Saving the White Lions

by Linda Tucker

  “We’ve got the go-ahead from the chief of chiefs,” I update Mireille, but stop short. Her expression remains stalwart, but the sparkle has gone from her eyes and the color completely drained from her cheeks.

  “You all right, Godmum?”

  “Darling, I know full well the consequences for Marah and her family could be a lifetime of captivity,” she replies, ashen. “But the risk of losing them is too great. One wrong move, and—no, I just can’t condone it! Regrettably, I’ve come to the conclusion we should cancel all tomorrow’s plans—”

  “—for the lions’ rescue?” I respond. What a shock! I can’t believe I am hearing this from her.

  In my heart of hearts, I simply cannot agree, but I am not prepared to overrule my godmother’s cautions, and besides, I feel them too, excruciatingly.

  I am alone in my unbearable dilemma, burdened by the weight and consequence of this impossible decision—which is ultimately mine to make. Or is it? If I go ahead with this risky step to free the Lions of God, as Maria called them, can I rely on the creator to protect his precious creatures from human brutality? Can I hand over responsibility to higher causes, in faith that the sun god’s holy children will be protected, as they deserve to be? What would Mother Mary say? A mother who must have wrestled more than anyone with questions of what it means to call for protection of her beloved son from humanity’s brutality?

  I close my eyes, praying with all my heart, and I receive a clear vision of Mother Maria, standing before me in all her traditional regalia: Black Madonna, loving but fierce.

  “How seriously must I take these threats?” I implore Maria Khosa. “Are the stakes too high? Must I call off Marah’s rescue?”

  Unhesitatingly, the guidance from Maria is clear and firm, but so disparagingly dismissive that I couldn’t translate it for Mireille without blushing.

  “The canned hunters are just farting in the wind,” Maria reports. “Get on with the task at hand!”

  Ah! At least that is unambiguous.

  As time passes, the thumping of my heart subsides and I feel my courage returning. My eyes are still closed, but if Mireille were to glance at me now, she’d detect a humorous smile on my face.

  There is a polite knock at the door.

  Jason is standing in the doorway, with pizzas!

  “Good evening, dear man,” Mireille announces, unloading the three flat boxes cradled in his arms. Neither Mireille nor I have eaten since breakfast, so our blood sugar levels must be very low.

  “Fuel up, ladies,” Jason says, stepping inside. “We’ve got a long journey tomorrow.”

  The turning point!

  After a few hearty bites, Mireille is back on the frontline. She stands, with a huge slice of pizza in hand, informing Jason that I was absolutely right to choose action over inaction.

  “After all,” she announces firmly. “Marah, exiled lioness of Timbavati, has a divine right to return home. And I, Mireille Vince, Grandmother of the White Lions, am certainly not going to stand in her way.”

  “Right you are!” Jason concurs, as if he never had any doubt.

  “What God brings together, let no man draw asunder—or something to that effect,” she adds, smiling heartily.

  Jason has a broad grin on his face, despite the tensions of the occasion.

  “Let’s get to it then,” he instructs.

  I fling my arms around my godmother, feeling my resolve strengthen like never before. I feel strong and clear and determined. My commitment to Marah’s freedom has seen me through many challenges. But singleminded and lonely as my journey has been up until now, I was never alone. From the start, I had the support of my loving sister, Mae, an astute professional psychologist who understood and encouraged my work, even during those years when my colleagues from high-powered advertising and marketing arenas thought I’d gotten heatstroke in Africa and gone insane. And over time, as the project progressed, people offered assistance in many different capacities. Now, after ten years of lonely campaigning, I have enormous momentum behind me, and so many special people have come in to assist. I have so much to be thankful for. How can one measure the support offered me by Dr. Ian Player, and the credibility he’s lent to my project? Of course, most immediately, I have dearly beloved Mireille to thank, whose unconditional funding has freed the lions and the land. And then there’s Corelight and all the others who have been prepared to commit significant funding, as proof that the cause to which I’ve dedicated my life is worthwhile to them too. Reinforcements have truly arrived at last. But the watershed was Jason’s appearance in my life.

