The Hunt

Trudene lay in the long grass feeling the early morning African sun beating down on her back, warming her quickly and she knew soon it would become uncomfortable, to say the least. From where she had crawled into position the previous evening under the cover of darkness she could see down into the valley and the herd of magnificent African elephants slowly eating their breakfast of shoots from the trees as the sun warmed their bones. She had always loved this time of the day and today was no exception and she smiled quietly to herself as she thought of the meaning of her name, 'spear of strength' and today her spear was the ugly black Denel NTW-20 sniper rifle that sat on its tripod ready and waiting.

This was her father's cherished possession and standing upright the gun in its current form was the same height as Trudene, and when it had the long-range barrel and bolt assembly it stood even taller than her willowy 5' 10" frame. When the gun was broken down into two packs it weighted around half of her 60kg body weight, but she could carry it for miles at a steady pace. This was a gun designed to shoot large targets, an anti-material weapon her father used to call it and he had used it during the border conflict and actually downed a helicopter with it from nearly 1.500 metres. The heavy calibre ammunition loaded meant that just one of the 3 rounds would destroy an elephant's head from the 1000 metre hide she was carefully concealed in.

Trudene sighed as she remembered her father, from the big knurled hands that were so powerful yet could be so delicate when the need arose. She had seen her father break a man's jaw in two places from a single punch without him even putting any effort in, yet at the same time, those same hands cradled a tiny lilac-breasted roller and mended its damaged wing, nursing the tiny bird back to full health. She remembered how he smelt, the earthy aroma of pipe tobacco somehow mixing together with a sweet overtone that was rich, like burnt caramel. She remembered how she had cradled her father's head in her lap as he breathed his last few words before passing with a sigh to join his beloved wife, Trudene's mother, who had died when she was just a child.

Trudene's thoughts turned to her mother, who her father would often remind her she was spitting image of, yet she felt like an ugly charcoal image of the fine limbed woman she remembered. Her mother was a flaxen-haired goddess who smelt of all things wonderful, and even more, her memory was enhanced by the reverence her father held her in when he talked about her. Often as they would move through the bush together tracking a particular animal he would sometimes slip and call to her softly by her mother's name. Then a look of total sadness, that made Trudene weep inside, would wash over him before he would shake his head and they would continue their stealthy movements.

Shaking her head very slightly to clear the fog of memories, Trudene played the scope across the herd picking out the matriarch with her heavy long tusks that would be worth thousands on the black market, then through to the young baby elephants playfully getting tangled in their mother's feet as they tried to get to the milk in their mother's teats. Sitting off a little way was a couple of young male bull elephants, keeping their distance from the herd and also keeping a wary eye on the large old bull elephant who was keeping his distance from the herd, but at the same time making sure he was maintaining a watchful eye.

Suddenly the matriarch lifted her head in alarm as she smelt the air and then a moment later sounded the alarm causing the herd to start shuffling and preparing to flee. Trudene had picked her position well as from her higher vantage point the elephants would move across her field of vision from right to left without the distance changing much as the terrain formed a natural channel along which the herd had to pass. Trudene traversed the ugly barrel a fraction and as she did, for a moment her eye almost seemed to lock with the matriarch female elephant and she could see quite clearly the look of fear starting to appear in her bloodshot eyes.

Trudene breathed in and held her breath as she gently squeezed the trigger causing the heavy gun to boom and the heavy projectile to propel itself across the clearing cutting through the air like a deadly wasp driving remorselessly to its target. The tripod legs lifted for a moment from the tremendous recoil as the bullet left the barrel, before settling back down in a small puff of dust.

The engine block in the jeep that had appeared in a cloud of dust behind the herd, was almost split in two as the heavy bullet ploughed through losing momentum but causing massive damage. Trudene calmly worked the bolt to eject the spent casing and reload the second round without moving her eyes from the target. The jeep had come to an abrupt halt and the four men inside were chattering half in confusion and half in fear as they tried to assimilate what had happened. The second round almost tore the head off the driver, exploding it like a ripe melon and without a pause continued its path to bury itself deep in the chest of the passenger diagonally behind, killing him instantly. The remaining two men screamed in terror as they were sprayed with blood, visceral tissue and brain matter before they threw themselves out of either side of the vehicle, scanning the hills trying to work out what had happened. Their white eyes were wide in their dark faces as they chattered in fear at the sudden end to what should have been a profitable and easy hunt for them as poachers.

