The Lion Killer

Three Star Member Joined : 07 Jun 2008 Posts : 171

This opening chapter is not from a new book. The book has been available in paper-print for a couple of years but a secondary release in ebook version appears to be coming about soon. It's political assassination, set in South Africa, and the hitman is Texan.

Jim Woods

www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

Chapter 1

ZIMBABWE

“That was a damn fine shot. You’re a cool son-of-a-bitch.”

Lucas took no offense. He reckoned that cool son-of-a-bitch was among the highest accolades a professional hunter could bestow on a safari client. “If I looked good, credit the cat, but let me tell you, I about crapped in my khakis when he came for us. Got any more of that rot-gut?”

Danie signaled to Joseph, almost imperceptibly, and the ancient Matebele quickly brought the two white hunters a fresh round of the sugar-cane rum mixed with Coca Cola, but not with too much of the mix that would ease the harsh bite of the spirits. Cane and Coke, mused Lucas, How long have I been drinking this? Then aloud, “You hooked me on this stuff.”

“I remember. I never could get bourbon for you when you came over. You wouldn’t drink scotch, and everybody on safari drinks scotch. No, you had to have bourbon, and nobody here drinks the stuff. We couldn’t even buy it. I remember when you came that time and brought your own but I had stolen half a bottle from another hillbilly who had brought his own supply. I kept it just for you, but it was safe; nobody here wanted it. You two must have been the only two hunters in the world that drank bourbon.”

“Yeah. He must have been a gentleman, much like myself. A man of high breeding.”

“Maybe, but even with the bottle you brought and the bottle I borrowed, we still ran out of booze, and I finally got you to try cane. Anybody that would drink bourbon would drink anything, even cane.”

The men quieted their affable banter as if by mutual agreement. The fire flickered, and Danie idly tested the embers with the piece of rebar that served as a poker. Lucas thought about the lion. It was on Danie’s mind too.

They had not seen it until it charged. Danie had been impressed with its size though, from the moment they found the pug marks in the dust along the edge of the road. He usually spotted sign as quickly as Napoleon, but was busy driving and talking to Lucas when the Shona clutched at his shoulder. “Shumba,” he whispered urgently. Napoleon wasn’t given to fright, but when he mouthed, “pakarepo,” Danie switched the Land Cruiser’s engine off and glided to a stop.

“What is it?” Lucas had recognized the need to whisper even though he didn’t know what had alerted the African and the Afrikaner.

“We have ourselves a lion,” Danie whispered back, leaning out the doorless right side of the vehicle, “and he looks to be a good one and he’s not very far away.”

Lucas alighted from the left side and automatically cranked a round into the chamber.

“He’s coming!”

Without conscious thought, Lucas responded to Danie’s shout and point, and swung the Rigby across the bonnet of the Land Cruiser and snapped the trigger on a 300-grain Winchester Silvertip. The rifle butt never came to his shoulder. The boom of the .375 Holland-and-Holland-Magnum matched the ferocity of the lion’s roar and the big cat tumbled into the dirt between the edge of the road and the truck, his enormous head skidding to rest up hard against the vehicle step on Danie’s side, so that the beast’s neck was bent unnaturally and his eyes were open and turned skyward. His bear-trap mouth was wide open too, his growl switched off in mid-scream.

“Hit him again!” Danie was scrambling to retrieve his own double rifle from the hooks in front of him. Lucas already had jacked a following round into battery, and put the muzzle behind the dead lion’s ear.

“Not in the head, you twit! You’ll ruin the skull!”

Lucas felt a bit sheepish. He wasn’t thinking like a hunter. Danie, always the professional, was well aware of the hazard—“dead” lions having killed or maimed several of his fellow professional hunters and a couple of their clients too—but he could also be concerned for the trophy of the hunt.

“Put one into his heart, from the front, and for God’s sake don’t hit my truck.” Lucas administered the finisher as he was bid, and fell back against the Land Cruiser.

“Why did he charge?”

