There were orange dots all around the village.
“Hmm,” said John, peering at the screen, “looks like Puna could have killed Mr. Pelembe.” He pointed to a dot right next to the village. “See the date? Six days ago, right before the attack.”
“She must have followed a bush pig into the marashamba,” said Beth, “and when Mr. Pelembe chased the pig, he ran into her.” Beth shook her head. “We’ve seen that happen so many times.”
“But look at the dates on these dots,” Renaldo said, pointing to a string of dots at the top of the screen. “This is where she was at the start of the rains: ten miles north. She didn’t move south until ten days ago.”
“So Puna couldn’t have taken my arm,” Pedru said.
“No,” said Beth, “but that means the lion that did is still out there and could be a threat to your village.”
John turned from the screen and looked at Pedru. “Don’t suppose you got a good look at your lion, did you?” he asked.
The drawing! Why hadn’t he thought of it the moment he’d seen the lion ID pictures?
“Yes!” Pedru exclaimed. “Yes, I did!”
He pulled his exercise book from his bag and opened it to the page where he had pasted the drawing of his lion. “I drew it,” he said, “but it’s not very good.”
John snatched the picture from Pedru’s hands. “What do you mean, it’s not very good?” he said. “It’s a perfect ID sketch!”
Excitedly, Beth rushed to the other computer. “Pedru, you’re a genius!” she said. “Take a look at this, guys.”
Beth had clicked a photo of a young lion onto the screen, and John held Pedru’s sketch beside it.
“Well, I’ll be . . . !” said John.
“It’s definitely the same animal,” Renaldo added. “The whisker spots match — and the notch in the ear!”
“Absolutely!” said Beth.
John grew serious. “OK, Pedru,” he said. “This is the lion that attacked you.”
Pedru stared at the screen. The lion looked exactly how he remembered it. He shivered as he thought of its teeth grinding on his bone, and, in his head, he told it again, I am coming to get you, lion!
But now it wasn’t just “lion.” It had a name. It was one of Puna’s cubs: Anjani.
1radio and satellite collars send out signals so researchers can track the animals wearing them. Signals from radio collars travel a few miles and are picked up by a radio receiver in real time. Signals from satellite collars go up to a satellite when it passes overhead, and they are picked up by researchers every few hours or days.
The researchers decided to go talk to the elders of Pedru’s village about the lion attacks. They put Pedru’s bike on the roof of the Land Rover, and some food and camping gear in the back, and set off.
The journey was slow. The road from Madune was close to the edge of the swollen river, and the flood had washed huge holes and ruts into it. The Land Rover kept getting stuck. Pedru helped John and Renaldo push it out of the mud while Beth drove. Pedru enjoyed feeling like part of their team, and after an hour or so of struggling together with the Land Rover, he felt comfortable enough to ask them questions.
“Why do you and Beth and John study lions?” he asked Renaldo as the Land Rover’s wheels spun in yet another muddy pothole.
Renaldo put his back to the Land Rover’s bumper and shoved. “There are lots of reasons,” he said, “but the biggest one is that knowing what lions do helps to keep people safe from them.”
Pedru dug his heels into the mud and heaved. “But why not just hunt them all and kill them? And then people would always be safe.”
“Because,” said John, “without lions to kill them, you’d have way more bush pigs after your crops.”
“And,” said Renaldo, screwing up his eyes to push even harder, “one day soon, lions will bring tourists, and tourists will bring money. Lions could give our country so much.”
“Anyway,” said John, looking sideways into Pedru’s face, “I don’t think you really want to kill lions, do you, Pedru?”
Just then, the Land Rover shot forward, dropping them all into the mud. Pedru was glad, because it meant that he didn’t have to answer John’s question. He wasn’t sure what to say.
The shadows were growing long by the time they reached the village, and everyone came out to see who the visitors were. No one could remember the last time a car had come to their village.
