Saving the White Lions

by Linda Tucker

  In a strange twist of fate, however, our greatest threat has suddenly been removed from the playing field. Within weeks of our arrival, our direct neighbor to the southeast, the notorious “king” of canned hunting, who gave so many threatening warnings in the fort and bid directly against me for these lands, suddenly relocated and disappeared to another dark corner of the country. No stranger to scandal, this significant adversary lifted his entire canned-hunting operation and hurriedly departed. It turns out that a staff member, who was savagely beaten, was then thrown to the hungry lions. When the police found the unfortunate victim, only his skull remained. Under the glare of the international press, the canned hunter vacated and moved, lock, stock, and smoking barrels, in trucks crammed with caged lions.

  At one level, the head honcho’s removal from the region, directly after Marah’s return to her sacred lands, seemed fortuitously coincidental. But at another level, there’s no coincidence about it whatsoever. To me, it seemed a key piece has been strategically shifted on a chessboard, with the “dark warrior” being removed at the critical moment of the White Lions’ return. It reminds me of Maria Khosa’s imperative that this heartland is part of the body of a kingdom, which needs to be reclaimed and reconstituted to ensure the sovereignty of the true monarchs—the White Lions—and the plan of light ushered in by these enlightened and consecrated Kings and Queens of Timbavati.

  IT’S THE MORNING AFTER JASON WAS TIPPED OFF on the threat of sabotage. Nelson and Nelias have combed the southern border through the night. They reported back in the early hours that they picked up three different sets of boot prints entering our property by breaching the electric fence, and indications that the intruders were armed (a rifle case left at the point of entry). The tracks traversed the southern fence line, then finally exited again a few kilometers farther on, where they doubled back, possibly intending to return for their equipment another time. Perhaps the intruders aborted their mission because they were skilled enough to realize they themselves were being tracked, or perhaps their purpose was simply to “stake out the joint.” Either way, it doesn’t help my comfort levels. Jason has evaluated the situation carefully and is considering bringing in a colleague of his who operates an armed-reaction unit to ensure our safety and that of the lions.

  CHAPTER 21

  Showdown with the Safari Suits

  MAY 14, 2005. A WARM, TRANQUIL NIGHT. I am totally serene, lying in Jason’s arms. We’re under the African sky, beneath the great ancestral presence of the baobab tree, under a fleece blanket on a roll-out mattress on the earth. There’s a crackling fire beside us, sending sparks up to join the fireflies and the twinkling stars above. We’ve just spent the most heavenly night together.

  So deliciously serene, my thoughts drift back to that unforgettable night we first met. It was platonic then, but it went on and on forever. Now it seems, that same dreamy night has never ended. Whatever dangers exist beyond my borders, they dissolve by comparison with the safety I feel in Jason’s arms. I am so content, there’s nothing to say. I wonder whether that ancestral presence of Maria is guarding over us again, in leopard form, nearby. I feel sure she is.

  In the spot where the sacred fire burned in ceremony and celebration during the equinox, our fire keeps us warm. The world is at peace, the resonant silence only enhanced by the exquisite gurgling of a nocturnal bird, whose nightingale sweetness has been serenading us for the past few hours.

  “Fiery-necked nightjar,” Jason acknowledges its celestial presence.

  It is one of the sweetest calls I’d ever heard.

  “So what’s a glamorous Paris model doing with a bushman like me?” Jason asks, with humor in his voice.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I respond and give him another warm, lingering kiss.

  “What took you so long to wake up?” he replies with that same gentle humor.

  I just nestle closer, savoring his warmth and the full, resonant silence. Then, suddenly, as if to answer for me, I hear a distant roar. It’s an utterance I know so well from the many nights in Timbavati with Maria Khosa in the days of Ingwavuma. I know it deep down in my soul, a voice resonating across the Earth that speaks to all creatures great and small—the command of true royalty. But this roar is different from all the others; I’ve never heard it’s formidable vibration before. It is the voice of Queen Marah, roaring her sovereignty over her kingdom—for the very first time!

