Chapter 22: Hunter vs hunter

After half an hour, Sobek heard the roar of the engines approaching. He promptly plunged back into the water: he couldn't risk to be seen, not now at least. His plan was carefully thought out and he knew exactly how he had to proceed. When Wheathley finally reached where Karl's last transmission had come from, he found only one of the boats overturned and another on fire behind a small passage in the mangroves. A real massacre that left not even a single survivor. The other poachers were nervous. Such a sight was enough to worry even men accustomed to death. "Was it the spinosaurus to do this, boss?" one of them asked. "It seems obvious to me. No other animal would be strong enough to move a motorboat like that" Wheathley grumbled as he watched the wreckage of the burning speedboat. Only a creature that swam with the speed of a boat could do such damage. Suddenly one of the poachers shouted: "Over there! It's over there!" Everyone turned to the spot he had indicated. In the distance the spinosaurus sail moved placidly in the water. "Should we attack, boss?" one of the poachers asked with his hands already on the gun. But to everyone's surprise, Wheathley's response was: "NO!" The poachers were confused. They had never heard their leader utter such a word on a hunt. "Try to make those tiny brains you possess work and reflect. Why is the spinosaurus still here? It should have fled hours ago, but it looks like it's waiting for us. Even if it had stayed because it felt safe, the roar of the engines should have alerted it and made it run away, instead it is extremely calm and is pretending not to have noticed us" Wheathley gritted his teeth and pointed to the wrecked motorboats: "Look. It is clear that the spinosaurus led the two boats to a point where they would have had to separate. And perhaps even the grounding of John's speedboat was not accidental. It had premeditated it. It had premeditated everything from the start" Wheathley felt the hairs on his body stand up as a strange sensation, an unusual mixture of fear and excitement, began to form in his stomach. "We have been deceived. We thought this was a confrontation between a hunter and a prey, but it isn't. It is the clash between two hunters, in which each of them tries to hunt the other one". He stared at the spot where the spinosaurus was, and for a moment he thought he could feel its eyes on him, as if it were returning his gaze. "This is a trap" The poachers didn't know whether to be scared or believe that their boss had just gone crazy after those words. A spinosaurus that playing with them like that? It was absurd, it should have been as smart as a human. Yet all the pieces seemed to fit together... Wheathley looked closely at the spinosaurus. Flames glowed in the man's eyes. He hadn't felt such sensation in years. He felt like he was back on his first hunt, when he was still inexperienced and didn't know the rules, and everything was a challenge... As time passed, the experience and the increasingly sophisticated weapons he'd had access had erased the excitement that he felt in chasing, studying, and dealing with prey. But now Wheathley felt that fire within him again. That excitement he felt when the outcome of a battle was unknown, where he could kill or be killed... In his head, Wheathley decided that if he would have managed to win, he would have not captured the spinosaurus. In nature, whoever won killed the opponent. The spinosaurus would have done it with him. Wheathley would have returned the favor, preventing the animal from becoming a toy to display at some rich man's party. "Take the heavy guns" he ordered. What was coming was a battle to the death. Two hunters would have confronted each other and one of them would have killed the other. As the law of nature dictated, only the strongest would have survived. Wheathley no longer cared about the costs. The remains of the spinosaurus would have earned him a nice profit anyway; he could live with that loss. Now he just wanted to hunt, as he hadn't done for years. The poachers took out their heavy weapons. They consisted in two machine guns, hidden under the bridge of the motorboats. The atmosphere changed. Wheathley wasn't the only one who noticed, but he was the only one who understood what it meant. His instinct tempered by years of hunting gave him the answer. The spinosaurus was emitting a clear murderous intent; it had understood. It had understood that, from now on, its enemies were fighting to kill. Wheathley almost thought he saw a defiant look in his opponent's eyes. "Arnold, you and your team go right, me and mine go left! That beast will not be able to fight on two fronts" the 'white hunter' ordered. The motorboats departed promptly at his command. Wheathley's plan was simple but effective: even if they were divided, the two motorboats would still have been very close. The spinosaurus couldn't have attacked either of them without exposing its blind spot to the other. As soon as it did so, the person whose back it turned would have shot it, inflicting fatal wounds or at least debilitating it enough to finish it off later. However, he soon realized that something was wrong: despite the murderous intent it was emanating, the spinosaurus hadn't moved. It almost seemed to be watching them, waiting for them to come upon it. Wheathley immediately realized that he had miscalculated the situation. He was convinced that the spinosaurus would have lured them to an area where it could have the advantage, as it had done before; but apparently it had changed its strategy! That was another trap! "Stop!" he shouted. Too late: Wheathley's motorboat braked in time, but Arnold's ran aground on a shoal. The spinosaurus was standing in a shallow area of water: it was just pretending to swim! "Shoot it now!" Wheathley ordered holding the machine gun, but the spinosaurus was too fast: it went back into the deep water and disappeared. "Damn! Keep an eye on each side!" Wheathley shouted. "Head back immediately! We need to get as close to Arnold's motorboat as possible and have each other's backs covered! At this moment we are too exposed..." "There!" the poacher holding the gun turned to a spot in the mangroves and began firing. In fact, a few moments earlier he had glimpsed a tail. But unlike him, Wheathley had already figured out what the spinosaurus' game was. "You idiot, it can swim faster than a boat! Point the machine gun at..." A roar was heard not far away: Arnold's motorboat was hit by a body with the size of a truck and rolled away crashing into the mangroves, exploding. Before Wheathley and the two poachers with him were able to act, the spinosaurus had already disappeared under the water. Wheathley clenched his fists. He understood what had happened: the spinosaurus had distracted them, then swam under them and destroyed the other boat before they could act. Now they no longer had anyone's support, which left them in a very dangerous situation. "Point your weapons in the water! Don't be fooled, it's below us!" The poachers scanned the swamp floor, but there was no chance that the weak human eyes would have seen a creature that possessed the ability known as [Ambush]. While they were still trying to catch a glimpse of a shadow, shape or any sign of the spinosaurus, the speedboat suddenly lifted up and spun in the air, knocking them off the boat. The man holding the machine gun caught a glimpse of a large crocodile face hitting him before it closed its jaws on him and the weapon he was holding, killing him instantly. Wheathley swam swiftly to the first islet he saw. He didn't turn around for a moment. Behind him he heard the screams of the third poacher on his team while he was torn into pieces alive. When he was finally on the islet he tried to use his rifle, but the water had wet the cartridges making them useless. Wheathley might have been hiding, but he knew he would have hardly escaped the scent of a predatory animal. Besides, the spinosaurus had already found him: it was emerging from the water in front of him, its eyes full of murderous gaze. The two proud hunters looked at each other for a moment. Time seemed to stand still as each of them looked at their own reflection in the other's eyes, admiring the flames that burned in them. Wheathley knew his time had come, but he wasn't angry. He was afraid, of course: no man wasn't afraid in the moment of death. But he felt that such death wasn't that bad. He would have died doing exactly what he always wanted: hunt. In that last hunt, Wheathley had rediscovered the excitement, the adrenaline, the beauty of a battle with an uncertain outcome. He had lost that battle, but he had never felt more accomplished in his life. Looking at the winner in front of him, Wheathley couldn't feel hatred or anger. In nature, you kill or you are killed: that was the law of the jungle. There was no point in blaming who was stronger for winning their challenge. "Well, what can I say..." the now no longer 'white hunter' whispered. "It was a good hunt, man" The jaws of the spinosaurus closed on him.