Saving the White Lions

by Linda Tucker

  Ian’s accustomed to my symbolic way of thinking. “Sincerely hope you’re right,” he grunts.

  “Where’s your fighting spirit, Ian?” I ask.

  I’m not forgetting this is the man who galloped bare-chested on horseback through the African wilderness, chasing after the world’s critically endangered white rhinos in an attempt to relocate them to safety. When I last visited him at his farm in Howick, he and I dug up old black-and-white movie footage that records Ian Player as a kind of bushveld Rhett Butler figure, performing macho feats, like leaping onto rhino’s backs in order to dart these great prehistoric beasts with a tranquilizer and wrestle them down to the ground. As Ian nears his eightieth birthday, his mind has never been sharper, but he’s suffering spinal injuries dating back to those rhino-capture days in his youth. And the walk he and I took through his grounds was painfully slow, for an ecowarrior who once ranged the bushveld. But his spirit remains indomitable.

  “My spirit, huh?” he snorts in response. “In the old days, when I talked about Spirit in Nature, the men in khaki told me: what spirit are you going on about now, Ian: gin, brandy, witblits? Don’t expect them to understand what you’re doing, sweetheart. Remember, men are terrified of a woman with balls.”

  I chuckle.

  “Think it’s funny?” he continues gruffly. “That’s what makes these men dangerous. They feel emasculated by you.”

  “Well, maybe they aren’t real men, Ian. Someone’s gotta protect the lions.”

  “True. And we both know you can’t do anything other than what you’re doing. But I do worry about you.”

  “You’d have done the same in my position, Ian.”

  I know I’ve struck a sympathetic chord, although he won’t necessarily admit it. My dear friend is the legend who stood up to the world’s biggest mining company in a David and Goliath conservation battle over critically important natural wetlands that were targeted for titanium mining—and, what’s more, he won! Through large-scale battles and long-term paramilitary tactics, he’s sustained a lifetime of injuries on behalf of conservation. Need I remind my mentor how his own risky decisions paid off?

  “The white rhino saga, St. Lucia Wetlands, iMfolozi wilderness—these were all life and death for you, Ian, so why are you cautioning me?” I comment defensively, padding around and around my tiny apartment.

  “Understood, you’re fighting to protect an animal from extinction,” he concedes. “And you’ve won some skirmishes with those canned-hunting brutes and now the zoo. But, Linda, may I remind you: this isn’t a battle waged with an end in sight; it’s lifelong guerilla warfare.”

  I take a deep breath. It’s not the first time Ian’s made this point, and besides, I know he’s right.

  “Right now, time’s of the essence, Ian. We’ve managed to save Marah’s life, sure, but if she and her offspring are gonna return to the wild, we need to move fast.”

  He huffs again. “So you’re sinking your life savings into this land—that’s the idea?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “No, sweetheart. No. How many times’ve I cautioned you not to put your personal savings into your work? Anything goes wrong, you’ll sink—and take your project down with you.”

  Ian’s right; but then, I know his heart has always ruled his head and won many great battles on behalf of conservation.

  “You’re asking me to apply cold, calculated logic to a project I believe in with every fiber of my heart and soul,” I challenge him after hearing him out. “Sorry, no can do. You know what I’m talking about.”

  Another huff. “I appreciate your commitment to White Lion conservation, sure. You’ve funded not only yourself, but also Global White Lion Protection Trust, for the past ten years. Without a salary. And if you had a shirt on your back, girl, you’d probably contribute that to the cause too.”

  “That’s where the modeling and advertising savings can finally be put to good use,” I butt in. “I’m gonna find a way to buy this property if it’s the last thing I do.”

  It is such a relief to finally do something meaningful with the modeling spoils. But these funds aren’t limitless, and what is required of me will all but empty my coffers. Of course it’s nerve-wracking, but I’m insistent.

  “Well, what can I say? If anyone can do it …” he concedes. “How much are we looking at?”

  “Let’s put it this way. If I put down my existing savings as a deposit, the sellers have agreed to a five-month option on the property.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s your entire life’s savings.”

