by Justin D'Ath
And not only did it look mean, it looked hungry.
Olki pressed against me. We stood back to back. Each of us faced a leopard. One was a man eater, the other looked angry enough to do anything.
I weighed up our chances. They weren’t good. Either leopard might kill us. It seemed unlikely that the one in the tree would come after us if we made a break for it, but the man eater certainly would. How far would we get? Two paces? five? We’d be dead boys running.
So far the man eater hadn’t charged. We were sitting ducks, but for some reason it was hesitating. Was it because night hadn’t fallen yet and leopards prefer to hunt under the cover of darkness? Was it because Olki and I were together and the man eater felt slightly unsure about taking on two humans at the same time? Or was it because of the other leopard?
Leopards aren’t social creatures like lions. They don’t mix with others of their kind. unless they’re females rearing their cubs, they live and hunt on their own.
And they don’t share their meals.
I took my eye off the man eater just long enough to glance over my shoulder. The first leopard hadn’t moved. It crouched over the dead waterbuck. Protecting it. from us. And from the other leopard.
Pressing back against Olki, I whispered, ‘Walk slowly towards the tree.’
‘But… but… the leopard!’
‘Only two or three steps.’
Back to back, we inched slowly towards the tree. Olki shuffled forwards, I edged backwards. I kept my single blurry eye focused on the man eater. It flicked the stump of its missing ear, otherwise it didn’t move.
‘Stop here,’ I whispered.
Near my feet lay the huge sausage-shaped fruit that Olki had accidentally severed from the tree when he threw the spear. It was about fifty centimetres long and as thick as my arm. Without taking my eye off the man eater, I slowly bent down and lifted the strange fruit by its long trailing stem. It was heavy, just as I’d hoped – it must have weighed five or six kilograms.
‘Duck your head,’ I whispered to Olki.
Gripping the long, fibrous stem firmly in both hands, I swung the huge fruit back and forth a couple of times like a pendulum, getting the feel of it. Then I started twirling it above my head like an oversized slingshot, building up speed with every revolution.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…
I intended to hurl the sausage-fruit at the man eater, but I twirled it one time too many and the stem snapped off in my hands. Instead of going where I wanted, the huge grey missile went flying the other way. Over my shoulder and into the tree.
WHAP!
It smashed into the waterbuck with such force that it knocked the dead antelope’s hindquarters clean off the branch. Its back legs swung in the air. The leopard let out a deep-throated roar and sank its teeth and claws deep into the carcass to prevent it falling.
‘Run!’ hissed Olki, trying to push past me.
I grabbed his arm to stop him running straight into the jaws of the man eater. With its single ear laid back and its belly low to the ground, the hideous creature came creeping out of the ginger bushes.
‘Other way,’ I whispered.
As the man eater stalked menacingly towards us, Olki and I backed down the path, closer and closer to the first leopard. We were nearly underneath it. It growled in warning, and the man eater growled back. The first leopard growled again, but it was too busy struggling to keep the waterbuck on the branch to be a threat. I ducked to avoid the dead animal’s dangling legs. Olki ducked, too.
Four metres away, the man eater tensed itself to spring.
Here goes nothing, I thought.
Reaching up, I wrapped my fingers around one of the waterbuck’s cold, stiff legs.
The idea had formed in my mind when the two leopards started growling. The growls were a warning. The first leopard was warning all of us – not only Olki and me, but the man eater as well – to stay away from its kill. And the man eater was warning the other leopard to stay away from us.
What if neither leopard got what it wanted?
Gritting my teeth, I dragged the dead waterbuck down off the branch.
16
THE CATFIGHT TO END ALL CATFIGHTS
My memory of the next few seconds is a blur. Several things happened at once.
I let go of the falling waterbuck and jumped out of the way.
Olki jumped in the opposite direction.
The waterbuck hit the ground in a cloud of dust, exactly where we’d been standing.
The leopard from the tree landed lightly on top of it.
The man eater charged.
