One Heck Of A Ride

118 Two Memorial Hunts In Cameroon to shoot. (Borge said we needed more dogs.) The next to the last day of the hunt, we were working a sitatunga track, but could not close the distance and returned to the road, found another track, and set off on another chase. After a long trek, I shot a good sitatunga male from the tightest shooting quarters I have ever been in. Unfortunately, the animal did not drop at the shot. Borge rushed in and grabbed its horns and tried to wrestle it to the ground like a rodeo bulldogger, but the still-very-much-alive antelope refused to go down. “Shoot it!” Borge yelled as he jumped back and released the horns. The dogs were all over that animal, and it was swapping ends faster than I can describe. I wanted to break its spine with my shot, but I also did not want to hit one of the dogs. I shot quickly when I thought they were in the clear, and hit a horn instead of the spine. It took another shot to kill it. “I can’t believe how strong he was,” Borge said as we stood over the 120-pound animal. As with Africa’s other sitatunga subspecies, this ram also had the long, splayed hoofs needed for living in marshy areas. I found it interesting that if it weren’t so shaggy and I hadn’t have seen its feet and if it had stripes instead of spots, I would have said it closely resembled the nyala I’d taken in South Africa. The forest sitatunga that PH Borge Ladefoged tried to wrestle I’d had a great hunt in Cameroon, and I credit Borge for being among the most focused of the professional hunters and guides I’ve hunted with all over the world. Nonetheless, I was not sad to leave Cameroon. I’d taken one of the world’s most desirable trophies, seen gorillas and chimpanzees and other animals few will ever see in the wild, including a forest elephant we found while stalking a buffalo herd. I hunted with pygmies and shot monkeys to feed their families (until I saw them grab an injured monkey and cook it – hair and all – on an open fire while it still was alive). For some reason, as my flight back to Paris lifted off from Douala, I felt I would return. Eight years later, Marty and I were watching television at home when the newscaster began talking about “The Mormon Madoff” admitting to stealing more than $21 million from sixty-seven “investors” (including his mother) in a Ponzi scheme. “I know that guy,” I said, pointing to the screen. “I hunted with him in Cameroon!” As did Bernie Madoff, who stole a record $150 million from his investors, Shawn Merriman (a lay bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints) had been living a lavish lifestyle on other people’s money. He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and was sentenced to twelve years in prison and ordered to repay his victims. The government seized nearly four hundred pieces of fine art (including Rembrandt prints), plus vintage automobiles, motorhomes, a yacht, and mounted trophies taken on his safaris, and sold them and his homes at public auctions. Back To Cameroon For A Giant Eland When a crate containing the skins and horns of my bongos and other animals I’d taken in Cameroon didn’t arrive when expected, I learned Borge Ladefoged had shipped it, but for some reason the crate had gone to Paris and back to Douala, where Borge shipped it again to Paris, where it was lost. Six months later, it was found