Pedru felt very important as he stepped out of the Land Rover and introduced the lion researchers to Mr. Massingue and to Issa and Adalia. Beth asked him to watch over the Land Rover, while she, John, and Renaldo talked to the village elders.
Pedru was a bit put out that he was not going to be included, but being allowed to sit in the driver’s seat, scolding any child who tried to climb onto the vehicle, soon made him feel better. He leaned out the window to explain to Enzi and Samuel, Adalia and his little sisters, all about ID pictures, whisker spots, radio collars, and how his drawing had identified the lion who stole his arm.
It grew dark. Still the grown-ups talked. Pedru fell asleep leaning on the steering wheel, and he woke up to the sound of his father’s voice. “Pedru, wake up,” Issa said. “Get ready. We’re going on a lion hunt.”
Pedru grabbed his bedroll and his spear from the hut. When he came out again, Issa, John, Renaldo, and Beth were leaning over a map spread on the hood of the Land Rover.
“So,” John said, turning to Issa, “after it attacked Pedru, the lion headed west?”
“For six miles. I tracked it and it didn’t stop,” Issa told them.
“You must taste very bad,” Renaldo said to Pedru.
“Pedru hit this lion hard on the head,” Issa told them proudly.
“You stood up to the lion that was chewing on your arm?” said Beth.
John shook his head. “You are something else, Pedru,” he said.
“Where did you find the last tracks, Issa?” Beth asked.
“Here,” Issa said. “But that was before the rains. He could have gone a long, long way since then.”
“Well,” said Beth thoughtfully, “Anjani won’t go east to his mother’s old territory.”
“And the land to the south is flooded from the rains,” Issa added, “and the north is rocky, with not much to eat.”
“So, west is where we start to look,” said John. “OK, let’s get going. Operation Find Pedru’s Lion!”
The Land Rover bumped slowly through the grassland and sparse trees, heading west to where Issa had last found any sign of Anjani. Every so often, they stopped to look for tracks or to climb a rock or hilltop to scan for lions sleeping in the shade of trees on the horizon.
Issa told Pedru that the plan the villagers and researchers had agreed on was to put a radio collar on Anjani, not to kill him.
“Renaldo will use the collar to check where the lion goes, and if it comes toward the village, he will warn us,” Issa said.
“It’s a big opportunity for us,” Renaldo explained, “to study a lion we know has been a problem in the past.”
“Yeah,” John said. “We want to see if they can be reformed. But I think you already reformed Anjani when you hit his head, Pedru.”
Pedru didn’t smile.
In return for the risk of leaving the lion alive, the researchers were going to help the village to keep safe from lion attacks in the future.
“We will help build shelters and fences that can keep people and animals safe from lions,” Beth said.
Pedru listened in silence. What do I get in return for my arm, he thought, if the lion who stole it goes without punishment?
Beth leaned around as she drew the Land Rover to a stop. “Are you OK, Pedru?”
Pedru nodded, but inside, he told his lion, I’m getting closer. And my spear is here, under my seat, lion!
They searched all day without seeing so much as a single paw print — only a few waterbuck1 and some birds. That night they camped, cooked canned food over the fire,
and talked. The researchers and Issa swapped stories about wildlife and the bush.
Pedru half listened, half slept. He heard Beth say that she had raised an orphan lion cub when she was ten and John say that he was an expert at shooting lions with a tranquilizer gun. He thought he heard Issa say that he’d been chased by a herd of crocodiles. He thought he heard that Renaldo’s cousin was a rich soccer player who was going to build a safari lodge at Madune. “So people from the city can come and see lions,” Pedru thought he remembered Renaldo saying.
But when Issa lay down in the tent next to him and Pedru asked sleepily if crocodiles ever chased people in herds, Issa just laughed, so Pedru knew he must have dreamed about Renaldo’s brother, too.
The next morning, they struck camp before dawn, everyone quietly doing what needed to be done. Already, they were a team.
