The .300 Jarrett Custom rifle was loaded and resting on the sandbag that our PH, Nick Nolte, had spread over two horizontal wooden posts wired firmly in place at the front of the blind. The rifle was aimed directly at the fly-blown kudu hindquarter and fresh warthog shoulder hanging from the century old leadwood tree across the dry riverbed. The Swarovski scope was set on 4 power and the safety was off.

Holly sputtered and protested as Nicky hosed her down with mosquito repellent, but it was a necessary precaution. When the mosquitoes attacked in squadron force after sundown, we would no longer be able to risk so much noise and movement in the blind. The ground inside the blind had been cleared of all sticks, branches and grass to insure silence. We had flashlights at our sides where they could be found in the darkness. Stainless steel cups of water were placed carefully beside our green, molded plastic chairs where they would be within reach should we need to wash away a tickle in the back of our throats with a slug of cool water. The cups were trademarked "Greensport," and I remember wondering if Nicky had perhaps inadvertently supported a company with a "bunny-hugger" agenda when he bought them.

From inside the blind, Nicky had a final hushed conversation with Matheus, his trusted Damara tracker and driver. Matheus then piled thorn brush around the back of the blind, effectively closing us in, and returned to the Land Cruiser parked in the riverbed. He hooked the end of a length of fencing wire through the stomach and intestines of a warthog we had killed earlier that day, then attached the other end of the 6 foot long wire to the Cruiser’s trailer hitch. The warthog guts bounced merrily along in the coarse sand as he drove away down the riverbed, leaving behind a scent trail that we hoped a leopard would follow to the bait.

Having made all the necessary preparations, we settled down in the blind, listened to the last diurnal birdcalls of the day and watched as the sun slid slowly below the distant mountains behind the bait tree. The sky burned with the crimson shades of Pennsylvania sugar maples in September and the clouds were awash in the yellow and gold of Montana cottonwoods while the bull elk bugle. It was the end of another great day in Africa...but just the beginning of what would prove to be a very memorable night.

This was our first trip to Namibia and we were having a wonderful hunt. We arrived in Windhoek on March 29^th and hunted for 16 days with Dirk de Bod of Safaris Namibia at his first-class lodges in the Central Plains and the Kalahari. Dirk is a great host. He is also a very skilled hunter and we took a number of fine trophies with him. Our Trophy List included 3 Gemsbok (38" bull, 40" bull & 41 ½" cow), 3 Springbok (12", 12"& 14"), 3 Red Hartebeest (20", 22" & 23 ½"), 2 Mountain Zebras (stallion & mare), a Kudu (54 ½"), a Damaraland Dik-dik (3 1/8"), 5 Warthogs and 3 Baboons.

For our leopard hunt Dirk had enlisted the aid of Nick Nolte of Nick Nolte Hunting Safaris outside Omaruru in the Erongo Mountains. Nicky is a 2^nd generation PH who grew up in the hunting business. 30 years ago, his father, PH Ben Nolte, had been one of the pioneers in the early days of Namibian sport hunting. Nicky has hunted the Namibian bush since he was a child growing up on the Epako Game Reserve established by his grandfather in the 1920s. At 36, he is a very capable PH and a great guy to spend a day with in the bush. In the last two seasons he has taken 8 leopards and 7 cheetahs with his clients. We hoped that we could help him get his 2004 season off to a good start with a husband/wife doubleheader on leopards. 

{Postscript - November 15, 2004.  Nicky's 2004 hunting season has now come to a close.  He had 10 leopard hunters this year, and every one of them shot a leopard!  Several European clients took cheetahs with Nicky as well as leopards.  If you are really serious about taking a Namibian leopard or cheetah, book with Nicky!} 

We had changed our reservations so we could stay an additional 5 days with Nicky and his lovely wife Isabel, hoping that Holly would have a chance to bag her leopard and complete our doubleheader! My half of the doubleheader was already "in the salt." Two nights earlier at the same bait, I had killed my leopard, a beautiful 7’ tom! The next night another leopard had fed on the same bait, so we were back in the blind again and this time Holly would be the hunter.

It would have been great if the cat had magically appeared at the bait before dark. In my dreams, it always happens that way. Watching from downwind in a sturdy thatch blind, a huge tom leopard materializes at the base of the bait tree, and in one flowing tawny movement, effortlessly climbs the tree and poses, elegantly, on the branch, silhouetted against the western sky.

