Frank McKenna
Frank McKenna is 33 years old and is married with one son. He is originally from Limerick, but after school he studied Business & Information Systems in UCC, which is where he first started writing. Initially Frank worked in Dublin before returning to Limerick to get involved in his father's tools & machinery business. In 2011 he returned to college to study medicine in UL. He recently retired from playing rugby after many enjoyable, and some successful, years with UCC in Cork, Monkstown in Dublin, and Garryowen in Limerick.
The Last Drive
Zara cut the engine and the rattling of the Land Cruiser ceased. The light breeze brushed across the hairs on her arms. She knew from the radio that there were springbok grazing in the west, a white rhino and her calf towards the south, and that just out of sight over the hill, the lions had recently fed and were soaking in the last of the day’s sun.
‘Why have we stopped, dear?’
It must have been the tenth time these guests had referred to her as ‘dear’, and nobody had done that since her grandmother died. Now she had her own grey hairs. Now there should be people she called ‘dear’.
‘The road doesn’t get close enough,’ she said. ‘We’re going to walk into them.’ She smiled at the silence that followed, knowing that the two pudgy busybodies in the back of the truck were looking at each other and gulping.
‘Walk to the lions?’ asked Sheena. Zara nodded, and both Sheena and Denis shifted in their seats.’
‘Is that safe?’ asked Denis.
‘Of course it’s not safe,’ said Sheena. ‘She’s joking. You’re joking, aren’t you, dear?’
‘I’m not joking,’ said Zara, turning around. She knew that, for most of her guests, this place was foreign and intimidating. She was able to empathise, having been in plenty of situations were she had been willing to back out and go home, but those situations did not occur out here. It was when people gathered together that she felt uncomfortable, at fund raisers and dinner parties and all that nonsense.
Zara also knew that every time she managed to convince a guest to conquer their fears in this place they thanked her for it. There were times when she failed to convince some, no matter what she tried, and those times she always believed she had let the guest down because it was something they should have done. It was something they should regret never doing.
‘Well I don’t know what makes you think that we want to get any closer. We’ve seen them through the binoculars. That was quite enough.’
‘Surely you didn’t come all this way to see animals through binoculars? You might as well have stayed at home and watched them on tv,’ said Zara.
Sheena slowly turned her head and found a point in the distant bush to focus on, with any kind of expression dropping from her face. ‘We’ve seen plenty of animals up close,’ she said. ‘We’ve seen giraffes and buffalo and elephants, and we saw those cheetahs yesterday. We can do without risking our lives just to see another bunch of cats.’
‘But they’re lions!’ said Zara, opening her eyes wide and raising her clenched hands as a pair of claws as though she was trying to frighten children
Sheena continued to be fascinated by whatever she had, or had not, found in the distance and, for Zara’s benefit, Denis shrugged his shoulders.
‘When you go home and people ask you about safari, what do you think will be the first animal they ask about?’
‘My dear,’ Denis interjected. ‘We have long since gone beyond caring what questions people might ask us when we return from our holidays.’
‘Denis, Sheena,’ she said, waiting for their attention. ‘I’m asking you to trust me. You will not regret it. I have done this more times than I can remember and I will do everything possible to minimise the danger.’
When she once again got no response Zara swung open the truck door and climbed down from the vehicle. She wiped the dust from her face and patted it from the shoulders and sleeves of her jacket.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Sheena, returning her focus.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Zara. ‘In a park this size, the animals see humans every day. They’re used to us. They don’t see us as a threat and more importantly, they don’t see us as food. They should ignore us or at least pretend to ignore us.’
‘I think we’ve made it clear that we’re not going,’ said Sheena.
‘I’m going to check it out first,’ said Zara, ignoring her. ‘If it’s not safe we won’t do it. Both of you stay in your seats.’
Sheena chuckled and declared that neither of them had any intention of leaving their seats.
‘Do not stand up. Do not,’ Zara paused; looking in turn into each of their eyes. ‘Do not get out of the truck.’
