He Lives in You
1. The Feeling
The sun was falling swiftly, but still well over an hour before setting. The crumble-dry ground below now gave a little more warmth than the weakening sun above. It was the tail of a long day.
He lay full length, pressed down to the ground. No movement, even as flies crawled over his eyelids. Always looking forward, then momentarily to one side. She too lay, but slinking slowly. Her ears fixed ahead, their dark backs showing only to him.
Ahead, a group of white and black beasts, four-legged and alert: near on twenty ears straining to hear signs of what was already nearly upon them. The grass so dry that almost any movement within it was betrayed by rustles and crackles.
Less than twenty lengths now; close but not close enough. She moved forward again. He could watch her all day, as indeed he had. He could watch her forever. She slipped forward a half-length. Ears twitched and turned, and after a moment's stillness, they turned back and the heads fell. He closed his eyes for just a moment. He felt a warm pressure on his flank, as if another lay beside him. In the moment he remembered.
He opened his eyes. She was not there. Then came the cries, the whooping brays, the rattle and rush of hooves struggling for grip in the dust. Through it all came her voice, stabbed out between heaved breaths, "Nengwe, where the heck are you!"
He shot up, pushed forward, broke into a run and pressed on hard. The black and white milled around, mingling through the dust. Which was which, and which was he supposed to go after? Where? Which? In his headlong dash he stumbled, almost fell over, recovered as the wall of stripes flew away. Full of dust and gasping for breath he slowed to a stand and looked back. She emerged well off to his nearside. She too stopped and shook her head with open falling jaw. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We've been all day at this and barely got a touch to them. Nengwe, let's knock it on the head. Maybe we'll try later when it's dark."
He was glad she wasn't angry. Falana wasn't so sleek when she was angry, and her claws could fall deep too. She turned away toward the almost distant rock they shared. He watched, feeling proud that within her, their cub grew safe. Nengwe wasn't sure when it would be born, but it would be soon enough, and this land would be their home. He looked about: this land was indeed a good home for lion, many more than just the three of them.
If these zebra, very occasional migrators to these parts, demanded different tactics to the gemsbok Falana preferred to hunt, then so be it. She, Nengwe was sure, would rise to the challenge. He felt that it had become a matter of pride for her to take one down. Best though, to not mention that to her.
He smiled breathily to himself, shaking his head, his mane tumbling around his ears. The air filled with dust once more, dust from deep in his mane. He had work to do, and dust never tasted great.
~oOOo~
A firm yet distant voice floated over: "Nengwalamwe…"
Nengwe paused mid-stroke, lifting his head and looking about. A chill rippled through him. Wherever Falana might be, it wasn't her voice: it was male, probably a lion. Nengwe was alone amidst the sunset-red painted Silent Rocks. He was about to return to washing his foreleg when he was struck by the idea that the voice sounded like it might be asking for something. That was ridiculous. He was alone, and no, he hadn't heard anything.
He washed on, spending the next hour or so into starry darkness cleaning his dust-ridden mane, or at least the parts of it that he could reach. There was always a swathe stretching from the crown of his head, down the top of his neck to his shoulders, which he could never get to. His baboon companion, Mtundu, understood; his nimble fingers always managed to pick out the grasses and pests from there, and even made a passing attempt at washing it for him. Falana wasn't concerned either way, she neither noticed when he was clean, nor complained when he wasn't.
"Nengwe?"
He looked up again and broadened his lips. "Yes Falana?"
"Did you want me for something?"
"Err no. Nothing."
Falana turned her head to look her mate in the eye. "Nengwalamwe, why did you call me?"
"Me call you? I didn't. When?"
"A while ago." Falana reached up and prodded the lion's shoulder with a forepaw. "Nengwe, have you been just lying around since I left you?"
Nengwe got up slowly, stretching his forelegs. "Yes Falana." He leant forwards, stretching his hind to match. He had indeed been there for quite some time.
"They're still out there beyond the lugga: settled now. Just be quiet and they'll not know we're there until it's too late. Have you ever tasted zebra?"
