A Pride of Lions (14 page)

“I was telling him you had been kind to me,” I turned her question.

She made a face at me. “And he didn’t believe you?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I demurred.

“Just as well,” she said lightly. “You’re a rotten liar, Clare deJong! Don’t mind me, tell the truth!”

“We-ell,” I began, “Hans Doffnang is a puritan—”

“And I’m not?”

I looked up at her almost timidly. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Poor Hans,” she said.

I was glad when she had gone. The iron bedstead creaked horribly as I got into it, but it was still good to be home. I tried the radio for a while, but there was little to be heard in either English or Swahili. I was disappointed, for I had hoped to hear what had happened to the poachers. The Voice of Kenya was silent on the subject, however, and there was nothing else in the news that really interested me. It was a relief when Katundi brought my evening meal, making sure that I ate every bite of it.

“The Bwana is on the radio now,” he told me.

My heart made a dramatic dive within me. “Oh?” I said with studied indifference.

“They have captured the
Mzee
lion and driven the others away. They are bringing the
Mzee
here to let him loose. It is far from Aruba—” He shook his head doubtfully.

“Far enough?” I asked him.

“I couldn’t say,
mama.
The
Mzee
has the wisdom of his blood.”

I chuckled. “And Hugo?”

“The Bwana too,” he agreed with an answering gleam. “But it is the
Mzee
who has roamed free in these lands all his life. He will answer the call of his kind. The hunting of the whole pride depends on him. It is his skill that makes the pride successful. The other lions look to him and he feels the responsibility. It will not be easy to make him go here when he wants to go there!”

I thought about this for a while, pushing a piece of potato about my plate.

“When will they be home?” I asked at last.

“They will be here tomorrow. They must take the
Mzee
to the waterhole in the evening. He is not a woman to accept his food at a man’s hands. He must catch his own.”

I thought it was the lioness who made the killing,” I objected, nettled.

Katundi nodded. “But it is he that drives the food to her feet.”

When he was gone, I settled down to sleep. I turned off the light so that there was only the glow of the hurricane lamp outside to break up the darkness. But I could not sleep. I was still awake when the electricity went off all over the camp. The noises of the night had their own drama and on any other night I shouldn’t have minded lying awake and listening to them, the heartbeat of Africa. But that night I could only think of Hugo and the menacing lion. When I did sleep, I dreamed that they were stalking one another through the darkness— and I couldn’t be sure that it would be Hugo who would win. When I awoke, I was exhausted and cross, but the night was over and there was nothing else for it but to get up and begin the day.

It was astonishing the amount of work they had done on the site in the two days I had been away.

I had been expecting to find it much as I had left it, but it had been transformed. The road to the top had been completely levelled and drained and was already in use. On the site itself, the foundations had at last been finished and the first of the concrete was being mixed, ready to pour it into the deep trenches provided. There was some doubt as to the wisdom of doing too much until the rains were over, but Hans Doffnang had rigged up a cover over the trenches and the work was going speedily ahead. It almost seemed as if I were not needed by any of them. They had managed extraordinarily well without me.

My confidence was slightly restored by Mr. Doffnang’s visible relief at finding me on the site.

“We have done good work,
ja?”
he gloated. “But now we need to get down to making better arrangements for the gangs of workers. Will you call all the foremen to come and see me at lunchtime? Then we can make good plans for the next stage.”

It was good to be working again. The meeting went remarkably well, despite certain tribal difficulties that no one would admit to, and we went a long way towards ironing out a number of difficulties in organising the labour and sorting out which gang would do what when the actual building began.

But by four o’clock I had had enough. My arm ached abysmally and I was more tired than I liked. It was not the normal, healthy physical fatigue that I was accustomed to, albeit not often, but a prickly tiredness caused by lack of sleep and a constant, nagging sense of unhappiness. So when the whistle went, I was the first one to start off down the steep path towards the camp, even though I knew that Hans Doffnang would have liked me to have stayed on while he walked round the site, examining the work of the day.

Karibu was waiting for me under the baobab tree. She trumpeted her glee the instant she set eyes on me, advancing at a smart trot that had me sidestepping back and forth across the path, hoping to escape her. But Karibu was in no mood to stand any nonsense. She had missed me while I had been away and with unerring instinct she knew immediately that I had been hurt in some way. Her trunk fondled the back of my neck, her breath blowing down my back. She was very gentle. In no time at all she had caught a whiff of the disinfectant on my arm and she rumbled her alarm while she carefully examined every inch of my head and limbs.

“It’s all right, Karibu,” I whispered in her ear. “Hugo was with me.”

Her ears flapped back and forth at his name. There was no doubt that she was deeply upset. I put my hand on the base of her ear and gave it a gentle tug.

“Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s walk along the river.”

So brave I had become! I hardly noticed the crocodiles along the bank and it never even occurred to me that I would be in danger from anything else. With Karibu plodding along behind me, I felt completely safe.

It was partly by chance, therefore, that I was down by the ford when Hugo arrived home. Karibu heard the motor of the Landcruiser long before I did. She pawed at the ground and flapped her ears, bellowing a greeting at the top of her lungs. She was answered by the indistinct, defiant roar of a single lion.

The noise was exciting. I could feel it in my flesh, so animal was my own reaction to their cries. And then I saw the Landcruiser coming towards us and I was jumping up and down and waving my arms in the air, just like a schoolgirl who had waited all night for a glimpse of her favourite pop star.

The Landcruiser dipped and skidded its way across the river, responding to every touch of Hugo’s capable hands. Then at last, with a final roar of the engine, the vehicle mounted the bank and came to a halt beside me.