She turned her back on them, facing up toward the tanned ascent once more, and breathed in the warm evening air. Once the sun disappeared the heat would go with it, and the drive home would see them all in hats, scarves and extra jackets, and her guests under the blankets she would take from the storage bin beneath her seat.
‘I think the old girl is a bit mad, Denis,’ said Sheena. ‘Too many years in the sun.’
Zara looked around at them again with sadness in her eyes, but she blinked and it was gone. She reached behind the truck’s steering wheel and took the rifle from its stand. She checked, as she had already done before they left, that it was armed and then swung it onto her shoulder with none of the swagger but all of the casual manner of a cowboy.
‘And I think that you both, could have done with a few years in the sun,’ she said.
*
One of the cubs spotted Zara as soon as she came into view and as if it had announced the sighting, the heads of the other lions spun around towards her. Lying where they were, the two females and five cubs all performed a brief, calm study of Zara before she lost their attention and they then returned to broader observation of the open terrain and of the slow, meandering movement of springbok in the distance.
The sun had been sinking for a while and was reddening over the horizon, and the moon could now be seen edging its way into the embers of daylight. The hour of light that was left would be her last as a ranger. She was to move back to a place that, for her, only existed in still images and distorted recollections; a place where crazy things were important – things that did not involve life and death, things defined by angels and straight lines and layer upon layer of abstraction. It was a place where she might never again be treated to a scene like the one she now faced, but it was a place where she had real family, and now, for some reason after almost thirty years, being away from that family had become too much to bear.
‘Well my dear?’ asked Denis when Zara returned.
‘Well if you want to, I’ll take you to them,’ said Zara. ‘If you don’t, all I can say is…’
‘We’ll go!’ he said.
‘You will?’
‘We’ve been talking.’
Zara raised her hand to delay their descent form the truck. Denis sat back down and Sheena, who had only begun to unravel the blanket that was wrapped around her legs, placed her hands onto her lap and became still.
‘Listen to me carefully,’ said Zara. ‘You follow me. We walk in single file. We will be walking around the side of them and not straight at them. When I stop, you stop. There are to be no sudden movements and no loud voices. If I tell you to, get behind me, and most importantly, no matter what happens…no matter what happens…do not run. Do you understand?’
Denis nodded and then blessed himself.
‘Well of course, dear,’ said Sheena before looking at her husband. ‘You were right, Denis – this is exciting!’
Zara slowed when they came into sight of the lions. She slowed because she knew that Sheena and Denis would slow, because the guests always slow when they see nothing between themselves and lions except the dusty earth and its sparse wild grass.
She continued to walk, veering to the right, gradually circling closer. The lions all noticed them, regarding them as they had Zara when she alone, and they continued, at intervals, to check on the progress of the humans, each time looking for just long enough to make up their minds that nothing was amiss.
Though the lions were lying down, appearing relaxed and assured, they were constantly checking, observing, analysing and assessing everything in the miles of space that surrounded them. Even as the cubs played – gnawing at each other’s coats and faces, and rubbing against each other – their attention continually returned to update their individual inventories.
‘My goodness,’ whispered Denis across his wife when Zara stopped, perhaps thirty metres from the lions. ‘Zara, dear this is the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced! They really don’t mind us being here?’
‘Well, look at them. What do you think?’
Denis bit down on his lip and shook his head. He raised his camera and looked to Zara for approval. She nodded.
‘Disable the flash,’ she said.
The click of the camera was a loud sound in the perfect quiet and one of the females’ ears pricked. The creature’s wild, golden eyes fixed on Denis and she held him captive from where she lay.
‘Em, Zara,’ said Denis in a horse whisper that was more to do with the fact that he had stopped breathing than out of any intention.
‘It’s alright, Denis’ she said. ‘Try to relax, She’s just letting you know your place in the world.’
They watched the lions for almost fifteen minutes, mesmerised by every movement of head, limb and eye. For the most part, the lions seemed indifferent to their presence and carried on as though they were not there.
