Man Eater

by Justin D'Ath

  I stopped running just long enough to watch the cheetah race away, then staggered on towards the hills. I had a stitch, I was puffing like a steam-engine and I badly needed a drink, but I kept going. Herds of wildebeest, zebra and antelope watched me stumble past. Two huge marabou storks rose out of the long grass and flapped heavily into the sky. A family of warthogs trotted off in single file with their tails sticking straight up like flags. But I wasn’t interested in the wildlife. With every step I took, the scene ahead of me grew clearer. The red dots were two Masai herders tending what looked to be a herd of goats – not cows as I’d originally thought. They had seen me now. When I waved, the smaller Masai waved back. It brought a lump to my throat. unlike the ivory hunters, these people were friendly. They would help me. I was saved!

  But my run across the plain had taken its toll. The continuous jolting had aggravated both my poisoned eyes, sending barbed-wire tendrils of pain shooting to every corner of my skull. It felt like my head was about to explode. Ow! Ow! Oooooooow!

  At the bottom of the grassy slope, only a hundred metres from the two red-clad figures and their goats, I stumbled to a shaky standstill. I was delirious with a mixture of pain, dehydration and jet lag from the long flight from Australia. I couldn’t take another step.

  ‘Help me!’ I gasped, clutching my head in both hands.

  Then I fell flat on my face in the grass.

  12

  THE CHUI HILLS

  ‘Jambo, mzungu.’

  I opened my blurry right eye to a narrow squint. Crouched over me were two boys. Both were younger than me and wore bright red Masai cloaks and sandals that seemed to be made out of car tyres. One supported my head, the other held a long thin pumpkin close to my mouth. I was hungry, but not that hungry.

  ‘Water,’ I croaked, hoping they understood English.

  The bigger boy smiled. He lifted the pumpkin so I could see it better. There was a hole at the skinny end, with beads of moisture sparkling around the edges. It wasn’t a pumpkin, it was a water gourd.

  ‘Mzungu drink,’ he said.

  I took a long gulping swallow, nearly choking because I was lying down. It tasted awesome. ‘Thank you,’ I gasped. ‘Now could you pour some on my eyes?’

  Both boys looked puzzled.

  ‘A snake – some sort of cobra – squirted me in the face.’

  The older boy said something in Swahili to his younger companion, then jumped to his feet and darted back up the hillside.

  ‘Please pour some water in my eyes,’ I begged the little boy. ‘They’re really hurting.’

  ‘Olki bring milk.’

  ‘I don’t want milk, I want water,’ I said. ‘To wash my eyes.’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘Milk is good for wash eyes from sting.’

  Olki returned leading a scrawny brown-and-white animal on a short length of rope. At first I mistook it for a goat, but after I rubbed my eye I saw it was a weird, long-tailed sheep. The younger boy held its neck while Olki expertly milked it into an oval wooden bowl. When he’d collected enough, he wadded up a handful of the sheep’s wool and used it to dab the warm, soothing liquid gently onto and around my eyes. Mostly he worked on my swollen left eye. The little boy held the lids open while Olki washed the eyeball with sheep’s milk. When the pain was nearly gone, Olki tore a strip of fabric from the hem of his Masai cloak and tied it diagonally around my head so that it held the wad of milk-soaked wool in place over my left eye.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, sitting up. My left eye felt remarkably good beneath Olki’s makeshift dressing, and the other one was nearly as good as new. ‘I’m sure glad I ran into you guys.’

  Olki looked solemn. ‘Milk make hurt go way, but do not make eye fixed. Only mzungu medicine will stop you go blind.’

  I shivered. ‘Where can I get mzungu medicine?’

  ‘There is hospital at Marusha. You go there. Where is car?’

  He thought I was old enough to drive. ‘I was on a bus,’ I said, and told them how I’d been left behind and everything that had happened since.

  Olki reached inside his cloak and pulled out a blue plastic watch that hung from his neck on a long loop of home-made string. ‘There is bus at eight o’clock. It will take you.’

  ‘How will I get back across the river?’ I asked. ‘And what about the hyenas?’

  The young Masai shepherd chewed his lip and stared off into the distance, deep in thought. ‘There is other road,’ he said finally. ‘This side of river. I will take you.’

