Cry of the Kalahari Page 15

  When I swung the spotlight around, pairs of glowing amber eyes leaped into view—the lions were roaming all around Mox’s camp! We jumped into the truck, but by the time we got there, three females had already picked their way across the boma and had their noses to the canvas. Two others were on the opposite side of the tree, and the last, and largest, sat on her haunches near the entrance to the circle of thornbush.

  I stopped the Land Rover behind the shelter and put the spotlight on it. “Mox, are you all right?” I whispered as loudly as I could. No answer.

  “Mox!” I called again, louder. “Are you okay?”

  “Ra?” But his voice didn’t come from inside the canvas.

  “Mox, where are you?” Then I noticed the large lioness near the boma staring into the tree above her. I followed her gaze with the spotlight until I found Mox, grinning nervously, perched naked on a branch not ten feet above the big cat!

  I eased the truck between the base of the tree and lioness. She gave way without a grumble and then came and sat next to my door, peering at me through the open window. In one smooth motion, as though the trunk of the tree were greased, Mox slid down, grabbed his shorts, put them on, and shot safely into the Land Rover.

  “Tau—huh-uh.” He shook his head, shivering. He mumbled something about Maun as we drove slowly away. We stayed in the truck until the lions lost interest and moved north up the valley.

  In the morning the sweet smell of woodsmoke was drifting through camp when I opened my eyes. Delia was still asleep beside me. The muffled clatter of Mox busy with dishes in the kitchen was pleasant, and it stirred memories of mornings on the farm, my brother, sisters, and I waking to the smell and sounds of Mother making breakfast downstairs. It was still early, and Mox’s apparent eagerness to get busy with the details of his new job temporarily eased my doubts about whether he would last in the Kalahari. I pulled on my cut-offs and sandals and stepped outside. Clucking hornbills and fluttering flycatchers landed on the branches along the path, begging for their morning’s ration of mealie-meal.

  At the kitchen I found Mox sitting on the ground among pieces of litter and garbage scattered about by the hyenas during the night. Carefully picking his way through the mess, he had done the dishes and stacked them neatly away on the table. Now he was innocently cleaning his toenails with the point of our best kitchen knife.

  During breakfast, lions began roaring in the valley to the north. It was now early May 1975, and although the Kalahari was still receiving scattered rain showers, the dry season would soon be upon us. Within a month or six weeks the lions would be gone, traveling through lands unknown. No one knew how far, or in which direction they migrated, and we wondered if they would return to Deception. If so, would they defend a part of the old river valley as their territory? How could we recognize them if they did come back, especially after such a long time away and at night, when we would be most likely to encounter them?

  We had come to realize that at least during the rainy season these predators were the hyenas’ chief source of carrion, influencing the diet and range movements of the scavengers to a great degree. If the brown hyenas depended on them for food, it was important to know more about the lions in Deception Valley. Though we still continued our night observations on the brown hyenas, we decided to begin watching local prides more often, to learn what we could about their habits and their ecological relationships to the hyenas.

  The best way to be certain of their identities, if and when they came back, was to mark them with ear tags. Perhaps if any of them were shot, the colored plastic discs would be taken to the Department of Wildlife, or they might turn up on some Bushman’s necklace. At least it would be a chance to learn how far from the riverbed the prides traveled during the dry-season migration, and how many were killed by man and who was responsible. Finding out which individuals stayed together would reveal something about Kalahari lion social organization, which had never before been studied or described in detail. The immediate problem was to ear-tag as many as possible before they left the riverbed, probably within a night or two, and to keep from alienating them in the process. Above all, we didn’t want to permanently alter their natural behavior.

  While we were getting our darting equipment ready, we agreed on some ground rules that we hoped would minimize trauma to the lions during immobilization. Whenever possible, we would dart only at night to avoid exposing them, in their unconscious state, to the extreme heat of day. We would tranquilize them only while they were preoccupied with feeding on a kill, and only after we had sat with them long enough to insure their complete habituation to us. We would never chase them with the truck or manipulate them with cowboy tactics (which often result in a great deal of stress, alienation, and even death). A minimal drug dosage would be used, and we would work as quietly and quickly as possible to avoid stressing them unnecessarily. As with the hyenas, our criterion for complete success was an ear-tagged lion who showed no more fear of us or the Land Rover than it had before the procedure.