*
When it was time to leave Zara instructed Denis to lead them back to the truck. They quietly strolled, following their long shadows and looking behind from time to time.
‘I must say,’ Sheena began before descending out of sight of the lions. ‘That did feel like an immense privilege.’
‘It was,’ said Zara.
‘And you’ve been doing this for how long?’
‘Almost thirty years.’
‘Isn’t that fantastic, Denis?’ she asked, placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder. Denis agreed that it was fantastic while continuing to walk in front. ‘And why, if you don’t mind me asking, have you decided to pack it in?’ asked Sheena. ‘I mean, surely you don’t think you’re too old?’
Zara did not respond and Sheena started to turn around.
‘Stop,’ said Zara.
‘Zara, dear, all I’m saying is that –‘
‘Denis, stop walking,’ insisted Zara in a harsh whisper.
‘Really,’ continued Sheena. ‘I hope I haven’t –‘
‘Quiet,’ said Zara, not looking at Sheena, but beyond her to where the truck was.
‘Oh my God!’ said Denis.
‘What is it?’ asked Sheena, searching ahead until she saw, what they did: standing by the truck, its gaze fixed on them, its face stern and brutal, its rugged mane amplifying its intimidation, was a fully grown male lion.
All three were silent until Zara told them she was going to slowly overtake them and that they were to remain completely still. She also instructed them not to lose eye contact with the lion.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ asked Denis.
‘Absolutely. You do not want him to think you’re afraid of him. Trust me. You want him to think you might put up a bit of a fight.’
‘Right,’ said Denis. ‘Eye contact.’
The lion moved, taking two steps to his left. His walk, even in that brief movement, displayed the awesome tautness of his body. His shoulder was a concentration of fibrous levers rippling along the inside of his tawny coat. He looked a creature ready to devour, top of the African food chain – a position not granted by heritage, but won anew every generation by the possession of and by the willingness to use such beastly power.
‘Is this bad?’ asked Denis.
‘It’s not good,’ said Zara.
‘I thought they were used to us. I thought they didn’t see us as food.’
‘We’re standing between him and his pride and he’s not the type to walk around.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Sheena in a panic. ‘You have been trained. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You wouldn’t have told us to get out of the truck if you didn’t know it was safe.’
Zara was staring the lion straight in his otherworldly eyes. She was thinking of the few times she had been in similar situations. She had always relied on what she had been taught; on the instruction she was given on her very first day. It was the product of generations of experience, of research, of human intelligence with the benefit of our unparalleled ability to communicate, and all that amounted to was a simple set of rules of behaviour, and those rules were all humans had, when face to face on an equal footing with the other creatures of the world. Those rules, at least until now, had never failed her. At the same time, she had never walked away from a situation without feeling that she had just been plain lucky, and that someday her luck was going to run out.
‘Nothing is completely safe,’ she said. ‘Not even him.’
From a place within him that seemed deep enough to have welled up from the ground beneath, the lion then released a viscous, visceral assertion of dominance; a roar that seemed to shake the earth and to call out each of them in turn, and proclaim, with scorn, the humbling facts of their mortality.
‘Denis, Sheena,’ said Zara. ‘I’m going to start moving left. Very slowly. I want you both to stay behind me. We’re going to try to get out of his way. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Sheena.
‘Denis, do you understand?’ she asked. Denis did not answer. ‘Denis?’ She turned to look at him and saw that Denis’s eyes had closed and his lower lip was twitching. ‘Is he alright?’ she asked.
Sheena glanced back and then shot her eyes to the sky. ‘He’s praying,’ she said.
‘Well, can you get him to stop?’
‘Denis!’ Sheena grunted, and Denis opened his eyes. ‘Not the time,’ she added, and Denis indicated with a nod of his head that he was done.
Still looking at the lion, Zara began to walk to her left. Just to get him away from the truck, she thought, would be a good thing. Holding the rifle tight to her chest, she took three steps and stopped. The others stopped behind her. There was no reaction from the beast.
