Yowlar remained unimpressed by Whitetop's timeless splendour. He had trekked here to recuperate, not admire the scenery like a gawping hick sightseer. That said, he was a tourist and the mount could hardly be missed. Every so often the panther would glance up at the ice-crowned pinnacle filling half the sky and emit a silent snarl. Items bigger than him always made Yowlar nervous.
A month had elapsed since the Sabretooth's close call with death. Hard pressed to recover from his ordeal and sporting a debilitating limp as a permanent reminder of lion playfulness, but survive he did. Relocating helped immensely. Murky Water supported the local Roarers, so Yowlar thought it prudent to go on a holiday of sorts. Remembering Jinku's usefulness as a walking regional atlas, he steered a shaky course southeast using Whitetop as his reference point.
It was a difficult journey fraught with danger. His wounds had become reinfected, he narrowly avoided being on the menu of a nomadic hyena clan, and twice he nearly stepped on deadly cobras. Water was a scarcity, yet he managed to stumble across a small, sheltered lake fed by a deep underground spring unfound by the thirsting graciles in the western lee of the mountain. Actually, it was more of a mud pool. The prolonged winter had shrunk the waters and the resident hippos, crammed into a steadily dwindling reservoir, churned their aquatic home into a muddy wallow. The local crocs had long since migrated, walking by night to seek other pockets of water untouched by the evaporating rays of the burning sun. Unpleasant as the dirty water tasted, it quenched the panther's nagging thirst.
Yowlar encountered few other big cats in his travels. The lions luckily appeared to be centralised around the northern waterhole, whilst the only other sizable clawfeet wandering the veldt were the skittish cheetahs that patently avoided contact with other felines. Once, he thought he spied a fellow Sabretooth way off in the hazy distance, but that may have only been a delusional product of the fever he almost succumbed to. Made of stern stuff, the panther stubbornly refused to die. That obduracy had seen him reach his destination and keep his life.
That is not to say he was back in peak condition, far from it. Scrawny beneath his matted pelt, Yowlar was hobbled by his lameness. Patches of bare gouged skin scarring his shoulders and rump showed where his attacker had raked out his fur. Yowlar's tail drooped like an unblown flag on a windless day and he stank of ill health.
Unconsciously heeding Jinku's caution that Greenshadow was imbued with inherent malevolence, he resisted the tempting dampness of the lowland rainforest. Not long after crawling to this, the drier, southern base of Whitetop, the emaciated panther scented the telltale aroma of Uprights and tracked the odour upwind to its source: a pair of distracted graciles stumbling blindly along in a southerly direction. Selecting the male as his target one moonless night, Yowlar passed over the rotted corpse of a half-eaten juvenile his victim was absurdly dragging behind him—which by the way smelt vaguely familiar—and brought down the dull-eyed prey with a fumbled killing bite to the back of the head. Caverunner's bigger carcass provided Yowlar with much needed sustenance and he did not resume hunting until a week later, finishing his extermination of the abdicator's family by stalking Leafpicker, putting an end to her starving misery and his in a dry and dusty gully early one evening.
Game proved sparse since those providential kills. Tsor conditioning, lessening as it was—whether due to time or distance from his arrival point Yowlar could not tell—predetermined his appetite still. In the absence of further hominins he took to subsisting on whatever primates he could catch, which happened to be the half-foot long bushbabies living sedately amongst the branches of the canopy trees fringing Greenshadow. Whilst no more than snack food the nocturnal insectivores did keep Yowlar alive long enough to heal.
But the luring jungle housed intriguing monkey scents, drawing him into its densely bushed, hugely trunked interior. Giant canopied boles roped with vines and creepers blocked out the comforting sunlight. Layered herbs and shrubs formed a constrictive groundcover, dampening the usual forest sounds into a palpable silence. Revulsion of the unfamiliar, tropical woodland did not prevent the Sabretooth hunting this new ground. His persistence paid off by tracking to its source a particularly pithy primate odour belonging to a troop of short-armed, ancestral chimpanzees. These problem-solving, communal apes were the terrors responsible for propagating Greenshadow's sinister reputation amongst the Squaremuzzles. Far from being placid vegetarians, chimps—males in particular—ruthlessly chased down and killed varying monkey species, baboons included. Nothing like carnivorous cousins to put a hex on a place!
