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Enigma no more

by Andrew Shepard
Hunter 9

Success at last

Dave fired his bow

It was now sunset, a time when the sky’s crimson colour matches the earth in this part of the world

Happy hunters
This story has its beginning in the winter of 1991, on a misty morning beside a rainforest-cloaked lake in Far North Queensland. For months I had been tracking the spoor of some terribly elusive wild cattle, which watered at the lake during darkness and then seemed to melt away into the unfathomable depths of the forest. As yet, my only tangible contact was the haunting bellows that occasionally woke me in the dead of night in this most eerie of hunting locations.

This was my lucky morning. As I lifted the mosquito net on a day filled with the bizarre sounds of rainforest birds, I was rewarded with the sight of about 40 pure black feral cattle grazing on an adjacent shore. Filled with anticipation and more than a hint of anxiety, I stripped to shorts and slid into the warm tropical water. I quietly swam the 150 metres, with my bow held high above my head, until I was able to drag my weary body onto the slippery clay bank about 300 metres from the herd. With a cloud of mosquitoes feeding on my exposed skin, I stalked towards the group. While walking towards my prey, I disturbed another of the forest’s elusive inhabitants - a ginger pig, ploughing up the soft buffalo grass. He darted into the darkness and I continued my stalk, in relative silence, owing to the moist ground and the intense ringing of cicadas.

Rounding a bend with the herd dispersed out in front of me, I was immediately spotted by a pesky calf, which alerted the group. As one, they ran off the grassy plain and into the forest, though I was certain none of the adults had seen me. I continued my stalk and was surprised to find the entire herd only a couple of hundred metres within the forest and standing in a convenient opening (for me). I narrowed the gap and released an arrow only to see it melt away into the soupy darkness. No prize.

Twelve years later I found myself idling down an ochre-red track in the Pilbara, on a large parcel of land where we were permitted to hunt feral cattle. Beside me sat Tony, a fellow bow hunter and Dave, a spectator on his first bow hunt. The afternoon had been uneventful, with nothing but a pair of dingoes crossing our path. It was now sunset, a time when the sky’s crimson colour matches the earth in this part of the world.

During those fleeting minutes, I saw what I had been searching for - a mature bull. He seemed motionless. His heavy neck was stooped to drink from a muddy puddle, the last rays of light glinting on one of his thick pale horns. The failing light meant I didn’t have much time. Drawing to a standstill, only 30 metres from the beast, I felt my nerves take hold. It was the kind of anxiety one gets when confronted with several hundred kilos of muscle and nothing in between. As I tilted my head around the trunk, ten metres from the maroon beast, the old fellow detected me and dashed about 100 metres away before pausing to regard his two-legged foe. Once again, as when I was a teenager, I had come so close. From then on, we christened our target the ‘Enigma Bull’ because we couldn’t crack his code.

As the long summer engulfed the region, we continued to stalk the Enigma Bull. Peering around some bushes on a hot Saturday afternoon, I froze when confronted by him once again. He stared at me for an instant before galloping into the forest with two cows and a yearling in tow. This was one frustrating animal! A young bull nearby wasn’t alerted, however, so we put in a textbook stalk. The arrow entered high in the lung area and delivered the desired results.

Two months later, on a very hot February afternoon, Dave and I drove out to the southern end of Enigma’s territory. We glimpsed a couple of feral camels in shady thickets, though none of them were as big as the rutting bull camel we had taken only weeks before. The camel had trotted angrily towards us with his grotesque, inflated tongue lolling from his mouth.

As the darkness closed in, we rounded a bend and found a serene lagoon - 30 metres long and half as wide. Cliffs bordered the pool and a gap in the face could be seen midway along. As we neared the gap, dark shapes materialised in the secluded area. My breathing quickened when my eyes focused on four mature bulls: two brutes, including Enigma and a pair of younger tag-alongs, all sporting horns. One of the younger bulls noticed us in the dim light. His curiosity led him to wade across the water and actually approach to within 20 metres of us.

Dave fired his bow and the quiet scene erupted into the thunder of hooves. The beast covered only 10 metres before piling up beside driftwood-covered bushes.

In the time it took me to gasp a breath of air, another beast ran from cover and ploughed straight into us, pummelling us into a thick bush. Luckily, the impact from point-blank range brought with it less momentum. Dave fell on top of me and screamed in a way I shall never forget. For those who have heard it, you will know there is nothing like the scream of man in mortal fear. In a flash, we were up again and running. A quick shot and the brute staggered off for a couple of metres and collapsed - dead. All was quiet, bar the sound of our crunching footstep as we continued to walk into the darkness towards the first bull.

After five years in the Pilbara, my time was coming to an end. My exit flight was booked only six weeks away, in the winter of 2003. Ironically, a time of year that makes you wonder why you would ever want to leave the region. With the clock ticking, Dave talked me into going hunting one last time, to find my old adversary.

We had barely entered the valley when we noticed a bull lying not far from the road. It wasn’t just any bull; it was the bull I had been searching for. Enigma Bull. While it only took a few hundred metres to quietly come to a halt, the bull was out of sight, back in the thick river-bed shrubbery. He had not wandered too far, which was lucky, given that visibility was limited to 30 metres in this vegetation. I drew the arrow I had knocked back at the vehicle. Enigma started to trot, so I released the arrow without my normal four-second aim. My arrow scored a direct hit - low, behind the front leg. A ‘heart shot’. The hardy bull crashed through the thicket. Fifteen metres into the scrub, I rounded a bush and came face-to-face with the bottomless black eyes of my foe. He was looking directly at me. I’m sure he recognised and remembered me. He started his charge at the moment I did my 180-degree spin. As I ran back towards Dave, I yelled “charger” to alert him of the oncoming menace but his face said it all. I turned and watched Enigma’s charge turn into a drunken stagger before collapsing. He was dead from one shot of my arrow. In all, from shot to death, only a few seconds past but it felt like an eternity.

As the Pilbara sun set in a pink blaze, I sat quietly and reflected on what I had just done. A chapter in my life had ended with it. The Enigma Bull’s code was cracked and I was on my way home.