But this was no dream. On the Namibian cattle and sheep ranches we were hunting, leopards are very seldom seen during daylight hours. The cats often prey on livestock and are considered "problem animals" by the local farmers. In fact, during our hunt, a goat was found half-eaten and a newborn calf was missing and presumed dead at one of the 5 farms where Nicky had hung our leopard baits.

The farmers routinely shoot leopards and cheetahs on sight. They put out poison baits and set baited cage traps in areas where they see fresh signs of leopard activity near their livestock. Leopards who reach maturity under these circumstances are "very clever," as Nicky would frequently describe them. They become strictly nocturnal and those that have been shot at and wounded or missed, survived after eating a poisoned bait, or managed to escape a trap, become virtually unkillable by conventional means. The only way to effectively hunt the clever, old leopards that have earned their PhDs in survival is to put a pack of high-powered hound dogs on their trail.

It was surprising that the leopards paid any attention to the domestic livestock at all, because we were hunting in April at the end of the rainy season and the bush was full of wide-eyed, newborn kudu calves and plump little warthog piglets. With all the young, dumb babies stumbling around in the lush grass and thick brush, the leopards were having a feast. The abundance of natural prey combined with plenty of cover made it very difficult to get them interested in our baits.

Several days prior to our arrival in Namibia, Nicky had placed live sheep in low, chicken wire pens near most of the hanging meat baits. The idea was to induce a leopard to jump into the pen, kill the sheep and then escape using a branch strategically placed against a tree trunk within the pen to climb out dragging the dead sheep. According to the plan, we would arrive in the morning and track the leopard to the tree where it had stashed its’ kill, build a blind, then shoot the leopard when it returned to feed that night. It is a great plan that apparently works well enough during the dry season when the leopards’ stalking cover has dried up and blown away and the season’s newborn game animals have learned better how to survive in the bush. However, it is not very effective during the rainy season, and upon our departure over 3 weeks later, all of the sheep were still alive!

Every day we would find fresh tracks in the sandy riverbeds near the baits and around the live sheep pens, but the leopards would just "case the joint" and walk away. I had mental images of the poor sheep, quaking in mortal terror, as the leopard padded slowly around its’ chicken wire prison. Purring softly, innocently, the leopard pauses to scratch a golden flank against the rough tree bark, then slowly stretching upwards, reaches high to sharpen its’ menacing claws on the trunk. All the while eyeing the sheep with that uniquely dispassionate feline stare which offers no clue as to its’ intentions. Each morning I half expected to find the sheep cold and stiff in their pens, stone dead from a leopard-induced heart attack during the night!

Getting back to our story. Nicky explained the leopard blind routine to Holly. "We will sit very still and listen. When I hear the cat at the bait I will tap you on the leg. We will continue to sit still for a few more minutes and let the cat 'get busy' feeding on the bait. Then, when I tap you on the shoulder, lean forward and get in position on the rifle. When I turn on the light, aim carefully, but shoot quickly, you will only have a couple of seconds."

I offered Holly some additional advice. "When you get set on the rifle, remember to light up the illuminated reticle just enough to make the crosshairs glow dimly in the black interior of the scope, then relax and concentrate on controlling your breathing; breath slowly and deeply."

The sudden rush of adrenaline in such situations is what hunting "moments of truth" are all about. But it is also where the term "buck fever" comes from and, unchecked, it can turn the deadliest sharpshooter into a bumbling Elmer Fudd. Remembering how my heart had almost hammered its’ way out of my chest two nights earlier, I offered one additional improbable suggestion, "try to stay calm."

As night fell around us, inside the blind it was so dark that you could only dimly see the silhouette of the person sitting next to you. Starlight sifted softly through the branches covering the blind as the Milky Way blazed across the celestial horizon over our heads and the Southern Cross beamed down upon us from the moonless sky.

And it was still...so still that, straining to hear the faintest sound of an approaching leopard, you became aware of your heartbeat pulsating in your ears. All of our primordial senses; numbed and blunted by the din, stench and visual clutter of 21^st century lifestyles, are revived once again, and come fully alive in the African night. A belligerent baboon barks from his rocky perch in the distant mountains and the shrill cry of a lonesome Dik-dik startles you as it seeks its' mate in the darkness nearby. A roosted red-billed francolin sounds off down the riverbed and you listen carefully for any hint of approaching danger in its’ call. You glance up to marvel at the millions of stars overhead, then look down and, yet again, peer through your peephole in the blind, into the impenetrable darkness across the dry riverbed, towards the bait that you can't see. And then, overcome by the peace and tranquility of the African night, your eyes slowly close and your chin falls softly to your chest.

