but it is!”  Brock cries.  He is clearly proud of himself.  “I purchased a portable ice box at Berring’s that plugs into the cigarette lighter, on your account.  I hope you don’t mind.”

            Louise speaks through me, “Are you kidding?  Quit talking and pop it open.  I’m thirsty.”

            “What a lush.  Are you even old enough, my dear?”  I chide. 

            “No such laws in Botswana, daddy.  And besides, we’re celebrating.  My first safari.”  And so we do.  We polish off a bottle and enjoy the warm mellow feeling brought on by the wine and the afternoon breeze and the sun.  These two weeks have been the best I’ve ever spent with Louise.  I ask her what she wants to do after graduation.

            “Public relations.  You remember I interned at Timberland Sports last summer as a PR assistant.  I’m pretty sure I’ll get a job with them.” 

            “Why in the hell would you want to work for them?  Why don’t you work for Gulf Coast Energy?  God knows we need some talent in the PR department.”

            “Oh daddy, you don’t understand,” she says as she packs up the basket.

            So much I don’t understand, don’t know.  Is she still a virgin?  Has she ever been in love?  What makes her happy, makes her cry?  I ask these questions in my head like every father but, like other fathers, will never ask them and will never know.  I wonder who she confides in, not having a mother?  Surely she has friends.  I light up a Cohiba, and offer her a flame for her Marlboro.  She smiles at me and we sit and enjoy our smokes in the sunlight.

            I am stubbing out my cigar on a rock when a scout runs into the camp shouting something in Sinebebe.  Henny looks up from his whittling and walks over to meet him.

             He starts babbling again and Henny says, “In French, in French!  So Mr. John can hear.”

             “I crossed his spoor -- the great one with the broken tooth!”  He says with a wide smile.  He is panting lightly after running several miles.

            “Where?” asks Henny.

            “Towards the setting sun, four or five kilometers.  Over the hill.”  He points.

            “Are you sure it’s his spoor, and not another elephant’s?”  This question is mine and an unnecessary one.  These men are born hunters, and know the track each distinctive animal makes at a glance.  Henny shoots me a disapproving look.

            “Yes, Monsieur, I am certain.  I also found his dung.  Less than one day old.”

            Henny and I exchange glances.  This is it.  Brock steps up to the hood of a Rover and yells, “Safari!  Safari!  Let’s go you snail turds.  Safari!”  And in an instant everything is packed and the Land Rovers make their way west.

            Henny takes a piece of the dung heap and grinds it in his hand.  “Not fresh, Babu.  Twenty hours old, maybe more.  At least he is heading into the wind.”  He looks up at Brock who is panning the horizon with his field glasses. 

             “Yea, he’s probably in Kimberley by now drinking a martini at Diamond Lil’s.”

            “Or he could be meandering west only three miles from here,” I reply irritably.

            Brock brings down his field glasses and gives me a sideways glance.  “Or closer.  There’s no way of knowing without looking, but we need to go on foot from here.  It’s getting late,” he takes off his hat and wipes his forehead with a linen handkerchief, “but I suppose we can take a look.  Let’s break down our loads to marching weights, if you please.  Safari!”

            We hike for three miles before taking a break so that Brock can check the bearing on his Hammacher-Schlemmer compass.  Henny has been running ahead, marking the spoor and making sure the old bull hasn’t swung around in a cloverleaf pattern to catch the scent of followers. 

            Louise is tireless, running ahead and then running back to update me, forgetting her ideals momentarily in the excitement.  I try to remember if I was ever that young and full of energy.  We each carry a small backpack with bare provisions:  water, cornmeal, matches, and a pup tent in case we must pitch camp before we can get back to the Land Rovers.  I pride myself in keeping in shape but the sickness has taken its toll, and I can feel the fire burning in my chest and legs, the small pack becoming heavier with each step.

            Henny jogs back to meet us, his gait long and graceful as a gazelle.  He is smiling.  “Found another dung heap.  Two hours old!”

            Brock takes action.  “Okay.  Let’s load up the rifles.  Henny, get two of your best bearers and you and I and John will go ahead…”

            “You’re not going without me.”  Louise cuts him short.  Brock looks up and sees her expression and wisely decides not to argue.

            “Okay.  Walk slowly.  No sounds.  Crouch when you’re told and run when you’re told.  And for God’s sake, no heroes.”  This last bit of instruction is in Dutch to the two gunbearers.

