lions. Back in Kolata, Nengwalamwe had become so used to the almost constant harassment by hyena and even jackals that he now felt somewhat disturbed by their absence. The rare treat of being able to eat in peace apparently passed as normality on these lands. Nengwalamwe felt that he would probably get used to it in time.

Falana kept on giving him foul looks and flicking him with her tail as he bolted down each and every mouthful. Falana, and even more so Shaha, ate comparatively delicately and slowly, even having time to clean their lips every now and again. After a while Nengwalamwe too thought that looked like a very good idea. As soon as his tongue touched his fur he felt the eyes of ten or more ravenous phantom hyena burning into him and he returned to the kill for another massive comforting mouthful.

He rose before the lionesses and moved away to pace back and forth along the rim of the hollow. While the lionesses ate on he looked and listened to the night and its fleeting shadows.

“What are you doing?” enquired Falana as Nengwalamwe paced past her tail yet again.

“I’m looking for hyena.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got to look after you two.”

“Go and look after us somewhere else. You’re putting me off my food.”

Nengwalamwe paused close to Falana and looked down at her; she had already turned back to the carcass. She twitched an ear as if to rid herself of an irritating fly. Nengwalamwe felt a sharp sting on his belly and heard the lioness’s tail flick back on to the ground beneath him. Shaha said and did nothing. She concentrated on eating throughout the short exchange.

When they had all feasted they began to talk about hunts and hunting. Shaha, at least, appeared quite pleased that new possibilities were opening up for the lionesses, having a lion to help might turn out to be a good thing. For a while Nengwalamwe felt as though he might have begun to win Shaha’s trust.

“Right, until you get used to working with my daughter and I, I don’t want you doing anything until I tell you to do it. Is that clear?” She looked at Nengwalamwe, more in the manner of a kindly school ma’am than a mother or partner. “You won’t do us any good if you’re trampled by the herd out there.”

“Thank you for caring about me,” he said gently sneering as his hormones returned fuelled by fresh gemsbok.

“I care about all of us. I don’t want us getting trampled because you move at the wrong moment. Do you understand?”

Nengwalamwe swallowed heavily and nodded, he realised that his optimism had been misplaced. ‘Weakness comes from caring’ he remembered. He sat up and raised a forepaw in readiness for washing it. “Yeah, I got it.”

Falana rose to stand beside her mother.

“Very well,” Shaha said, “let’s go then, shall we?” She stepped forward but then stopped. “Just what IS that thing on your head?”

“What ‘thing’? What are you talking about?” Without another word, the elderly lioness smiled and turned, flicking her tail against Nengwalamwe’s cheek and then over his head, forcing him to flatten one ear tight into his mane.

When moments later a hyena bayed a little way off, the lionesses ignored it. Nengwalamwe set off in the direction of the call, more in the hope of appearing to be doing something useful than because of any actual threat.

 

***

 

With Nengwalamwe gone, Shaha and Falana left the few remains and made their way back to Silent Rocks. Shaha slipped through the thin grasses with robust grace and hardly a whisper from the dry grass. Falana stepped forward and followed behind her mother, with a smug expression on her face at seeing the young male put in his place so properly. She smiled to herself saying under her breath:

“Now that’s the way to treat a cub....”

10.Time Together

 

Fed and refreshed, Nengwalamwe looked half-heartedly for the hyena for much of the night. He caught its scent, clear and foul, and followed it for a short while. It led back in the general direction of his rock. Everything seemed to be lead there, away from the lionesses. Once again, he had failed to make any positive impression on them. He decided that he had better leave them alone for a while. Falana had made a fool of him, and for that she would have to pay, but she’d do it when he was good and ready, just like his father would have done. Getting ready was going to be a problem, but first he had to rid himself of whatever the baboon had put on his mane. Who better to sort that out than he who had done the deed? Falana was going to pay for her disrespect and so too would the baboon, only sooner.