It was like a scene from Jungle Book, except Mowgli had only one big cat to deal with. Olki and I had two. But – just as I’d hoped – two leopards is a deadly mix.
When the first leopard hit the ground it was in a very bad mood. I’d tried to steal its kill and that’s about the worst thing you can do to a leopard. It knew I was to blame, but it was distracted by the other leopard – the man eater – flying towards it with its claws out and its teeth bared.
The two leopards met head-on.
Leopards are the smallest of the big cats, but they’re the most vicious fighters. When they turn on each other, it’s the catfight to end all catfights. Roaring, snarling and hissing, they locked together in a flurry of raking claws and flashing teeth that spun back and forth across the track like a small yellow tornado. Dust and fur flew in all directions.
And so did Olki and I. The leopards were on the track, so we went bush. The plan was to put the maximum distance between us and the fighting leopards in the shortest time possible. But you can’t move fast through the African bush – there are too many thorns. They tore at my clothing and snagged in my hair. After only a few metres I was caught like a fly in a spider’s web. I couldn’t move.
I heard branches crackling close by and nearly jumped out of my skin. The man eater!
Get a grip, I told myself. The leopards were still fighting – noisily – on the track behind me.
‘Stay still,’ Olki whispered in my ear. His nimble brown fingers went to work, unhooking Momposhe’s tattered cloak from the thorns that held me prisoner. In ten seconds he had me free.
‘Follow me, Sam.’
On hands and knees, he led me along an animal tunnel similar to the one I’d used to escape the elephant. It looped around the boulder and joined the track about twenty metres up the gorge from the sausage tree. The boulder blocked our view of the leopards – and theirs of us – but their terrible bellows, snarls and roars echoed off the cliffs like the sounds of the final battle scene in Lord of the Rings. It made my hair stand on end.
Olki touched a finger to his lips to indicate silence and pointed up the track. This time he let me go in front. It was the third time we’d travelled along that stretch of track in fifteen minutes and I knew the way. There was only one way – up the gorge. Away from the leopards.
The track was steep and rocky, but we flew up it like a pair of mountain goats. It’s amazing how fast you can go when there are leopards behind you.
But leopards are faster.
‘Whooh, whooh, whooh, whooh!’
‘Sam, wait!’ Olki hissed behind me.
I stopped and turned around. ‘What is it?’
Instead of saying anything, Olki pointed. High on its rocky outcrop sat the same big, bushy-maned baboon that had warned us about the man eater earlier. now it was barking again. Only this time it was looking down the gorge.
And then it registered. I could no longer hear the leopards fighting. from the baboon’s behaviour, it was clear that one of the leopards was making its way up the gorge. In our direction. And it didn’t take a genius to work out which one.
‘Quick, quick!’ urged Olki. He led me off the track, through the shrubs where we’d seen the baboons feeding earlier, and straight to the gorge’s sheer rock wall.
‘Olki, what are you doing?’ I whispered. ‘The man eater’s coming!’
He was walking along t
he cliff base, gazing upwards. ‘We get far from path. Leopard too fast.’
‘Won’t it smell us?’
Olki stopped next to a tall vertical split in the rock face. It was roughly one metre wide by two metres deep and ran halfway up the cliff. A spindly tree grew out of the crevice about six metres above our heads. It was supported by long, outflung roots that clung to the rock like the tentacles of an octopus.
‘Climb up,’ Olki said.
It was our only hope. Leopards can climb trees, but they can’t scale cliffs.
Olki went first. Slipping into the fissure, he braced his back against one side and his sandals against the other. Then, pushing hard with his flattened hands on the rock behind him and inching one foot at a time up the rock in front, he began ‘walking’ slowly up the vertical rock chimney. As soon as he was high enough, I slid into the narrow space underneath him and began following his example. It was hard work and painfully slow. We had to creep up the crevice a centimetre at a time. One slip and we’d fall all the way back down.
When we were more than halfway to the tree, the lookout baboon started shrieking hysterically. It sounded terrified. The man eater must be close.
Even so, I wasn’t expecting what happened next.
