by Justin D'Ath
Olki helped me to my feet. My stomach felt bruised where I’d smashed into the ledge and my bandaged eye throbbed.
‘Can you walk?’ Olki asked.
‘Yeah,’ I wheezed. It hurt to talk. ‘Will it attack us again?’
Olki glanced at the baboon eyeing us warily from the tree. ‘No. He scared of leopard. Quick, we go up.’
I followed Olki up the narrow, zigzagging ledge, casting frequent looks over my shoulder. When we were halfway up, the baboon leapt across from the tree and came padding up the ledge on all fours. I nearly started to panic, then I saw that it was deliberately hanging back, waiting for us to reach the top first. Olki was right – the baboon was just as scared as we were. It kept looking over its shoulder. Back into the gorge.
‘Olki,’ I said softly. ‘Can the leopard… ?’
‘Shhh!’ he whispered, dropping into a crouch.
I crouched, too, although I didn’t know why. Had Olki seen something? We were on a wide, rocky shelf that stretched along the lip of the gorge. Before us stood a shadowy wall of forest. It looked dark and forbidding in the fading light of late afternoon. My skin prickled. This was Africa. Anything could be hiding among those trees: lions, rhinos, hyenas, leopards.
There was a shuffling noise behind me. I spun around. The baboon came scampering up over the skyline. He was looking the other way, back over his shoulder, and was about to run into us.
‘Whoa, boy!’ I cried, raising my hands in a double block.
The baboon saw us at the last moment and let out a grunt of surprise. It was too late to stop, so it jumped clear over our heads and disappeared into the forest at a flat-out run.
Olki raised his eyebrows. ‘Nyani scared,’ he said.
‘It’s scared?’ I joked, showing him my trembling hands. ‘Look at me! I’m shaking like a – ’
‘Shhh!’ Olki tilted his head, listening.
That was when I realised how silent it was. no sound came from the forest – not a bird call, not a rustling leaf, not the rasp of a cricket. Olki and I might have been the only living things for a hundred kilometres. I wished we were! But I was out of luck.
Olki drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. I looked at him. Instead of saying anything, he pointed.
About three hundred metres down the gorge was an old, overgrown rock fall. The setting sun cast it in deep shadow, and my vision was down to thirty percent, but when I focused my good eye and concentrated, I saw a pale, cat-like shape working its way stealthily up over the boulders towards the top of the gorge.
Olki rose to his feet.
‘How fast can run, Sam?’ he asked.
18
AFRICA’S MOST DANGEROUS
It was a deadly game of cat and mouse. Olki and I were the mice. We had a head start of two or three minutes. That might sound like a lot, until you remember that the cat was a man-eating leopard.
To my mind, there was only one way to go: along the lip of the gorge, away from the man eater. But Olki had other ideas. Turning his back on the gorge, he led me directly into the forest. What was he thinking? The leopard would be right at home in the forest; it could move through the tangled undergrowth with ease, whereas Olki and I had to push and struggle every step of the way.
Two things worked in our favour. firstly, we were going downhill; and secondly, there weren’t any thorns. Even so, it was slow, slow, slow!
‘Where are we going?’ I puffed.
‘To find stream,’ Olki whispered over his shoulder.
Was he kidding? There was a man eater chasing us! ‘Olki, we can get a drink later,’ I said.
‘Not for drink,’ he whispered, ‘for escape from leopard.’
‘How can we escape in a stream?’
‘It not smell in water,’ whispered Olki.
I was about to congratulate Olki on his quick thinking, when we came charging out of the trees into a small, reedy swamp, hidden in a pocket in the hills.
And skidded to a halt.
The buffalo stood knee-deep in the swamp about twenty-five metres out from the shore. Two slimy green reeds dangled half-eaten from the corners of its mouth. Muddy water fell, drip, drip, drip, from its lower jaw. If an animal could look grumpy at having its meal interrupted, that was the buffalo’s expression. It raised its big ugly head, put its ears back and snorted.