“That John, he is a good man,” Issa told his son as they took down their tent. “He knows almost as much about the bush as I do.”
As he put the tent onto the roof of the vehicle, John told Pedru quietly, “I wish I had half of your dad’s tracking skill. And you’re no slouch yourself.”
Pedru smiled, but inside he felt bad. He liked John and Beth and Renaldo so much, but would they like him if they knew how he felt about his lion?
Pedru had the best eyes, so he was put on lookout, clinging to the roof of the Land Rover.
“Vultures!” he yelled when they were too faint and far for anyone else to see. Everyone knew that vultures could mean a lion kill.
“That way!” Pedru directed Beth. She drove as fast as she dared — sliding, skidding, bumping.
“Beth could have been a race-car driver in another life,” John said as she swerved to avoid a tree stump.
The vultures were closer now. Everyone could see them, as well as a dark clump of animals on the ground below. Beth parked the Land Rover in the shade of a tree, and everyone got out quietly and climbed onto the roof with Pedru.
“Take a look, Issa,” John said, handing Issa his binoculars. Pedru squinted into the light, impatient to make out what was going on under the spiraling wheel of vultures.
“Here,” said Beth. “Have mine. I need to take pictures anyway.”
Over the last day or so, Pedru had had some practice with binoculars, but he still spent the first few moments getting spider images of his own eyelashes. There! Now he had it. The thrill of being able to see faraway things so clearly made his heart race with excitement.
Lions! Two of them. Young males with growing manes. They had killed a young waterbuck, probably just before dawn, but were now having to defend their kill from a crowd of hyenas. The two lions snarled and spat in fury, and the hyenas heckled and snapped, getting closer and closer.
“They will lose their kill,” Issa said, handing the binoculars back to John.
“Yeah!” John grinned. “That’s what I’m betting on — two hungry youngsters who missed out on breakfast.”
Pedru steadied his hands and looked more closely at the lions. The smaller one, the one with the darker mane, had a notch in its left ear. Pedru felt his gaze traveling down the binoculars and out into the morning air.
You don’t know it, he told his lion, but I’ve caught up with you at last.
1waterbuck: a large antelope found in grassland all over southern Africa
Pedru watched as the hyenas stripped the waterbuck’s body and cracked its bones for the marrow. There was hardly anything left for the horde of hopping, squabbling vultures. The two lions skulked off and lay in the shade of an acacia a few hundred yards away, just visible through the heat haze with binoculars. The day was still, with no breeze to carry the scent of humans and make the lions wary. With all hope of recovering their kill gone, and no hunting to be done until nightfall, the lions slept. Pedru climbed down from the roof of the Land Rover to join Issa and the researchers, who were quietly planning their attack.
Beth had plugged her camera into Renaldo’s laptop so they could look at her photos of the two young lions and compare them with the ID pictures. Even though the shots were taken from so far away, everyone agreed that the young lions were Puna’s two male cubs, Samir and Anjani.
“So all we need to do now,” said John, “is get close enough to get a tranquilizer dart into Anjani, and his brother too, if we can.”
“How close must you be?” Issa asked John.
“You are speaking to the lion-darting champion of all of Africa here,” John said with a mock swagger, “but all the same, I need to be quite close to be sure of a good shot. Twenty-five, maybe thirty yards?”
“Good — not as close as I thought,” said Issa. “They are very hungry, these lions. We can get them close if we have bait to tempt them.”
“How about this?” Renaldo grinned, holding up a small, dead goat. “I got him out of the freezer just before we left our compound. He’s thawed out now.”
“Mmmm, and getting smelly, too!” said Beth. “Perfect. Where should we put him, Issa?”
Before Issa could answer, Pedru spoke up. He pointed to a short line of trees, beyond the acacia where the two lions slept.
“Those waterberry trees,” Pedru said. “There will be water there, and the lions will be thirsty.”
Issa nodded and smiled. “That is thinking like a hunter, Pedru. Very good.”
