Pride of the Plains (9 page)

‘He swallowed a lot of water,' Paul remarked.

The three men strode back to the Land-Rover. Before they reached it a deep and angry roar brought them up short. Encumbered by their load they were unable to wipe their faces free of the water that streamed down them.

‘Take care,' Joel warned shortly. ‘That sounded too close for comfort.'

They hurried on but they were still fifty metres from the vehicle when Battlescars, roaring defiance, broke from cover and barred their path. He had been shadowing them and he wanted his son.

The three men and the big dark-maned lion stared at each other. Joel and his helpers knew they were in danger but they wanted to avoid using their guns. Moja lay limp in their arms, unaware of the confrontation. Battlescars made no move but it was obvious that he wasn't going to let the men get to their vehicle.

‘Let's put the cub down,' Joel said. ‘I think this is the father. There isn't another lion in the game park with these kinds of scars.'

They laid Moja on the ground. The cub's eyes opened, and he stirred a little and vomited a quantity of water. He seemed to recover himself, giving a kind of squeaky yelp. The call brought Battlescars forward. The lion was as wary of the men as they were of him. Joel could see that there was no chance now of getting the cub to the refuge centre. But perhaps it wasn't necessary after all. The men stepped back as the lion advanced tentatively, baring his teeth in a nervous snarl. Now Moja saw his father for the first time and he staggered to his feet, calling a muffled greeting. Battlescars sniffed at him and looked back at the men. He decided they weren't presenting a threat.

Joel, Paul and Joseph had ample time to admire the still magnificent male and to witness a very
unusual scene. Father and son, after completing the rituals of recognition, began to show real affection to each other. Battlescars nuzzled the cub. Moja butted the big male, brushing his head and body against him repeatedly. All the while a low throaty growl, evidently one of pleasure, could be heard coming from Battlescars. Joel was satisfied. Better for Moja to be with his own kind now that it seemed he hadn't suffered lasting harm.

Paul and Joseph grinned broadly at one another. Joel said, ‘This is wonderful. It's a reunion. That cub has been missing for a long time.'

‘I wonder, will they go together?' Paul murmured.

They were soon to find out. Battlescars had all but forgotten the men and Moja had shown no awareness of them since his recovery. The old male was ready to move. He turned and began to walk away. Moja followed instinctively. He was a little wobbly at first but soon found his strength again. Battlescars passed the Land-Rover with a cursory glance and walked on. Moja trotted behind. The men were free to reclaim their vehicle. Joel hesitated a few moments longer. He was enjoying the experience.

‘He's' taking the cub back to his pride,' he whispered joyfully. He looked at his companions. ‘Come on. Let's get going,' he said. ‘What a story we have to tell.'

Once well away from the humans the lion and his cub could relax. Moja hadn't quite come to terms with his father's abrupt appearance on the scene. He asked about it.

‘I came looking for you,' Battlescars told the surprised cub. ‘You're a brave little lion. I shall need you soon. I've no support any more.'

Moja was thrilled by his all-powerful father's
compliments. He still thought of Battlescars as invincible and so to be looked upon as a future ally was the highest kind of praise. ‘I've tried so long to get back,' he said. ‘Are my brothers and sisters all right?'

‘All well. And your mother too,' Battlescars replied. ‘We've had no losses apart from my brother. We've lived well. But you've had adventures, haven't you? You must tell us all about them.'

They were comfortable walking together. Moja almost felt that his father was treating him as an equal. He was proud of his new stature. Battlescars, meanwhile, was confident that the pride wouldn't have moved far without him. He found it easily and Moja, his heart almost bursting with joy and excitement, ran to meet his relatives.

Huru could scarcely credit what she saw. She knew Moja at once although he had grown handsomely since his disappearance. She licked and nuzzled him as he collapsed against her with a blissful sigh. Kimya and the other cubs greeted him with delight while Battlescars sat back and watched. It was noticeable that, because of his experiences on his own, Moja looked harder and more muscular than his siblings.

‘Tell us what happened.'

‘Where have you been?'

‘Did you have to fight?'

The other cubs, breathless for news, demanded to know all about Moja's exploits. He was only too happy to tell them and understandably permitted himself to embellish some of his adventures.

‘You've been lucky,' Huru told him afterwards. ‘You've survived and there's no doubt you deserve credit for that. You've had to learn the hard way. But now we're reunited we need to stay together for our own good. I don't want you to stray any more.'

