The meat was prime - lean
and filled with iron. Hundreds
would graze in a grove of
paperbark trees on the
Marrakai plains.We would
step from the shade onto a
mosaic of cracked mud and
they would lift their black
moist nostrils, sniff the air,
and then run, their feet a
drum beat on the earth.
Once an extra big one was
sleeping on his feet in the shade
of the grove, his eyes closed
tightly in their wrinkled pouches.
Tears oozed in a long dark stain
down his cheeks, and a fine haze
of midges hovered around the
head that was centered in the
middle of a wide expanse of
horns.
Our shooter saw him and
picked his way towards him
through the paperbark and
pandanus. The low sun
illuminated the grove with
gold and insects produced
a resonant drone.
He circled round till he was
head on to the target and
then he moved in.
When he was twenty metres
away he stopped and stood
with feet apart the rifle held
ready.
The shot was thunderous in the
peaceful air of the Billabong, it
shattered into a thousand echoes
against the trunks of the trees.
The legs of the one tonne
buffalo buckled and he toppled
forward, a loose avalanche of
flesh and bone and long long
horns.
Our shooter ejected the spent
shell and picked it up, and then
we moved in with our knives
and the axe.
That night his totem family
wailed and sang and danced
to mourn his death.
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