  Time was short, so we would dart as many as possible in one session and Mox would hold the spotlight while we tagged them. But we could cope with no more than three to five in various stages of unconsciousness and recovery at one time, and meanwhile, the others would be roaming about in the darkness nearby. We had never darted lions before, and didn’t know how they would react.

  Together with Mox, we found the pride lying in Leopard Island, a clump of acacia and ziziphus trees on the west edge of North Pan near Cheetah Hill. Approaching them in a half-circle with the truck, we slowly worked closer until, at about fifteen yards away, they lifted their heads and began to look nervously about for an avenue of escape. Lions and other wild animals are generally much less disturbed if they have the initiative, as when the pride had strolled into our camp. Now, as we moved in on them, they began to feel a bit threatened. I switched off the engine. They immediately relaxed, blinking their eyes and yawning. For the next several hours we sat quietly, letting them get more used to us and hoping that they would make a kill.

  We had seen these lions many times and had given each of them a name. The two older females were Blue and Chary. Blue was always preoccupied with chewing the tires of the truck; fortunately they were of a heavy ply and she never punctured one. Chary, a big lioness with a sagging back, was the oldest female in the pride, and for some reason a little wary of us. Even when she put her head on her paws to rest, she never completely closed her eyes.

  Of the five subadult females, Sassy was the most bold and curious. She had a broad chest and large frame that promised someday she would fill out to be a very large lioness. She often stalked the truck as if it were prey, creeping slowly up to its rear, ready to spring if it tried to get away. But if our departure didn’t happen to coincide with her game-plan, she would find herself jaw to bumper with an animal she didn’t know how to tackle. Then she would stand up from her stalk and pat a tire with her paw once or twice or chew on a fender or taillight. Once I forgot that she was still involved with her game and started the motor. Taking a shot of exhaust in the face, she leaped back and then hissed and spat at the tail pipe. She was fascinated with the rotation of the wheels and invariably, when we drove slowly away after watching the pride, she would hurry to the side of the Land Rover and watch them go round and round, her eyes rolling and her chin bobbing in time with each revolution. After that she would trot along behind us, crouching as if looking for a place to deliver a killing bite. Sassy was a favorite with us.

  Gypsy could never sit still, and whenever the pride visited camp, she would roam its perimeter or leave to be by herself for a time. Spicy, who once mock-charged me, was the color of cinnamon, and she was pugnacious. Spooky had great round eyes, and Liesa was small, neat, and pretty. The two yearling males, Rascal and Hombre, were constantly irritating one of the adults and getting slapped across the nose.

  When we were sitting with the lions that evening, Chary seemed to sense something was being planned, and she moved a
few yards farther away to lie under a small bush. While the others slept, she watched us.

  Around nine o’clock she lifted her head and began staring alertly into the distance, the muscles of her shoulders tensing. The other lions were immediately still and attentive, looking in the same direction. I raised the spotlight and saw an ostrich picking its way carefully through the bush at the base of North Dune. I doused the light. Chary rose slowly to her feet and began stalking toward the big bird. Gliding like a serpent through the grass, she disappeared into the night. One by one the other females followed; Delia and I were left sitting alone in the moonlight. We didn’t want to follow the lions or use the spotlight, for fear of influencing the hunt by confusing them or their prey. The minutes dragged . . . we were anxious to know how the chase was going.

  About three-quarters of an hour after they had left us, snarls and throaty rumbles carried from the bushes on the duneslope. The lions were still quarreling over the ostrich when we parked the truck close to where they were feeding in a circle around the carcass. They turned to glare at us, and Chary and Spicy rose to a crouch and laid their ears back, obviously resenting the intrusion. Their muzzles were plastered with blood and feathers and their broad paws were clamped possessively over the bird as they tore out big chunks of red meat. I reached slowly for the ignition key and switched off the truck. They turned back to their kill and settled down on their bellies to feed. We were within fifteen yards of them, so there would be little chance of missing with the old dart gun.