  The two boys had a long conversation in Swahili, then Olki hurried away.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ I asked the other boy, whose name I still didn’t know.

  ‘Olki get more milk. And spear.’

  Why does he need a spear? I wondered, but was afraid to ask.

  While we waited for Olki to return, the younger boy and I introduced ourselves. His name was Momposhe and he was seven years old. Olki, his big brother, was ten. It surprised me that there were no adults with them.

  ‘Aren’t you scared of lions and leopards?’

  ‘They not come close,’ Momposhe said. He gave me a gap-toothed smile. ‘Only in night. We stay at house, and sheeps and goats are safe inside big fence.’

  I glanced at the sun, already three-quarters of the way down the afternoon sky. ‘Do you live far from here?’

  Momposhe pointed out a wispy blue column of smoke rising above the foothills about one kilometre away. ‘There our village,’ he said.

  ‘Is there a road near it?’ I asked hopefully.

  He shook his brown stubbly head. ‘Road on other side of hills.’

  I gazed up at the tall, heavily forested ridge towering over us – and had a really bad feeling.

  ‘Momposhe, does this place have a name?’

  He nodded. ‘Is call Chui Hills.’

  13

  THE COLOUR OF BLOOD

  ‘Will he be all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Olki. ‘Even sheep know way to village.’

  We had paused for a rest at the edge of the forest. Momposhe’s tiny, half-naked figure herded the motley flock of sheep around the foot of the ridge far below us. I felt bad about leaving the younger brother on his own in the vast African landscape, and guilty for wearing his red cotton cloak. Momposhe had insisted I take it. ‘Now mzungu look like Masai,’ he’d said, knotting it across my left shoulder.

  I didn’t feel like a Masai – they were brave.

  ‘Does eyes hurt, Sam?’ Olki asked.

  Gingerly, I touched my eye patch. ‘This one’s getting a bit itchy.’

  Olki untied the bandage and poured more milk on the ball of wool. He had milked three more sheep before we set out, collecting it in a gourd which hung around his neck on a string. ‘Is hurting stop?’ he asked, tying the dressing back in place.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, looking around and blinking my other eye. A line of elephants was crossing the plain in the distance – coming from the direction of the river – but I couldn’t make out if there was a calf in the group. ‘How far is the road?’

  ‘One hour to walk.’

  I checked my watch. It was 4.45. ‘Is it forest all the way?’

  Olki nodded. He hung the gourd back around his neck and picked up the spear. ‘We must hurry,’ he said, leading the way up into the trees.

  The forest in the Chui Hills was different to that on the other side of the plain. It was more like a jungle. Huge creeper-entangled trees formed a dense canopy overhead that completely blocked out the sky and cast an eerie green twilight. The forest floor was a tangle of vines, bushes, thorns and saplings, all competing for space with massive grey boulders and the trunks of the trees themselves. Olki and I sweated and struggled up a steep, narrow track. Our feet slipped, thorns plucked at our hair and clothing. Often we had to crawl under low branches or squeeze through narrow gaps between boulders. It was hard going. And very frightening.

  Neither of us had mentioned the man eater, but I was thinking
about it every step of the way. It was on Olki’s mind, too. He kept swivelling his head from side to side. The slightest rustle in the undergrowth caused him to freeze, his spear held at the ready. I wished I had a spear, too. Or better still, a .460 Weatherby Magnum. I’d come to Africa to help raise awareness about protecting endangered animals, but in the Chui Hills it was humans who were endangered.

  Suddenly a tiny deer – hardly bigger than a hare – came bursting out of a wild ginger bush and darted between us. Olki spun around so quickly that the spear nearly grazed my arm.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, grinning sheepishly as the dainty creature disappeared behind a huge, overgrown boulder. ‘Only digidigi.’

  A dik-dik, in English. I remembered seeing them on a David Attenborough show. They are the world’s smallest antelope, and really cute. But cute animals didn’t interest me right then. It was dangerous ones that were on my mind. Ones with spots. I could no longer keep my fear to myself.

  ‘Olki, is it true that leopards sleep during the day?’

  ‘Most times,’ he said softly.