‘That's all I ask: to be with you all,' Moja said.
‘You'll never know how much I longed for family and companionship.' A brief flash of memory brought Pembe and Kifaru into his mind but was soon obscured by the more important concerns of his pride.

‘We have to hunt today,' Kimya said to him. ‘From what you tell us about eating reptiles and mongoose and scraps like that I guess you'll welcome some real meat.'

Moja drooled at the prospect. He looked forward to the time when he could actually take part in the hunt rather than just following it. But he knew that day was quite a way off yet.

‘We can catch you some spiders and moths,' his sister Tatu teased him. ‘You're used to things like that.'

‘Flies and bugs are better,' said Mbili. ‘There's more of them.'

‘What about scorpions?' chimed in Nne. ‘They'd be more to Moja's taste, wouldn't they?'

‘Worms,' said Sita.

‘Beetles,' cried Tano. ‘Those big round ones that walk backwards pushing dung-balls.'

‘All right; that's enough,' Moja growled. But he was amused despite himself. ‘I'm a meat eater just like you, you know.' He pounced on his cousins and boxed them playfully. He was so happy to be back amongst them.

Joel, Paul and Joseph arrived back at the refuge centre. Joel sprinted up the steps to the veranda of the Obagwes' house. Simon and his wife Emelda were sipping cool drinks in the shade, waiting for the car bringing Annie back from school.

‘You look as though you're about to burst,' Simon said to Joel with a chuckle. ‘Good news?'

‘Yes. Very,' Joel panted. ‘The missing cub is alive and well and he's back with his pride. Oh, I wish Annie was here!'

‘She soon will be,' Emelda said. ‘Where did you see the cub?'

Joel told them everything. Simon was fascinated by the encounter with Battlescars. ‘That's an amazing thing,' he commented. ‘It was probably only a set of coincidences but it really sounds as if he came to fetch his youngster and then claimed him from you. I would love to have seen that.'

When Annie returned, her parents allowed Joel the privilege of retelling his story. The little girl was ecstatic and skipped about, crying, ‘I knew he was alive; I knew it!' Then she flung herself on her father. ‘Daddy,
please
won't you take me to see him now? I'll be so glad to see him with his mother again.'

‘Of course we'll go,' said Simon. ‘Joel will tell us the best time. He'll keep an eye on the pride for us.' He looked at his deputy, who nodded. ‘Your mother ought to come too,' Simon continued. ‘We'll make it a family trip to see a family: a lion family.'

Annie was thrilled but impatient. ‘When, Joel? When?' She grasped his arm in her hands as though to drag him out there and then.

‘Perhaps when it's a little cooler,' he told her with an affectionate smile, ‘so long as the pride doesn't move too far off. And I must know it's quite safe for you when we go. You do understand that, don't you, Annie?'

‘Oh, yes,' she crowed. She was so excited. ‘Thank you. Oh, thank you.'

It didn't get any cooler. The dry season was in full swing and temperatures were high and getting higher by the day. A low wind blew which gave no relief. It
seemed to scorch the air and the land like a breath from a furnace. It wasn't the sort of breeze that was usually experienced at this season. Men and animals began to wonder what it meant. The earth dried to an abnormal hardness. Trees and bushes began to drop some of their leaves as they went into a state of suspended animation. The lions of the small pride, like the rest of the inhabitants of the game park, bore with the extreme weather. They slept through most of it in whatever shade they could find, grumbling and squabbling amongst themselves for the best shelter.

The conditions didn't improve the edgy relationship that had formed between Huru and Kimya. Battlescars always demanded the shadiest spot and got it. Huru tried to get alongside him but sometimes her sister got there first. Then there was resentment or sullenness that the stifling weather fanned into really bad temper. Sometimes the cubs bore the brunt of the latter, except for Moja who, since his spell of solitude, seemed set apart. There was a kind of distance about him, almost a mystique. Battlescars always looked to see where he was before he slept. The preference he showed Moja helped to mark the young lion out.

Hunting was particularly exhausting at this time. The lionesses continued to co-operate where the essential business of food was concerned. They worked together by instinct, almost without thinking about it. After making a kill they were often so tired that they collapsed by the side of the carcass while Battlescars and the cubs ate their fill.

