Journey to Freedom (6 page)

‘Kamenza village,’ the driver announced.

‘Oh yes?’ said Joel. ‘Then we’re close?’

‘We’re here,’ the driver replied. ‘OK?’

The truck pulled into a yard. Some people came out of a building on one side and ran over to lend a hand. The car drew up in front of a house with a veranda and a short flight of steps running down to ground level. A man in shirt and shorts hastened down them as Joel got out of the car. He was the chief game warden of the nearby national park, and was also in charge of the animal refuge centre. His voice rang out.

‘Joel? Simon Obagwe.’ He thrust out a hand and grasped Joel’s. ‘Good trip?’

‘Good, but long.’

‘Of course. You must be worn out.’ Simon smiled at the driver who was carrying Joel’s luggage. ‘Thank you, Paul.’ He turned to Joel again. ‘You’ll want to freshen up and change your clothes. Come along in. Hot, isn’t it?’

‘Very,’ Joel agreed. ‘Er – I’d really like to see Ellen settled first, if that’s all right.’

‘Plenty of time for that. They won’t do more than unload the truck until we’re ready. I expect you could use some refreshment?’

Ellen sensed several sets of eyes on her as her crate was brought to the ground. She was quite used to being
stared at, but when Lorna had been with her she had known that the attention was shared. Now she was the sole focus of interest. She glared suspiciously at these men with their excited chatter. She felt deserted and vulnerable. If only her sister were with her now! She showed her teeth in a half-snarl as one man came particularly close to examine her.

‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ the man was murmuring.

Later Ellen was introduced to her roomy new pen. It had plenty of shade and there were clear areas under the trees where she could lie. There was also a pool. Ellen was the only occupant. Surrounding the enclosure was a three-metre-high wire fence with overhangs to prevent climbing out and a second, lower fence around that. Support poles were sunk into concrete so that digging a way out wasn’t an option either. Joel noticed the emphasis on security, comparing it with Lingmere. For the hundredth time he wondered whether Lorna had been recaptured. He meant to find out as soon as he could make contact with England.

‘What d’you think?’ asked Simon.

‘I think she’s very lucky,’ Joel answered. ‘Except she’ll be lonely. She’s
always
lived with her twin before.’

‘I know. An unfortunate business, that. I hope she won’t be alone for long.’

‘So do I. I don’t know what’s happened at home. Perhaps I could—’

‘We’ll find out,’ Simon said promptly. ‘Meanwhile Ellen has a neighbour she can see: Upesi, a young cheetah. We brought her in as an orphan. Her mother injured a leg. Couldn’t hunt. Starved to death, I expect.’

Joel registered this information, given so baldly. Life in the African wild was another cup of tea altogether. It could be nasty and short. If Ellen – and Lorna – ever
reached the release stage, they would face a host of dangers and difficulties neither of them knew existed. How would they cope? He watched Ellen begin a cautious exploration of the pen. Release seemed a distant prospect. But at least the lioness had a chance now to become familiar with the kind of terrain she might one day roam. Her enclosure’s fencing had been erected around existing vegetation, a chunk of the savannah. Ellen brushed against it, close to where Joel was standing. He spoke to her.

‘It’ll be all right; you’ll see,’ he said softly. ‘You’ll be well cared for. And I’ll be here for a while.’

Ellen recognised his voice. She paused. Their eyes met. Joel thought he saw a kind of appeal in Ellen’s gaze. He wondered whether he was imagining it. But he answered anyway. ‘She’s coming,’ he whispered. ‘Soon.’ He hoped he was speaking the truth.

By now Lorna was exulting in her freedom. She had become scornful of humans and their feeble endeavours in the forest. She and the honey badger hunted throughout the woodland and they met no rivals.

One evening after filling their bellies the two animals lay by the stream. They were entirely confident in their surroundings.

‘Have you ever thought,’ Lorna asked lazily, ‘of going beyond the forest?’

‘No,’ the badger answered at once. ‘I don’t need to. I have everything I want right here.’

‘Aren’t you just a little curious?’

‘Not me, no. Why should I be?
This
is my territory.’

Lorna stared at him with a hint of contempt. ‘Don’t you want to enlarge it?’

