Zamba

by Ralph Helfer

  Animals aren’t toys, or robots. Laura had been right; you can’t get instructions on handling a lion five minutes before you enter a ring with him. You need to have a relationship with an animal before you can work together, and that doesn’t go just for lions or other animals that can do you harm, but for all animals. There must be a tremendous amount of respect and trust between an animal and a human working together, or both of them are at terrific risk.

  The worst part was that I’d known this, but my greed and my passion had gotten in the way. As a result, I’d come very close to losing my hand, and maybe even my life.

  After I was released from the hospital, I went back to the studio and found the little old property man who had dragged a heavy carbon dioxide canister into the ring and blasted a cloud of the harmless chemical into the lion’s face. I thanked him for saving my life. We talked for a while, and he said something I will always remember.

  “That poor lion. He was just frightened. He thought you were going to hurt him.”

  The incident with Rex could very well have been the last time I was alone with a lion, and many people assumed that it would cause me to abandon my dream of working with them. It did not. In fact, if anything, it intensified that dream. Although it had never been done before, I was determined to communicate with exotic animals by making a positive emotional connection with them. I wanted to create a scenario in which the animal enjoyed what he was doing and obeyed out of affection for his human friend, and a deep respect for him. I wanted to create a working relationship between humans and animals that was based on trust.

  And I knew that the biggest challenge of all would be a big cat—specifically a lion.

  Most cats—big or small—are loners by nature. In the wild, leopards, jaguars, lions, and many other exotic cats live in solitude, coming together only to mate. Once that desire is slaked, they go back to being alone. Cats don’t seem to need one another.

  Cats were domesticated much later than horses and dogs because of the forested areas where they lived. The fact that they were able to climb trees made it harder for humans to approach them. Although domesticated cats do show affection to their human friends, every cat’s human is familiar with the feeling that he’s just being used for shelter, food, and a comfy place to sleep.

  I do think evolution is making domestic cats more affectionate, but it is still the case that if you’re not providing adequate accommodations, a cat will find someone who can, regardless of your affection for one another. Even the most domesticated cat brings many of its wild ways with it. Cats don’t take commands the way dogs do, and they remain fiercely independent, even when they’re sharing a small space. It’s one of the things I like best about them, but it can also make them difficult to communicate with.

  In my heart of hearts, I knew that the key to communication between animals and humans was to approach them with love, not fear, and I knew that if I could accomplish that with a lion, I’d prove my theory.

  All I needed was that lion.

  2

  The warm, gentle breeze hugged the earth, drying elephant grass damp from the morning’s mist. All was still on the African veldt. The early sun meant that it was time to gather their kin and drink from the cool water bubbling from the underground springs, but it also signaled a time of caution. Sentinels from each species stood on duty, watching, ready to sound the alarm if need be.

  A large full-bellied lioness lay in the deep grass under a low-lying umbrella acacia tree, just out of reach of the hot morning sun. A slightly smaller male lay perhaps fifty feet away, hidden in the grass, as motionless as a stone, his stomach filled with the same meal.

  Breakfast had been an easy kill, over in a matter of seconds. The lone young wildebeest never saw them coming. Listening to the voice of nature that bound them together, the lions had sprung as one, precise, unified. The wildebeest died instantly; the male’s huge paw had broken its neck.

  On a nearby mound, two pairs of eyes peered from above a broken piece of decayed candelabrum tree. They were the cubs of the female, six weeks old. Their father had lost the battle with this new male. He had left, bloody and torn, to lick his wounds and then to seek out another lioness to start another family.

  The new male had not taken kindly to the cubs. The lioness launched a full-out attack against him whenever he showed aggression toward them, or the cubs wouldn’t have stood a chance. She was larger than he was, and vicious when her babies were threatened.

  The carcass of the wildebeest lay between the adults and the cubs. The grotesque rib cage and eyeless skull were left as offerings to the vultures, who waited their turn, high in the yellow fever trees.