  Padding into my world and my project like a quietly confident territorial male lion, he’s brought with him eight years of specialist scientific study—six of which were spent specializing in the Timbavati lion pride dynamics. I’d imagine that’s why Jason has unconsciously developed leonine qualities himself.

  I think back on the past couple of years, how he’s assisted my ongoing efforts at the most crucial and challenging times with the construction of the fencing, the applications to Nature Conservation officials, and the harnessing of scientific support and expertise. And after completing his master’s degree in wildlife management three week ago, Jason joined the Global White Lion Protection Trust as a full-time scientific advisor. He’s taken each step with careful consideration, never looking back. After many months of careful long-term scientific planning, he heads up the scientific team assisting me in relocating Marah to her promised land.

  Jason Turner has no intention of backing down now.

  MIREILLE, JASON, AND I stand on the runway of Lanseria private airport, under the tilted metal hull of a DC3 troop carrier. Mireille is hanging tightly onto my hand. The tarmac shimmers; despite the heat, she is still wearing her favorite red bomber jacket. Our plan is that the plane will first transport us ten hours into the Karoo mountain land, and from there, collect the sleeping lions and transport them another nine hours to Timbavati, and freedom!

  The pilot of the solid old World War II aircraft, Henry Delport, stands beside us: short, dark, and hardy-handsome, with what seems a slightly maniacal streak of heroism in his eyes. Magnanimously, he’s offered his historic plane and his services free-of-charge, for which I’m deeply grateful, as a flight of this nature would have cost a small fortune. With funds particularly thin on the ground, his generous lift-off swept Mireille and me off our feet. However, I recently learned from Harold that this feisty personality was known as Highway Hennie in aviation circles after famously landing his aircraft on the N4 triple highway, due to engine failure. The reputation that precedes him may be unnerving, but I have more serious things to worry about.

  Everything is on track, for better or for worse.

  A film crew, who flew in from a great distance last night, are due to join us on the tarmac at any moment. I fortify myself, knowing I am going to have to break the news to them on arrival, and reveal that the entire expedition is in jeopardy.

  It is 10:00 a.m., our scheduled departure time. Highway Hennie buckles up his leather jacket and pilot’s helmet and clambers into the cockpit, unusually through a door in the hull itself. He’d spotted the film crew’s panel van speeding down the entrance road, then swinging onto the tarmac and honking on arrival.

  What lies ahead is a life-and-death action-step for Marah’s future, more utterly agonizing than any I’ve taken before. But I no longer feel afraid. I have my team beside me. And I feel the full weight of the responsibility that Maria Khosa handed me in passing on the ancient title: Keeper of the White Lions.

  CHAPTER 18

  Presence of the Leopard

  MARCH 6, 2005. THE FLIGHT IS HARROWING. I am trying to avoid the smell of engine fumes that keeps churning my stomach. We’ve already spent eighteen hours in the droning old troop carrier—first to the Karoo to collect Marah and cubs, then onward to Timbavati. I felt ill with anxiety on the outward-bound journey, and I’ve been physically sick, repeatedly, on the second leg. That feeling of dread lurches in m
y stomach again, and I reach out for another sick-bag.

  Not knowing what awaits us on the landing strip is awful. I’ve been trying to get the menacing legal letters out of my mind, and the recurring image of incensed pro-hunting neighbors and officials persuaded by intimidation tactics—and very possibly fat wallets—to seize the lions on the runway. I dab my mouth with a paper towel, trying to shed the unpalatable acid taste of fear from my system. Through my fits of vomiting, I catch repeated flashes of Mireille’s red bomber jacket as she tries to offer me water. And there are other flashes, of Jason advising Tindall, who has set up a drip for each of the tranquilized lions. I focus on the positive. Having once transported soldiers and arms, this old craft now carries the most precious of cargos—four snow-white lions, angelic and soundly asleep under blankets—to their promised land.