I was bitterly aware of the last time I had seen him. I could almost feel his lips on mine, just as if there had been no intervening time between then and now.

“Have you brought
Mzee
with you?” I asked, only for something to say, for I could see the great lion, caged but hardly defeated, in the Landcruiser that was coming along behind.

Hugo smiled. He looked amused. “I’m going to take him to the waterhole on the other side of Chui plateau and release him there. Do you want to come?”

I nodded quickly, before he could change his mind. “Are you going straight away?”

He grinned. “I don’t like to see him caged,” he said.

I could understand that. I hurried into the seat beside him after giving Karibu a quick pat and a push, hoping that she would go back to the camp. But the elephant had other ideas. She was not going to allow me to get away from her again. Hugo let in the clutch and the vehicle moved slowly forward.

“I’m afraid she’ll come with us,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he reassured me. “If she gets tired, she’ll go home.”

The second Landcruiser gained the bank and followed us at a discreet distance as we encircled the rocky outcrop on which the new hotel was being built.
Mzee
paced up and down the narrow confines of his cage, but he made little attempt to escape. Perhaps he had already discovered that he had no chance of getting away from his captors until they chose to release him.

“How are you going to let him go?” I asked. I was already

bothered by his brooding presence in the vehicle behind us.

“We’ll put the vehicles down wind of the waterhole, open the cage, and sit tight until he’s far enough away not to bother us.” ‘You make it sound so simple!” I sighed. “But won’t he remember?”

Hugo nodded grimly. “He’ll remember,” he agreed.

I didn’t like to press the point. I sat in silence while we went on in convoy to the waterhole. Karibu was still following us, more anxious than ever for my safety. She, at least, would come to no harm, I thought, for no lion would attack an elephant unless it was very small and without the protection of the herd. Karibu, on the contrary, was getting quite big.

We stopped about a hundred yards away from the waterhole. Hugo tested the wind and directed the exact spot where the vehicles were to stand. Then he gave a signal and the driver of the second vehicle pulled a cord that opened up the cage in the back.

For a long moment
Mzee
stood without moving, his amber eyes, which were so like mine, staring out across the great plain in front of him. Then, with one bound, he was out of the cage and down on the ground. He never gave us so much as a backward look, but with quiet dignity he walked away from us and into freedom.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THAT night we heard the lion roaring almost in the camp. It is hard to describe the great volume of sound that filled the air, carrying for miles in every direction. Other noises ceased in fright and there was silence as the king went by, a silence bred of fear and respect. Whatever we had decided, I thought, the
Mzee
had not yet abandoned his pride.

In the morning a dead gazelle was found on the path that led up to the building site. Its eyes, glazed in death, had attracted a swarm of flies. Soon the vultures would arrive and there would be nothing left but a few bones whitening in the sun. When one thinks of the perfection of colouring and grace of every gazelle, it is sometimes hard to accept nature and the

circular pattern of life and death that keeps it going.

Karibu was late being let out of her stable that morning. She came rollicking down the path from Hugo’s garden, holding an enormous branch of green leaves in her trunk, bellowing for me to turn round and pay some attention to her. Close on her heels came Hugo.

“You’re up early!” he greeted me.

I glanced at my watch. “Early?” I looked at him with some amusement. It was obvious that he had only just woken up, for the traces of sleep were still in his eyes and his hair was standing on end, innocent of any attempt to bring order to the great lock that tumbled into his eyes.

“I suppose it isn’t really very early,” he admitted sheepishly. “The fact is that I overslept.

“It looks like it!” I retorted.

It was base, I suppose, to be pleased at having him at a disadvantage, but I had expected to be at a disadvantage myself, and to find that I had embarrassed him went to my head like wine.

“Do I look terrible?” he asked, half laughing.

“Terrible!” I said seriously, beginning to enjoy myself.

He ran a hand over his chin. “I ought to go and shave. That always gives a man rather a disreputable look, don’t you think?”

My eyes widened. “I’ve never thought about it!” I said. I cast a quick look at him. He didn’t look at all disreputable to me, but I hardly liked to say so. If anything, I rather liked him with a tousled, unkempt look. It suited his arrogant stance and the complete confidence he had in himself.

“Never?”

I blushed and shook my head. “Did you hear the
Mzee
last night?” I asked him.

“One could hardly help it. Did it keep you awake?” To my surprise he sounded genuinely concerned.

“Nothing would have kept me awake last night!” I said with feeling. I put a hand on Karibu and she fussed gently over me, rumbling as she did so.

“How’s the arm?” Hugo asked. He didn’t sound particularly interested.

“Well enough,” I answered defensively.

“In fact it hurts a great deal?” he suggested lightly.

I thought it was safe to admit that much. “Janice is an excellent nurse though,” I told him. “And it’s healing nicely!”

“I think I’d better take a look. What are you putting on it?”

I was strangely reluctant to have him unwind the bandages. To have him touch me was an intimacy that I knew I would do better to avoid.

“I can manage by myself!” I told him fiercely.

“That’s your whole trouble,” he sighed.

“It wasn’t really my fault!” I snapped back. “I
told
you that I’d never actually fired a gun before!”

“So you did!” His amusement was more than I could bear.

“I don’t see anything
funny
about it! How was I to know that he would throw a spear at me! I don’t see why you blame
me
-” He laughed out loud. “No, you wouldn’t! Didn’t it ever occur to you, my love, that you would have been safer if you’d stayed up the tree?”