  The cubs, too, smelled the warm blood of the dead wildebeest, and saliva dripped from their lips. Although they were too young to eat the meat, their instincts were already kicking in, and they longed to wet their tiny muzzles with the source of the delicious smell.

  The male stretched and yawned, skin pulled taut over his full, round belly. He licked his bloody paws, eyes closed, enjoying the feel of his tongue against his skin.

  The cubs had been commanded by their mother to stay put, but they were irresistibly drawn by the tantalizing, warm smell coming from the kill site. They crept forward slowly, nostrils filled with the scent, anxious to get close, and lick, maybe even tear a bit of skin off the carcass. Their mother had never left them alone so long after a kill. Had she forgotten? Their stomachs ached with hunger, and the smell made them even more desperate to nurse.

  Their motion caught the male’s eye. He stopped his cleaning, his tongue stilled by a thought: these weren’t his cubs, not from his seed. He looked at the lioness. She lay motionless on her back, belly to the sky.

  A primitive instinct overcame him. His eyes widened, and the furrows of his brow deepened as he looked again at the little cubs. To him, they weren’t cute. He didn’t care that they were kin to his race. He felt no paternal emotions toward them at all. He simply saw another lion’s offspring. They would grow and have cubs of their own and his territory would once again be threatened.

  He got to his feet and walked toward them, stiff-legged.

  When the cubs saw their new father coming toward them, they hid in the bush, half snarling and half purring, not sure. The female cub’s ears flashed back and forth. Father or predator? Their mother was still lying belly-up. The big male advanced to within a few feet of the girl cub, and she, more eager than her brother for the security her new father could bring, decided to trust this new lion.

  The big male looked down at her, his expression completely passive. Then, with a lunge, he grabbed her by the head and with a sharp crunch, squashed her little skull. The cub dangled from his mouth, twitching, then terribly still. He relaxed his jaw, letting the tiny body slip from his mouth to the ground. He raised his head, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Wrinkling his lips, he grimaced, smelling and tasting the cub’s essence, acknowledging his heritage and feeling his own strength.

  Now his gaze fell on the little male, trembling from what he had seen. The cub’s eyes were enormous, and urine soaked his tail. The huge lion moved in his direction, and the cub backed away under an acacia bush, snarling.

  Finally the lioness heard the cub’s distress and sat up, alert, immediately smelling danger. The male, claws extended, lunged for the cub, one enormous paw swiping under the bush. The cub, shaking with fear, backed even deeper under the thorns.

  His mother was in the air, and in two bounds, she’d hit the male, knocking his hind legs out from under him. He whipped around, snarling his fury. She was bigger than he, but he was defending his territory now, and she was no match for his onslaught. Forced to back down, she slunk away, and the male turned to finish what he had started.

  But the little male cub was gone, racing full tilt back through the wait-a-bit bush, its thorns ripping and tearing at his body. He kept running, tripping, falling over boulders, sliding on the loose gravel beds. He ran for his life.

 
The male did not give chase. The cub was gone, and he was content—perhaps because he knew that the cub’s chance of surviving without his mother was slim. The cub’s mother settled back down, resigned. Her new mate had done what his instinct told him to do—kill another male’s offspring to make room for his own.

  The cub didn’t know that he wasn’t being pursued, and so he kept running, far away from everything he’d ever known in his short life. The only home he’d ever known had been the rolling vistas of the grasslands on the veldt. Weeks before, he had watched the last of the menacing rain clouds form in the distant hills, sweeping across the open spaces of the savannah. Silently they had drifted toward his family. It had scared him when the sky darkened, the warm sultry wind blowing in advance, drying the ground against the onslaught of the rain. The animals had moved, putting the trees and bushes between them and the soon-to-be deluge. Droplets of early rain sprinkled the earth, and dust-covered raindrops beaded on the ground. Lightning cracked across the sky, followed by the ominous sound of thunder. The cubs had pushed down under their mother, down where the heat of her body took away the worry, where the noise of the storm could barely be heard.