A slight breeze stirs, and you are suddenly shocked back to consciousness by the sickening smell of rotting kudu. Oddly, the olfactory shock reminds you of a time, long ago, when you found your grandmother’s smelling salts and naively took a big whiff. Still dazed, you wonder, "how long was I asleep, did anyone notice?" Perhaps they did, but it doesn’t matter, for they too have dozed off once or twice. Another wave of rotten kudu scent wafts through the blind and you remember what the PH said earlier, "as long as we can smell the bait, we're OK." And so the vigil goes.

The hours pass slowly. No one speaks, nothing moves. The darkness that made you feel slightly uneasy hours earlier, is now an old familiar friend. Gone are the thoughts of Black Mambas gliding unseen between your legs in the soft sand. You feel a chill as the cool nighttime air slowly leaches away the heat captured by the rocks and soil during the day, and you are glad now that, to avoid noise and movement later, you put your jacket on at sunset, even though it was uncomfortably warm then. You think deep thoughts. You ponder the vastness of the universe, and your place within it. You try to remember a joke you heard recently to share later with your PH. You remind yourself for the thousandth time during this trip to be grateful for all the wonderful experiences and that "these are the good times!"

But mostly, you just wish that the damned leopard would come.

It was 9:10 PM when we first heard it - softly, but distinctly, from across the riverbed 75 yards away, the muffled sounds of the leopard feeding. "Crunch....crunch....crunch," bones are being crushed and broken as the cat dines! Nicky touched Holly’s leg, and despite the darkness, I could see her demeanor change. A sudden charge of static electricity surged through the blind and I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle. No longer slumped over in our chairs, we were at once wide-eyed, alert and prepared for battle!

Nicky would later tell us that he had seen the cat several minutes before we heard it at the bait. He happened to be looking toward the bait with his 10 x 42 Leica binoculars and he dimly saw the cat cross the riverbed from our side to the side where the baits were hanging. It disappeared into the thick riverine brush on the other bank and did not appear at the baits until several minutes later. He kept this information to himself not wanting to get Holly too excited until he was sure that the cat was feeding.

Nicky put a finger to his lips and signaled with a hand gesture that he wanted us to sit quietly and let the leopard get comfortable at the bait. For several nerve-racking minutes we sat, hardly daring to breathe and prayed that an errant breeze would not give away our position. The leopard would feed actively for a minute or so, then apparently sit, quietly, looking and listening, always vigilant for danger even under cover of absolute darkness. Before dark we had lowered the baits to allow the leopard to feed from the ground under the tree and avoid the possibility of a branch partially hiding the cat or deflecting a bullet. Everything was in place and going according to plan!

Finally, Nicky touched Holly on the shoulder, giving her the signal to lean forward and take her position on the riflestock. Remembering my suggestion, she quietly turned on the illuminated reticle and looked through the scope, past the dimly lit crosshairs, toward the bait tree and the still invisible leopard. In slow motion, Nicky rose silently from his chair. Once standing he eased the rechargeable spotlight up into position in front of his chest, pushed it out over the front of the blind at arm's length to avoid blinding Holly, and switched it on.

The bright, white beam sliced through the night across the wide, sandy riverbed and lit up the bait tree 75 yards away. The light revealed the leopard sitting on its’ haunches facing away from us at a severe quartering angle. Its’ left front paw was extended holding on to the fresh warthog shoulder as it fed. Unlike my experience two nights earlier, this leopard remained focused on the bait for several seconds when the light came on. I heard Nicky quietly say, "shoot" and the .300 Jarrett roared. The cat leaped several feet into the air, did a back flip, hit the ground and in the blink of an eye, disappeared into the darkness heading back to our side of the riverbed.

Holly reloaded quickly and remained seated. I stood up and looked at Nicky. "She hit him," I whispered. "I couldn’t see anything, just dust" he replied. The blast from the muzzle brake had raised a cloud of dust and dry grass obscuring his view. He said, "Let’s just stay quiet and listen for a minute." Holly stood up between us. She was excited, but also obviously a bit shaken. We found our flashlights, had a drink of water and began stretching the kinks out of our legs after sitting motionless for over 4 hours. Nicky continued to listen intently for any indication that the leopard was dying somewhere nearby, but there was no growling, no gurgling, no coughing, nothing. The silence that I had found so comforting and familiar just moments before had now become ominous and menacing.

We stood still listening for several minutes. With each passing minute, the look on Nicky’s face grew darker and more serious. Normally a very happy and jovial guy, when he turned to Holly and asked gravely, "How did you feel about the shot, did it feel good to you?" there was something in the tone of his voice that told me he had been here and done this before.