Astonishment at the close resemblance of the anthropoids to the hominins formed into a mouth-watering realisation that prompted Yowlar into adding this twig of the branchy simian tree to his dietary repertoire. Chimps turned out to be an adequate substitute for Upright meat, though harder to trap, making his predation unhappily short-lived. Burly as the ancient chimpanzees were, they were able climbers that granted the arboreal Sabretooth no respite in the bottommost tree canopy from their vengeful harassment. Slaughtering one brought down the chest-thumping wrath of the others. Eviction from the jungle only deepened the panther's resentment of the detestable primate family.
Beginning now to feel something like his old self, Yowlar started scouting the countryside. Cats, regardless of size or breed or location, share a compulsion to know the layout of their land. Immediately south of Whitetop's greened foothills sprawled an upland region of rocky, semi-arid scrub dotted by the ubiquitous acacia trees that symbolise Africa as readily as lion, elephant, and zebra do. Taking two full days to meander along the circumference of the mount's broad base disillusioned the bored Sabretooth to the point of distraction. Enamoured with distantly sprinting ostriches, feathered mimics of bygone dinosaurs with no comparison in his North American life experiences, Yowlar blundered upslope into the grazing ground of a multitudinous baboon troop.
Suddenly aware of four hundred pair of eyes focusing on him, Yowlar halted mid step and hissed reflexively. Before the panther could react further a dozen subordinate males encircled him, baring formidable eyeteeth that gave Sabretooth canines a run for their money. A superficial kinship to Jinku and his species plainly evident from their doggish snouts, the similarity ended abruptly at size. Scarcely longer than the two and a half footer savannah baboons, these cousinly Squaremuzzles bulked four to five times heavier.
'What have we here?’ A pondering, dominant male paraded before Yowlar's consternated gaze. Perfectly adapted to a ground living existence, these long-snouted monkeys walked with four-footed ease. Such a method of locomotion suited and actively encouraged the gigantism of these heavyset primates. A superlative example of baboon bigness, the boss Squaremuzzle—silvered by age and power—easily tipped the scales at 200 lbs.
Squatting on his red-bottomed, hairless buttocks, he fearlessly fixed the big cat with his beady-eyed stare. ‘We are BongaDiku,’ he barked by way of introduction. ‘Bonga for short.'
Surrounded by a score of overly fanged monkeys, Yowlar figured a little civility would not go amiss and wisely put his paw down. ‘The name's Yowlar.'
'You are indubitably a clawfoot, though we cannot place your kind.'
'I'm new to the region.'
'An exotic? Purrfect! You shall make a splendid acquisition.'
Fur bristling in apprehension, Yowlar eyes burned bright then narrowed. ‘I get the feeling I'm not going to like what's coming. Just who are you, Bonga?'
'We are avid collectors.'
'Of what?'
'Pets. For your own safety, we recommend that you come quietly, without fuss. Making a scene will be so bothersome.'
The lesser males pressed in around the damaged Sabretooth, restricting his response. The horrification of the combined lion attack fresh in his mind, Yowlar submitted unprotestingly to his capture by the baboon horde. When the odds are stacked against you behaving rashly is inadvisable and the panther did not relish a repeat performance of his earlier mauling, especially not from steroidal monkeys.
Ushered by his circle of captors into the stonier uplands, Yowlar curiously noted that Bonga stayed behind. His interest deepened when they manoeuvred him into position at the mouth of a rocky ravine slashing the barren foothills, the operation overseen by another dominant male the spitting image of the troop leader who nabbed him.
'A fresh exhibit! We are pleased,’ he exclaimed to the panther's entourage of edgy guards.
'The clawfoot calls itself Yowlar,’ a junior male related.
'That shan't do. We shall rename you Black Beastie. We think it much more fitting for a brute of your inky ilk.'
Yowlar took offence. ‘Then I'll call you Blood-bum.'
'Silence, clawfoot!’ yapped one of Yowlar's escort. ‘You'll mind your manners around BongaDiku.'
Gazing at the look-alike, the Sabretooth mewed confusedly, ‘Didn't we leave him back down on the flat?'
The mirror image head Squaremuzzle waved a paw contritely. ‘Entirely our fault for not explaining ourselves. We are BongaDiku. Diku for short.'
