Tusks. A short story.

The man, confidant, able, guides his clients along the path. The weather is hot and dry, as it can only get in the African bush. He has been working as a guide in Botswana his entire life, lived for it, lived from it.
The wilderness of Botswana is like nothing you've experienced, it is what you imagine when you think of prehistoric nature, untouched by man's greed of expansion.

In his natural habitat, the guide walks along, aware of everything around him. He's armed, a rarely used rifle that he keeps in good condition. Just in case.
His clients are snapping pictures left and right, there's nothing much to see but dry bushes and rocks as old as the world. But this nothingness is so precious in our new age of everything.
The wind shifts. A rumble sounds around the bend. The guide freezes.
His hand shoots up in the motion used by squadron leaders to tell their troops to stop and get down. No sudden movements.
All of a sudden, from between the dried and crackling bushes emerges a behemoth. A giant male elephant, ears flapping, trunk swinging, tusks waving. An elephant growl is the most terrifying thing in the world. It shakes you to your core.
He charges. Tusks first.

The guide manages to push his clients out of the way, but before he can dive out of the way the elephant strikes. A tusk enters under the armpit and emerges out the chest. Luckily, the tusk slips right back out and the guide falls to the dusty ground.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins as fast as the blood is leaving them, the guide points his previously unused but well maintained rifle at the elephant's head and shoots twice.
It is struck… trumpets in pain…

word count: 300
(picture source: google images)