"Yes," Holly said, " I feel that I made a good shot, I was holding right on the shoulder, I don’t know how it was able to run off like that."

"Are you sure; where do you think you hit him?" Nicky asked.

"I think I hit him in the shoulder, at least that’s where I was aiming. I did what you told me to do, I controlled my breathing, and the red crosshairs really helped me aim. I think I stayed pretty calm," Holly replied.

"OK, I’m only asking because usually when a client hits them in the chest they make lots of noise; they growl and you hear them crashing off in the brush. Then you often hear them cough and gasp as they die; this one didn’t make any noise at all."

"Well, let’s go take a look," said Nicky.

We gathered up the .300 Jarrett and Nicky’s .470 NE, the flashlights and the water cups and cleared a path through the thorns Matheus had piled behind the blind. As we climbed down the bank to the riverbed below, I described for Nicky the cat’s reaction to the shot. In the distance, we heard the Land Cruiser start up and come towards us on the gravel road. Matheus had heard the shot and would soon be there with the truck.

As we approached the bait tree we saw the headlights of the Cruiser coming around the bend in the river. We stopped and waited until Matheus pulled up and parked with the headlights aimed at the dangling baits. The headlights revealed that the cat had nearly finished the fresh warthog shoulder, little more than bloody bones remained. Nicky and Matheus conversed briefly in Afrikaans, then we all walked up to the baits looking for signs of the bullet’s impact.

There were a few specks of blood under the baits where the leopard had been sitting, and more faint splattering of droplets in the sand as we followed the cat’s running tracks across the riverbed to the opposite bank. I understood the Afrikaans when Nicky asked Matheus if he thought it was lung blood, and I believe Matheus responded yes, but without much conviction. At that point I believe it was simply wishful thinking on his part. The cat was moving fast as it crossed the riverbed. The blood droplets were small and widely scattered along the right side of the spoor making it difficult to determine the location or severity of the wound.

I was dismayed that the blood sign was so sparse; a 200 grain Nosler Partition at over 3,000 fps is a devastatingly effective load, especially on a thin-skinned cat. Holly is an excellent shot. She remains calm in the presence of game, aims carefully and routinely places her shots in the heart/lung region. She had dropped 6 of 7 animals in their tracks with 1 shot each up to this point on our Namibian safari at ranges from 50 to 230 yards. Only 1 warthog had required a finishing shot. I had been hopeful that we would find evidence of the fatal shoulder shot that she had described to us, but the spoor told another story.

Once we reached the opposite bank it was time to make a new plan. We were going to have to follow the blood spoor into the thick thorn brush and tall grass of the riverbank. If the leopard had run 100 yards into the bushes and died we needed to find it before a brown hyena did. Hyenas will make short work of a leopard carcass, leaving nothing behind for the taxidermist but gnawed bones and scraps of fur. While sitting in the blind several nights earlier, Nicky and I heard a hyena coming snuffling down the drag trail past the blind, and we had frequently seen hyena tracks in the riverbed around the bait. If the cat was dead in the bushes nearby, we needed to find it.

There was not much conversation. We all knew what had to be done and we were resigned to do it. Following a wounded leopard into the bush at night with a flashlight is a very dangerous business. Nicky and Matheus both have some experience at it, as clients have put them in this position before. But Holly and I had never been faced with this situation. My leopard had dropped dead in the riverbed 5 yards from the same bait tree two nights earlier, eliminated the need for any nighttime tracking.

I have had some exciting moments in my hunting career with black bears, grizzlies and wild hogs, but chasing wounded leopards at night with a flashlight is in a league by itself. I have read accounts of other hunter’s adventures with wounded leopards in the dark, and while most have a happy ending, some do not. I was comfortable with my decision to follow Nicky and Matheus into the bush, but I had serious reservations about Holly’s participation. I knew that she felt responsible and wanted to help finish what she had started, but I wasn’t sure that she fully understood the potential risks. Nevertheless, she was determined to go with us. There aren’t many women in this world willing to endure the discomforts of a leopard blind, and fewer still prepared to follow a wounded leopard into the thorn brush in the dark. I admired her courage.

Nicky picked up his Krieghoff .470 NE double rifle, broke open the action and checked one final time to be sure that two panatela-sized cartridges filled the chambers. I took the .300 Jarrett from Holly, put it back in the Cruiser’s rack and uncased my .375 H&H. At the time, I didn’t think that it was a good idea for Holly to carry a rifle. Stories of well-intentioned hunters accidentally shooting another member of the hunting party during a leopard mauling came to mind. Looking back on that decision now from the comfort and safety of my home office, I should have had more faith in her.