His befuddlement worsening, Yowlar snarled in frustration. It was left up to the chastising guard to dispel the cat's confusion.
'BongaDiku were born twins. Possessing separate identities, they uncannily think as one animal and make the perfect leader who can be in two places at once—taking the majority of the troop to graze downslope and minding our sleeping place in the canyon.'
Getting it straight in his feline head, Yowlar comprehended that brother baboons captained this troop. ‘Well, I'll be. Copycat monkeys.'
'Do make yourself at home,’ Diku encouraged Yowlar, barking at his minions to form a cordon and release his newest exhibit into its enclosure. ‘We shall endeavour to provide for your every need. We shall make you our pet project.'
'I need to be free,’ growled the panther.
His desire fell on deaf ears. The cordoning baboons moved ahead as one, pressuring the captive Sabretooth to reverse into the gorge. Hissing and spitting in defiance, he nonetheless backed up. Spreading across the width of the defile, the Squaremuzzles steadily pushed Yowlar backwards until his rump was stopped by a screen of acacia branches fencing off the rearmost quarter of the canyon. Reforming into a half circle that confined the cat and his token resistance against the canyon wall, two of the guards peeled off to open the makeshift gate, closing it up after Yowlar had shuffled through.
Given time and different circumstances, baboon ingenuity might have evolved into an offshoot simian culture to rival the hominins. Beaten to the punch by the manual dexterity of the branching pithecines, they were barely out of the starting chute before being scratched from the race to win humanness at the finish post. Baboons would remain nothing more than clever monkeys.
Walled behind a crudely effective fence of thorns, Yowlar vented his angst in a roar. The irony of his captivity did not escape the moody panther. The old Sabretooth adage, Take care that what you maul does not turn around and bite you in the tail, came back to haunt him. Enslaving Jinku resulted in the direr repercussion of Yowlar ending up the star attraction in a giant baboon petting zoo.
Hearing a peculiar snuffling, he warily spied a Bonecruncher crouched wretchedly in a shaded corner behind its own filth of accumulated dung and bones. At seeing the distrustful newcomer, the hyena perked up and trotted over to sniff inquisitively at the Sabretooth. Yowlar guardedly returned the interest shown in him and wished he had not bothered. The hyena smelt rotten!
'Company I gets at long last,’ she muttered. ‘Who be you, kitty? Friend methinks. Hmm, make you friend, will I. Friend be nice.'
Yowlar drew back to study his fellow inmate. Noticeably smaller than the spotted hyenas he was accustomed to eluding, her beige pelt was striped with black bands painted vertically along the flanks and horizontally down the legs. Her swivelling ears had pointy rather than the rounded tips of her near relative. He made the understandable observation, ‘You aren't like other Bonecrunchers I've seen.'
Her erectile mane, running from neck to tail, quivered excitedly. ‘Others? Show where. I sees no others here.’ She looked about their prison cell impatiently.
'The ones out on the veldt.'
Disappointment sagged her mane. ‘Not runs free in awful long time.'
'How long have the Squaremuzzles had you trapped here?'
'Beens here awful long time.’ She sidled up to the uneasy Sabretooth. ‘Friend have I gots to share awful long time.'
Apparently the Bonecruncher's incarceration was of sufficient length to send her loopy. ‘I've been shut in with a mad dog,’ the panther lamented, distancing himself from the smell of lunacy. It may have comforted Yowlar to learn that appearances can indeed be deceiving. Bodily doglike, hyenas shared closer evolutional ties to mongooses than the canid family.
'Since we'll be spending time together, you might as well give me your name,’ Yowlar suggested.
'Mustn't gives name. Dog-monkey takes name, never gives back. Name likes me ... takes then forgets.'
That did not bode well for Yowlar. Resolving to extricate his hide from this unthinkable predicament, the panther sized up the sheer canyon walls and rejected scrabbling upwards to freedom. No able-bodied cat possessed the agility to scale vertical rock and Yowlar had his impaired leg to contend with. Blocked by a past avalanche of collapsed cliff faces, the backend of the gorge was equally unscaleable. That left the barbed gateway as the sole escape route.
With measured cunning, the plotting Sabretooth gauged the dimensions of his jail. Probing the insane hyena for any useful information, he asked, ‘I heard a Squaremuzzle mention that they curl up to sleep inside the canyon. Is this true?'