  In the sweltering heat, I peer out of the small window at the wilderness below, wondering what fate lies ahead. All the while, I have had to navigate the demands of the film crew, who’ve shown minimal care for the lions’ welfare and no clue of what’s truly at stake. At first, they seemed a fairly pleasant, if rowdy, bunch. But when they tried to refuse Mireille and Jason access to the plane, pronouncing that “these extras and personalities aren’t needed in the documentary,” I felt a lioness’s fury overtake me.

  “Not negotiable,” I instructed them and turned away to climb the stepladder.

  I was fuming. My life’s not up for negotiation, nor are Mireille’s and Jason’s; they aren’t “extras” but utter lifelines of support and encouragement. Having an insensitive film crew with me on this profoundly personal occasion isn’t what I would have chosen, but we’d all agreed in advance that Marah’s return to her natural kingdom is a historic moment that shouldn’t go unrecorded. So I compromised. However, the only way I manage to calm myself is to focus my attention, as always, on my lion family, and their all-important rescue. These exquisite cats are sublimely peaceful, sleeping like angels. Watching Marah’s serene, majestic face, I notice her eyes flickering; she’s starting to stir. I turn to Jason, but he and Tindall are already out of their seats and by her side, gently topping her up with Zolitel, the long-acting tranquilizing drug.

  I watch Marah’s vision fade again, and she passes into tranquilized sleep once more.

  The film crew has had cameras trained on me since before the takeoff. But fortunately for the past couple of hours, when the nausea really hit, they’ve all been asleep, en masse—director, assistant director, cameraman, presenter, and presenter’s makeup artist. Thank goodness for a little privacy.

  Jason returns to his seat, together with Tindall, their watchful eyes still set on the lions. I seize this opportunity. I’ve been holding myself back for hours and hours, but I can’t fight the urge to leave my seat and join Marah on the cabin floor, under her blanket! I crouch down next to her. Feeling her closeness, I lie on the floor and cuddle up, with my arm around her taut muscular body and warm, snowy fur. Pressing against this magnificent creature, I breathe in that same exquisite scent I remembered from Marah’s cubhood—that fragrant blend resembling talcum powder and freshly cut hay. The airsickness fades away and I feel deep inner strength and courage revive in me again. I am as close as I’ll ever be to the lioness I love with all my heart! Intertwined with her, and breathing in her fragrance, I am transported back to that amazing day when I managed to free Marah from the dreaded canned-hunting camp for just one day with the covert assistance of Greg Mitchell. She was a little subadult then, nine months old, and it was her one and only day of freedom! Releasing Marah from her cage, in secret—under the very noses of the canned hunters—into the surrounding fields! I’d remember that eternal day: running with her through the fields, bounding and tumbling and rolling together in the long grass—forever! What an indescribable feeling. I feel it again. How could I ever forget the most exhilarating day of my life?

  What will be the outcome of today’s great trek? What if incarceration rather than freedom lies at the end of this journey? I have to remember Maria’s training. Release fear and doubt. Instead of visualizing the worst, I have to focus on aspirations and dreams for the future. If all goes well, Marah’s freedom will be secured—not only for one day, but forever.

  Freeing Marah has offered its own challenge, one that Jason had tried to prepare me for, over and over. With freedom as my endpoint, the only way I could be physically close to Marah was when she was unconscious. Wrenchingly sad as it is for me, I know with absolute clarity that Marah and I must remain physically separated. In her best interests, she has to break all dependency on humans and take up her position of sovereignty in the wild. Despite the bondage she once had to the human world, she can no longer cross back into that world. Magnificent lioness, now in her prime, she would be at risk of being destroyed by those same humans.

  From where I lie on the cabin floor, I can see Highway Hennie seated in his open cockpit. At least, I can just see his feet—he’s wearing shiny black Italian-style shoes and bright red socks with racy Snoopy images on them. Definite type-A personality. I have discovered over the years that the lions tend to bring out heroism in certain people, and our highwayman pilot has hatched a feisty scheme to avoid the risk of officials waiting on the runway to seize the lions. He is planning to make a last-minute diversion to an undisclosed destination, without informing the local airport. With this brainwave in mind, Jason conveys the new coordinates to his ground team, using mobile telephones, which don’t affect World War II aviation technologies. So, things are looking up—and help will be waiting for us on arrival!

