Bwana of The San Saba

A good friend is an avid hunter of deer and other edible wildlife. His domain is Texas, so this story is about him. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The San Saba, Texas plains and rocky hills are as rough and desolate as any place in the state. The Great White Hunter prefers them that way. This harsh country is home to the skittish and elusive Texas white-tail deer, his favored game. He has taken many in the twenty years he has hunted this land, and the best are mounted on the walls of his private trophy room. Four walls of antlered Deer, all with a startled look on their faces.

A hot November day of hunting in the rocks and brush has yielded no Deer, but The Great White Hunter did bag three Squirrels, a Chipmunk, a Cottontail Rabbit, a large Rattlesnake, and four Blue Catfish from a sparkling creek. Supper tonight will be tasty. Maurice, his faithful guide, armorer, and camp cook, knows how to prepare wild game perfectly. Squirrel on a Mesquite stick is his signature dish. Add some fire-grilled Catfish, corn on the cob, pan-fried taters, and cold Lone Star beer, and it’s a campsite dish that would make Martha Stewart’s mouth water.

Maurice comes from East Africa, and it’s common to refer to a white man hunter as “Bwana,” a term for a boss or an important fellow. The hunter cringes when Maurice uses this address; it reminds him of a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movie. He prefers “The Great White Hunter.” His fellow members of The Sons of The Alamo Lodge gave him this name decades ago because of the hundreds of pounds of venison he donated to the lodge’s food bank.

After the scrumptious supper, The Great White Hunter takes a constitutional stroll away from camp. Dressed in a tee shirt, safari shorts, and ankle boots, he walks a narrow, dry wash, enjoying the serenity of the Texas dusk. His rifle is left at the campsite, leaning against a Mesquite tree; his Colt pistol rests on a backpack near the fire; he has a Barlow pocket knife in his pant pocket for whittling and cleaning his fingernails. He is, for once, unarmed.

He rounds a bend and comes to a halt. Standing ten feet away is a feral boar. He estimates the size of the porker to be around three- hundred pounds. His tusks are formidable and likely razor-sharp. The pig is in a foul mood and looking for a scrap. There is an Oak tree close enough to climb, but making it to the tree before the pig is doubtful. He pulls the pocket knife from his pants, opens the two-inch blade, and waits for the attack. He stares the porcine monster straight in the eyes; the unafraid boar meets his star, doesn’t flinch, and scrapes the rocky ground with its hind feet. Slobber drips from its mouth; the stench of the animal is overwhelming and smells of death.

The hunter has been in perilous predicaments, but never a scrap as one-sided as this. The pig has a natural advantage; he knows the loser will probably be him and hopes the injuries will be minimal and Maurice can get him to the hospital in San Saba in time. It will be a fight to the death. He chastises himself for leaving his weapon at the camp, which is too far away to call for help.

The peccary makes its move and charges the hunter, but the hunter is swift, jumps straight up, and uses the back of the porker as a springboard to propel himself into a forward somersault, landing behind the pig. The boar turns, gravel and dirt flying as it makes a second frontal assault. The hunter jumps on the back of the hog and rides it like a pony, stabbing it with his pocket knife as the hog runs for the brush. The pig makes it to the brush, and the hunter is dismounted by a low limb. The hog races to the safety of its companions before it expires. The bloodied and torn hunter walks into the camp, where Maurice patches his wounds and offers praise for his bravery. Three shots of George Dickel whiskey help ease the pain. Sitting around the campfire late into the night, Maurice grins and says, ” Bwana did well today, very brave fellow.”