            We break down our packs further and start our slow march in a semicircle formation.  We walk in this way for another two miles when we lose the spoor in rocky terrain.  We continue on straight and come upon the edge of a cliff, where fifty yards below the blue waters of the Zambezi River flow.  My heart drops.  We crawl on our stomachs to the edge and peer over, watching the swirling waters below.  He must have turned off.  I look to Henny for his opinion.   He shrugs.

            “He probably walked upstream to a place where he can cross.  I’m sorry, Babu, but he is gone.  We would never catch him before he swims across.  He won’t return until after the rainy season.  But he is tough, and we will get another shot next year.”

            I exchange a glance with Louise.

            “Bloody shame,” Brock adds either with sympathy, or with the thought that he lost his trophy bonus.

            Louise stares down at the river and then gazes up into the sky.  “You mean he swims across?” she asks to no one in particular.

            “No,” says Brock, “elephant walk across with their trunks out of the water to breath.  About two kilometers north is a gradual sandy grade into the river.  He probably uses that crossing.  He’ll be swept downstream about a kilometer before he reaches the other side.  Our only chance would be to walk a kilometer up river and get him while he’s crossing.”

            “No,” I shake my head.  “We’d have to get him before he enters the water.”

            Louise gets up and brushes the bits of slate off her shorts and shirt and we follow her lead.  Brock explains the situation to the two gunbearers in Cape Dutch while Henny and I rest on a large rock.  Louise walks a few yards down the length of the cliff inspecting the edge.

            “You will come back, Babu, and we will track the great one next season?”

            “Yeah, sure, Henny,” I say as I trace stars and crosses in the gravel with a stick.

            “Maybe he took this path,” Louise says suddenly, pointing down to a partially hidden catwalk probably carved by ancients against the face of the cliff.

            Henny laughs and says, “Elephant are afraid of heights, would never walk on so narrow a path.”

            “I thought you said this one was very wise and clever.  Maybe he’s overcome his fears,” she says.

            Brock looks up from his map and smiles.  “I didn’t know they taught elephant psychology at Amherst.”

            “Well, I’m going to take a look,” Louise says with her hands on her hips and her weight on one leg, just like her mother.

            “I’ll go with you,” I say smiling while grabbing my rifle, inspired by her stance.  “Who knows what an old elephant thinks?”

            We half walk, half slide down the rocky path, careful not to slip on the loose slate to the rocks below.  I have trouble keeping up with Louise, my rifle is cumbersome.  When we are about half way down she stops and points to the river and says quietly, “Look at that.”  It takes me a minute to get to her and look at the shore below.  I see the great one with the chipped tusk rambling slowly towards the water’s edge, plowing through the sandy loam of the riverbank, not winning over his fears but tired by them.  He looks gaunt and haggard, as if a lifetime of carrying those enormous tusks have taken their toll and his head drags under their mass.  He swings his weight from side to side, lumbering through the mud. The breeze is in our face and we put our hands to our eyes to shade against the evening sun.  I may have been able to get a shot off, maybe not, but I just stand there, staring at him as he stumbles into the water.  I feel a pain in my chest, a pain of sorrow, of lost lives, of old regrets.   The current sweeps the old bull around the bend, and Louise puts her arm around my waist and we silently start back up the path.

IV.

            It has been three months since Africa.  I am dying a slow death at the M.D. Anderson Clinic in Houston.  Louise has just finished reading the newspaper to me, but I am disinterested in today’s events:  so serious, so futile.  She tells me she has gained a position with Timberland Sports in the PR department.  I smile and touch her cool dry hand.  She leans over and kisses my forehead and goes down the hall to get some coffee.

            The pain has worn me down over the weeks, but it is gone now.  I am so tired, so dreadfully tired.   I feel like I’m in a sort of suspended state between reality and dream.   I’m thirsty for a glass of water.

            I’m thinking about when we were young, we’re sitting on the cannon in Cambridge Yard and you tell me I should go back to school; John Jr. is born and we are so broke he sleeps in a drawer.  I see Michael winning the state track mete at Kinkaid, running through the ribbon triumphant, we are so proud.  I see Louise when she was two, she is sick, her little hands against the oxygen tent and her tiny breath fogging the plastic, I want to hug her, tell her I love her, we are so scared we never leave her side for three days and nights.  Do you remember that, Laura?  I smell spice, and I see a land where everything is harsh yet beautiful.  Can you see it?  It’s so lovely.  I see the sunset in Africa.