  Those chilly winter storms had left the plains verdant, with lush emeralds and lime greens, and he had spent his early life playing there. But now the little cub found himself in inhospitable territory, a dry, mountainous, brush-covered region. It was far too soon for him to be out on his own. He needed protection, shelter, and above all, the warmth and nourishment that only his mother could provide. And he missed his sister. He whined plaintively as he tripped his way through the scrubby underbrush.

  Predators were everywhere. Hyenas, jackals, tawny eagles—practically everything that moved was a danger to something so small. The cub knew of predators, not by name or sight, but by the way his mother’s body hardened when they were near. Perhaps his lion smell would keep them away. But he didn’t know to creep in the bushes when a jackal appeared, or to stay still when an eagle made lazy circles above him, or to lie in a deserted warthogs’ burrow until the yelp of the hyena was far away.

  Though he was scratched, thin, and weak, he was driven by his own powerful survival instinct to continue.

  Soon a cool breeze and a powerful roar signaled that he’d reached the mighty Zambezi River. Winding its way through the canyons, the river opened up into a small valley, spreading wide and shallow across the flat terrain. The cub, exhausted and dehydrated, staggered down a ravine into the water and sank down among the water greens. In a hurry to slurp the cool water, he dropped his head beneath the surface and filled his nostrils, setting off a spasm of coughing. Too much too soon. After a bit, he steadied himself enough to drink without coughing. A breeze cooled his fevered body.

  He lay flat, stretched out in a shallow place, his chin lying on the sandy bottom, water up to the edge of his nose. The current swirled around him. Small bands of “water-walker” spiders skipped past on their spindly legs. Looking for something to ease his hunger pangs, he sucked on some bitter water plants. They brought foam to his lips, then a wrenching, spasmodic heaving. Whatever little nourishment was left in his stomach was vomited out and swept away with the current.

  The minutes turned into hours, and the hot African sun began to take its toll. The cub wandered down the riverbank on bloodied paws, searching for a spot of shade. As he rounded a bend, he saw a blurred movement through his bloodshot, drooping eyes. He felt warmth coming from the shape. His feverish mind saw his mother, heard her calling, ready to lick his wounds and fill his tummy with warm, life-giving milk.

  He opened his mouth to let out a cry, but no sound came out. His head bobbled on his thin shoulders as he ran, falling, toward the warm blur, and collapsed at its feet. It was a woman, and as she gathered him up as his mother once had, he felt as safe and secure as he had in his mother’s paws. His soft muzzle nudged her warm skin, looking for a nipple. As he began to lose consciousness, his small mouth nursed a finger. He couldn’t understand why there wasn’t any milk.

  3

  There are events that change the entire course of your life. The event that changed mine forever started with a phone call from friends I hadn’t heard from for a long time. It was the mid-1950s, and I was living on a ranch in the Santa Monica Hills. I was making a living renting animals to the movies and working as a stuntman. I had also built a reputation as a conservationist, and lectured often on the future of exotic animals at various animal nonprofits, universities, and conferences.

  It was my belief then, as it is now, that the human species’ consistent refusal to treat animals and their habitats with decency and respect will inevitably have one unhappy result: the extinction of those animals. I am an extremely optimistic person. I tend to see the glass not half full, or half empty, but overflowing. But I am sorry to say that I do not have a great deal of faith in my fellow man, especially when it comes to our animal brethren, and I have spent much of my career trying to bring the world’s attention to this issue—before it is too late.

  In the early fifties, during a symposium on endangered species at the University of California at Davis, one of the finest veterinary schools in the world, I had met a wonderful couple, Jack and Brini. Jack was a rather handsome Englishman, tall and a bit on the thin side, with graying temples, a slight mustache, and a mild accent. Brini, also British, had been raised in the United States. She was a tanned blond, with just a hint of an accent and a truly terrific smile. They had met when she was at Stanford University, and had married a year later.

