Catharsis
The clouds hung low and the moon was a dull thud on the taut drum of the sky. The long grass bent before my groping flashlight – now dispersing into distant darkness, now coming up against a closer anthill or bush. The beam swung in a slow arc, searching.
A glint of something trapped by the light. The swinging torch stopped, retraced its path and aimed at the unidentified creature. Eyes focused – but it was just the eye of a dikkop, which promptly flap-scurried away. Silence.
I was dressed warmly, with heavy boots, an army-issue jacket and a knitted balaclava. I was armed with the flashlight, a .22 rifle and a knobkerrie. I was springhare-hunting.
I had been hunting before, but with my older brothers, so had only managed observer status on those occasions. I had no particular taste for this bloodsport, so I don’t know why I was there, striding along those nighttime hills. Perhaps because my time had come.
A sheep bleated somewhere in the darkness behind me. I stopped. Listened. But I could only hear my heart beating and feel my hot breath against the balaclava. I made a complete sweep around me with my torch, and just as I was about to resume walking, the beam swung past an eye, luminous blue in the torch-light: a springhare!
I aimed the torch and the eye bounced through the air; the beam followed, trapping it. The adrenalin surged through my body as my hunter’s instinct took control. I hunched down low and crept towards the eye as fast and silently as I could, while keeping the torch aimed at the quarry.
As I neared, the animal took shape. It looked like a rabbit-sized kangaroo with long ears, a fluffy tail and a white-hot coal for an eye. I straightened up and raised my rifle. The eye nestled itself in my sights. As I squeezed the trigger, the springhare hopped, and instead of killing it, the cold bullet lodged in a hind leg. The wounded creature kicked violently where it lay.
I broke into a run, my heart pounding, my boots pounding on the hard, red earth and the legs of the springhare pounding against the ground. The clouds were descending and a mist swirled lower and lower, chasing me into a claustrophobic panic.
I reached the writhing animal and stopped. The coal in the eye burned through me. I lifted the kerrie and swung with all my might. A sickening thud as the skull gave way and a trickle of blood found its way into the earth. I glanced down. The creature writhed more slowly now, but the eye still burned. I swung again and again, my tears mixing with the enveloping mists, which absorbed my cries. I didn’t stop until the skull was a pulp and the eye-fire was out.
* * * *
“Did you get one?” they asked me back at home.
“No,” I said, “it must have been a bad night for springhare hunting.”
ubuntuboetie 