I chose the .375 because it wears a 1.5-6x42 Swarovski scope with their new illuminated 4A-IK Dangerous Game reticle. The 3-12x50 Swarovski scope on the .300 Jarrett set at 3 power is too much magnification for a fast moving target in thick cover. Especially when that target wants to bite you. After loading 3 rounds in the magazine and sliding 1 in the chamber, I set the scope down to 1.5 power and turned the illuminated reticle up to it’s brightest setting

My Surefire Executive flashlight was strapped to my head with an elastic band and adjusted so that where my eyes went, the high-intensity beam followed. Holly used her Scorpion Streamlight and Matheus carried Nicky’s bulky rechargeable spotlight. Nicky wore a Petzl LED headlamp that, portentously, I had given Matheus earlier that day as a present.

Holly started to take off her Filson jacket, commenting that she was too warm. I strongly suggested that she keep it on, and zip it up. "Protection," I said simply.  "Not much, but better than a cotton shirt," I thought to myself. She understood and complied. I zipped up my jacket as well, and remember thinking, "where is Capstick’s ‘leopard kit’ when you need it." Reading "Death in the Long Grass" years ago, I imagined how ridiculous Capstick must have looked marching into the bush in his football helmet, cutlass neck guard and flack vest following up wounded leopards. Standing in the dark that night, it didn’t seem quite so ridiculous anymore.

We walked back to the spot where the tracks left the sandy riverbed and headed up, over the bank and into the brush. Matheus led the way scanning the ground with the spotlight, searching for blood as he followed the tracks. Nicky followed closely behind, looking ahead, left, and right, probing the brush with his headlamp. Holding his double rifle at high port arms, he looked like a South Dakota pheasant hunter walking through a cornfield – a very tense South Dakota pheasant hunter. I followed Nicky with the .375 at port arms, my thumb riding the 3-position safety in the middle position. I told Holly to stay behind me.

Slowly we inched forward, as Matheus followed the spoor. After each step, Nicky and I would scour the tall grass and brush around us for the gleam of an eye or the twitch of a tail. We listened intently for the slightest sound, hoping the cat would growl or cough and give away its’ location. At times the brush was so thick that we could only see 5 to 10 yards with the flashlights. "If the cat ambushes us here, someone is going to get hurt," I thought, and wished for my trusted Browning BPS 12 gauge and 6 rounds of 00 Buckshot instead of the .375 I carried in sweating palms. At 5 yards no man alive can "outdraw" a leopard, even if you are lucky enough to be looking the right way when it comes. I wondered if I would ever forgive myself if Holly got mauled by the leopard, and wished that I had made her wait in the truck. In the dark, the leopard had the home field advantage, and in this contest, we were definitely the underdogs.

I marveled at Matheus’ professionalism and courage. Hardly over 4 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, he carried only the spotlight. He moved slowly as he followed the tracks. Looking down at the ground, he studied the spoor and the story it told. Walking in the lead, he trusted Nicky and I to protect him if the leopard charged, as he would likely be the cat’s first victim.

There was very little blood. Our hopes of finding the cat dead a short distance into the bush were rapidly disappearing. As we got farther away from the river, the brush was not so thick and we were able to move a little faster on the spoor. The rechargeable spotlight steadily dimmed as the batteries spent their charge and soon it was useless. Matheus handed it to Holly to carry and I passed him my Surefire flashlight. Giving up the light, I felt like a Jedi Knight forced to surrender his light saber…suddenly defenseless in a dangerous universe.

It was now over an hour after Holly’s shot and we had been following the spoor for 30 minutes or so, I think. I can’t be sure because, under the circumstances, the passage of time is distorted. You fully experience every agonizing, exhilarating second, and taking your eyes away from the brush surrounding you to look at your watch is not an option.

We were about 100 yards from the bait tree when we found the spot where the leopard had stopped to watch, listen, and perhaps contemplate making a stand. It had suddenly stopped and turned around to face back the way it had come. On the ground beneath where the leopard stood was a puddle of dark, red blood that covered a fist-sized rock and spread in a circle over the surrounding sand. The color of the blood clearly indicated a flesh wound. After standing for some time, the cat turned and once again headed east, towards the mountains. Why it chose to move on instead of wait for us we will never know.  We can only be grateful that it chose retreat instead of combat.

"It’s heading for the rocks," Nicky said gravely, "I think we should give up and come back in the morning." Nicky was right, if the cat was not dead yet, it was probably not going to die anytime soon. The only sane course of action was to give up the trail, head back to the lodge and return after daylight in the morning.