  WE DRIVE THROUGH THE AUTUMNAL SAVANNA, along the sinuous dusty road. Nelson and Nelias have been doing regular sweeps in the bushveld for signs of poachers and continue to discover hidden traps and cages, and evidence of hunters’ camouflaged hides in the riverine areas. But many of these date back to the days of the previous owner, a hunter-farmer. Some cages still have a dangling chain in their interiors, with a piece of desiccated bait attached. Each time I see one of these hideous contraptions, I’m reminded of that initial sense of trauma I felt when first setting foot on White Lion territory, which should be a place of peace and protection. I hope that every time we remove another of these killing cages and dismantle it, we shift some of the negative energy still lurking in various parts of this land.

  We approach the run-down old farmhouse, where we now live along with a number of volunteers. We call it Base Camp. Entering through the farmhouse gate, still hanging loose and rusty on its hinges, I make a mental note that we need to remove and replace the shabby gate sometime, but there are much more urgent priorities. As we enter our makeshift headquarters, I see several cages piled up alongside other junk that our team has extracted from the wilderness—rolls of barbed wire, old tires, off-cuts of corrugated iron, snares. Jason plans to dismantle all these cages and utilize the metal grills to seal up river outlets, those exit points that are most tempting to big cats infinitely capable of digging their way out of reserves. I shudder as Tawny passes these macabre mechanisms. It brings back vivid memories of my first and only meeting with the previous owner. He took the opportunity to boast that he’d single-handedly killed sixteen lions during his occupancy of this land—a half century—and he added that he’d be pleased to hunt down my White Lions, if I gave him the chance. If he were still capable of executing his threat, I might have been worried, but he’d become quite decrepit with age, and his wife confessed to me—just between us ladies—that her husband was “leaking out of several orifices.” I remember standing there, wordless. With my colorful imagination, I couldn’t help picturing the hunter himself riddled with symbolic bullets, as a kind of poetic justice for all the lions he’d shot. The old boy told me he intended to use a bunch of the money from the sale of the property to live out his life’s dream of going to Zambia to hunt the “Big Five.” But fate didn’t allow him the luxury, as it turned out, and he died shortly after the funds for the lions’ land were transferred into his account.

  Jason has parked Tawny, and as we walk toward the farmhouse, two dogs come careering out to greet us—Sam and Cibi, their hot breath visible in the chill morning air. Sam, my loyal and dearly beloved dog of many years, is an Alsatian with a stumpy tail, originally from the SPCA, and Cibi, which means “dog” in Sotho, is a little female we found attached to a two-meter chain when we arrived on the land. As a conservation project in the wild bushveld, we had no intention of keeping domestic animals, but I couldn’t leave Sam behind, and there was no way that Jason and I were going to turn our backs on this excitable little creature—a Doberman cross, tugging at her chained wire collar. So unshackling Cibi was what Jason jokingly describes as our first scientific release program. After warm greetings all round, Sam and Cibi, tails wagging, follow us down the dry gravel path to the farmhouse.

  I get the impression that the old hunter built his house with his own two hands and minimal resources, except for an exceptionally hard-working staff, piecing together a patchwork of corrugated iron and bricks and mortar over the years. We discover that it leaks like a sieve during the rainy season and roasts in the summer heat. And we’ve just starting to suspect that it fre
ezes in winter. Yet this hodgepodge of different structural components is all we have for the moment.

  It’s our operational nerve center: our living quarters, guest quarters, offices, scientific research center, and headquarters all in one. The phone lines are regularly down after stormy or windy weather, which makes communications with the outside world very challenging. And electricity is intermittent, so we often shower with cold water.

  Today, we’re going to need a cold shower. We’re preparing for an occasion where hotheaded tempers could boil over.

  JUNE 10, 2005. MIDDAY HEAT. Three months after arrival. Jos Macs is a bush pub with a deck overlooking the Tsau River, and also our local meeting point. We’ve chosen this setting in an attempt to ensure that a highly volatile occasion remains as cordial and informal as possible.

