"Oh, my God." Ray Johnson's jaw dropped in awe as he reached the crest of the hill. He was looking at the first elephant outside a zoo he had ever seen in his life. The animal was immense. Thoughts of the fine impala he had dropped with a heart shot an hour earlier vanished from his mind.

Mincer, the transplanted South African, grinned at his client. The young man's ability to spot game and read sign was fully the equal of his own, and this had been a revelation for the professional hunter. Most of his clients were older, typically out of shape, and, as often as not, mediocre rifle shots. Ray Johnson had been a welcome change from that, but here he was acting like every other nimrod on his first safari at the sight of his first elephant. Mincer gave him a few moments of silent reverie before speaking.

"That one's fairly big in the body for this country," he said with a smile. "Tusks aren't much, though, as you can see. I promise we'll find you one that'll make this one look like he's still teething."

"How big is he?" Raymond whispered. They were downwind of the bull elephant, and with his poor eyesight he did not spot them, even though they were less than fifty yards away. Past him were two other, smaller bulls.

"About a forty-pounder, I'd say. We can do better, I promise."

"No, I mean the elephant itself," Ray corrected.

Mincer grinned. "Don't get a chance to weigh the whole bloody animal very often," the professional said drily, "so I'm a bit rusty on my estimates. Biggest one in the world was taken in Portuguese Angola in '55. It's a full mount, in your Smithsonian, by the way. That one went twelve tons, as I recall, which is about double the average for a mature male. Tusks are small in Angola, though, so they put a big set from one of our bulls in the mount. This fellow here," he said, nodding towards the beast, "he's a little bigger than normal. Say seven tons, about." Ray shook his head in wonder. He was imagining sneaking up to within fifteen yards of the huge beast and taking the tricky brain shot. An elephant's brain is about the size of a loaf of bread. It is surrounded by honeycombed bone. A head shot which misses the brain itself can enrage the animal and cause a lethal charge. Ray was mentally drawing the correct angle of penetration when his guide spoke.

"We'd best leave," Mincer said. "There's a chance he might spot us and charge. We don't want to use up one of your elephant tags on a little forty-pounder." Trophy fees for African game were payable in advance and non-refundable. Woe betide the client who shot a charging animal in self-defense without a tag for that particular species.

Ray grudgingly followed the professional hunter. Ivory weight was not what was on his mind. He was thinking that hunting North American game would never be the same for him.

"Here it is," Curt Behnke said to Henry and Walter as he handed the barreled action to the boy. They were in the basement of Behnke's home in the German section of St. Louis. It was the most cluttered residence Henry had ever seen, which was not surprising as there were ten children in the family. The basement shop was very cluttered, too. The gun racks and walls were covered with world record groups that Behnke had shot with rifles he had built. Some were records that had since been surpassed, and some still stood. Behnke had taped or stapled them haphazardly about his work area. He didn't much mind when one fell down or got torn. There would always be more.

Curt Behnke was a trim man of forty-seven whose hair was starting to turn grey. He moved quickly, except when he was working at his lathe or mill. Behnke was a photoengraver for the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. His machinist's skills were entirely self-taught.

"Explain to me what you had done, Henry," Walter asked his son. Henry picked up a pencil and turned the custom-barreled Remington receiver over on the workbench. He pointed to where the magazine well had been.

"Single-shot 40X actions are hard to find, so Curt machined a piece of 4140 tool steel to fit here in the magazine cut. Then he had it heliarc-welded into position, with something to soak up the heat around the receiver ring so the heat-treat wouldn't change around the locking lugs."

"Why the metal block?" Walter asked. The work had been done so well that the receiver looked like it had come that way from the factory.

"It makes the action stiffer," his son answered. "Then he machined the block down so it was the same shape as the rest of the receiver, and made all the threads and everything right, instead of sloppy and crooked like they were, and reworked the trigger so it isn't real heavy and full of creep."

Behnke chuckled. "The factory doesn't do quite that bad a job," he explained, "but I like to true up the threads, make sure the face of the receiver is perfectly square with them, and spot-in the locking lugs on the bolt with lapping compound. Then I make sure the bolt face is square with the front of the receiver ring, and the lugs and locking area are perpendicular to the axis of the barrel. Every little bit helps when you're trying to put them all in one hole a hundred yards off."

"Tell me about the barrel," Walter asked the gunsmith.

"It's a Clyde Hart stainless blank. I've always had good results with his barrels. Much as your son shoots, I made him go with the .222 Magnum chamber instead of a Swift or a .22-250, which burn more powder. The .222 Mag will last a lot longer. In a twenty-six inch barrel, with the minimum-spec chamber I cut, he should still get thirty-six hundred feet per second with match bullets." He handed Walter a loaded round to examine. It was much smaller than the 8mm cartridges Henry shot out of his surplus Mauser. "Left the barrel eight-fifty at the muzzle," he said, speaking of the diameter in thousandths. "Never seen one left that heavy that wouldn't shoot."