Covering our retreat with guns still at the ready, we slowly backed away from the bloody rock. We would begin there again in the morning. I was thankful that everyone was still in one piece, but regretted that we were leaving a wounded leopard behind to suffer through the night. The half-hour spent following the leopard's spoor in the dark had simultaneously been the most terrifying, and the most exhilarating, 30 minutes of my life.

It was quiet in the Cruiser during the 20-kilometer drive back to Nicky’s lodge. Isabel awoke to serve us a late dinner. She offered encouragement to Holly, telling her not to worry, that we would find the cat stiff and dead in the morning. As dinner concluded, I suggested a 5AM wake-up and breakfast at 6 to get us back on the leopard’s trail at sunrise. Nicky, probably for good reasons based on past experiences and a lifetime in the Namibian bush, was not in that much of a hurry; he set breakfast for 7AM.

After dinner we stumbled up the path to our bungalow and bed. Although emotionally drained and physically exhausted, I was concerned that we would lay awake until sunrise replaying the images of the preceding hours, but fortunately that was not the case. After almost three weeks of pre-dawn mornings and late nights in the leopard blind, well-deserved and sound sleep came easily to us both.

The usual light-hearted banter was absent at the breakfast table. Holly was so nervous that a cup of rooibos tea was all the breakfast she wanted. Nicky and I ate our usual breakfast of coffee, bacon and eggs, but on this morning it could have been rawhide and sawdust and I wouldn’t have noticed. Isabel kept herself busy serving us and looking after their baby boy, Ben. Their 4 Jack Russell terriers, three males and a very pregnant female, were their usual rambunctious selves as they chased and played around the table. Stopping beside our chairs, they would look up at us with imploring eyes and beg for the tidbits that Holly and I had been not-so-secretly feeding them since our arrival. Blissfully unaware as yet, the 3 males would play a major role in the events about to unfold that morning. It was the same routine we had grown accustomed to after hunting for almost 3 weeks; but nothing felt the same. We made half-hearted attempts at polite conversation, but it was obvious that we were all preoccupied with only one thought - how will our morning’s hunt end?

We returned quickly to the bungalow to brush our teeth and gather our gear. With a smile and a quick hug, I told Holly "don’t worry we’ll probably find your leopard stone dead a few yards from where we stopped tracking it last night." I’m not sure who I was trying to convince, myself or Holly, but I didn’t buy it, and I’m not sure she did either. On the way to the lodge I stopped to take some video of the sun coming over the mountains. I told Holly to go on ahead. When she was out of hearing I filmed several minutes of the glorious morning sky while I described the previous night’s events and the mission we were about to undertake. I tried to capture the gravity of the situation without being melodramatic, and with some morbid curiosity, wondered how it would sound to me later once the outcome was known.

Gathering in front of the lodge, Matheus and his brother, Johannes, were busy checking out the Land Cruiser and loading the cool box. As Holly and I stowed our gear Nicky appeared with his .470, the dogs frolicking at his heels. Bullet, Mauser and Milo live to hunt and were happy to be tossed in the bed of the Land Cruiser. Spotty, the pregnant female would stay at home. Isabel, carrying baby Ben, came out of the lodge to say good-bye, and although she tried hard not to let it show, she was obviously very concerned. It can’t be easy sending your devoted husband, beloved dogs and two valued employees off into harms way. After a brief embrace, she kissed Nicky, and wished us all luck.

As we drove away from the lodge, I decided that it was time to dispel the pall that seemed to hang over our heads and get psychologically prepared for the task ahead. Zulu warriors chant and pound their cowhide shields before battle, WWF wrestlers taunt the crowd and beat their chests when they enter the ring; summoning my own bravado, I turned to Nicky, clapped him on the shoulder and said, "let’s go find us a leopard!"

On the way through Omaruru, we stopped at the home of one of Nicky’s friends to borrow a Mossberg 500 shotgun. It was a riot gun model with an extended magazine and a short, improved cylinder barrel. Nicky had left his shotgun with a relative to use on a bird hunt and it had not yet been returned. Although the friend told Nicky on the phone that he had buckshot, when we picked up the shotgun, birdshot was all he could find. We decided that if it came down to shooting a leopard off someone at point blank range, birdshot is probably as good as buckshot and a damn sight more effective than throwing rocks, so we thanked him and added it to our arsenal.