‘You okay?’ she asked. They both whispered yes.
She stepped again, steadily and as confidently as she could, almost mimicking the movement of a lion. She had taken six or seven paces when the lion stepped towards them, opened his great jaws and roared again, shaking them to the core once more.
Zara could feel her heart pound against the rifle. She made a conscious effort to take in a deep breath. ‘Easy,’ she whispered through slow, deliberate exhalation, stealing her eyes and her expression, ordering the lion to calm.
‘Exactly how much danger would you say we are in?’ came Sheena’s whispering voice from an inch behind her ear, causing her to jump and then have to recompose herself as quickly as she could.
‘Quite a lot,’ she said. ‘It’s all up to him now.’
‘Why don’t you shoot him?’
Zara turned her head enough so that Sheena could see her face and she could express that this was not the time to be asking questions.
‘For goodness sake, Sheena – just let her do her job,’ scolded Denis.
The lion stepped towards them.
‘Hold still,’ ordered Zara. ‘His eyes! His eyes! His eyes!’
The lion stepped again, and then again, and began to gather pace, eating up the ground between them.
‘Good Lord,’ cried Sheena, but she and Denis remained still. Zara cocked the rifle and swung it in his direction. The lion slowed and came to a stop, as though he had been dummying an attack to see how they would react. He was now no more than ten metres away. Zara heard an audible gasp from behind and Sheena’s hands were clutching her jacket. She wondered if Sheena could feel how she was trembling.
‘Alright,’ she said, trying to stop her voice from breaking. ‘Change of plan. I want you to make as much noise as you can.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ whispered Sheena.
‘I mean roar – as loud, as deep and as powerful a noise as you can make.’
‘Roar? Like an animal?’
Zara shook loose of Sheena’s grasp, raised her heels from the ground, put her arms in the air and staring at the lion, emitted a lengthy bellow that caused her whole body to shake. Sheena turned to look at Denis, but as she did he yelled the word ‘roar’ as loudly as he could.
‘Deeper, Denis,’ said Zara. ‘We need to convince him we could hurt him.’
Denis dipped his knees in a manner of winding up and then released a much deeper sound, springing his chest forward as he did.
‘Good!’ cried Zara, and then all three of them roared, and continued to roar, each one trying to better their previous attempt, extending to bounding from the ground, bulging their eyes and opening their mouths so wide that they feared their jaws might have locked into place.
Zara picked up a stone and flung it towards the lion, skimming by his feet. He did not flinch. She threw another and it hit his leg on the second hop, deflecting to the ground as though it had hit a wall.
Throughout this, the lion had maintained an expression of indignation, but then he made another noise, this time more cat-like, and bared his teeth in a half-open mouth. He dropped his head toward his paws and swayed it as though declaring his disgust with what he was about to do. Then he turned his back to them and began to swagger away.
He set off in the direction of the other lions, taking an arc clear of those that had occupied him for the past few minutes, not once acknowledging them with a glance – his statement that, despite their posturing and his decision to let them be, he knew they were no predators of his.
‘Is that it?’ asked Sheena with a tone of relief. Zara said that she thought it was.
Once more in single file, with Zara at the rear checking on the lion, they made their way back to the truck. After helping them both on board and climbing into her own seat Zara turned to face them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know that was scary and dangerous. I didn’t intend for it to happen, obviously, but you did well, both of you.’ She paused, hoping for a response but none came, save for the attention of two stunned faces. ‘Look, I know what happened was traumatic for you, but the truth is that it was a woefully rare experience and you should treasure it.’
She looked once more to their right, the others following her line of sight, and the three of them watched the lion disappear over the hill.
*
The sun was a diffusing red disc above the earth when Zara started the truck again, and only minutes later it disappeared completely. The blue around the moon continued to darken until it seemed black. Having stolen into their world and overseen its evening, the moon itself, with its watermarks that tell of its true size and distance away, became the light in the sky.