The Cape Buffalo is one of the ‘Big five’ wild animals that every tourist going to Africa wants to see. The other four are the lion, the leopard, the elephant and the rhino. They are called the Big five because back in the days when people went on safari with guns rather than cameras, these five animals were considered Africa’s most dangerous. Sometimes it was the hunter who ended up dead.
People are often surprised that the Cape Buffalo is included in the Big five. But if they met one face to face, they wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Imagine the biggest bull you’ve ever seen. now make it half-a-metre bigger – in all directions – and twice as heavy. Give it a pair of horns wider than your outstretched arms and as thick as mallee roots. Lastly, give it the personality of a pit bull terrier. That’s a Cape Buffalo.
‘Go back to trees,’ Olki said softly.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I’d been attacked by more than my fair share of animals in my short life and I knew the warning signs.
Together, Olki and I started edging backwards through the slippery mud towards the safety of the forest. But we both knew it wasn’t safe. Behind us, only a few hundred metres further up the ridge, a baboon started barking its now-familiar warning. I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder. The man eater was coming.
And so was the buffalo. from the other direction. The moment I looked away, it charged.
‘Climb tree!’ yelled Olki, making a run for it.
One look at the buffalo ploughing towards us and I was hot on Olki’s heels. There was an obvious tree to climb. Standing at the edge of the forest, its trunk was taller and thicker than those around it and had a series of outflung branches like the rungs of a ladder. But they started nearly three metres above the ground. Olki leapt up and grabbed one, swinging his small, wiry body up like a gymnast. I wasn’t so skilful. Because of my impaired eyesight, I misjudged the distance and jumped too high. Instead of wrapping my fingers around the branch, I whacked it with my wrists and fell back down.
Luckily I landed on my feet. But the buffalo was just behind me. I could hear it coming. I could feel it coming. The ground shook. The air shook. I jumped again. This time I got it right. My fingers found the branch. The moment I grabbed hold, I started bringing my legs up and forwards, swinging my body…
WHUMP!
I didn’t get totally clear. When the buffalo slammed into the tree, the trailing edge of my cloak got caught on one of its horns. The other end was still looped around my neck and knotted over my left shoulder. I couldn’t undo the knot because I didn’t have any free hands. In desperation, I jack-knifed my body and wrapped my legs around the branch. now I was dangling under the branch like a sloth. The buffalo was just below me. It snorted and shook its huge head, jerking me from side to side like an upside-down puppet. I was helpless. I couldn’t do anything to save myself. All the buffalo had to do was pull, and I’d fall out of the tree. But buffalos aren’t very bright. Instead of pulling, it tried to head-butt me. Luckily buffalos can’t jump. I was just out of its reach.
‘Hold on, Sam,’ whispered a voice just above me. Olki lowered himself onto the branch and began untying the knot that secured the cloak around my neck.
But he only got it half undone. Suddenly the buffalo let out a deafening bellow and charged away from the tree. It tore me from the branch. I landed on the animal’s broad, mud-caked shoulders, bounced a couple of times, then flipped high into the air. next moment I was under the buffalo’s head, being dragged along the ground, my legs and feet trailing between its thrashing hooves. I grabbed at my cloak where it looped around my neck to stop myself being strangled. The super-sized bull let out another angry
bellow and jerked its head up and sideways, swinging me out from underneath it.
For a second I was completely upside down. I glimpsed a flash of yellow fur and heard a yowl of pain, but everything was spinning and I couldn’t work out what was going on. Somehow I landed on my feet, with my right shoulder nearly touching the buffalo’s eye. But its gaze wasn’t directed at me, it was looking straight ahead. I swivelled my own eye sideways.
Shishkebab!
No more than three paces away, crouched low to the muddy ground, was the man eater.