  We’ve decided to call a “public participation meeting,” open to everyone. In this way, we’ll be able to answer any questions and hopefully dispel any misinformation neighbors may be harboring about our project. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve posted an open invitation in both local newspapers to “all interested and affected parties.” We’ve also made sure that specific invitations were sent to our most direct neighbors. Mireille took it upon herself to make courtesy calls to many properties in the vicinity, so as to inform them of the White Lion reintroduction taking place nearby. Typically, she’d leave Tsau property, armed with an apple tart and a factual brochure or two on White Lion conservation, which we compiled and printed a couple of weeks ago. Her missionary background proved ideal training for mustering recruits.

  Word has gotten out, and quite a lot of people have shown up at Jos Macs, but I wonder how many have come as friends. The crowd has gathered in the billiards room, where heavy benches have been dragged into rows. I feel the tension building. It’s another blazing hot day—a bushveld winter day. I was prepared for this occasion, but nevertheless feel a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.

  We are just about to start proceedings when we hear the spray of gravel and dust outside in the parking lot. Pulling up in their 4×4s, a cavalcade of hunters has arrived—ten minutes after the appointed time. All four of them barge in, dressed in safari suits and crunching boots. I see at a glance that these men are PH’s (professional hunters): the “safari suit” has been the unwritten uniform in the region since Paul Kruger’s day, over a century ago, only now the style is to mix and match safari colors oddly on the same items of clothing. Khaki shorts tend to ride high in the crotch, stretched tight over hairy rugby player’s legs, and tempers tend to rise even higher.

  We are about to start our introduction again, when a couple more late arrivals join forces with the others, kitted out head to toe in full hunting camo-gear. Who knows which, if any, of these army boots breached our borders and staked out our southern fence line? The late arrivals are so rigged up with camouflage equipment, it is not difficult to imagine their crossbows and rifles lurking, still warm, in the back of their pickups.

  I try to breathe evenly. We’ve made sure we’ve provided ample fruit punch, without alcohol, for everyone attending. However, a lot of booze was clearly consumed prior to the meeting, and I brace myself at the thought that beer and cider will be freely swigged throughout our introductory presentations. The late arrivals seem to have come straight from The Fort, fortified with lager and witblits—white-lightning liquor, 80 percent alcohol.

  Putting on a brave front, Xhosa reopens the meeting with his modern version of a “Song of Praise” in the old African tradition. His delivery is flawless, and he finishes with a characteristic flourish and a curt bow. But his prayer to the lions is followed by an intimidating silence.

  Mireille is chairperson, striking a diplomatic if slightly school-marmish figure behind her table. After Xhosa’s praise song, Mireille introduces the panel. It comprises Thembi, our trustee representing the cultural view of the White Lions as sacred animals; Jason, presenting on the scientific aspects; and me, whose task is to introduce the project and its objectives.

  Unfortunately, Marianne was unable to attend. Her spitfire personality would have relished the opportunity to represent our position to the gathered macho men, who are mostly, after all, Afrikaners like her. I feel a vast gap without her presence.

  In preparatory discussions, it was decided that we absolutely need a fourth member of the panel. As such, we were expecting a female scientist and habitat specialist from the Timbavati region to join us. Over the past few of months, she was commissioned to assist in our project as a paid consultant and had provided in-depth expertise on methodology for restoring damage to the land—knowledge vital to the long-term sustainability of the White Lions’ survival in the wild. However, yesterday, the day before the public participation meeting, she suddenly lost her voice. She indicated that the cause was a sudden onset of flu, but we are all the more sympathetic knowing it was actually an attack of fear and tension. Either way, it means she is unable to speak on behalf of the White Lion project. That leaves just the three of us.