  They were studying animal conservation, which was how they ended up at my lecture on the survival instinct, and the three of us hit it off immediately. We agreed completely about animals and their predicaments, and we spent lots of time after the seminar discussing our thoughts on these topics.

  “I think human overpopulation is the primary cause of the depletion of our natural reserves,” Brini said during dinner on our last evening. “Where are these animals supposed to live, once we’ve destroyed their habitats? It’s their territory, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Don’t get started, Brini,” Jack warned. But I was as passionate about the subject as she was, and the conversation went on late into the night. Sure that I was among like-minded souls, I shared my desire to have and train an African lion using positive emotional training techniques, and to build a relationship based on trust and respect. “I would love to be able to establish a way of communicating that would bring our two species closer together,” I told Brini and Jack. I spoke at length about my budding theories, and they agreed that it would be a wonderful experiment.

  We’d parted friends, and sent periodic postcards from our various travels, but we hadn’t seen each other in years. Then, suddenly, I received that life-changing long-distance phone call from Jack.

  “Something odd happened to us when we were on safari, Ralph,” he’d said.

  A week or two later, on a quiet, sunny morning in early April, I stood on top of a hill at my ranch, looking down into the open country below. The sky was the most brilliant blue, and the sweet scent of spring flowers drifted up from the valley. I had never seen a more beautiful day in more beautiful country. Adrenaline charged through my body when I spotted the spiraling dust from a truck speeding up from the valley below. It turned onto the dirt road leading to our ranch.

  Today my lion was coming.

  A red-tailed hawk, flying high, shrieked a welcome to Jack and Brini as the pickup truck came to a halt.

  We greeted each other with heartfelt hugs, feeling as comfortable as if we had been separated by mere days, not years.

  “This dust reminds me a bit of Africa,” said Brini with a smile, smacking some of it off her trousers.

  “Someday I will venture there,” I said. “I truly believe it is the cradle of mankind, and I know one has to look back to see the future.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Brini smiled. “Our safari was unbelievable. We spent three weeks traveling through Zambia, Tanzania, and Kenya, pho
tographing Cape buffalo, African lions, rhinos, elephants, and leopards—what hunters refer to as the big five.” The excitement in her voice was infectious. It was as if she were back in Africa, experiencing it all again firsthand.

  “Ralph, there is an energy there that permeates one’s whole being. The country is beautiful—the veldt, well, I never imagined there were so many shades of green. It was just after the rains, and the herds of wildebeest, impala, and zebra were everywhere. Thousands of them! And we must have seen four or five prides of lions.”

  The mention of the lions reminded us all why they were at the ranch.

  “The ranger told us that what happened to us on the Zambezi River had never happened before,” she said.

  “He said the cub was at the point of collapse when Brini came upon him. He wouldn’t have lasted another hour,” added Jack.

  “I’m surprised he let you take the cub out of the country,” I said. Even then, there were stringent laws preventing people from taking any animals out of Africa.

  “I think he knew that if the cub had any chance at all of surviving, it would be with Brini. She stayed up every night for a week, feeding him, keeping him warm,” said Jack.

  “He would lie on my chest all night and most of the day during the time he was healing, and I think that more than anything, the bodily contact was what saved him. He could hear my heartbeat and feel me breathe, and my body heat kept him warm. It’s what his mother would have done,” said Brini.

  “Did he make the trip back okay?” I asked anxiously, shifting my eyes to the cage in the back of the pickup.

  “Splendidly,” said Jack. “You must be anxious to meet your new friend.”

  We walked back to the truck. Jack undid the chain and lowered the tailgate. The cage was wrapped in canvas with a few ropes securing it to the side of the truck. Undoing the knots, he started to uncover the cage.

  “If you don’t mind,” I said, putting my hand on his arm, “I would like to have our first meeting in private.”