The badger sat up. ‘What’s on your mind, lion?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ Lorna answered. ‘Bigger prey! I remember some creatures I saw soon after my escape.
I didn’t understand about hunting then. They’re still there, beyond the trees; you can hear them making their weak, silly cries. They’re fat, Ratel. Very fat. I think they’d be easy game.’

‘The humans are out there,’ the badger protested. ‘You’re safer in here now they leave you alone.’

‘Humans!’ Lorna scoffed. ‘They don’t know what I’m thinking! They wouldn’t be expecting me. And, besides, they shut themselves in their dens at night. I’d have a clear field. Why don’t you come too? See the sport. Don’t you always follow me?’

‘Mostly,’ the badger replied. He had no real desire to be part of Lorna’s plan. ‘When is this to be?’

‘When I need a kill.’

Ratel considered. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You go first. If it goes well, I’ll come the next time.’

Lorna said disdainfully, ‘Of course it will go well. But I don’t require your help, so you must do as you please.’

Lorna was keen to test herself. Even before hunger really asserted itself again, she was ready for the prowl. The honey badger followed as far as the woodland’s rim. Lorna aimed for the sheep field she remembered so vividly, and hesitated on the edge of the trees.

‘Is anything there?’ the badger asked.

‘I don’t hear them,’ Lorna growled. ‘Maybe they’ve moved.’

‘Try another time,’ the smaller animal suggested.

‘Nonsense. They’re out there somewhere. And I’m going to find them,’ Lorna finished positively.

‘Be careful, lion. I want you to come back.’

Lorna’s ears cocked but she didn’t answer. She crept into the empty field. In her mind’s eye she could see the mass of plump, top-heavy bodies that had scattered as she ran between them. Where were those funny long faces and dainty feet? She raised herself and walked
more boldly across the pasture. A spectral barn owl dived earthwards and scooped up a vole. Nothing else moved.

Lorna paced her way into an adjoining field. And then she heard them. A stray bleat answered by another: a ewe calling its lamb. The lioness hastened towards the sound. White, woolly-coated bodies dotted the far side of the field. Most of the sheep were lying down, chewing incessantly. Some grazed the turf. Lorna picked out a young lamb adrift from the main flock. She sank to her belly and crawled forward, her head straight and still, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on her target. The flock had no reason to be particularly cautious. They had no history of being hunted. Lorna’s progress was easy; the lamb still had its back to her when she made her final dash. It was dead before it could even bleat.

Now the flock saw the killer and panicked. But Lorna merely lugged the lamb away towards the forest, carrying it comfortably in her jaws. She ignored the rest of the sheep then, but the ease with which she had made her kill remained in her memory.

The badger was waiting for her. He had never seen a sheep and at first was puzzled by Lorna’s burden.

‘Did you go all that way simply for some fresh bedding for your den?’ he asked in astonishment as his eyes picked out the drooping fleece.

Lorna loosened her hold for a moment. ‘Very comical,’ she grunted. ‘In that case you won’t be wanting a share?’

Now the badger saw his mistake. ‘Oh. You have meat too! It smells rich.’ He sniffed eagerly. ‘You’re very resourceful, lion. Was there any danger?’

‘None at all.’ Lorna grabbed the lamb again and moved beneath the trees. ‘Plenty there for a determined hunter.’ She reached a favourite place in some
brushwood and dropped her prey. A slight warning growl kept the badger at a distance. She ripped at the thick fleece. The badger turned a somersault, unable to keep still.

‘This is good meat, Ratel,’ Lorna told him, turning her reddened face in his direction. ‘The best. Better than the meat the men used to give us.’

Ratel swallowed. He yearned to taste it. ‘Will there be . . . a mouthful or two, d’you think, lion? Just a morsel, perhaps?’

Lorna yanked another limb off the carcass. ‘What I don’t eat now,’ she told him, ‘I shall carry back to my den. This is too good to leave to the scavengers. But you can come afterwards for scraps. As you usually do.’

The badger was disappointed. He had hoped for something more this time. ‘If I . . . came hunting with you – you know,
outside
– would I perhaps earn the right to a bigger portion?’