  Delia held the spotlight while I fumbled with equipment boxes, syringes, and the bottles containing the drug, trying as best I could to be quiet as I filled the darts. I was all thumbs, and the steering wheel and gear shift kept getting in the way. I felt as if the lions were watching over my shoulder through the low half door beside me; I had taken out the window and frame so that I could swing the rifle around if one of the targets moved past the truck.

  Chary’s dart was finally filled with its mixture of phencyclidine hydrochloride and xylizene. As she was the most wary, it was important to put her down first so that she couldn’t alert the others. Several minutes went by while I sighted down the barrel of the rifle, holding on the line of Chary’s back. But she was lying on the opposite side of the carcass behind Hombre, and I couldn’t get a clear shot. My hands were sweaty on the gunstock, and it all seemed so unreal, poking a 350-pound lion in the shoulder with a needle from a few yards away.

  The lions spat and swiped at each other. Then Chary abruptly rose, looking huge in the spotlight, and turned to step over Blue, who was feeding on her right. I strained to see the sights, lined them up, and squeezed the trigger.

  The gun popped and the dart hit the lioness in the shoulder. There was an eruption of snarls and growls. Dust and feathers flew as the pride leaped into the air and across the carcass, their tails lashing like whips. For a tense moment, we froze, half expecting one or more of them to charge the truck. They were milling about, looking from truck to carcass, then off into the night and at each other, trying to place the cause of the disturbance. Suddenly Chary slapped Blue across the nose; a score was settled, the tension broke, and the lions resumed feeding. We settled back in our seats to wait.

  Ten minutes after the shot, Chary’s eyes began to widen and her pupils enlarged. She left the kill and staggered off to a spot in the thick bush, where we could barely see her. Mox, who seemed to have the eyes of a cat himself, kept watch on her while we darted Blue, Gypsy, and Liesa in succession, allowing time after each shot for the others to relax and resume feeding. Before long, four darted lionesses were lying scattered within a fifty-yard radius of the kill; the other five, young females and cubs, kept feeding.

  By now it was almost forty minutes since Chary had gone down. She and the others would begin to recover within an hour after being darted. We quickly drove to the place where Mox had last spotted Chary, and after several minutes of shining the spotlight from the top of the truck, we found her near a stand of bushes; her beautiful amber eyes wide-open. Her ears twitched to the sound of the approaching truck, and she raised her head slightly.

  I parked the Land Rover about ten yards behind her, switched off the engine, and stepped out, all the while wondering if I was doing the right thing. Since I wasn’t sure how immobilized Chary was, I wasn’t keen on walking up to her. My feet rustled the dry grass, and she jerked her head. If she could hear, some of her other faculties must still be functioning, so I clapped my hands twice to test her reflexes. She didn’t respond. Stalking carefully up to her, I finally crouched beside her tail, still ready for a flat-out retreat to the Land Rover, and gently nudged her big rump with my toe; she seemed to take little notice.

  I signaled okay to Delia, who handed the spotlight to Mox in the back of the Land Rover, and got out to take the equipment to me. The lioness at our feet was the color of dry-season grass, sleek and powerful, her body as solid as the trunk of an oak. We regretted taking advantage of her like this, after having gained her trust. While Delia felt inside her upper foreleg for a pulse, I hurried to squirt salve into her eyes in order to keep the corneas from drying out. Chary was lying on the dart, so, holding her broad paws and using her legs as levers, we rolled her over. Delia dressed the small wound with salve, and I clipped a tag in her ear.

  By the time we finished with Blue and Gypsy, more than an hour and a half had passed since we’d begun to dart. Chary and the others were regaining coordination. Furthermore, the undarted lions had sated themselves on the ostrich kill, and they were getting more interested in us, and in what was happening to their pride-mates. There were big cats prowling everywhere, and Liesa still had to be tagged.