Zara drove slowly, almost stopping for the larger potholes and ruts in the road, trying with an absent mind not to bounce her passengers. She watched the road ahead, the plains and brush to either side, for last glimpses of the creatures that had made these years worthwhile.
Zara cut the engine and the rattling of the Land Cruiser ceased. The light breeze brushed across the hairs on her arms. She knew from the radio that there were springbok grazing in the west, a white rhino and her calf towards the south, and that just out of sight over the hill, the lions had recently fed and were soaking in the last of the day’s sun.
‘Why have we stopped, dear?’
It must have been the tenth time these guests had referred to her as ‘dear’, and nobody had done that since her grandmother died. Now she had her own grey hairs. Now there should be people she called ‘dear’.
‘The road doesn’t get close enough,’ she said. ‘We’re going to walk into them.’ She smiled at the silence that followed, knowing that the two pudgy busybodies in the back of the truck were looking at each other and gulping.
‘Walk to the lions?’ asked Sheena. Zara nodded, and both Sheena and Denis shifted in their seats.’
‘Is that safe?’ asked Denis.
‘Of course it’s not safe,’ said Sheena. ‘She’s joking. You’re joking, aren’t you, dear?’
‘I’m not joking,’ said Zara, turning around. She knew that, for most of her guests, this place was foreign and intimidating. She was able to empathise, having been in plenty of situations were she had been willing to back out and go home, but those situations did not occur out here. It was when people gathered together that she felt uncomfortable, at fund raisers and dinner parties and all that nonsense.
Zara also knew that every time she managed to convince a guest to conquer their fears in this place they thanked her for it. There were times when she failed to convince some, no matter what she tried, and those times she always believed she had let the guest down because it was something they should have done. It was something they should regret never doing.
‘Well I don’t know what makes you think that we want to get any closer. We’ve seen them through the binoculars. That was quite enough.’
‘Surely you didn’t come all this way to see animals through binoculars? You might as well have stayed at home and watched them on tv,’ said Zara.
Sheena slowly turned her head and found a point in the distant bush to focus on, with any kind of expression dropping from her face. ‘We’ve seen plenty of animals up close,’ she said. ‘We’ve seen giraffes and buffalo and elephants, and we saw those cheetahs yesterday. We can do without risking our lives just to see another bunch of cats.’
‘But they’re lions!’ said Zara, opening her eyes wide and raising her clenched hands as a pair of claws as though she was trying to frighten children
Sheena continued to be fascinated by whatever she had, or had not, found in the distance and, for Zara’s benefit, Denis shrugged his shoulders.
‘When you go home and people ask you about safari, what do you think will be the first animal they ask about?’
‘My dear,’ Denis interjected. ‘We have long since gone beyond caring what questions people might ask us when we return from our holidays.’
‘Denis, Sheena,’ she said, waiting for their attention. ‘I’m asking you to trust me. You will not regret it. I have done this more times than I can remember and I will do everything possible to minimise the danger.’
When she once again got no response Zara swung open the truck door and climbed down from the vehicle. She wiped the dust from her face and patted it from the shoulders and sleeves of her jacket.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Sheena, returning her focus.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Zara. ‘In a park this size, the animals see humans every day. They’re used to us. They don’t see us as a threat and more importantly, they don’t see us as food. They should ignore us or at least pretend to ignore us.’
‘I think we’ve made it clear that we’re not going,’ said Sheena.
‘I’m going to check it out first,’ said Zara, ignoring her. ‘If it’s not safe we won’t do it. Both of you stay in your seats.’
Sheena chuckled and declared that neither of them had any intention of leaving their seats.
‘Do not stand up. Do not,’ Zara paused; looking in turn into each of their eyes. ‘Do not get out of the truck.’
She turned her back on them, facing up toward the tanned ascent once more, and breathed in the warm evening air. Once the sun disappeared the heat would go with it, and the drive home would see them all in hats, scarves and extra jackets, and her guests under the blankets she would take from the storage bin beneath her seat.