The leisurely hyena chase eventually turned into a rather more urgent and purposeful baboon hunt. This baboon was not to be prey; gemsbok tastes much better, and doesn’t talk. His mother always said, “Nengwe, never eat anything that talks, their last words will stick in your throat.” He had eaten baboon only three times, and two of those he had not killed. The first had appeared one evening floating amongst the white water hyacinth at the side of the widest pool on the Kolata. An aunt had called him over to share it. The young Nengwalamwe had been afraid to try it at first, but the lioness enjoying the bloated meat soon changed his mind. The thought that the baboon, an adult female, couldn’t swim, for the water had somehow claimed her life, surprised him.

The second, the baboon he met on his flight out of Kolata, was the only one he had both talked to and killed. Its death had been a necessity born of survival. It had sustained him in the mountains, through both its flesh and its words, and anyway, its eyes had been too close together.

His final baboon had become a much more recent meal. Shortly after Nengwalamwe had come down from the mountains, he had come across a male lying dead on a hillock. He looked untouched and fresh, though cold. His twisted eyes, though dull and lifeless, still bore witness to a terrifying death. There were few marks on his body - other than the deep tooth cuts on either side of his neck from which his life had flown. The marks were closer together than Nengwalamwe’s teeth. He suspected they might have been a leopard’s, though why it had not taken the body away to eat was a mystery. It seemed to almost to be some kind of warning, though of what and to whom Nengwalamwe could not tell. He stood close by for some time, watching for any scavengers or even for the leopard, whom he felt must still be close by, watching and waiting. When he felt sure there were no signs of any other claimants, he set upon the body hungrily; nothing disturbed him.

Throughout the night, as the lion searched for the baboon, the clouds gathered and slid through the sky in great gathered and folded clumps, casting rushing shadows. Nengwalamwe eventually found his quarry high on the crags above the lion’s adopted rocky home. When Nengwalamwe called, the baboon came to him voluntarily. Indeed, he was almost friendly. The lion showed his displeasure, all teeth and bad breath; the baboon soon found himself picking at Nengwalamwe’s mane, pulling out every piece of hard-dried mud. The lion had never seen, up close, any living animal with opposable thumbs; he marvelled at the dexterity and precision with which the baboon used them. They were not so much paws as hands, and were evidently capable of picking out individual fleas from the deepest of Nengwalamwe’s fur. However good the baboon’s hands were, however, Nengwalamwe knew it would take hours of careful licking and paw dragging to restore lustre to his mane.  No amount of washing was ever going to fully restore his pride.

Nengwalamwe lay still watching the dawn, then yawned wide enough to span Mtundu’s head from ear to ear with space enough between his white-faced tongue and his upper teeth to fit the baboon’s legs in as well. Mtundu frowned, blinked and shook his head.

“Wooh! Am I glad I ain’t no zebra...”

The lion shook his head as he brought his jaws back together. The baboon withdrew his hands from Nengwalamwe’s mane as it began to buck and twist under them.

“Yo! Kinda touchy today ain’t ya?”

The lion settled his head back on his forepaws, licking his dark lips. Then pushed his head forward and down, dragging his tongue over a small patch of slightly disarranged fur on the upper part of a foreleg. At the end of the stroke, he closed his eyes and drew his tongue back to his lips so that just the tip showed. He lifted his head and repeated the process.

“Cummon Nengwe, keep still! How can I pick your mane if ya do that? Huh?”

Nengwalamwe paused mid-stroke and looked up straight-faced at the baboon sitting at his side.

“Get on with it - and my name’s Nengwalamwe if you remember… Your name’s ‘food’ if you don’t.” He paused and looked back to the glowing horizon, marvelling at its chilled beauty. “I just… I don’t understand lionesses - you know.”

“Wha’dya lookin’ at me foor? I don’t get them either, I ain’t a lion y’know.”

Nengwalamwe managed a smile. “Yeah, I guess I got to work it out for myself, eh?” He shook his mane, releasing a cascade of tiny mud crumbs.

Mtundu jumped away screeching, raising his upper lip and exposing his teeth threateningly. He swiped angrily at the lion’s head, narrowly missing his ear. “What do ya think ya doin’? I

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