The Realm of Imagination

by Ruskin Bond

  As evening fell, the campfires grew brighter. The cubs watched the human figures for the last time before the smaller adult female turned the three cubs away. The older female, much more sure of herself, took the lead. The leaving was sad. The cubs had to be nudged and coaxed. They didn’t understand the leaving. They hadn’t understood the death of the big male. Not that death was new to them — they saw it every day under the vast African sky. It even fed them, keeping them alive. But that was different and accepted by the pride.

  They neared the river just as darkness covered it. Several times the lioness stopped, allowing her younger sister and the cubs to catch up to her. Out in the night they heard other lions. But they were to be avoided; other males from other prides might harm the cubs. There were zebras, barking to one another in their strange way. And there was the laughter of the hyenas, distant, but not far enough away, and always frightening.

  The lioness moved cautiously. Her sister followed haltingly. The little legs of the cubs worked twice as fast to keep pace. The last of the three cubs, over time, slowly fell behind. Soon the last cub lost sight of the others completely, struggling to find his way in a maze of twisted grass and thornbush, all in total darkness. He cried pitifully, searching for his siblings, searching for the females — no more than a whine, but certain to attract the hyenas.

  The pride moved on. They came to a grassy clearing by the river, where the hippos had come out to feed. The hippos, seeing the lions in the darkness, moved their young farther away, closer to the water. The pride passed wide of the hippos, anxious to avoid trouble. The older female, her younger sister, and the two cubs followed, their eyes shining in the darkness, the smoothness of their bodies slipping under the moonlight.

  Far behind followed the third cub, his cries becoming more desperate.

  The two hyenas, lying in the darkness, had also watched the pride pass along the river. They made note of the females leading the two cubs. But it wasn’t to their advantage to attack, not when the odds were even: two on two. So the pride passed safely. But then came the cry of the third cub, more of a plea now as he stumbled out of the bush and into the clearing. The hyenas rose up on their legs, panting heavily, laughing in the darkness with their big, bone-crushing teeth showing white.

  The pride came first. The older female knew that. It had always been the way. It was understood — the natural instinct the old male had answered that morning. The pride must survive. And when she had finally turned to discover the third cub missing, the older female heard the laughter of the hyenas, not knowing if it was two or if it was twenty. There was still her young sister and the two cubs to lead away. She didn’t turn back, though her heart longed to, though her sister whined and pleaded. She roared angrily.

  It should have ended quickly for the terrorized cub cringing before them, but the two hyenas looming above seemed to be in disagreement as to whose kill it should be, for the one who made the kill rightly owned the tender, young carcass. There was so little of it that it had to be agreed upon. There was quarreling, even some snapping of teeth. One beast eyeing the other, warning and circling.

  The hippos watched from the water’s edge. Out in the darkness, zebras barked, and other lions roared. Then finally it was decided, and the uglier of the two hyenas turned on the cub, his jaws wide and the juices dripping.

  The pride came first. It was a natural instinct. But there was one greater — a mother’s reply to her cub’s cry in the night. None in any creature was stronger, as the hyenas were quick to learn when the lioness sprang into the clearing. She tore into the first beast with a fury that sent him to the ground. Turning on the second hyena, she saw only his tail as he stumbled over his mate. Both vanished into the darkness.

  The cub huddled close to his mother, whimpering and rubbing against her for comfort. But his mother’s attention was still on the hyenas. Even though they were gone, it was her nature to be cautious.

  When she started across the clearing, the cub followed, hurrying along behind her. But long before they reached the bank of the river, she turned and collected him in her powerful jaws, carrying him by the scruff of his neck through the high grass, under the African moon.

  She had no problem locating her sister in a place where the pride would sleep away the night, sheltered by an ancient thorn tree. And there the lioness dropped her cub to the joy of his siblings — to teeth, claws, wet tongues, and bundles of rolling fur.