‘I think the old girl is a bit mad, Denis,’ said Sheena. ‘Too many years in the sun.’
Zara looked around at them again with sadness in her eyes, but she blinked and it was gone. She reached behind the truck’s steering wheel and took the rifle from its stand. She checked, as she had already done before they left, that it was armed and then swung it onto her shoulder with none of the swagger but all of the casual manner of a cowboy.
‘And I think that you both, could have done with a few years in the sun,’ she said.
*
One of the cubs spotted Zara as soon as she came into view and as if it had announced the sighting, the heads of the other lions spun around towards her. Lying where they were, the two females and five cubs all performed a brief, calm study of Zara before she lost their attention and they then returned to broader observation of the open terrain and of the slow, meandering movement of springbok in the distance.
The sun had been sinking for a while and was reddening over the horizon, and the moon could now be seen edging its way into the embers of daylight. The hour of light that was left would be her last as a ranger. She was to move back to a place that, for her, only existed in still images and distorted recollections; a place where crazy things were important – things that did not involve life and death, things defined by angels and straight lines and layer upon layer of abstraction. It was a place where she might never again be treated to a scene like the one she now faced, but it was a place where she had real family, and now, for some reason after almost thirty years, being away from that family had become too much to bear.
‘Well my dear?’ asked Denis when Zara returned.
‘Well if you want to, I’ll take you to them,’ said Zara. ‘If you don’t, all I can say is…’
‘We’ll go!’ he said.
‘You will?’
‘We’ve been talking.’
Zara raised her hand to delay their descent form the truck. Denis sat back down and Sheena, who had only begun to unravel the blanket that was wrapped around her legs, placed her hands onto her lap and became still.
‘Listen to me carefully,’ said Zara. ‘You follow me. We walk in single file. We will be walking around the side of them and not straight at them. When I stop, you stop. There are to be no sudden movements and no loud voices. If I tell you to, get behind me, and most importantly, no matter what happens…no matter what happens…do not run. Do you understand?’
Denis nodded and then blessed himself.
‘Well of course, dear,’ said Sheena before looking at her husband. ‘You were right, Denis – this is exciting!’
Zara slowed when they came into sight of the lions. She slowed because she knew that Sheena and Denis would slow, because the guests always slow when they see nothing between themselves and lions except the dusty earth and its sparse wild grass.
She continued to walk, veering to the right, gradually circling closer. The lions all noticed them, regarding them as they had Zara when she alone, and they continued, at intervals, to check on the progress of the humans, each time looking for just long enough to make up their minds that nothing was amiss.
Though the lions were lying down, appearing relaxed and assured, they were constantly checking, observing, analysing and assessing everything in the miles of space that surrounded them. Even as the cubs played – gnawing at each other’s coats and faces, and rubbing against each other – their attention continually returned to update their individual inventories.
‘My goodness,’ whispered Denis across his wife when Zara stopped, perhaps thirty metres from the lions. ‘Zara, dear this is the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced! They really don’t mind us being here?’
‘Well, look at them. What do you think?’
Denis bit down on his lip and shook his head. He raised his camera and looked to Zara for approval. She nodded.
‘Disable the flash,’ she said.
The click of the camera was a loud sound in the perfect quiet and one of the females’ ears pricked. The creature’s wild, golden eyes fixed on Denis and she held him captive from where she lay.
‘Em, Zara,’ said Denis in a horse whisper that was more to do with the fact that he had stopped breathing than out of any intention.
‘It’s alright, Denis’ she said. ‘Try to relax, She’s just letting you know your place in the world.’
They watched the lions for almost fifteen minutes, mesmerised by every movement of head, limb and eye. For the most part, the lions seemed indifferent to their presence and carried on as though they were not there.
*
When it was time to leave Zara instructed Denis to lead them back to the truck. They quietly strolled, following their long shadows and looking behind from time to time.
‘I must say,’ Sheena began before descending out of sight of the lions. ‘That did feel like an immense privilege.’