The scar-faced leopard wasn’t looking at me, it was watching the buffalo. Its single ear was laid back flat against its head and its teeth were bared in a silent, threatening snarl. But it looked nervous. Its fur was matted and dishevelled, and there was a smear of fresh wet mud across its spotted back and flanks. Leopards don’t like being wet and they never roll in mud. It must have been tossed by the buffalo when the huge animal swung its head. few animals are capable of killing a leopard, but the Cape Buffalo is one of them. Mature bulls weigh twenty times more than leopards and their horns are formidable weapons. And they don’t like leopards. The man eater had come looking for Olki and me, and unwittingly blundered into the territory of its arch-enemy.
The buffalo stamped one massive hoof in the mud and snorted. That was enough for the man eater. It had already been tossed once. With a frustrated hiss, it turned and went bounding off into the undergrowth. The buffalo stared at the spot where it had disappeared for a moment, then swivelled its eye around to look at me.
And as its eye moved, so did its head, swinging those massive, curved horns in a vicious left hook that would have kO’d a rhinoceros.
WHOOSH!
19
TEMBO!
In the six or eight seconds that had passed while the buffalo’s attention was focused on the leopard, my fingers had been busy. I’d finished untying the knot on my left shoulder. When the buffalo took a swipe at me – WHOOSH! – I hurled myself backwards and flipped the free end of my cloak up over its head.
Now the buffalo couldn’t see. The cloak was covering its eyes. It went crazy. Bellowing, snorting and tossing its head, it began charging blindly in circles, kicking its back legs high in the air like a massive rodeo bull. I backed quickly out of the danger zone, keeping a wary lookout for the man eater and trying to get my bearings. I spotted the tree where I’d left Olki, but he wasn’t in it.
‘Sam!’ he hissed behind me. He was wading out into the swamp. ‘Come quick, quick!’
I remembered what he’d said about the leopard not being able to track us in water, but going into the swamp seemed like a very bad idea. There might be hippos, crocodiles, other buffalos. And our buffalo was bound to get the cloak off its head before too long. Still, we didn’t have a lot of choices. It was either the swamp (hippos, crocodiles, buffalos) or the forest (man eater). I followed Olki into the muddy brown water.
The swamp wasn’t large, about the size of a soccer pitch, and was only waist deep. Swirling clouds of mosquitoes buzzed around our heads as we pushed through the reeds and the mud and the tangled mats of water hyacinth, all the way to the other side.
Now what? I wondered, glancing nervously back the way we’d come. The reeds hid the buffalo from view, but I could hear it sloshing about in the water not very far away. It seemed to be coming in our direction.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ I whispered, flicking a leech off my naked belly. ‘The leopard’s probably miles away by now.’
Olki didn’t seem to be listening. He waded slowly ahead of me, his keen eyes searching the shore. for what, I had no idea.
But I soon found out.
‘Go this way,’ Olki hissed, parting the reeds to reveal the mouth of a small trickling stream that fed into the swamp from the steep, forested hills above us.
It was our escape route.
We walked single-file up the stream, staying in the water every step of the way and being very careful not to brush against any overhanging leaves or branches and leave our scent on them. Sometimes we had to wriggle under obstacles on our bellies like platypuses. We got covered in mud and were sopping wet from head to toe. But it was vital that we didn’t leave a trail for the man eater to follow. I had come to trust Olki’s judgement, and he said the leopard wouldn’t give up simply because the buffalo had attacked it.
‘He too hungry,’ Olki whispered.
My skin prickled. There was a hungry man eater on the prowl and night was falling. I nervously surveyed our surroundings. We were in a steep, narrow valley, with thick forest on all sides. You couldn’t see more than five or six metres in any direction.
‘Is it far to the road?’ I asked.
Olki shrugged.
I frowned at him. ‘Are we lost?’
He chewed his lower lip. I saw the guilt and fear in his eyes. ‘I am sorry, Sam,’ he whispered.
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, remembering that he was only ten years old. He had risked his life by coming into the Chui Hills. And he’d done it for me – because I needed to go to hospital. My eyes still felt better than they had before Olki’s milk treatment, but there was a deep, throbbing ache behind the bandaged one that told me it was far from cured. I looked at my watch: 6.15 p.m. We still had nearly two hours to catch the bus.