The plan was that Issa and John would wait in the trees by the goat, each with a tranquilizer gun. Although Issa didn’t own a gun, he had used one many times and was a crack shot. With two guns, their chances of getting a dart into Anjani, or even darting both lions, were much greater.
“We’ll use this, too,” John said, pulling a small plastic recording device from the back of the Land Rover. “It’ll play the sound of a bush pig squealing. The lions won’t be able to resist.”
When the lions were tranquilized, John would call Beth and Renaldo to bring the collars from the Land Rover.
“You will wait with them. It’s too dangerous for you to come with us,” Issa told Pedru. “I don’t trust these dart things,” he added in a whisper.
Pedru had no intention of being left out of the hunt, even if it meant disobeying Issa, so he didn’t bother to argue. About an hour before dusk, as John and Issa were about to make their way to the waterberry grove with the dead goat, Pedru slipped his hand into John’s pack, took out the recorder, and hid it in his tent. He said good-bye to Issa and John and wished them luck. Then he waited.
The sun sank and touched the horizon. By now John and Issa would be at the grove — too far away to come back to fetch the recorder.
“They’ve left the recorder behind!” Pedru told Beth and Renaldo. “I’ll take it to them. Don’t worry. I’ll take my spear, too.”
He was gone before they could say a word.
The goat was already strung up on a branch, and John and Issa were about to climb to their positions when Pedru arrived at the waterberry trees.
“Thanks a million, Pedru,” said John, looking very pleased. He set the little plastic speaker at the bottom of the goat tree. “Don’t know how I left it behind.”
“I think I know,” said Issa quietly, giving Pedru a hard look. They both knew it was too late now for Pedru to return to the camp alone.
“Can you get up into that tree?” Issa asked.
Pedru nodded. The tree had several trunks growing close together, so by bracing his feet on one and his back on another, he could work his way upward, holding his spear in his one good hand. Pedru was glad there was no time for more questions.
John turned on the playback device, and the sound of squealing bush pig filled the space under the trees and echoed out into the falling darkness.
The horrible squealing and the smelly goat together worked like a charm. It wasn’t even fully dark when the two lions skirted the edge of the marsh — probably getting a drink on the way — and almost bounded into the waterberry grove, eager for a meal.
Even in the gray darkness, Pedru could see how thin they were. They looked al
most as if one skinny human arm was all they’d had to eat between them since the rains began. They were young and inexperienced, and so hungry that they were not at all wary. Pedru remembered how carefully Puna had crept down the hillside, alert to the slightest sound. Her sons were so different.
Samir, the larger of the two, went straight for the goat, reaching up and batting at it with his paws. Pedru knew that neither John nor Issa would risk a shot at him yet, in case it startled their more important target. But Anjani was still enough of a cub to be curious about anything new. The sound of the bush pig fascinated him. He searched at the foot of John’s tree, scrambling in the dead leaves and bark to find the source of the noise, completely absorbed in what he was doing and completely unaware of any danger. And while he was at the foot of the tree, neither John nor Issa could get a clear shot.
But Pedru could.
Once again, just as on the evening that now seemed so long ago, when Pedru had lost his arm, time slowed to a stop and all the sound — the squealing, the crunch of paws in the leaf litter, even Pedru’s own pounding heart — drained away.
The only things in all the world were Pedru and his lion.
Pedru stared down at the long pale back, streaked with shadows; the springy tail waving like a whip; the dark tufts of mane, much more numerous now than when they had first met; the notched left ear; the huge paws.
Pedru’s arm was lifted, ready, his hand clasped around his sharpened spear. He aimed at a point just behind the left shoulder. He estimated that at this distance he could pierce the animal’s heart. It would be dead in moments. The lion who had stolen his arm was in his power at last. He could take his revenge on this hateful, wicked, evil beast, just as he had planned from the start. The lion had taken so much, so very, very much, of his life and of the lives of many others.
The Lion Who Stole My Arm Page 3