Manyoro had scoffed, rolled his eyes and touched his temple with a forefinger to indicate the depth of Loikot’s dementia. But Leon had backed him, so for the last few days they had scoured the wide brown grassland. They had seen huge herds of buffalo, and countless thousands of smaller plains game, but the lions were either very young or very old and not worthy of the spear.
That evening, as they sat around the campfire, Loikot tried to keep up their flagging enthusiasm. ‘I tell you, M’bogo, these two are the paramount chieftains of all the lions in the valley. There are no others greater, fiercer or more cunning. These are the ones that Kichwa Muzuru has sent us to find.’
Manyoro hawked and spat in the fire, then watched the slug of his phlegm boil and bubble in the flames before he gave his opinion. ‘For many days I have listened to this story of yours, Loikot. There is one part of it that I have come to believe, that these lions you speak of can change their shape to birds. That is what they must have done. They have become little sparrows and flown away. I think we should leave these bird-lions, and go up to Marsabit to find a real one.’
Affronted, Loikot folded his arms across his chest and stared at Manyoro loftily. ‘I tell you, I have seen them with my own eyes. They are here. If we stay we will find them.’ They looked at Leon for a decision.
While he drained the coffee in his mug and flicked the grounds into the fire, Leon considered the choice. They were already low on fuel for the
They took off before sunrise and resumed the search at the point where they had left off the previous evening. An hour later and twenty miles out from the airstrip at Percy’s Camp, Leon picked out an enormous herd of buffalo streaming back across the savannah from the lake shore where they had drunk. There must have been more than a thousand animals. The big bulls were bunched up in the vanguard, with the cows, calves and younger beasts strung out over almost a mile of grassland behind them. He banked towards them. He knew that lion prides often followed such large herds to pick off the weaklings and stragglers.
Suddenly in the front of the cockpit Loikot was making agitated hand signals, and Leon leaned forward to see what had excited him. A pair of buffalo had become separated from the main herd, and were trailing a quarter of a mile or so behind it. They were crossing a glade of long golden grass, walking side by side. Only their backs were visible above the grass, and from this Leon judged that they were bulls, heavy and black in the body, but young, and he wondered why Loikot was making such a fuss about them.
Then, as he studied them, the pair emerged from the long grass into shorter, more open pasture, and Leon felt every nerve in his body snap tight. They were not buffalo but lions. Never before had he seen lions of that size or colour. The early-morning sun was behind them, highlighting their regal, stately progress. Their manes were deepest Stygian black and shaggy as haystacks, ruffling in the breeze as they stopped to stare up at the approaching aircraft.
Leon throttled back the engines and let the
Leon put the aircraft into a gentle climb, and turned towards the landing strip below the camp. It would take twenty minutes’ flying time, but he needed to land so that he could discuss a plan of action with the two Masai. Manyoro seemed to have forgotten his earlier opposition to continuing the search, and was stamping and laughing with as much wild abandon as Loikot.