  I looked nervously right and left. We had stopped beneath a tree with fruit that resembled enormous grey sausages dangling out of its foliage on long, string-like stems. All around us were boulders and dense shadowy forest. ‘What do you mean – most times?’

  ‘If he hungry,’ Olki whispered, ‘leopard do not sleep.’

  Splat! Something warm and wet landed on my forehead just below my bandage. It felt like a large drop of water. I reached up and wiped it away.

  Olki was staring at me, his eyes as big as Chupa Chups.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  He didn’t say anything, simply pointed at the hand I’d used to wipe my forehead. I lowered my gaze. A long damp smear ran across my palm. My vision was down to less than fifty percent, but I wasn’t colour-blind.

  The smear was bright red – the colour of blood.

  14

  LEOPARD

  Olki and I stared at each other for a moment in stunned silence. Then we slowly raised our eyes to the branches of the sausage tree above our heads.

  Shishkebab!

  No wonder the dik-dik had been terrified. It must have known what was up there. That’s why it had been hiding in the wild ginger bushes when we nearly stumbled over it.

  Barely a metre above my head, another antelope lay wedged in the fork of two branches. It was a large shaggy waterbuck. Stone dead. Something had killed it and dragged it up the tree.

  There was only one animal in Africa capable of doing that – a leopard.

  Olki gripped my elbow and gently guided me around behind him. ‘We keep going up path, away from tree,’ he whispered. ‘Do not run, do not make noise, and do not stop till I say.’

  I was four years older than Olki and much bigger, but I didn’t argue. I was a half-blind mzungu who had not set foot in Africa until twenty-four hours ago. Olki had been born and raised here. Plus, he had the spear. It was roughly two metres in length, with a long, tapered steel point. I could imagine what it would do to a leopard. But Olki was only ten years old. Too young to be a warrior.

  Slowly we backed up the track away from the tree. There were several deep claw marks carved into its bark. Sap dribbled out of them like sticky brown blood. The waterbuck seemed to watch us with its glassy dead eyes. I couldn’t see the leopard. It might have been anywhere in the maze of branches, leaves and weird sausage-like fruit above our heads. I could feel its eyes on me as Olki and I backed slowly away from it up the narrow track. It was the creepiest sensation.

  We reached the first of the boulders. Olki half-turned and silently mouthed a few words at me. I had no idea what he was saying, but Olki thought I understood. With a silent nod, he pushed past me around the boulder and set off up the steep, narrow track at a fast walk. I hurried to keep up, glancing nervously over my shoulder every two or three paces. I’d never felt more vulnerable. The leopard was behind us – that’s where the danger lay – but Olki was walking in front and he had the spear. I had no way of defending myself. Give me the spear, Olki, I wanted to say. If you’re going to leave me to face the leopard, at least give me a fighting chance!

  But Olki didn’t abandon me. He kept looking over his shoulder, too. And waiting for me if I started to fall behind. When I tripped over an exposed tree root, he came back and helped me to my feet.

  ‘Does eyes hurt, Sam?’ he asked.

  ‘No, they’re okay,’ I whispered. Who cared about my eyes? There was a leopard – possibly a man eater – only three or four hundred metres down the track. Or closer, if it had left its tree and followed us.

  Just then a twig snapped in the undergrowth behind me. Ohmygosh! I nearly jumped out of my sneakers.

  Olki grinned. ‘Only nyani,’ he said, pointing.

  Through a gap in the foliage, I spied a young baboon intently picking berries off a low, bristly shrub. Two adults sat grooming each other under a larger bush a few metres beyond it. Looking around, I noticed at least a dozen more of the big, olive-brown monkeys feeding in the undergrowth or gazing down at us from rock ledges. Since leaving the sausage tree, I hadn’t taken much notice of our surroundings. There were fewer trees here and the sky was visible, although only a strip of it – we were in a deep narrow gorge, bounded on both sides by thirty-metre walls of vertical rock. High above us, a large, bushy-maned baboon sat on a craggy outcrop, surveying his domain like the king of the castle.

  ‘Nyani our friend,’ Olki said. ‘He tell us if leopard come.’

  The baboons seemed quite relaxed. The one that was lookout would warn us if there was any danger. I let my breath out in a long, relieved sigh.

