Relentless Boundaries

Name’s Ron, never had a last name I was just an orphan and when I was young ran away from the orphanage with my friend Ricardo. We were both orphans from Detroit, we grew up in a hard neighbourhood and, after doing some underground work, we moved to Africa. It was Ricardo’s idea, he said there was a fortune to be made in blood diamonds so I clumsily went along with him. The whole blood diamond thing didn’t work and we were constantly just trying to survive until we found a new profession, hunting or rather poaching. It all started when a leopard attacked us and we just barely managed to kill it, after selling its hide for a large sum we figure why not do it again. So we bought a truck and some guns and did it again. But it wasn’t just leopards it was just about everything that was of value: lions, elephants, and cheetahs, basically whatever we could. We didn’t feel good about it, or at least I didn’t, but it was good money.

* * *
The ford Bronco bumped along the trail, we had spent a considerable amount of money importing it into Africa and after a few modifications and a new ford 460 big block, it was worth it. “You ever think about what life would be like if we lived normal lives?” I asked Ricardo, “No” he replied bluntly. I shrugged and cocked back the bolt on my SKS rifle to inspect it. “I’m always telling you to get a better gun” Ricardo teased “and I’m telling you this gun is fine” I grumbled. I knew that the SKS wasn’t the most powerful but it was rugged, reliable and easy to working, the 7.62 x 39mm round wasn’t extremely powerful but it would kill anything we needed to hunt, except elephants but we had a double barrel .577 T-Rex for that kind of ‘game’. Ricardo had bought an American Woodmaster 750, it was an alright gun: .308, semiautomatic, scope attachment, but I liked my SKS more.

“Yeah just tell that to the next lion we meet” Ricardo laughed, “yeah it’ll be like the last cheetah” I countered, “hey, my gun’s magazine jammed and the rounds wouldn’t load” he argued “yeah and that wouldn’t have happened if you had of bough an SKS” I laughed. He grumbled to himself as he continued to drive “yeah well… how bout when your gun used to slam fire” he argued and I simply rolled my eyes “yeah but I fixed that, your gun still has feeding problems” I countered and he grumbled to himself “screw you, just keep looking for game” he laughed. I nodded and looked down the trail. The truck hit another bump and I bounced in my seat but was held down by my seatbelt, Ricardo however wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and his head hit the roof “god dammit” he roared, “you should really wear your seatbelt” I taunted, “yeah well… screw you, when did you become Mr. Law abiding citizen” he laughed.

I finished my inspection of my SKS and released the receiver forward with a CLICK. He looked over to me and chuckled “never gets old eh?” he asked, “what?” I asked back “that gun” he joked “oh funny” I chuckled sarcastically. “Yeah what’s that thing from 1950?” he taunted “1951” I told him crustily. “Yeah that thing belongs in a museum” he laughed “and yours belongs in a scrap yard” I countered, “hey” he exclaimed. It was true, though about a year of misuse his rifle was rusty and barely worked, on the other hand my rifle was always very clean, but this would be like the seventh rifle he’s wrecked. He scoffed at my comment and continued driving down the road.

I looked through the trees and spotted something but I couldn’t quite see what, it was getting late and was about 6:30pm. “Whoa hold up” I ordered Ricardo who stopped the truck almost immediately, “what is it?” he asked. “Don’t know yet… Lion or a cheetah but can’t tell” I informed him, all I had seen was a flash of orange. “Well only one thing to do” he chuckled as he slapped the truck into 4x4 and cranked the wheel and drove us into the thick jungle, the truck bounced as we tore through the jungle and I saw a lion look up at us and start to run, I activated the large flood lights on the grill bars and on the cab light bars. The forest seemed to illuminate and the lion was on the run.

“Shoot it Ron” Ricardo laughed and I cocked back the SKS and fed it a 10 round stripper magazine and slammed it shut, loading the rifle. I opened the window on the truck and leaned out, man if only I could see that, some 6’4” white guy hanging out the window of a truck with a Russian made rifle chasing down a lion, that would be on the frontline of every anti-hunting website in the world… fucking people have no respect for others just trying to get along in life. I tried to line up a shot but the truck hit a stump and bounced, throwing my aim off “keep her steady” I told Ricardo “it’s kinda hard man” he replied back, suddenly a bright purple light flashed in front of us and I lost consciousness.