  Mantrap

  by Tish Farrell

  Illustrated by Lois Neethling

  Willy sank to his knees and peered through the potato bush. Impala! He’d almost spooked them back in the winter thorns. A bad mistake. Now they were frozen — caught between fright and flight. If he breathed, they’d be gone. Willy held his breath, willing his father to shoot the big male on the rise. In the dawn light, he glowed like bronze, lyre antlers held high, bright eyes scanning the bush. He meant only one thing, that buck. Meat. Succulent juice-running flesh that Willy could weep for. They’d been living on wild mangoes for weeks, eaten their last scrawny hen a month back.

  In the corner of his eye, Willy could just see his father, Jacob, crouching low, bow in one hand, the other sifting red Luangwa dirt on the breeze. He thought, Quick, Dadda, shoot! Before the wind turns and they smell us. The lyre heads went down as one. The bachelor herd was grazing again, moving out under the sausage trees. Now, Dadda. Now. Kill the big buck now!

  Willy dared to blink. When he looked again his father was on the move, closing in on the herd as quietly as a ghost. Then before he knew it — without seeing the arrow fly — the buck was down, and the herd was barking the alarm, which flushed white storks from the swamp and stopped his heart.

  “Now!” Jacob breathed. The tension snapped, and Willy’s legs turned to water. He stumbled as he tried to drag the buck to cover.

  “It’s all right, boy,” Jacob said, and, with the flick of his knife, he slit the buck’s throat, letting the warm blood flow into an old porcupine den. Then he whipped through the soft underbelly, scooping out the guts, setting aside the offal. Next, he peeled back the bronze hide, started slicing the flesh for Willy to wrap in grass parcels. Already the buck’s eyes were growing dull, the flies dancing round in dizzy swarms. Willy brushed them off. Maybe he felt sorry for the dead buck. But then again, maybe he didn’t want to share one shred of it.

  Next, they dragged the carcass to the foot of a mahogany tree. Willy knew his job now. His father had explained it in the darkness of the hut while Mammy slept. She wouldn’t have wanted them to do this. She wouldn’t have let Willy come. But now he didn’t care. They had meat! He shimmied up the tree to the first high branch while his father tied rope around the dead beast’s hocks. Between them, they hauled the buck up the trunk, and Willy wedged it safely in the fork of the tree and grinned down at his father. Cunning, eh? To disguise their kill as a leopard’s larder. But then wasn’t his father an old-time hunter who knew all the tricks?

  “The rope!” Jacob warned. Willy shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans, then scrambled down the tree. Next, they stuffed the meat parcels inside their shirts, and Willy wanted to be off home to cook it, but his father wagged a finger. No, he said. First they must cover their tracks and remember the spot. Only a fool lost his meat because he couldn’t find his stash in the dark. They had to be careful, too. At sunup the park rangers would be on patrol. Willy felt sick again, as he had before they spotted the impala. Caught with poached meat! They would go to jail for sure, maybe even die there. Suddenly the parcels of meat felt stuck to his flesh, the meat he’d wanted — still wanted — to stuff into his mouth, raw and red and warm.

  He crept after his father through the brushwood, the sweat stinging his eyes. Home wasn’t far — just a half-hour’s walk to the boundary — but those two miles of the park’s many thousands were the riskiest. That the homestretch was open grassland with little cover was bad enough. Worse, though, it lay near the track to the rangers’ camp.

  Yet when they
reached the grassy plain, Jacob stopped, bold as brass, and got out his knife again. Willy almost sobbed. Not more delay! Please, Dadda. Then he remembered. This was Jacob’s cover in case the rangers did drive by. They were going to cut grass for roof thatch. It was the season, after all, and no one minded the farmers coming to the game reserve for that. Willy pulled the garden knife from his belt, and, as they moved forward, slashed the grass savagely until he had two fat bundles.

  He almost yelled for joy when his father said, “That’ll do, boy. Give me the rope now!” Willy felt in his pocket. No rope. Must have dropped it while he was cutting. He cast around. His father frowned, saying, “Forget it!” They bound the bundles with grass stems and, hiding the bow and arrows inside, laid them across their shoulders. Willy walked behind, eyes darting left and right. And then, after all the longing, there it was, the line of thorn trees by the dried-up stream, their homestead thatch just beyond. His father threw him a look, the bare twitch of his brow. Willy smiled back.