Walter Bowman examined the quality of the metalwork. It was flawless. "Looks like you've got your job cut out for you making a stock that will do justice to this, Henry." Curt Behnke smiled at the compliment.

"What do we owe you for your work, Curt? I promised Henry if he saved up for the receiver and made his own stock, I'd pay for the metalwork and scope." Walter reached into his pocket and pulled out his money clip.

"Fifty-five for the blank and fifty to fit, chamber, crown, and turn it to contour. Twenty to machine the block, have it welded in, and grind it to shape. Twenty more to true up the action. Five bucks for trigger surgery. Scope blocks are free for a first-time customer. And I get fifteen for a straightline seating die made with the same reamer that cut the chamber," he added as he reached across the workbench and produced a polished loading tool with ".222 MAG." stamped on it in tiny print. "A hundred sixty-five total."

Walter Bowman counted off the bills and handed them to Curt Behnke.

"Something tells me this won't be the last time I see the two of you here."

"No. you're right. As soon as we get home, the little capitalist will probably start nagging me to find him more jobs to do to earn money."

"Drop him off here if you want, and I'll put him to work contouring barrels," Behnke said with a smile.

"Hey, I've got a stock to make first," Henry broke in. The two men laughed, and smiled at the boy. Henry wasn't paying attention. He was staring at the barreled action, imagining in his mind's eye how he would lay out the pattern and inlet the wood to accept the metal.

In ten days, Henry would have a complete rifle. In six more he would have developed accurate loads for it that would stay in 1/2" at 100 yards. Soon after that he would regularly be killing crows in the cornfield at ranges up to two hundred yards and occasionally farther, depending on the wind.

By the time school started, Henry would have fired over two thousand rounds through the single-shot varmint rifle. He would be very glad that he had taken Curt Behnke's advice and not specified a .22 case with more capacity, which would have shortened the barrel's accuracy life considerably.

As it turned out, Henry Bowman's .222 Magnum would not need a new barrel for almost two years. "You ought to be working on my side of the business, my friend, as much as you understand game animals and their habits." The comment startled Raymond. It was a daydream he had found himself indulging in every day since his arrival in Kenya.

The two men were sitting by the campfire, watching one of the crew tend to an impala steak that was cooking in a plow disc that had been drafted into service as a skillet. It was the end of the sixth day of Ray's safari, and he had seen more game than he ever dreamed existed. Hundred-head herds of impala were everywhere. Zebra grazed on the plains just like the wild mustangs back in Colorado, except there were a lot more of them here. Buffalo and elephant traveled in herds also. The first time Ray had seen a herd of over a hundred elephants, he had not been able to believe his eyes.

Most enlightening to the Coloradan had been the lions. Every day he had seen a lion take down one of the thin-skinned species and start eating it while it was still alive. The big cat would gorge itself on as much of the kill as possible, then go to sleep nearby and consume the rest of it at his leisure. "They lie around like lazy kaffirs, belching and farting, for a couple weeks," Mineer had said. "Then when their fat burns off and they start to get hungry again, they go back to work." Ray had found the reality of the 'King of Beasts' somewhat different from the idealizations of his childhood.

"What does it take to become a pro?" Ray asked the white hunter. "Isn't it hard for someone not from either Africa or England to get the government's okay?"

Mineer nodded. "Most definitely, here in Kenya. Very difficult. Expensive, too," he added. His eyes crinkled in a smile. "But for an energetic young bull like yourself, there are other, more attractive opportunities that would be too much for one such as I." Mineer was forty-seven years old.

"Mozambique or Angola are where I would be looking if I were your age. The Portuguese are abysmal at managing things. A Portuguese professional hunter is-what is that word?-an oxymoron" "Their governments might accept a license application from a twenty-five-year-old American?" Ray asked.

"I should think they might pay you to apply, with things as they are currently. You see, a pro in those areas is expected not only to run his hunting concession successfully, but also to provide other services to the surrounding community. To act as the local...sheriff, yes, that's the proper word for it." Mineer gave Ray a knowing look.

"Portuguese professional hunters are barely capable of finding their way back to base camp. You can imagine the futility of expecting them to provide any...leadership in the local town." He nodded his head. "Angola and Mozambique offer almost unlimited opportunity for someone such as yourself. Young man with brains and drive could make quite a bit for himself there, I should imagine." He leaned closer. "Would you like me to investigate further for you? May as well, while you're here."