‘It was,’ said Zara.
‘And you’ve been doing this for how long?’
‘Almost thirty years.’
‘Isn’t that fantastic, Denis?’ she asked, placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder. Denis agreed that it was fantastic while continuing to walk in front. ‘And why, if you don’t mind me asking, have you decided to pack it in?’ asked Sheena. ‘I mean, surely you don’t think you’re too old?’
Zara did not respond and Sheena started to turn around.
‘Stop,’ said Zara.
‘Zara, dear, all I’m saying is that –‘
‘Denis, stop walking,’ insisted Zara in a harsh whisper.
‘Really,’ continued Sheena. ‘I hope I haven’t –‘
‘Quiet,’ said Zara, not looking at Sheena, but beyond her to where the truck was.
‘Oh my God!’ said Denis.
‘What is it?’ asked Sheena, searching ahead until she saw, what they did: standing by the truck, its gaze fixed on them, its face stern and brutal, its rugged mane amplifying its intimidation, was a fully grown male lion.
All three were silent until Zara told them she was going to slowly overtake them and that they were to remain completely still. She also instructed them not to lose eye contact with the lion.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ asked Denis.
‘Absolutely. You do not want him to think you’re afraid of him. Trust me. You want him to think you might put up a bit of a fight.’
‘Right,’ said Denis. ‘Eye contact.’
The lion moved, taking two steps to his left. His walk, even in that brief movement, displayed the awesome tautness of his body. His shoulder was a concentration of fibrous levers rippling along the inside of his tawny coat. He looked a creature ready to devour, top of the African food chain – a position not granted by heritage, but won anew every generation by the possession of and by the willingness to use such beastly power.
‘Is this bad?’ asked Denis.
‘It’s not good,’ said Zara.
‘I thought they were used to us. I thought they didn’t see us as food.’
‘We’re standing between him and his pride and he’s not the type to walk around.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Sheena in a panic. ‘You have been trained. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. You wouldn’t have told us to get out of the truck if you didn’t know it was safe.’
Zara was staring the lion straight in his otherworldly eyes. She was thinking of the few times she had been in similar situations. She had always relied on what she had been taught; on the instruction she was given on her very first day. It was the product of generations of experience, of research, of human intelligence with the benefit of our unparalleled ability to communicate, and all that amounted to was a simple set of rules of behaviour, and those rules were all humans had, when face to face on an equal footing with the other creatures of the world. Those rules, at least until now, had never failed her. At the same time, she had never walked away from a situation without feeling that she had just been plain lucky, and that someday her luck was going to run out.
‘Nothing is completely safe,’ she said. ‘Not even him.’
From a place within him that seemed deep enough to have welled up from the ground beneath, the lion then released a viscous, visceral assertion of dominance; a roar that seemed to shake the earth and to call out each of them in turn, and proclaim, with scorn, the humbling facts of their mortality.
‘Denis, Sheena,’ said Zara. ‘I’m going to start moving left. Very slowly. I want you both to stay behind me. We’re going to try to get out of his way. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Sheena.
‘Denis, do you understand?’ she asked. Denis did not answer. ‘Denis?’ She turned to look at him and saw that Denis’s eyes had closed and his lower lip was twitching. ‘Is he alright?’ she asked.
Sheena glanced back and then shot her eyes to the sky. ‘He’s praying,’ she said.
‘Well, can you get him to stop?’
‘Denis!’ Sheena grunted, and Denis opened his eyes. ‘Not the time,’ she added, and Denis indicated with a nod of his head that he was done.
Still looking at the lion, Zara began to walk to her left. Just to get him away from the truck, she thought, would be a good thing. Holding the rifle tight to her chest, she took three steps and stopped. The others stopped behind her. There was no reaction from the beast.
‘You okay?’ she asked. They both whispered yes.
She stepped again, steadily and as confidently as she could, almost mimicking the movement of a lion. She had taken six or seven paces when the lion stepped towards them, opened his great jaws and roared again, shaking them to the core once more.