  “Pretty much.”

  He pauses, as if moving into a new gear. “Okay. So, what’re we saying here?”

  “The option buys me five months to raise the funds.”

  “What proportion you putting down?”

  “About 7 percent.”

  “Ahem!” his tone is less than impressed, but I suspect the old Trojan is secretly warming to the challenge, and I can picture him pondering at the other end of the line, brow furrowed with strategic thinking. When it comes to saving wilderness areas, this is a man prepared to stand in front of the bulldozer. He won’t take anything lying down, but he’s also ruthlessly tactical in his strategy.

  “So those are the odds. You mean after putting down 7 percent of the purchase price, you’ve got the next five months to raise the balance—literally millions of rands?” Although I know I’ve finally won him over, he’s snorting through my cell phone again like an old rhino bull. “And if you don’t manage to raise the funds, you’ll lose everything?”

  “Yup. That’s the bottom line.”

  “Well, I can hear that tone in your voice,” he concedes, finally. “Nobody’s gonna change your mind—and I’m afraid that includes me!”

  “Stakes are high, Ian, but I’m prepared to dedicate every minute of the next five months to raising the money for the property.”

  Another momentary silence, then a slight softening. “In that case, sweetheart, you’d better get some rest. May I wish you sweet dreams.”

  “Night, Ian. Thanks for taking this all so seriously on my behalf.”

  “Just don’t want you to get hurt. Believe me, if I was a couple of years younger, I’d be out there fighting the cause for you!”

  Earlier I was preparing to sleep on this matter, but after Ian’s call, my head’s buzzing again. I need to do some serious thinking.

  From my studies with Maria Khosa, Credo Mutwa, and other African elders, I’ve learned that the present-day borders of Timbavati Private Nature Reserve do not constitute the full extent of the original sacred lands of the White Lions. In fact, the White Lions’ original kingdom was many times larger than the existing private reserve of some 150,000 acres. And it once comprised a magnificent ecosystem, teeming with biodiversity. The original kingdom spanned both sides of a river originally called the Tsau River (today known as the Klaserie). This great river is a primordial artery that, significantly, flows in direct geographic alignment with the Nile in the north. Furthermore, it’s an intrinsic part of the mystery I uncovered—the mystery that links the White Lions to the Ancient Egyptian deities.

  Wide awake, I open my bureau. I remove the large Timbavati district map from its tube and roll it out to study the area bordering the Kruger National Park of five million acres, which has now been incorporated into the Transfrontier Park of some fifteen million acres. A larger acreage than the countries of Holland and Belgium combined. This year, this bushveld region was declared the world’s third-largest “biosphere region” by the United Nations.

  I try to focus. Acquiring land on the scale I’m planning seems a superhuman challenge. But I remind myself that some years before her sudden departure, Maria Khosa gave me the seed of a long-term solution, which I’ve never forgotten. She informed me that my starting point was to be a specific piece of property through which the Tsau River runs. She illustrated this by casting the bones of divination out onto the grass mat in front of me. Arranged in a s
pecific order of clustered relics, they resembled a symbolic map of the region, and she pointed to the particular property in question, which was identifiable in the center of this symbolic map. The ancestral spirits of the White Lions who spoke directly to Maria communicated information of great significance—and in this case, the piece of land (bisected by the Tsau River) is truly the heartland of the natural kingdom on Earth, and the core of the White Lions’ ancestral homeland. The United Nations accreditation came years after Maria’s message, but scrutinizing the map of this great body of land, I observe that the property Maria identified is in fact at the epicenter of this biosphere region.

  Like everything else about Maria’s mysterious ways, this can be no coincidence.

  At the time, Maria’s guidance seemed strikingly similar to a mythical story I studied in Egyptology. According to Ancient Egyptian legend, there was once a great and noble king named Osiris who was dethroned and murdered by his power-hungry brother, Seth. His body was then carved up into many pieces, which were scattered to various corners of the globe in an attempt to prevent the success of the Plan of Light: the great plan of enlightenment, which was God’s intention for humanity, rather than abysmal destruction. So it was the task of his brave queen, Isis, to find the parts of the dismembered monarch and bring them together again, to ensure the success of the Plan of Light.