‘I think we should get out of this valley,’ I said. ‘We need to get to higher ground so we can see where we are.’
‘But… leopard?’ whispered Olki.
‘We’ll have to take the risk. If we keep following the stream, we’re going to run out of daylight.’
And if we ran out of daylight while still lost in the Chui Hills, our fate was sealed.
Olki said the water looked okay, so we had a drink and I rinsed my good eye. Then we started up the side of the valley. It was steep and heavily overgrown, and we were exhausted, but when your life is on the line you find hidden reserves of energy.
The climb took about fifteen minutes. At the top we staggered out of the trees onto a well-used game trail that followed the spine of a long sloping ridge. In one direction it zigzagged down through the forest towards the wide grassy plain – deep in shadow now – that I’d crossed earlier in the afternoon. In the other direction, the trail wound its way up through the forest towards a broad, tree-lined summit, no more than half a kilometre away.
‘Is that the top of Chui Hills?’ I asked.
Olki nodded. ‘Road other side. not far.’
We passed several large mounds of elephant dung as we hurried up the game trail. Some looked quite fresh. But my thoughts were mostly concerned with the man eater and whether or not we’d outsmarted it. The few clothes I was wearing – shorts, socks, sneakers – were sopping wet from our journey up the stream. And my bandaged eye had started bothering me again. Every five or ten seconds there would be a sudden, sharp stab of pain, like someone sticking a needle into my eyeball. But Olki had dropped the gourd of milk sometime during our flight. I remembered his warning that if I didn’t get medical attention that night, I might end up permanently blind.
Finally we reached the summit and paused to catch our breath. The first pale stars of evening winked down through the trees. night was falling. But Olki reckoned it wasn’t far to the road. All we had to do was follow the trail. And it was all downhill. for the first time it felt like we were actually going to make it.
Then a baboon broke the silence: ‘Whooh, whooh, whooh, whooh!’
It sounded close.
Olki and I exchanged a fearful look – a look that said Man eater! – and started to run.
A human can’t outrun a leopard. If the man eater had found our scent, Olki and I could have saved our energy. It would have been better to climb a tree and try to fend it off with sharp sticks. But when there’s a man eater behind you and a road somewhere ahead, you don’t think logically. Every atom of your being tells you to run.
We hadn’t gone far – perhaps two hundred metres – when I heard Olki say something. But he was p
uffing like a steam train and I didn’t catch what it was. And I was too puffed myself to ask him to repeat it. I was putting all my concentration into seeing where I was going. It was almost fully dark now and I was down to only one eye – I had to focus really hard on the bumpy trail just ahead of my running feet, otherwise I’d go head over heels.
Olki repeated what he’d said, louder this time. We’d been running side by side, but suddenly his voice came from behind me. I slowed down and glanced over my shoulder. He had stopped and was standing in the middle of the trail, pointing at me. It was too dark to see the expression on his face, but when he repeated himself again, his voice sounded urgent.
‘Tembo!’
Finally I got it. Elephant. And I realised Olki wasn’t pointing at me, he was pointing past me.
I turned to look.
Holy guacamole!
20
WE MEET AGAIN
The elephant towered over me, an enormous black silhouette standing in the middle of the trail. It was no more than three metres from where I’d skidded to a stop. I stood frozen in shock. It felt like deja vu – a nightmare come back to haunt me. Dangling from one of the elephant’s tusks was a pale strip of torn fabric.
She rumbled, as if to say: We meet again.
I was dead meat. Elephants are supposed to have good memories, and it was only a couple of hours since our last meeting – when I’d slapped her calf, swung from her tail and tied my shirt around her trunk. They weren’t good memories. She had a score to settle.
But she didn’t move. Cautiously I backed away from her up the trail. Instead of charging, the elephant flapped her ears and made a soft echoey sound deep in her trunk.