The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [16]
“Get that other,” Wilson said. “Now you’re shooting!”
But the other bull was moving steadily at the same gallop and he missed, throwing a spout of dirt, and Wilson missed and the dust rose in a cloud and Wilson shouted, “Come on. He’s too far!” and grabbed his arm and they were in the car again, Macomber and Wilson hanging on the sides and rocketing swayingly over the uneven ground, drawing up on the steady, plunging, heavy-necked, straight-moving gallop of the bull.
They were behind him and Macomber was filling his rifle, dropping shells onto the ground, jamming it, clearing the jam, then they were almost up with the bull when Wilson yelled “Stop,” and the car skidded so that it almost swung over and Macomber fell forward onto his feet, slammed his bolt forward and fired as far forward as he could aim into the galloping, rounded black back, aimed and shot again, then again, then again, and the bullets, all of them hitting, had no effect on the buffalo that he could see. Then Wilson shot, the roar deafening him, and he could see the bull stagger. Macomber shot again, aiming carefully, and down he came, onto his knees.
“All right,” Wilson said. “Nice work. That’s the three.”
Macomber felt a drunken elation.
“How many times did you shoot?” he asked.
“Just three,” Wilson said. “You killed the first bull. The biggest one. I helped you finish the other two. Afraid they might have got into cover. You had them killed. I was just mopping up a little. You shot damn well.” “Let’s go to the car,” said Macomber. “I want a drink.” “Got to finish off that buff first,” Wilson told him. The buffalo was on his knees and he jerked his head furiously and bellowed in pig-eyed, roaring rage as they came toward him.
“Watch he doesn’t get up,” Wilson said. Then, “Get a little broadside and take him in the neck just behind the ear.”
Macomber aimed carefully at the center of the huge, jerking, rage-driven neck and shot. At the shot the head dropped forward.
“That does it,” said Wilson. “Got the spine. They’re a hell of a looking thing, aren’t they?”
“Let’s get the drink,” said Macomber. In his life he had never felt so good.
In the car Macomber’s wife sat very white-faced. “You were marvellous, darling,” she said to Macomber. “What a ride.”
“Was it rough?” Wilson asked.
“It was frightful. I’ve never been more frightened in my life.”
“Let’s all have a drink,” Macomber said.
“By all means,” said Wilson. “Give it to the Memsahib.” She drank the neat whisky from the flask and shuddered a little when she swallowed. She handed the flask to Macomber who handed it to Wilson.
“It was frightfully exciting,” she said. “It’s given me a dreadful headache. I didn’t know you were allowed to shoot them from cars though.
“No one shot from cars,” said Wilson coldly.
“I mean chase them from cars.”
“Wouldn’t ordinarily,” Wilson said. “Seemed sporting enough to me though while we were doing it. Taking more chance driving that way across the plain full of holes and one thing and another than hunting on foot. Buffalo could have charged us each time we shot if he liked. Gave him every chance. Wouldn’t mention it to any one though. It’s illegal if that’s what you mean.”
“It seemed very unfair to me,” Margot said, “chasing those big helpless things in a motor car.”
“Did it?” said Wilson.
“What would happen if they heard about it in Nairobi?”
“I’d lose my licence for one thing. Other unpleasantnesses,” Wilson said, taking a drink from the flask. “I’d be out of business.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well,” said Macomber, and he smiled for the first time all day. “Now she has something on you.”
“You have such a pretty way of putting things, Francis,” Margot Macomber said. Wilson looked at them both. If a four-letter man marries a five-letter woman, he was thinking, what number of letters would their children be? What he said was, “We lost a gun-bearer. Did you notice it?”
“My God, no,” Macomber