  Remembering this gives me such spine tingles I feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck, as if the remnants of mane fur still exist there. Maria’s instruction that my reclaiming this piece of land would revive the heart of an ancient kingdom was also her call for me “to remember who I am.” She informed me that by putting all the pieces of the severed kingdom together, I would be reinstating true kingship on Earth, and the White Lions themselves would usher in the plan of light. She reminded me that each of the vital organs had to be reclaimed until this great body of sacred lands was brought together again, piece by piece.

  But the very first step was to reclaim the heart of the severed kingdom—in doing so, my courage could not fail me. I heave the large hard-covered book onto the desk’s surface and open it to a full page of Africa. As I’ve done several times before, using maps in my research into the White Lion mystery, I now redraft the golden line with a ruler all the way down the continent of Africa, from Giza in the north, due south along the same meridian to Timbavati. This geographic alignment was a revelation shown to me through guidance from my own ancestral sources and was corroborated in my shamanic studies with Maria Khosa and Credo Mutwa: the birthplace of the White Lions aligns exactly with the resting place of humankind’s greatest lion monument, illustrating that the mystery of the White Lions is directly linked to the riddle of the Sphinx. I think back on how this profound alignment set me on a journey of discovery, which has led me into the very nucleus of ancient knowledge. Although this knowledge originates from the ancient past, I believe it offers urgently applicable solutions to our modern-day ecological and psychological crisis. But rather than sit and ponder over the meaning of this astounding correspondence, as I’ve done so many times before, I know I need to act on this knowledge—immediately.

  I take a deep breath and survey the land before me. When I first visited Timbavati as a child, I couldn’t deny a creeping sense of destiny. Having set foot on this land as a prospective landowner earlier this week, I felt the sense of providence all the more strongly. I loved the feel of this ancient ancestral land. I knew it in my bones, and I wanted to save the land, just as I want to save Marah! The present owners, a hunter-farmer and his wife, were not home at the time of my visit, but fortunately one of their laborers, a striking elderly Sotho man in his seventies, showed me around. He’d worked on this land for the past half century and gave the distinct impression he was showing me some of his favorite sites. I loved them too: a wild forest of ancient sycamore fig trees reaching up high over the floodplains of the Tsau River, a massive baobab some fifteen hundred years old rising out of a dry ravine, and a particular favorite of mine—a precipitous rocky promontory like Pride Rock from the famous opening scene of Disney’s The Lion King. I could already envisage Marah padding over to the cliff’s edge and overlooking the vast bushveld savanna stretching far to the distant Drakensberg Mountains. There was also, somehow, a sense of trauma hanging over the property, but this damage seems a more recent occurrence, while the land’s real power transmits from the most primordial past.

  Acting upon Maria Khosa’s original instruction has sharpened my perception. In a modern context, this land she identified before she died is highly strategic because it borders directly on the western fence line of Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. It is, in fact, located alongside the reserve’s headquarters. It shares a fence with the Timbavati Reserve, but being outside its borders, it doesn’t fall under the governing constitution. This is vitally important. It means I won’t have to follow the reserve’s existing constitution of Timbavati, which advocates trophy hunting of the so-called Big Five: rhino, elephant, buffalo, leopard, and the most sought-after, the King of the beasts, the lion. In purchasing this land bordering the private reserve, I’m in a position to redraft the constitution and to ensure the urgent protection of the White Lions in their endemic habitat.