The herd had moved away with the clouds of dust starting to roll back towards the jeep making Trudene's final shot, without reloading, starting to get a little more difficult. Deciding quickly to take the man on the far side of the vehicle she moved the scope slightly, zeroing in on the area where she felt the man was crouching, concealed by the jeep's body. Waiting patiently as she had done so many times since she had taken on the role of overwatch on the herd she relaxed. Sure enough, the barrel of the man's AK47 bobbed into view as he rose to turn to talk to his friend on the other side of the jeep. As he rose slightly, he turned to open his mouth to say something that remained unsaid forever as the heavy calibre bullet passed through his open mouth and blew a hole the size of a fist in the back of his skull killing him instantly.

The noise of the shot alerted the final man to Trudene's position and in a mad scramble he headed into the rolling dust clouds and he was clearly screaming into the radio he was holding. Trudene ignored the man for the moment, quickly removing the box magazine which she reloaded swiftly taking care to place each bullet with precision and giving it a quarter turn between her finger and thumb as she muttered under her breath an old Afrikaans saying about delivering justice.

Just as she locked the magazine home and ran the bolt back to load the rifle, she could see in the distance the lorry the man had called up cresting the hill in the distance. A quick glance through the powerful binoculars around her neck told her that it was full of highly armed men, far too many for her to handle if they got close. Cursing that she had fitted the shorter range of the two setups for the rifle Trudene checked the distance on the rangefinder and adjusted the settings to try a 2,000m shot, which with the current set-up was a little far for even this powerful rifle. Sniffing the hot arid African air Trudene made a few final adjustments to allow for any breeze before holding her breath and gently squeezing the trigger.

With the loud explosion still ringing in her ears, Trudene saw the puff of dust as the heavy bullet missed its target and buried into the earth before the lorry. Using words that would have made her mother wince, she made a tiny adjustment to the sights. To her amazement, the lorry had stopped and the men on the back had unshipped binoculars and began to survey the hills. Trudene had to suppress any glee that they could be that stupid as to present a stationary target but squeezed the trigger again, this time the heavy bullet ran true and buried itself into the engine making it a lump of inert metal in an instant.

Determined not to waste the final bullet Trudene aimed where she knew the fuel tank would be on the lorry and squeezed the trigger for the third time. The heavy bullet ruptured the fuel tank spraying gasoline everywhere, which in itself would not have been much of a problem was it not for the joint that was hanging from the lips of one of the armed men in the back. The fuel ignited and whilst not the fireball explosion Trudene had hoped for, there were men hopping around like ants as their clothes ignited. Smiling coldly to herself Trudene deftly broke the large rifle down into two packs and grunting from the over 30kg weight, she hoisted them onto her back and started to dog trot towards her own truck which was concealed just over the ridge.

Trudene scanned the ridgeline for any sight of the fourth man and on occasions dropped her hand to the holster strapped to her right thigh holding the Vector SP-1. This was the handgun her father had given her on her 16th birthday, just over 5 years ago, and she had become deadly proficient in the use of the 9mm automatic. Though moving at a steady pace, she was as silent as a hunting lioness as she kept every sense on high alert. What gave the man away was his smell, the stale sweat of fear assaulted her nostrils as she came abruptly to a halt and froze to the spot trying to ascertain exactly where the man was.

The next few seconds seemed to stretch forever in Trudene's mind, as so many things happened almost in slow motion. The man stepped from behind a tree and with a curse swung the barrel of the AK-47 in her direction as he started to pull the trigger. Trudene shrugged the straps of the heavy sniper rifle packs, letting them fall to the ground, as she launched herself to her right to escape the hail of bullets spewing from the assault rifle. Instead of being met with firm ground, she fell through the covering of branches and it registered in a flash that this was a pit often dug by poachers to trap elephants before they were slaughtered for their tusks.

Praying there were no spikes embedded in the hard ground Trudene fell into the pit and she tried to twist to break her fall but to no avail. Today her luck was out, as a tree branch, sharpened to a wicked point, buried into her back, impaling her and sticking up through her stomach. Trying to clear her shooting arm, determined to get at least two rounds off should the man show his face over the lip of the pit, she twisted but the pain of the stake in her body forced her to lie still like a lamb ready for the slaughter.

The clearing had fallen silent and the man had emptied his magazine and Trudene could hear the harsh metallic clicks as he reloaded. She knew that this was her time and lifted her eyes so she could see the large African sun one final time. Instead of the rattle of machine-gun firing into the pit to kill her, the noise that filled the air was a tremendous explosion as the man had stepped on one of the many landmines that littered the area. Trudene watched as the man, well parts of him, sailed across the mouth of the pit as he was blown to pieces.

Trudene felt herself getting weaker and weaker but lifted her gaze to the African sky one final time and sighed happily as she saw the faces of her mother & father smiling down on her, ready to take her home once more.