Ghost Cats...

“It was his only chance. To reach the door, the poor fellow had to leap onto the back of the beast killing his companion. Panic is a powerful incentive. He sprang at the door. To his horror, he “found that it was held fast on the other side by the terrified coolies….”

The frantic escapee heaved mightily and squeezed through. Another man, on whom the lion had stood to snatch its victim, hurled himself out a window. The man-eater left through another, the corpse of Police Superintendent Ryall in its mouth.”

That animal was one of a pair that preyed upon workers laying rails toward Uganda from the East African coast in 1898. Their lethal visits to the camps halted construction of the Tsavo River Bridge. A 1996 film, “The Ghost and the Darkness” traced Colonel John Henry Patterson’s efforts to kill them, as described in his book, “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo,” first published in 1907.

My mission had no such imperative. But it was just as specific. “We’re after one lioness,” said Jamy Traut last year. “She’s old and secretive, and often hunts alone. She’ll be hard to find. She’s also aggressive. You’ll want to shoot quickly if she comes.” He’d seen her twice. The last time, she had come. His .458 bullet to the sand under her chin turned her “very close.”

This cat lived in a section of the Kalahari Desert noted for big gemsbok and eland. I’d killed both there on earlier hunts. Red Namibian dunes lie hard against the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park that sprawls across great slabs