  ‘I thought our number was up, Olki.’

  He seemed puzzled. ‘What number?’

  ‘I thought we were dead. I could feel its eyes on us, couldn’t you?’

  Olki reached for the gourd of milk. He must have thought I was talking about my own eyes. The left one was starting to itch again. I sat down so Olki could tend to it. But my mind was still on the leopard.

  ‘Was it the man eater?’ I asked.

  Olki didn’t answer. He had stopped working on my eye and was looking away from me. Milk dribbled onto my elbow.

  ‘Olki… ?’

  ‘Shhh!’

  I sat forward and listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. Olki knelt beside me, as still as a statue, every muscle rigid. The ball of wool dangled forgotten in his fingers. He was watching the big male baboon at the top of the cliff. Olki, what is it? I wanted to ask, but the lookout baboon answered for him.

  ‘Whooh whooh whooh whooh!’ it barked in a loud, deep staccato, like a kookaburra on steroids.

  The troop’s reaction was instantaneous. The mother baboons grabbed their babies and a wave of panicked monkeys went scrambling up the vertical rock face, screeching in alarm. Within seconds, Olki and I were alone in the gorge.

  Not quite alone. The lookout baboon was still barking. ‘Whooh whooh whooh whooh!’

  I didn’t need Olki to interpret the warning. It had seen the leopard!

  Olki hurriedly tied my dressing back in place. ‘We must run quick,’ he whispered, jumping to his feet and starting down the track. Back towards the sausage tree. Back the way we’d come!

  Was he crazy?

  ‘But the leopard’s down there!’ I called after him.

  Olki stopped and shook his head. He pointed at the cliff top. All the baboons were barking. And every last one of them was looking up the gorge, not down it. ‘Nyani watch leopard,’ Olki whispered.

  I didn’t argue. Olki obviously knew what he was talking about. The leopard must have left the sausage tree for some reason – perhaps to get water – and now it was returning to feed. Problem was, Olki and I were between it and its kill. And the cliffs looked too steep to climb.

  We hurtled down the rocky, winding track at break-neck speed. Back the way we’d come. Back towards the sausage tree with the dead waterbuck in it.

  A puzzling thought occurr
ed to me. If the leopard went searching for water, wouldn’t it go down the gorge rather than up?

  There wasn’t time to ask Olki about it. Because suddenly the track took a sharp right-hand turn around a boulder and there in front of us was the sausage tree.

  The dead waterbuck was still wedged in its branches. And crouched over the waterbuck, looking directly at us, was a big yellow leopard.

  15

  DEAD BOYS RUNNING

  We skidded to a standstill just short of the tree. The leopard bared its teeth at us and hissed – like a domestic cat, only louder. But one look at its massive, blood-stained canines and you forgot all about domestic cats.

  Olki was in front of me. I didn’t see him throw the spear, but I heard it swish through the foliage. It cut down one of the big sausage-fruit and glanced harmlessly off a branch just above the leopard’s head.

  I don’t blame Olki for throwing the spear. I probably would have done the same thing had our situations been reversed. But he missed the leopard and now we were totally defenceless if it attacked. It looked ready to attack. Straddling the partially devoured waterbuck, it put its ears back and snarled.

  There was an answering snarl from behind us.

  A tingly sensation ran up and down my spine. Seeing the leopard in the tree had driven all other thoughts from my head. I’d forgotten about the baboons and their warning that something was coming down the gorge behind us. Slowly, I turned my head.

  There are several reasons why a leopard will become a man eater. usually it’s old age, illness or an injury. The animal becomes too slow to hunt the antelopes, warthogs and monkeys that it normally eats, so it seeks out slower, less agile prey – sheep, goats, dogs, chickens… and sometimes humans.

  The leopard crouching in the wild ginger bushes no more than six metres away didn’t look old, but it looked like something out of a nightmare. Sometime in the past it must have fought with a lion or a pack of hyenas and come off second best. One ear was gone and so was one eye, and there was no fur on half its head, just a vicious-looking scar. The scar was old and a stubble of whiskers had grown back crookedly, but obviously the terrible injury had affected the animal’s hunting ability. The mean glint in its remaining eye told me that this leopard – not the one in the tree – was the man eater.