"Yes Falana, I wasn't born last rains you know." He padded round Falana, sliding his tail along her flanks. "My mother often caught them, though my father always moaned that he preferred wildebeest."
"All right," she nodded, "that puts you on lead again."
The air was still. The zebra sounded content. Not quiet, no herd ever was, but untroubled. They rustled, chirped to each other, scraped hooves, even the rip of the not quite totally brown grasses; all these filled the thick air.
The lions slipped forward amidst thin grass that would have offered no cover by day. Falana listened and felt her way behind and a few lengths to Nengwe's offside. She could see a heaving horizon: above stars too many to name, beneath broken outlines of zebra with gaps to the ground below. Occasionally an eye would catch the thin light and shine out from the herd.
Less than fifteen lengths; not close enough by day, but easily so by night. She waited for Nengwe to make his move. She would have seen him rise by watching his back, or his shoulders or, of course, his head. That though offered her little warning. Instead it was his tail that she watched. She looked for the twitches that grew into flicks and finally flailing that heralded his strike. She knew how this would go. By day it was all about not being seen, and hiding their true target when they were. By night it was all about seeing, and hearing, then running in so fast and hard that the prey barely knew what was happening. They were hit, and hit hard squarely in the ribs, bowling them over by sheer force and weight. This was indeed Nengwalamwe's kind of hunt.
Then it was on. Nengwe flicked his tail up and surged forward. Falana now had to gamble. Her task was simple: spread confusion and prevent the mark from escaping. She too rose, deliberately noisy, growling as she ran forwards, peeling away from Nengwe.
On hearing her, the herd began to panic: breaking into a run, only for some to attempt to turn back as they became aware of a massive shadow, a hole in the starlight, bearing down on them. One full grown female turned to try to make out what it might be. Wide-eyed and confused, she turned again to run to her companions, only for another snarling hole to appear before her. She crumpled over as the shadow crashed in, filling her with unbearable pain, tumbling sidelong to the ground, twisting over with the black mass. She didn't suffer long, Falana saw to that. Zebra was a dish best served warm.
For Nengwe the meal was a reminder of his cubhood. For Falana it was an unfamiliar but not entirely new experience. The two heard hyena calls as they ate, the calls closing in. The hyena couldn't yet smell the opened and partly devoured kill. Instead they had seen the confused and panicked zebra and heard the alarm calls of nearby grazers and they knew what that meant. Someone had made a kill nearby, and it wasn't them.
There was no need for the lions to defend the kill. They had as yet no family: no pride. The zebra was too heavy, even after taking their fill, or perhaps because of it, to drag back to the rock. Neither had any desire to get entangled with hyena so when the calls got too close they rose and left the kill, walking off heavily.
They had gone no more than five lengths when they stopped, and looked each other.
"What Nengwe?"
"Falana?"
They stared. Falana tipped her head. Nengwe shrugged, widening his eyes.
"I need your help."
Nengwe recognised it as the voice that he had heard earlier. Now that he thought about it he felt certain it was a male lion's voice.
"Falana, you did hear that, didn't you?"
"Yes Nengwe."
"He was here. I felt him standing by me, leaning on me."
"No he couldn't be. He was right here by me."
"Who?"
Falana shook her head. "No idea." She looked away. "Come on, let's get home. If that zebra had anything wrong with it, I want to be home when it hits."
"But he's here, whoever it is. He's still here!"
"There's no one here but us, Nengwe. Now come away. Let's get out of here before the hyenas catch on that there's a kill going begging." Falana walked off briskly.
Nengwe held back, peering into the moonless starlight. When his mate was almost out of sight, he turned and broke into a loping run after her.
It was a little into the morning by the time they arrived back at the rock. They had both been unsettled by the voice, but now their meal was beginning to settle, and they were filling with the lethargy brought on by a stomach full of meat. It didn't take long for the pair to settle on the platform in the cave deep in the belly of the great rock. Soon, Falana's dreams were filled with running herds of man-zebras while Nengwe's nightmare returned: trees, endless trees, and at the centre of it all, a spindly iron tree that glowed and shone in the darkness.