“I think the sound of your rifle, when you operated the bolt, set him off. He must have been hunted before, or maybe we just disturbed him because he had a female in the bush. Whatever, he sure was pissed. Napoleon said he was nearby, but I didn’t think he was that close. Thanks for the shot. It’s a hell of a lot of paperwork when somebody, especially a client, gets mauled.”

“Not a problem,” giggled Lucas, his legs rubbery, “Don’t want to put you out with all that administrative work.”

After they all caught their breath, and in turn, each had reconstructed and embellished the incident, the three of them managed to haul the heavy, awkward, limp lion up on the lowered tailgate. The drive to camp was quiet; the hunters lost in their own thoughts. Danie worried with his pipe that refused to stay lit. Lucas rubbed at imaginary spots on the blue of his rifle barrel. Napoleon sat nonchalantly atop the carcass. The lump of lion didn’t look much the part of King. They couldn’t talk more about it now as they would later around the fire. The only noise that marred the drive was the whining of the engine and the buzzing of the flies.

The camp staff turned out to welcome the hunters home, somehow knowing before they drove in that a lion had been taken, and that Lucas was the hero. The celebration lasted for nearly an hour before Danie threatened them all with kicks on their butts if dinner wasn’t served chiriporipocho! He knew it wouldn’t be immediately as ordered, and the boys would hang around through the night using the lion kill as an excuse to party.

He just may be the man we’ve been looking for, Danie considered, silently. “Ready for another?” as he tipped his glass toward the Texan.

“No thanks. I think I’ll shower before dinner.”

Following the meal of tasty warthog in a mystery concoction that would make the best sauce chef in New York envious, Lucas and Danie enjoyed the sundowner course around the fading embers in the fire pit. This was the best time of the hunt—the hours after the stench of excitement had been washed away, the hunters now freshly clad in khakis washed in the stream while they were away, and perfectly pressed with the hinged top, heavy iron filled with red-hot coals from this fire that had not been permitted to wane since morning tea.

In spite of the white hunters knowing the country as well as the blacks, the blacks insisted on the perpetual firelight to guide the wanderers home. Only when the hunters and all the camp staff were bedded was the fire permitted to fade, and even then it wasn’t entirely dead. Joseph, the camp headman, would sort through the ashes well before dawn, barehandedly dusting away the fine ash to uncover a blushing ember, the seed of a new living fire. But now, the black staff members hung in the shadows, only to appear silently at the boundaries of this, the camp’s social center, replenishing the ritual drinks, seemingly giving the white men total privacy. The white men knew though, that any and all things discussed between them that evening would be repeated and analyzed in native-tongue whispers all that night and the following day.

“Damn. You Great-White-Hunters have the world by the tail,” sighed Lucas. “Only two things I ever wanted to do for a living—play third base for the Astros and be a professional hunter in Africa. . . . I couldn’t make it in baseball but I could sure handle this.”

“I know you could, and Mac knows you could, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever get a license in South Africa or in this country for that matter. Mugabe’s bunch isn’t handing out any P-H tickets to whites not born here in Zimbabwe and there’s a long line ahead of you at home. And you know that every white African applying for a professional hunter license in South Africa has to wait until the black quota is filled—that’s the new rule. . . . Sure, those of us who had tickets before the election get to keep them, but Hell man, we have to take on a black partner or our own license gets revoked. MacGregor has put up your name but it didn’t do any good . . . Joseph!” Another brace of cane and Cokes appeared instantly, if not by the magic it seemed then by the old servant’s educated anticipation of his employer’s needs.

“Yeah, Mac’s okay. I know that.” Lucas knew that MacGregor was the President of PHASA, the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa. It wasn’t an official government agency but no one was approved for a government-issued P-H license unless they were put forward by PHASA. Lately, the Wildlife Ministry had taken to giving PHASA lists of candidates for professional hunter licenses, coercing the organization to give its backing to the names on the list, all of them black South Africans. A few of the candidates were known to be good hunters, qualified for license, but many of them were not. In spite of Ministry pressures, PHASA withheld approval of the unqualified applicants and the issuance of new licenses slowed to a trickle. Only when the specified number of accumulated licenses had been issued to blacks could one new white hunter be pushed into the queue. Lucas had completed all the courses; passed all the tests; and had the blessing of the officers of PHASA. Twice MacGregor had submitted Lucas Mellor’s name, and twice it had been rejected by the Ministry. MacGregor learned that he must submit only names of South Africans, or perhaps those from other southern African countries, if he was to add any new white professional hunters to the ranks.