There was a loud deep cough, followed by a scratching noise right below me. I looked down.
Shishkebab! My heart nearly stopped. The man eater was right there! Less than a metre away. Clinging to the wall of the rock chimney with its deadly scimitar claws.
I froze. Leopards can’t climb cliffs, I told myself. It must have jumped up from the ground four metres below. It could hold on, but it couldn’t come any closer. Its eye was greenish yellow, the pupil large in the fading daylight, its gaze almost hypnotic – the look of a predator sizing up its prey. But I was just out of its reach and we both knew it. The man eater bared its huge sabrelike canines and growled, a truly terrifying sound at such close quarters. I got a whiff of its warm, sour breath. Then it started slipping. Its claws made a tearing noise, carving parallel white tracks in the brown rock as it slid slowly down and away from me. With a final bellow of frustration, the man eater sprang away from the cliff, twisting its body around in midair and landing lightly on all fours like a cat.
No sooner had it hit the ground than the leopard ran in a half-circle, bunched its muscular hindquarters like springs and jumped again. This time it only made it three metres up the rock face before it slid scratchily back down.
‘Climb more high, Sam!’ Olki hissed from above me. He had nearly reached the sprawling roots of the tree. ‘Quick, quick!’
It shook me out of my trance. With trembling arms and legs, I resumed my painstakingly slow passage up the rock chimney. Every fibre of my being screamed at me to take Olki’s advice (Quick, quick!), but I forced myself not to hurry. I couldn’t afford to slip. The man eater jumped three more times, but with each attempt I was further from its reach. Finally it gave up and disappeared into the bushes, limping slightly – either from its repeated falls or from its fight with the other leopard.
It wasn’t until I’d reached the tree’s roots and scrambled up onto its narrow sloping trunk that I began to feel safe. But we weren’t out of danger yet. far from it. There was still a lot of climbing to do. About four metres above us was a ledge. It zigzagged the rest of the way up the cliff like a stairway. But to reach it we had to climb almost to the top of the tree. The tree sloped out from the cliff and our weight made it slope even further. Its skinny trunk began to bend and creak as Olki and I clambered up through the branches. I worried it might snap, or its roots might break free of their precarious hold on the rock face.
‘You go first,’ I whispered to Olki.
I worked my way back down to the base of the tree, where its trunk grew out of the rock. keeping a wary eye out for the man eater, I waited while Olki scrambled safely onto the ledge. Then I started climbing back up the tree.
I was much heavier than Olki. By the time I drew level with him, the tree was bending away from the cliff at a scary angle. I couldn’t reach the ledge. Olki lay flat on his belly and stretched out one hand. I rocked the tree towards him and made a wild grab. Our fingers locked together. Breathing heavily, Olki pulled me slowly towards him. The tree bent like a spring. When I seemed to be close enough, I let go of the tree with my other hand and swung it across the gap. But it was difficult to judge distances with only one eye and my hand missed the ledge. Then Olki’s fingers slipped from my grasp. If it wasn’t for my legs wrapped around the tree trunk, I would have fallen. I swayed sickeningly back and forth, the forest floor far below. Before I could lose my nerve, I made another desperate lunge. Olki stretched across with his free hand and grabbed my wrist. now I was nearly horizontal across the gap, the tree pulling me one way, and Olki pulling the other.
‘I slip!’ gasped Olki.
The tree was winning the tug-of-war, dragging me, millimetre by millimetre, away from the ledge. And dragging Olki, millimetre by millimetre, off the ledge. I couldn’t let go with my legs because they were supporting most of my weight. But if I didn’t let go, I was going to pull Olki off his rocky perch.
Below us, somewhere deep in the shadowy gorge, the man eater made a series of low coughing grunts. The sound echoed eerily around the cliffs and started the lookout baboon screeching again. I knew the leopard was watching us. Waiting for us to fall. Already it had killed five people. That was five people too many. no way were Olki and I going to be numbers six and seven.
‘Push me,’ I said.
Olki’s eyes grew big. ‘What?’