Once again the problem of finding water became acute. This was the sisters' second dry season in the wild, however, and they had the benefit of experience. To begin with they were able to visit a selection of waterholes. As always the smaller pools dried quickly. They relied then on the larger ones, including the
one where Huru and Kimya had first joined Battlescars and formed the small pride. Many kinds of animals used this pool: baboons often congregated there when no lions were about, while gazelle, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest regularly drank there. Upesi the cheetah and her cubs were sometimes seen. Elephant and rhino mother and calf drank the water and bathed or wallowed. Moja took care never to go near the elephant gathering. He had not forgotten how near he had come to being killed. Indeed every other animal gave way before the huge beasts when they were intent on bathing.

Moja was thrilled when his friend Pembe turned up with his mother. He ran to greet them. ‘So you found each other again,' he cried in delight.

‘No thanks to the men,' Pembe grunted. ‘And you … you saved yourself?'

‘No. I would have drowned. Men pulled me out, I think. But my father rescued me from them. Did you walk across the river again?'

‘Yes, of course,' Kifaru answered. ‘It's no problem now. You could do it.'

‘But I don't want to,' Moja said. ‘I'm back with my family and I'm so happy. I told my mother how you helped me.'

The big rhino turned and bent her huge head down to the cub's level so that her horns almost brushed his face. But her little eyes were soft. ‘I'm so glad,' she said tenderly. ‘Where is your mother?'

‘She is coming this way,' Moja told her as he noticed Huru and Kimya moving slowly towards them.

Kifaru's head reared and she turned quickly to face the lionesses. At first she was unsettled. Then she recognised them. ‘Ah, yes. I remember,' she murmured. ‘We helped each other before.' Despite her
feeling of reassurance, though, she still kept her bulk in front of her son as a screen.

After a moment the memory came to Huru too. When her cubs were only a few weeks old Challenger and his brothers had made their first attempt to steal the sisters from their mates, and the black rhino had intervened to drive them away. Her action had been in defence of her own young calf, but a bond had been forged between the three mothers.

‘You were good to my son,' Huru said now. ‘Thank you. He may not have survived without your friendship.'

‘And we would do the same for yours,' Kimya told the rhino. ‘We have an understanding.'

‘I know,' she replied. ‘My calf and your cub are friends. It's good to see friendship between different animals. It is men who are our enemies.'

Huru and Kimya had another view on that because of their early life. But they guessed Battlescars would be in agreement. The old male was watching the group with curiosity. He wasn't party to this association and he held himself ready to give aid to Moja should he be threatened. After a while the sister lionesses moved away and Kifaru lowered herself into some cooling mud. Moja and Pembe were left on their own. Battlescars continued to watch guardedly. Pembe dwarfed the lion cub and the big male was suspicious.

‘Shall we bathe?' Pembe asked his friend.

Moja had no such inclination. ‘I hate wetting my fur,' he answered. ‘Besides, water has hardly been kind to me.'

‘In this heat all I can think of is getting into water,' Pembe told him. ‘How else can you get relief?'

‘I don't know,' Moja replied. ‘Perhaps the heat won't last.'

‘Don't fool yourself,' Pembe said. He was older by several seasons than the lion cub. ‘It could get worse yet.'

Moja felt the sun burning his back and couldn't imagine how anything could be worse. But Pembe would be proved right and, as well as the heat, another menace would arrive to test the animals even further.

The exceptionally hot dry weather had provided perfect conditions for insects. Large numbers of biting flies moved around the game park attacking any and every warm-blooded creature that could be reached. Some areas were worse than others, but in the daylight hours there were very few animals who could expect any kind of respite from their assaults. Only those with thick leathery hides like elephants, rhinos or hippos were relatively unscathed, and even these had their eyes, ears and nostrils attacked by the vicious insects. Hippos stayed submerged in the bigger pools for as long as they could; water offered the only real refuge from the tormentors. However, all the pools were now drying at an alarming rate, whilst the horrible scorching wind seemed to blow new swarms of biting insects into the park with each gust. Every beast and many a bird, too, was susceptible and made miserable in the extreme. It was difficult to eat, to hunt, to rest. The big herds started to leave the plains for fresher pasture, but on their long trail they were attacked and bitten mercilessly at every step. Weak or injured animals fell by the wayside. These were greedily snapped up by predators who themselves were weakened by the flies' attacks and lacked the energy to chase their prey.