“Guess I’ll have to give up that dream too,” Lucas continued. “I can’t even hire on with an outfit just as a helper, not that I could live on what you guys pay your camp monkeys.”

“Suppose I told you that there was a job for you in South Africa, one that would support you well and keep you hunting practically the year ’round? What would you say to that?”

“I’d say, who do I have to kill?”

“That’s . . . the right answer.”

Lucas stared at Danie Schwardt quizzically. “Would you care to explain that?” Lucas could almost see the joviality drain from Danie’s face, replaced by a malevolence that the Afrikaner had never displayed. Even when he commanded the camp staff with a thrust from his foot or a swat from his well-muscled arm, it was always with a grin or an affectionate remark that took the sting out of the abuse. Danie motioned with a backward slap in the general direction of the half dozen black men that it took to serve the camp, and obediently all of them faded even further into the night. He then scooted his chair nearer to Lucas’ and hunched forward to get even closer.

“What I’m going to tell you and the proposition I’m going to put to you is between you, me and the fire. You may think that I have put myself in jeopardy by talking with you, but I assure you that it is you who will be in danger just by having knowledge of what we discuss. Do you want me to go on?”

Lucas didn’t speak but adopted his own grim demeanor and leaned toward Danie, who took his silence as agreement to continue. “I am part of an organization . . .”

Lucas grunted acknowledgement and thought to himself that the Afrikaners were well known for their secret societies.

“. . . that works for the betterment of South Africa. Our mission is to rid the country of those who are determined to destroy our way of life.”

“You mean kill.”

“Eliminate.”

“Just who are these people? How do you know them?”

“They are known by their actions and their words. They are and can be anyone—white, black, politicians, teachers, clergy, businessmen, labor . . .”

“Who determines that these people are wrong for the country? Who decides they must be killed?”

“Eliminated. We do.”

“Okay, who is We?”

“We are The Vengeurs!”

“The Vengeurs?”

“Ja. The Vengeurs—The Avengers, and you must become one of us. You will be our sword.”

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:45 am

Congratulatons on the ebook version, Jim. And, as always, I enjoy reading your work.
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www.brendahill.com
www.authorsden.com/brendahill

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:25 pm

This sounds like an exciting read, Jim. Thank you for sharing it here with us. I hope the ebook does well for you.
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Zada Connaway
Mother's Journals: parts 1, 2 and 3 ISBN # 1-4241-6969-0

http://www.zadaconnaway.com/

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:51 pm

Interesting, Jim, although I'm not a hunter.
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Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America
www.dickstodghill.com

Three Star Member Joined : 07 Jun 2008 Posts : 171

Dick, This isn't entirely a hunting story. From here the story plays out against a safari background, and while there are safari scenes to establish the milieu, the sport hunter turned paid assassin, code name Leo, stalks his prey in the urban wilds. It'a jungle out there.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com.jwoods

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:14 pm

The story is interesting and I like your writing style.
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"To Beirut and Back"
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Three Star Member Joined : 07 Jun 2008 Posts : 171

Thanks all. Two of my published novels are set in South Africa, and my WIP is also--been there on several occasions.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Sat Jun 21, 2008 5:09 pm

How true, Jim. I can go a mile in one direction and the coyotes make a jungle out of a National Park. I can go a mile in the other direction and it's a jungle where the predators walk on two feet.
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Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America
www.dickstodghill.com

Subject: Re: The Lion Killer Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:40 pm

It is the two legged ones you have to keep an eye on, Dick!

I like the premise of your story, Jim, please let us know when it comes out in ebook form.
_________________
Zada Connaway
Mother's Journals: parts 1, 2 and 3 ISBN # 1-4241-6969-0

http://www.zadaconnaway.com/