"Pull up stakes and move to Africa, huh?" Ray said with a broad smile. "That's something I never thought I'd be talking about." He laughed as he imagined cabling Jacob Burns that he would not be returning. "Law office would think I'd lost my mind."

Raymond leaned back and smiled at the idea. He was unaware of the Telex which had been sent from Colorado to Nairobi two days earlier.

It was after nine o'clock in the evening when Raymond and Mincer got back to the camp in the LandRover. In the back was an eland which weighed close to a ton. Raymond had killed it with a single shot at about 175 yards. It was the fourteenth head of game he had taken on the safari. Both men were in excellent spirits as the headlights of their vehicle lit up the tents where the skinning crew was camped.

"Donza, Donza, Donza!" Mincer called out in Swahili. "Don't let it spoil!" The skinners ran to the vehicle as it rolled to a stop. As the white hunter climbed out from behind the wheel, one of the camp crew rushed up to him and handed him a folded sheet of paper.

Mincer held it so that the setting sun allowed him to read the printing, and his face clouded. "This is for you, Ray," he said as he handed the paper to his client. "It took some time for them to find us out here. I'm sorry."

Ray Johnson took the sheet of paper and held it up where he could read it.

XMIT GJPOLDEP RCV TRADECO.

15 AUGUST 1963.

DELIVER MINEER SAFARIS FBO JOHNSON OF PITKIN.

COUNTY COLO USA.

BAD NEWS BUD AND LOUISE BOTH DEAD SINGLE CAR ACCIDENT RED MOUNTAIN LAST NIGHT STOP CORONER SAYS HEART ATTACK STOP FUNERAL SUNDAY AUGUST 18 STOP THIS WONT REACH YOU IN TIME SO FINISH HUNT REPEAT FINISH HUNT STOP EXPECT YOUR CALL FROM NYC SEPT 2 STOP WILL HANDLE THINGS HERE STOP DONT GET EATEN STOP UNCLE CARL.

Ray held the telex closer to his face and reread it three times before dropping his hand to his side. He stared out at the magnificent Kenya sunset. The news of his parents' death was a violent shock, but he was surprised at how jarring he found the reference to New York City. Ray Johnson realized right then that after he settled things in Colorado, he was going to give notice at the law firm and get with Tony Kearns about a long-term investment plan.

As soon as that was done, he was going to move to Africa.

Henry Bowman had never seen any of the teachers at Howell School cry before. Plenty of his classmates had cried over the years, especially out on the playground, but this was different. The black woman Henry recognized as working in the school's kitchen was out in the hall, sobbing openly. Henry's sixth-grade teacher was blinking back tears, and looked as if she was about to lose her composure at any moment.

"There's just been an announcement," she said solemnly. "President Kennedy has been shot. The President is dead."

There was stunned silence in the classroom for a few moments. Then the sixth graders erupted with simultaneous questions about the killing.

"Have they caught anyone?"

"Do they know who shot him?"

"How did it happen?"

"Are they sure he's dead?"

The teacher tried to smile, but the result was a total failure as she attempted to answer the students' shouted questions. Henry Bowman remained silent. His mind was not on the teacher's words, but instead was filled with a number of unrelated thoughts about the slain man. The first was of Max Collins' comments on the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, and his criticism of the young President for the debacle.

Henry's second thought was of some photos he had seen of Kennedy on his boat off the coast of Massachusetts, shooting the new AR-15 machine gun. The weapon had been designed by Eugene Stoner for the armaments division of Fairchild Aircraft, and was very light and easy to control. Kennedy had been grinning in the photograph, and at the time Henry had wished that he, too, could try out the new select-fire rifle that the military was talking about adopting as the standard issue weapon.

As the bell rang and the students ran out the door to recess, the boy's mind switched to another subject. Henry Bowman had substantial knowledge of firearms and was in regular contact with major importers and distributors. Because of this, his thoughts turned to Joe Kennedy, the dead President's father. "Quick, Honey! They're about to show it again!" Catherine Bowman immediately turned the stove's heat control to a lower setting and hurried into the living room. Her husband, brother, and sister-in-law were sitting on the couch. Irwin Mann sat in an armchair to Zofia Collins' right. Henry sat on the floor in front of his father. All of them stared at the television set, transfixed.

The screen showed a crowd inside a room. The people in the scene were straining to see what was about to happen. Then a door opened and some men escorted a younger man wearing a dark sweater across the room. His right wrist was handcuffed to the left wrist of one of his captors, a fairly tall man in a lightcolored suit, white shirt, dark tie, wearing a sort of dress cowboy hat. Flashbulbs popped and the noise level increased.