Lorna didn’t reply at once. Eating took precedence. When she was satisfied she said, ‘You have the right to the whole animal.’ The badger grinned, showing his huge teeth. ‘As long as you killed it,’ the lioness added pointedly.

The badger shook his loose coat irritably. ‘How could I even—’

But Lorna interrupted him. ‘They have no defence,’ she said. ‘None. A hunter such as you would be more than a match for the smaller ones. This creature didn’t even run.’

‘Do they . . . do they just stand and wait to be slaughtered?’ cried Ratel. His eyes glowed greedily.

‘This one did. But in any case they have no speed. You wish you’d come with me this time, don’t you?’

‘I do regret it. And you say there are no humans to protect them?’

‘As you see,’ Lorna purred. ‘Just as in the forest. We go where we please.’

The badger looked pensive. He couldn’t quite believe that men hadn’t a trick up their sleeve somewhere.

The news of the failed attempts to recapture Lorna greatly disheartened her former keeper. Joel was torn between a desire to return to England to lend his special knowledge to this task and a feeling that he should remain longer at Kamenza to help care for Ellen. He was amazed by the swiftness with which Lorna had taught herself to hunt, and concluded that this had been born out of desperation.

Simon could see Joel was ill at ease. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told the Englishman. ‘It’s out of your hands as long as you’re here. How long you stay with us is entirely up to you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Joel. ‘I don’t like to leave Ellen while she’s off her feed.’

‘That won’t last,’ Simon assured him with a smile. ‘It’s all new and strange at the moment. Once she’s got her bearings a bit she’ll be fine.’

But she wasn’t. She ate nothing at all on the first day. Simon shrugged it off. The next day Joel tried to tempt her with some fresh meat. Ellen showed scant interest. She listened obediently to his coaxing and then turned her back and wandered away. Most of the day she spent lying under the trees.

Joel was upset. ‘This doesn’t look good,’ he said.

‘It takes some animals longer to settle than others,’
Simon reassured him. ‘No cause for concern yet. Ellen’s basically a fit and healthy beast. That’ll tell in the long run. Nature will take its course.’

On the third day Ellen spent most of the time at the far end of her pen. She had discovered her neighbour Upesi, the cheetah, and seemed to be comforted by her presence. She lay by the wire in a patch of shade and watched the smaller cat pacing up and down. Occasionally the cheetah glanced in her direction.

‘This is a strange place,’ said Ellen.

Upesi continued to pace. ‘What’s strange about it?’

Ellen didn’t know how to describe her feelings. Instead she asked, ‘How long have you lived here?’

Upesi was puzzled. She didn’t remember her mother and she had no way of knowing that there was anywhere else to live. ‘I’m still young,’ was her answer.

‘Yes, but is this your home?’

‘Of course it is. What do you mean?’ Now she stopped and faced Ellen.

‘I wondered if you came from somewhere else, like me,’ the lioness said.

‘How could I? I saw you arrive.’

‘Well, this isn’t my home,’ Ellen growled. ‘My home’s quite different. I don’t know why I’m here.’ She looked away into the distance as though trying to locate Lingmere beyond the African plain. That brought Lorna into her mind. ‘I have a sister who should be with me. We always live together. I don’t know why they parted us.’ She looked at Upesi mournfully. ‘I
could
make this place home if she were here with me.’

Upesi didn’t understand. ‘The man who feeds you spends a lot of time with you,’ she commented. ‘I wouldn’t like that.’

‘I’m used to him,’ Ellen said. ‘He’s part of my home too. I feel strange here and unhappy. And yet some of it seems right. I don’t know what’s happening.’

‘Neither do I,’ said the cheetah. ‘Why do you keep talking all the time?’ She walked away. Her long elastic limbs moved economically. They had never yet known the explosion of speed of which they were capable.

Ellen was still trying to make some sense of the situation. ‘I was at home, then I went to sleep,’ she muttered to herself. ‘A long sleep. Then I was in The Box. Still half asleep. A lot of noise, thunder, rumblings. Always The Box. Hoisted up. Then down again. Up and down. Then here. Out of The Box at last. Alone. All the time alone,’ she finished morosely. ‘But why?’