  Twenty minutes later and safe inside their hut with the cooking hearth stoked up, Willy thought he could go on eating forever. Never mind the smoke with every chew, so long as the juices went on bursting in his mouth. Mammy stopped him, though, saying he’d be sick after eating only mangoes, and anyway they must dry the rest for another day. She said nothing about the poaching, though, only cast her husband a worried glance. What could she say when they had come home with meat? She was hungry, too. What could anyone say when their fields were baked to brick dust and the granary was empty? Not even the old ones could remember a drought so bad. And how could starving people ignore all that food in the park: the herds of gazelle, impala, and puku that grazed Luangwa’s plains? These had been their own plains once, before the government pushed them out and banned hunting.

  So now they had helped themselves. Where was the harm? Willy lazed by the hearth. He had no work to do. How could he scare birds from a garden that had blown away? Instead he dozed in a haze of contentment. It was only later, as the day began to cool, that fear wormed again in Willy’s chest. That night they must go back and claim their kill. And night brought other dangers, leopard for one…

  Yet when it was time to step from the lamp-lit warmth of the homestead and into Luangwa’s chilly darkness, Willy found only meat juices flooding his mouth, not the sour wash of fear. The thought of more meat spurred him on, and besides, who was better to lead them than his own father? He’d been a tracker for the game warden once, hunting down man-eating lions that were attacking the villages. Dadda was a real hunter — no need to feel afraid. And so with cricket song ringing in his ears, Willy padded after Jacob, who silently crossed the sandy streambed and slipped into the reserve.

  Once they had cleared the acacias, the going was swift. All that morning’s thatch cutting had left a clear path into the sagebrush where nothing could see or smell them. They were almost running as they reached the game trail that skirted the lagoon and led to their tree. By now a slice of moonlight was falling on the stagnant pool and lighting their way. Willy smiled at the dark and closed his mind to the white snakes of mist that were coiling off the pool and into his bones. This was going to be easy.

  It was only when they were thirty feet from the mahogany tree that Jacob called a halt. He pulled Willy behind a winter thorn and laid a warning finger over his mouth. At once the morning’s fear came flooding back to Willy. He knew why they were waiting this time — to check that there wasn’t a leopard on their buck. The cold sweat broke out on his face as he scanned the tree and every bush and prayed not to hear that big-cat cough that froze the blood.

  Then suddenly it was all right. His father was sending him up the tree. Willy swung up the trunk, relief flooding his chest. As he reached the fork, there was the whiff of ripe flesh. But it didn’t matter, not now. Here was more meat to eat and more to dry. He pushed at the hindquarters till the beast slid to the ground. But as he hung in the tree, the darkness flashed white, and he was blinded.

  “Got you!” said the voice in the light. Willy heard the metallic click of a safety catch released.

  “Dadda!”

  “Shut it! Come down. Slowly now.”

  Willy slithered to the ground at his father’s feet, holding out his hands to fend off the light. He couldn’t escape the voice, though. It froze his blood as well as any leopard.

  “So, Jacob, Luangwa’s best tracker has a new career, eh?”

  Jacob stood his ground. “Is a man to let his family starve so that rich foreigners can come and stare at wild animals? What is one buck to them? It’s elephant and lion they come to see.”

  Even through his fear Willy flushed with pride. He’d never heard his father say so much, not all at once. And he was right, so perhaps the ranger would let them go.

  But the voice only snorted, and then Willy knew that it was Davis Sata, the head ranger. No one in the district liked him. He had the leer of a crocodile and manners to match. There were rumors, too. Ivory-poaching rumors.

  The searchlight flicked off, and heavy boots ground nearer. Into the dipped beam of headlights swaggered Davis. He was holding their rope. “Careless,” he said. “Spotted it lying on the thornbush. Then I saw the buck.”

  Willy groaned. All his fault! They were going to prison for a dropped rope.

  “Been waiting these last two hours,” Davis went on.