  “How’re my puppies doing?” I hear our daredevil pilot announce through his crackly World War II microphone.

  He is referring to the magnificent great cats slumbering on his aircraft floor beside me.

  I watch Jason and Tindall give him the thumbs-up.

  The cameraman has woken up again, and all of this is on film. Suddenly, the craft starts tipping over the edge of the precipitous Drakensberg Mountains.

  “Seat belts on, everyone,” our pilot announces. “Prepare for landing. ETA: fifteen minutes. Destination: unknown.”

  Relunctantly, I leave Marah and return to my seat.

  Mireille is wide eyed, gripping onto the armrests of her seat. “Unknown landing strip—off the charts? How exciting!”

  The craft has dipped from the so-called highveld plateau down to the vast expanse of flatlands laid out below. Our gallant pilot sweeps the plane over this expansive lowveld area, finally hovering it above a magnificent serpentine feature, the only perennial watercourse carving through the massive expanse of wilderness. He broadcasts through his microphone that this is the Klaserie River; I remember it from the area map I scrutinized so many times: the one single arterial river that carves through the White Lions’ sacred homelands, delivering much-needed water to this entire thirsty bushveld region. Maria called this river Tsau, the river of the starlions.

  We circle over this snaking artery one more time before finally dropping down to land in our secret destination. It’s Sunday. God willing, the private airstrip will be clear and deserted.

  The cameraman is still rolling his camera, and the director and producer are up too. When they learn our plans have changed, they’re not happy, no real reason, it seems, except it puts their schedule out. I peer out of the small portlike windows at the land below. We are about to touch down on Timbavati soil, and the gravel runway rises up to meet us.

  WE’VE LANDED! In a flash, my mind suddenly fills with images of Ingwavuma, my ancestral guardian, who was brutally hunted on these lands at the time of the setting sun on the last day of Leo. Suddenly, I recognize this as the same remote runway where I first spotted Ingwavuma—where the great King stood with the windsock blowing behind his majestic head, as if to signal that he had landed! I still feel the acute tragedy of this starlion departing these sacred lands, under such cruel circumstances. His slaying coincided with a date sacred to the pharaohs—when the sun crosses Regulus, the he
artstar of Leo—that moment the Ancient Egyptians believed the soul of the Great King returns to the stars. Here we are bringing the starlions back to Timbavati once more.

  Both cameras are rolling now. Mercifully, we seem to have landed safely and in secret, without incident. There are no unwelcome parties lurking on the runway in this remote spot, except a family of warthog, which was digging up the tufts of grass on the landing strip, and even they beat a hasty retreat after the troop carrier dropped from the skies, in a spray of dust and gravel.

  Our pilot brings the plane to a standstill. Out of the small windows of the craft, I spot Jason’s trusted ground team standing by, as arranged: three scientists, professionally dressed in khaki uniforms and bush caps.

  Their specialty is GPS tracking, which turns out to be of great advantage, given that they must have needed the devices to locate this unexpected new destination. They’ve drawn up the vehicles alongside the grass landing strip: a rented passenger transporter for the humans, and two closed-back, long-axle panel vans for Marah and family. The cubs have grown so much since that first transfer from the zoo to the Karoo mountain land that the whole pride no longer fits into one panel van.

  Jason and Hennie open the door under the hull of the DC3 to a burst of blazing bushveld atmosphere. Looking out, I see the three scientists coming forward to help. The cameras are rolling again, and it is all hands on deck, lifting the lions onto stretchers in the hull, then carefully handing them down to ground level.

  The heat outside is so intense it radiates off the gravel landing strip, stinging my face as I step down. Holding one pole of Marah’s stretcher, I help carry her into the waiting transport vehicles. As before, it takes six of us to transport Marah this way, five men and myself. Then Jason and Tindall return to lift the first of the cubs. None of the scientists has ever seen a White Lion before. They are professional, efficient-looking specialists, but I can’t help notice their faces glowing with excitement and reverence, having become unlikely ceremonial bearers of these magnificent sleeping cats.