  But these members of our panel are not the only lion representatives in this space. Beside the panel’s three chairs stands an empty chieftain’s chair. Maria told me that in the old African tradition, when a group of traditional elders convene to discuss an issue of consequence to Mother Nature, they ensure that Mother Nature has representation. They place an empty chair in their midst to indicate that Mother Nature and her creatures are present and represented. Since Mother Nature’s creatures use language that is not that of humans, they’re in effect “silent stakeholders.” Every important decision taken on their behalf, therefore, has to consider the position of these silent, unseen representatives. Maria made this clear to me with one powerful phrase, which she often repeated: “Who shall speak for the Lions? Huh, daughter? Who shall speak for the Lions?”

  So, before beginning this public debate, I invited Maria and the lion ancestors into this space. It is not difficult for me to feel their tangible presence, even in this packed room of rowdy humans, and that of Ingwavuma, in particular, who is seated on the chieftain’s chair beside me.

  THE CROWD IS FIRING QUESTIONS without listening to any of the answers. I had anticipated there’d be a clash of cultures and ideology, but I hadn’t realized quite how antagonistic things could become. The aggression in the room is palpable. When Thembi or I stand to speak, we are shouted down. Thembi managed a couple of eloquent sentences about the importance of the White Lions as a universal symbol of love and unity, but no one wants to hear it. It’s become clear that the safari suits are only prepared to talk to Jason, man to man.

  Or, more accurately, fifty men to man. By nature, Jason has a steady, methodical way of talking, considering his words carefully to ensure their accuracy. I watch him now, patiently providing answers, only to find the same drunken question fired back at him from another safari suit in another corner. He responds again, slowly and factually. The tension is building, and the firing squad is so bitter and angry, I feel like ducking on Jason’s behalf.

  I dart a glance at him, with his clipboard resting in his lap. He’s long since stopped making notes because the same questions just keep being fired back: “What you gonna do with the lions?” “Why you messing with nature?” “Why you bringing these freaks into our territory?” “What you gonna do with them?” From his exhausted expression, I can see his reserves are in tatters. He’s still in the firing line, but nothing he says made any difference. The lack of logic in the room is starting to scare me. It is dangerously incoherent.

  Mireille taps pointlessly on her glass for silence and order.

  Feeling Maria Khosa’s presence, I ask myself whether I am willing and able to put a cat among the safari suits.

  Suddenly everything becomes quiet as I tune into higher logic, above all this noise and aggro energy.

  “Famba!” comes Maria’s emphatic answer. “Go!”

  While alive, Maria Khosa once showed me how to break such waves of aggression by following a time-honored pr
ocedure of great power. But I’m not sure I’m brave enough to use this technique in this atmosphere of violent men seemingly held together by fragile egos and deep self-loathing.

  Prompted by Maria’s voice in my head, I glance at the carved wooden chieftain’s chair, standing empty beside us. The chieftain’s chair has been in this position, unoccupied, throughout the meeting. I would have explained its significance to the gathering at the outset, but the atmosphere clearly wasn’t right. Now I can hear Maria Khosa’s voice urging me on. On the spur of the moment, I follow Maria’s lead and interrupt proceedings. I stand up suddenly.

  My heart is pounding so loudly, I can’t hear my own voice. After a hush falls around me, I explain to the group what the chieftain’s chair signifies. No one is physically sitting on it, but the presence of authority resonates from this seat. Everyone glares at it. It’s not difficult to visualize the King of kings, Lion of Judah, sitting there, overseeing this gathering of mortals.

  I ask for a moment of silence so that we might give consideration to what The Lions may have to say on this matter—which, after all, concerns these creatures directly.

  My appeal is followed by a fiercely indignant silence. It’s as if all the gathered men in their multitoned safari suits are taking a shared gasp of oxygen. It’s a stunned, rather than comfortable, silence. I feel like cowering, because this unnatural hiatus is building up like a tsunami drawing itself back before the renewed wave of aggression suddenly hits me with full force.

  “We haven’t come here to be forcefed African voodoo—Jesus Christ! Don’t waste our fucking time, bitch!” bellows one voice, reinforced by others. “Who the fuck do you think you are, huh? And what the fuck are you doing with our fucking lions?”

  Fortunately, Mireille is experienced enough to call a halt to the proceedings before they became physically violent.