The sun was already up when we parked the Cruiser near the bait in the riverbed. The air was cool and there was a pleasant breeze out of the east that would keep us downwind on the spoor if the leopard hadn’t changed course in the night. While we made our preparations the dogs leaped from the truck into the soft sand of the riverbed and ran over to investigate the bait. Nicky loaded his .470 double rifle. I loaded my .375 and checked that the scope was still set at 1.5 power, then turned the reticle up to the daylight setting. The intersection of the crosshairs glowed bright red, drawing my eye instantly to the aiming point. Nicky loaded the shotgun and handed it to Matheus. He made me a little uneasy when he started explaining to Matheus how to operate the safety and cycle the action. I had hoped that Matheus would already be familiar enough with the shotgun to use it effectively should the need arise. I now wondered if maybe a panga (machete) would not have been a better choice. I asked Holly to carry the video camera hoping there would be an opportunity to record the triumphant and uneventful recovery of a dead leopard.

With Matheus and Johannes in the lead, we climbed out of the riverbed and began to follow our tracks from the night before. It surprised me how quickly we reached the bloody rock. It had seemed much farther away in the dark. Although still a very serious business, in the daylight the leopard lost some of its’ home field advantage. As we moved forward along the spoor, I began to feel more like a predator and less like its’ prey.

After another hundred yards or so the cat stopped bleeding entirely. Since leaving the bloody rock there were only a few more drops of blood at intervals along the spoor and then only leopard paw prints in the sand. As Nicky had feared, the trail headed straight toward the rock kopjes ahead. The dogs worked back and forth in front of us searching for fresh scent as we followed the 11-hour-old tracks. Approaching the kopjes the terrain became more open with less cover that could conceal a leopard allowing us to move along the track at a brisk walk. The trail led to the base of the kopje. At that point we estimated that we had traveled about 1 mile from the bait tree. We now knew that there would be no uneventful recovery of a stiff and dead leopard this morning; we had a wounded cat waiting for us somewhere up in the rocks!

The Jack Russells started to climb and we soon lost sight of them among the jumbled piles of boulders. During an idle moment earlier in the hunt I had amused myself with the thought that the Erongo Mountains surrounding Omaruru looked like Fred Flintstone’s fictional hometown, "Bedrock." Huge round boulders balance precariously on the sloped surfaces of large granite domes and smaller round rocks often sit, improbably, atop the large ones. These rock formations are full of shady overhangs, small caves and dark crevices, perfect hiding places for a wounded leopard.

We began climbing also and had only taken a few steps when all hell broke loose in the rocks above us. All three dogs were moving quickly away from us, up the hill in full cry! They had jumped the leopard out of its’ hiding place and were in hot pursuit! Nicky and I took off up the hillside jumping from boulder to boulder. Matheus and Johannes followed in our wake and Holly struggled to keep up at the rear. After almost three weeks, my sea-level lungs had finally acclimated to the 1,300-meter altitude. Assisted by instantaneous jolts of adrenaline, Nicky and I quickly made our way to the top.

We looked in the direction that the dogs were heading and saw that there was a large basin full of thorn brush and trees nestled in the top of the kopje. We could not see the dogs or the leopard in the thick brush, but we could hear them moving away from us across the floor of the basin. We stopped briefly atop a large, flat slab of granite overlooking the basin to allow Matheus, Johannes and Holly time to catch up. Nicky took the video camera from Holly, turned it on and began filming. We could hear the dogs barking in the brush far below. They had stopped moving. Looking out over the basin, a flicker of movement caught my eye. It was the leopard in the top of a tree about 125 yards away! I grabbed Nicky’s arm to get his attention and pointed to the leopard in the treetop. For a brief second we watched the leopard as it hissed at the barking dogs below, and then looking up, its’ gaze was suddenly fixed on us. In a tawny blur of amber and spots it melted out of the tree and disappeared once again in the brush!

We heard the dogs barking as they chased after the leopard. After several seconds two of them appeared going up the open rock face on the other side of the basin. Nicky looked through his binoculars and said, "there’s Mauser and Milo, but where’s Bullet?" We were all immediately concerned that perhaps the cat had caught and killed Bullet. The two younger dogs ran a short way up the hillside, then turned around and headed back into the brush. Moments later we heard them in full cry once again. "There he is, in the tree!" Nicky exclaimed. The leopard had reappeared in a treetop 140 yards away and was looking directly at us.

I knew that the cat was not going to let us approach it in the tree. If we tried to get any closer it would jump down again and perhaps kill or injure the dogs. If it managed to get to a deeper cave in the rocks above the basin we would really have a serious problem. We needed to end it quickly, here and now while we could see the leopard.