'I hears them at night, crazy monkey-love they makes. Them screeches at the ends of it, same as Uprights.'
Solidifying his guesstimates, that was still more than Yowlar needed to know.
Pacing around her confinement, the nutty hyena ranted mutteringly into her own insanity. ‘Friends be we, kitty. Never does we part. Pal of mine now. Leaves me never.'
Paying no heed to the Bonecrusher's ramblings, Yowlar talked crazily to himself, a vigilant eye on the strip of sunny blue roofing the ravine. ‘I have a friend of my own calling soon, called Mister Night.'
* * * *
An impala haunch tossed over the gate sufficed as supper for the imprisoned predators. Baboons were as adept at butchering antelope kids as chimpanzees were at bashing monkey skulls.
Snatching up the chunk of loin by its leg, the oddball hyena settled in her darkening corner, jealously gnawing her prize. Her growls warning off the cat gained credence as the scorcher of a day sank into the flaming west and evening shadows spilled into the ravine, blacking rocks and moods. Competition with Yowlar was all in her crazed head. The brainwashed Sabretooth would have readily made a meal of one of his captors instead, and not for the food value alone.
Dismayed, but unsurprised, to discern that the bones littering this sealed end of the canyon floor were not entirely the skeletal remains of prey, Yowlar mistrusted the deranged Bonecruncher even more. Sifting through the heaped bones with his cataloguing eyes he picked out a crushed skull and two jawbones belonging to hunters as evidenced, though not specifically made identifiable, by their unmistakably shaped meat-shearing teeth. Horrific puncture marks left gaping holes in that one cranium, its undamaged eye socket staring accusingly at the hyena happily cracking the impala femur. Intuiting that her previous cellmates did not all die from natural causes, the panther decided it wise not to antagonise her.
The first stars twinkled in the cobalt sky as evening wore on into night. The pooling dark inked the ravine, glooming Yowlar's imprisonment but lightening his optimism. The Bonecruncher's manic eyes glinted watchfully from where she lay curled in her resting place, the underlying stone worn smooth from her constant fidgeting. Her spotted sisters were daytime hunters and scavengers, but her kind foraged nocturnally. She, like Yowlar had become, was a creature of the night.
Unworried by that fresh scrap of hyena natur
al history, Yowlar exercised enormous patience waiting for the unfolding night to deepen, lulling the baboon populace into the false security that slumber brought. He did not ready himself to make his dash for freedom until the witching hour approached, giving time for sleep to overcome any heavy-eyed watchers.
Tensing up, poised to put his escape plan into action, his tautness was defused by the Bonecruncher growling menacingly, ‘No goods being bad kitty. Gets us in troubles, you will. Nasty dog-monkey bites us when mad. Bites necks they does. Stays with me, you will.'
'You're crazier than I imagine if you think I'm content to languish in here,’ Yowlar snarled back. He heard her rise before seeing her muscled form slither ominously from her blacked out corner, another shadow joining the night.
'How's it going to gets out, hmm?’ she cackled. ‘Can't flits like weaving bird. Can't digs like mole rat. Can't clamber likes screaming Screecher.'
Yowlar purred flippantly, certain she could make out his grinning muzzle in the starlight. ‘I jumps like grasshopper,’ he returned.
He could almost hear her cracked mind ticking over. The thorned gate was approximately fifteen feet in height; too high for a squat hyena to hurdle. But a cat, even one lamed and underfed, stood a better chance. The Bonecruncher howled unexpectedly, her head lowered to the stony ground unlike the dogs that bayed to the sky.
'Quit that wailing, unless you want to rouse the dog-monkeys!’ shushed Yowlar.
Abruptly quietening, she yipped, ‘It's going not!'
Impelled by unreason, she charged the panther and latched on to his excitingly long tail, clamping down on the waggling tip. Yowling as the hyena bit down through papery flesh into crushable bone, the twisting Sabretooth retaliated, unleashing his claws across her back. Flinching, she did not relinquish her grip, bettering it by sliding her bite up to the base of Yowlar's tail, stripping fur from flesh and skin off bone. Nothing short of death could prise that set of jaws apart and even that was doubtful once rigor mortis stiffened a hyena mouth.
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