‘Push me back towards the tree.’
He hesitated for two seconds. Long enough for the tug of the branch to drag him another half millimetre off the ledge. A tiny avalanche of sand and pebbles tumbled down the vertical cliff face below us.
‘Do it!’ I yelled. ‘On the count of three. One… two… three… PUSH!’
Olki must have thought I was crazy, but my raised voice shook him into action. He pushed and let go. I flew backwards. Twisting my body like a corkscrew, I grabbed the tree trunk as it sprung away from the cliff. It swayed gutchurningly out over the gorge, with me attached. Please don’t snap, I prayed, throwing my weight outwards to maximise the swing. The tree bent and bent, much further than I’d anticipated. For a horrifying moment I was dangling nearly upside down. Wood creaked. A shower of small stones clattered down from the tree’s straining roots. Then, with a squealing groan, the branch began to straighten. I felt myself rising, slowly at first, then faster, as the branch flicked up in a big, swishing arc that lifted me out of the gorge and catapulted me straight at the cliff.
For a second I was flying.
CRUNCH!
I didn’t make it all the way onto the ledge. Only my top half did. The lower half, my hips and legs, slammed into the rock face. I tried to cushion the impact with my hands, but my midriff hit the ledge full force, and all the wind was knocked out of me. for a moment I was paralysed, unable to breathe, unable to move. I would have fallen to my death had Olki not been there to drag me up onto the narrow rocky shelf.
‘You nearly falled,’ he said.
Lying flat on my back, dazed, bruised and fighting to regain my breath, I nodded in silent agreement. I couldn’t talk.
So when I saw a sudden movement behind him, all I could do was point.
‘What – ’ Olki began to ask, turning his head.
But it was too late.
17
SELF-DEFENCE
I’ve seen a lot of TV shows about wildlife in Africa and mostly they reckon baboons aren’t dangerous. It’s only the semi-wild ones that can be a problem, especially around popular tourist spots where people feed them. Olki and I weren’t in a tourist spot, nor did we have any food to attract the baboons. But there’s another reason why a normally non-aggressive animal will attack a human – fear. Either fear for its young, as in the case of the mother elephant, or fear for its life.
The baboon that attacked Olki and m
e was in fear for its life – not from us, but from the leopard. Baboons are wary of humans, but they’re terrified of leopards. That’s why it was hiding in a narrow fissure in the rock face at the rear of the ledge. When Olki first appeared outside its hiding place, the baboon must have crouched there hoping not to be seen. But then I came crashing into view and lay there gasping. now there were two humans blocking its escape route. The baboon felt trapped. It knew the leopard was nearby and it panicked.
Olki didn’t see it coming. He’d only half-turned his head when the baboon landed on his shoulders. It was an adolescent male, only three-quarters grown, but even so it must have weighed thirty kilos. Olki collapsed under its weight. It was lucky he did because the big, dog-faced monkey aimed a vicious bite at the side of his head, missing his ear by millimetres when Olki pitched forward. Both of them fell on top of me. Screeching like a creature from a horror movie, the baboon clawed at Olki’s back, ripping his cloak half off him. I got one arm free and knocked it sideways. It did a backwards somersault and landed in a knot of hairy limbs, like a flicked huntsman spider. Instantly it untangled itself and spun around. Baring its massive yellow teeth, the baboon grunted like a pig and leapt straight for my head.
Olki was still lying on top of me; I couldn’t get out of the way. The baboon came at me with its mouth wide open, its long, clawed fingers reaching for my neck. I put up a left-hand block, then dragged my right arm free and gave the baboon a spearhand jab to the throat. It’s an illegal move in karate, but this was self-defence – the baboon would have bitten my face off otherwise. I was still winded and didn’t put much force into the blow, but it was enough to throw my attacker off balance. Olki did the rest. Jack-knifing his body, he whipped his legs around and kicked the baboon off the ledge. With a shriek of terror, it fell into the tree below, grabbing hold with one foot and one hand to stop itself plunging all the way into the gorge.