Holly was winded, nervous and very concerned about the dogs. We were all worried about Bullet. I told her that we needed to take the shot now, from where we were standing. She said she did not feel steady enough and asked me to take the shot for her.

Before leaving the Land Cruiser I gave my Stoney Point collapsible shooting sticks to Johannes and asked him to carry them. When the dogs jumped the leopard, Nicky had taken them from him. Once we reached the top of the kopje he stopped and extended the legs. He handed them to me now and I quickly spread them across the rough granite surface and settled the .375 on top. The .375 was sighted dead on at 75 yards, the distance from the blind to the bait tree. I left it sighted that way after shooting my leopard two nights earlier. I turned the scope up to 6 power, and focusing on the tree as I raised the rifle, I quickly found the leopard in the crosshairs. It was lying in the tree facing straight at us. I could only see its’ head, chest and a portion of its’ right shoulder, the rest of its’ body was obscured by leaves and branches.

I adjusted my stance, leaned into the rifle and took several deep breaths trying to slow my hammering pulse. Gently increasing the pressure on the 2-pound trigger, I held the horizontal crosshair on the cat’s hairline with the vertical crosshair running through the point of the right shoulder. From across the basin, the leopard looked me straight in the eye, bared its’ teeth and snarled!

The sight picture looked good as the trigger broke cleanly and the rifle recoiled. We heard the 300-grain Swift A-frame hit with an audible thump. The cat growled loudly and started thrashing frantically in the treetop. Without taking my eye from the scope, I reloaded quickly and sent another bullet on its’ way, hitting the cat again. A second later we watched as it fell from the tree and disappeared in the brush at the base of the tree. The dogs’ frenzied barking continued.

We jumped down off the rock and rushed forward over and around boulders, then fought our way through the dense thorns until we reached the base of the tree. Approaching cautiously, we were overjoyed to find all three dogs harassing the motionless leopard, and there wasn’t a scratch on any of them!

The leopard was a mature female that later measured 190 centimeters in length and weighed 39 kilos. Not a huge leopard, but Holly could not have been happier. We shook hands all around and clapped each other on the back as we admired the beautiful cat. The dogs collapsed in the shade, panting and exhausted. Waves of euphoria washed over us as relief and joy replaced the stress and anxiety we had all endured since the cat was wounded the night before. A quick post-mortem revealed that Holly’s bullet had creased the cat’s chest creating a large open wound, but without penetrating the rib cage or doing any damage to internal organs. After passing under the chest the bullet had smashed the leopard’s right front leg between the elbow and shoulder.

We concluded our celebration under the tree and began the long, happy walk back to the riverbed with Holly’s trophy. I hung back with the video camera to film our triumphant procession. Matheus and Johannes led the way, each holding a front and rear paw with the leopard swinging between them. Holly and Nicky followed along behind the leopard, laughing and joking with one another in the golden Namibian sunlight.

The real heroes of the morning were the three Jack Russells. They followed along behind Nicky in single file, and in order of seniority, first Bullet, then Mauser, then Milo.

It was a fine march down the rocks, across the sand and through the thorn brush back to the riverbed and the Land Cruiser. We drove a short distance to a scenic area at the base of a nearby mountain and had a lengthy photo shoot. On the way back to Nicky’s lodge we stopped briefly at The Sand Dragon, a funky coffeehouse and internet café in Omaruru to celebrate our victory with a round of cappuccinos.

As we pulled into the lodge, all the workers came to admire Holly’s leopard. Isabel was overjoyed to see that we had our leopard and that everyone was OK. At lunch we toasted the leopard with 10 year old KWV Brandy. After a much appreciated afternoon nap we drove down the road to the Epako Game Lodge and had a magnificent gemsbok fillet dinner by candlelight on an outdoor veranda overlooking a lighted waterhole surrounded by kudu, waterbucks and blue wildebeest.

The next day Nicky and Isabel drove us back to Windhoek where we did some souvenir shopping and the four of us enjoyed another great game dinner at Joe’s Beer House. The following afternoon our flight left Windhoek and we began the grueling 40-hour trip home.

In the course of normal day to day life, I often stop to remind myself that "these are the good times!" The experiences that Holly and I have shared together in Africa must then be considered "the best of the good times."

We have made wonderful friends, seen spectacular sights and shared great adventures. Our Namibian leopard hunt will remain a cherished memory for the rest of our lives.

The only thing better than savoring the memories of our past African adventures is making plans for our next one! In June of 2005 we’re off to the Eastern Cape and Karoo regions of South Africa to have some new adventures with old friends!

We will all be dead for a very long time; live it up, go have an adventure!

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