  When we found her, Liesa was supporting herself unsteadily on her forelegs; she could almost stand up. We would never be able to tag her without first injecting a supplemental dose of tranquilizer. But we didn’t want to subject her to the trauma of the darting rifle a second time, especially with all the other lions watching. I went back to the truck and prepared a syringe. “Go leba de tau, sintle—watch the lions closely,” I said to Mox, and I slipped off my shoes, opened the door, and began crawling toward Liesa.

  Both Delia and I knew that this was probably not wise, but we were afraid that if we tried to drive the truck toward the half-drugged lioness, the sound of the engine might terrify her. And if she began charging around the area, we might alienate the entire pride.

  Take your time, and don’t make any noise. Watch where you put your hands and knees! I thought as I crawled away from the Land Rover, my shadow stretching in front of me, almost to the big swaying form of the lioness, who was sitting on her haunches, looking away. I felt my way quietly through dry leaves and grass tussocks, and twigs that would snap like cap pistols if I put my weight on one. The farther I got from the truck, the more I knew that this was foolish. I was tempted to turn back, but I convinced myself that the lioness, partially drugged as she was, would probably not even feel the injection. I was depending on Mox and Delia to warn me if any of her pride-mates became a more immediate threat. I would bolt for the Land Rover at the first sign of trouble.

  When I was about five yards from her my knee crushed some dry leaves with a loud crackle. Liesa swung around and looked directly at me. I froze, waiting for her to turn away, but she held me with her yellow eyes, her ears perked, weaving unsteadily, saliva dripping from her chin whiskers. I was afraid to make even the slightest move; her eyes seemed to narrow as they tried to focus.

  “Tau, Morena!” Mox whispered urgently from the Land Rover, warning me of the approach of another lion.

  To my right, about twenty yards away, one of the undarted lionesses was stalking me through the bush, crouching, head low and tail twitching. I flattened my belly into the sharp bristles of a grass clump and pressed my cheek to the sand, trying to get out of sight. My pulse hammered in my ears.

  It was too far to the Land Rover to run for it; the undarted lioness was too close. I put my arm over the back of my neck and c
losed my eyes, trying not to breathe, but inhaling sand and ash up my nose. I could see the crooked arms of two hunter friends in Maun who had been foolish with lions, and the broad platter of lumpy scar tissue, from hip to breast, in the side of a little Bushman who had been dragged from his hut. I hugged the ground and waited.

  “Mox! Hold the light in her eyes!” I could hear Delia’s insistent whisper in the silence. Though he spoke almost no English, Mox understood what to do. He turned the spotlight and fixed it full in the eyes of the stalking lioness. She stopped, half stood up from her crouch, and squinted into the beam.

  Liesa must have heard her pride-mate, for she looked in that direction. Seeing a chance, I got slowly to my knees and began backing toward the truck, trying to be quiet in the dry grass. The undarted lioness was raising and lowering her head, still trying to see me through the bright light. She started forward. I flattened myself again. Mox kept the spot on her until she stopped, blinking her eyes, not more than ten yards from me. Feeling like a mouse under the nose of a house cat, I raised my belly from the ground and began crawling in reverse, my arms rubbery with fear. Then the front bumper of the truck was beside me. I lunged through the door and sank back in the seat. I wiped the grit and sweat from my face with a shaking hand.

  The stalking lioness finally lost interest and moved back to the ostrich carcass. After what I had just been through, I was somewhat less concerned about frightening Liesa. I drove the truck forward and stopped next to her rump, slipped my arm out the door, and injected her with more drug. About ten minutes later we tagged her. We waited near the ostrich carcass until all the lions had recovered from being immobilized and then went back to camp to get some sleep.

  The next evening, the entire pride, except for Chary, came into camp and circled the Land Rover, smelling its tires, bumpers, and grill. They seemed unaware of their blue plastic ear tags, each with a different number. They were the Blue Pride.