Zara could feel her heart pound against the rifle. She made a conscious effort to take in a deep breath. ‘Easy,’ she whispered through slow, deliberate exhalation, stealing her eyes and her expression, ordering the lion to calm.
‘Exactly how much danger would you say we are in?’ came Sheena’s whispering voice from an inch behind her ear, causing her to jump and then have to recompose herself as quickly as she could.
‘Quite a lot,’ she said. ‘It’s all up to him now.’
‘Why don’t you shoot him?’
Zara turned her head enough so that Sheena could see her face and she could express that this was not the time to be asking questions.
‘For goodness sake, Sheena – just let her do her job,’ scolded Denis.
The lion stepped towards them.
‘Hold still,’ ordered Zara. ‘His eyes! His eyes! His eyes!’
The lion stepped again, and then again, and began to gather pace, eating up the ground between them.
‘Good Lord,’ cried Sheena, but she and Denis remained still. Zara cocked the rifle and swung it in his direction. The lion slowed and came to a stop, as though he had been dummying an attack to see how they would react. He was now no more than ten metres away. Zara heard an audible gasp from behind and Sheena’s hands were clutching her jacket. She wondered if Sheena could feel how she was trembling.
‘Alright,’ she said, trying to stop her voice from breaking. ‘Change of plan. I want you to make as much noise as you can.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ whispered Sheena.
‘I mean roar – as loud, as deep and as powerful a noise as you can make.’
‘Roar? Like an animal?’
Zara shook loose of Sheena’s grasp, raised her heels from the ground, put her arms in the air and staring at the lion, emitted a lengthy bellow that caused her whole body to shake. Sheena turned to look at Denis, but as she did he yelled the word ‘roar’ as loudly as he could.
‘Deeper, Denis,’ said Zara. ‘We need to convince him we could hurt him.’
Denis dipped his knees in a manner of winding up and then released a much deeper sound, springing his chest forward as he did.
‘Good!’ cried Zara, and then all three of them roared, and continued to roar, each one trying to better their previous attempt, extending to bounding from the ground, bulging their eyes and opening their mouths so wide that they feared their jaws might have locked into place.
Zara picked up a stone and flung it towards the lion, skimming by his feet. He did not flinch. She threw another and it hit his leg on the second hop, deflecting to the ground as though it had hit a wall.
Throughout this, the lion had maintained an expression of indignation, but then he made another noise, this time more cat-like, and bared his teeth in a half-open mouth. He dropped his head toward his paws and swayed it as though declaring his disgust with what he was about to do. Then he turned his back to them and began to swagger away.
He set off in the direction of the other lions, taking an arc clear of those that had occupied him for the past few minutes, not once acknowledging them with a glance – his statement that, despite their posturing and his decision to let them be, he knew they were no predators of his.
‘Is that it?’ asked Sheena with a tone of relief. Zara said that she thought it was.
Once more in single file, with Zara at the rear checking on the lion, they made their way back to the truck. After helping them both on board and climbing into her own seat Zara turned to face them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know that was scary and dangerous. I didn’t intend for it to happen, obviously, but you did well, both of you.’ She paused, hoping for a response but none came, save for the attention of two stunned faces. ‘Look, I know what happened was traumatic for you, but the truth is that it was a woefully rare experience and you should treasure it.’
She looked once more to their right, the others following her line of sight, and the three of them watched the lion disappear over the hill.
*
The sun was a diffusing red disc above the earth when Zara started the truck again, and only minutes later it disappeared completely. The blue around the moon continued to darken until it seemed black. Having stolen into their world and overseen its evening, the moon itself, with its watermarks that tell of its true size and distance away, became the light in the sky.
Zara drove slowly, almost stopping for the larger potholes and ruts in the road, trying with an absent mind not to bounce her passengers. She watched the road ahead, the plains and brush to either side, for last glimpses of the creatures that had made these years worthwhile.