  But there is an additional challenge. Timbavati is not alone in trophy hunting lions. On all other frontiers, Maria’s Heartland is bordered by specialized trophy hunting outfits, with the headquarters of the godfather of the canned-hunting industry on the southern frontier. This is the same individual who bragged about stealing a White Lion from the Kruger National Park, the selfsame individual whom Jason witnessed stealing a Timbavati lioness. A staunch member of the Afrikaner right-wing neo-Nazi movement known as the AWB, this treacherous man lives with his three middle-aged, gun-toting sons, barricaded in a stronghold rumored to house his impressive arsenal and vast collection of animal trophies, while outside his family farmhouse, word has it, are numerous dejected lions in cages waiting to be trophy-hunted.

  Ian’s right. It does seem foolhardy trying to establish myself right in the middle of this antagonistic region. On the other hand, purchasing land here is the obvious—and only—next step.

  I sigh with exhaustion as I fold up the atlas, and then the desk and then the chair. I am about to switch off my cell phone when it rings again. It’s Mireille. I note from the missed calls that she’s tried me several times during my conversation with Ian, so she knows I’m still awake.

  “How’s my darling daughter doing?” That cheery Swiss-Yorkshire accent always encourages me. Mireille’s one of the most enthusiastic personalities I’ve ever known.

  “Better for hearing your voice,” I reply before going on to briefly explain the new looming challenge. Her instant response is to get practical. “What’re you eating, darling? It’s very late in South Africa, isn’t it? Worried your line was still busy. You had supper? Remember: if you collapse, this entire project crumbles.”

  “I’ll have some soup before bed.”

  “With lots of fresh vegetables, presumably? Sounds good,” she instructs encouragingly. “Okay. Bedtime now—off you go!”

  “Will try. But this decision’s keeping me awake.”

  “Take heart, darling daughter. Remember their first day of freedom? All will work out. Now you make sure you record everything you’ve achieved so far! Stop and smell the roses.”

  “You’re so right,” I admit. “The challenges are so relentless; I tend to forget the achievements.”

  “Absolutely! List and write down all those things you should be grateful for. Puts it all in perspective,” she advises. “And don’t worry about next steps. You know in your heart of hearts what needs to be done, when. The night brings good council. Sleep tight, darling. Love you.”

  “Night, Mum. Love you too.”

  I had no appetite earlier, but I now I’m yearning for comfort food. I boil water in the kettle and try to settle down with some warm soup, reminded of those steaming mugs of hot chocolate from the flask Mire
ille and I shared on that unforgettable crystal morning: The day Queen Marah and her cubs awoke after their rescue from the zoo. I relive my last view of Mireille—disappearing, proud, and waving like a queenly grandmother in the back of a 4×4—in a cloud of desert dust, while I stayed on with Jason to monitor the newly arrived lion family. She returned to Leeds directly afterward, but she’s been in regular contact since, to offer moral support.

  In bed, I take out my notepad and follow Mireille’s sound advice, reminding myself of progress so far and giving thanks for all that’s been achieved. Sounds simple enough.

  Point 1: Marah rescued—and her cubs!

  Point 2: Book published. It’s reached a fair number of people over the past three years.

  Point 3: Radio and TV interviews. This and other media has helped raise awareness.

  Point 4: Nonprofit organization. All the effort that went into establishing the Global White Lion Protection Trust is now beginning to prove worthwhile.

  Point 5: Foot in the door.

  Crossing out foot and changing it to paw, I can’t help a little smile. I now have a paw in the door of parliament!

  This, at least, is a massive step forward. Look on the positive side, I tell myself. I’ve presented in parliament, but will the new proposed regulations come through in time to save Marah and her kin? Almost certainly not. If Marah is to be safely returned to her natural habitat, this strategic piece of land has to be secured immediately.

  Will I succeed in raising funds for the property? And if not, must I face the reality that Marah may never be free?

  Feeling cold sweat break out on my forehead, I try to settle down for the night and switch off the lamp. My head’s throbbing. Reviewing my progress so far has focused my mind on just how urgent my next step is. I’m not anywhere near tired. The neighbor opposite has left his porchlight on again, and hard beams of light are cracking through my blinds onto the wall behind me, carving slats into Aslan’s face. I would have gotten up again and closed the blinds, but it’s some comfort having Aslan’s presence visible above me.