  “Better arrest me then!” Jacob said.

  But Davis continued to stand there, the rifle resting across his forearm. “Or I could let you go.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “In fact, you could be just the man I need, Jacob. Just the man! So you come the next time I call.”

  Willy felt the rip of Jacob’s anger. “I’ll come. But not the boy.”

  “Of course the boy!” Davis insisted. “Make a man of him. And why worry, Jacob? You’ve made him a poacher with this day’s work!” The ranger’s mouth gaped mockingly, and Willy started to cry. Next, Davis laid down the gun and, taking a hunting knife from his belt, hacked a leg from the buck and tossed it in the cab. “O.K. You can go. But be ready. Both of you!” Then he swung into the Land Rover and roared off.

  With a heart as heavy as lead, Willy helped his father sling the remains of their buck on a branch. Between them, they lugged it home, and not one word did his father say, not a single word to relieve Willy’s wretchedness and fear.

  Nor did they have long to wait before Davis Sata came calling. A few nights later, they heard the Land Rover pull up outside their gate. Soon the latch was rattling, and there was an arrogant thump on the door. By the light of the hurriedly lit candle, Willy saw his father wave the fear from Mammy’s face, tell her they’d be gone awhile and not to worry. Shame shot through Willy’s heart like the steel of a trap. Then there was no space to think. They were hustled into the back of the truck where two other men sat.

  The stars were fading as Davis drove them away. No one spoke. Willy shivered and sweated by turns. For a time, they drove through dense mopane woods that closed around like a tunnel. Then they bumped across flatlands where the stumps of dead thorn trees reared up like ghosts. Willy buried his face in his arms then, while beside him sat his father, still and comfortless as stone.

  When at last the Land Rover stopped, Willy found himself staring up at the biggest baobab tree he had ever seen. It seemed to hold up the iron sky. Davis hauled Willy out, saying, “Up there, you!” as he shoved him toward the tree. Willy stared up the iron trunk. Even the nearest branch was twenty feet up.

  “Use the ladder, fool!” Davis pushed his hands into deep scars in the tree’s bark where laths had been hammered inside to make invisible rungs. “See? Been a poacher’s tree for fifty years.” He slung a pair of binoculars around Willy’s neck. “A big bull. Hundred-pound tusks. Been watching him for days. Find him!”

  Willy crawled up the trunk, to the dizzying top where the branches spread to make a lookout post. Never had he been so far off the ground, with the whole world laid before him. To the east a red vein spread a
long the forest top; to the west low, gray scrub stretched to Luangwa’s banks, then to the silver snake of the river itself, and the shadowy trees beyond. He put the binoculars to his eyes.

  “What’s keeping you?” hissed Davis from below.

  Willy’s hands were shaking. How could he do what the man wanted? He’d never used binoculars before. There was only a blur. Tears of fear and frustration pricked his eyes as he turned the dial one way and then the other. Soon the sun would start to rise.

  “C’mon, why don’t you?”

  Suddenly the dark veil fell, and Willy almost cried out. Into his sights stepped a hyena, lugging his belly home from the kill. Then behind the hyena was forest. He could even recognize some of the trees. With growing confidence, he began to scan the landscape, drawing the trees to him, pushing them away. That’s how he found it, a lone elephant, a mile off maybe, browsing a murula tree. He stammered the details to the ranger below, saw the man strike out on foot, pushing Jacob ahead of him. Jacob’s role was soon clear — to watch the wind and maneuver the shooter close to his quarry. Willy followed their moves from bush to bush, his father watching the dirt blow through his fingers, pressing quietly closer, Davis following the tracker’s lead.

  Willy’s heart beat hard as he tried to hold his father inside the lens: Please don’t let him die. He knew the grim tales of what an elephant could do — there were reasons enough not to poach ivory. Then he saw his father drop into a pig hole and Davis move forward to take aim. There was a muffled shot, and now it was the big bull that filled the binoculars. Willy gasped. He could see the bloody wound on its head, and yet it was still standing! Then, all at once, the great gray beast crumpled to the ground, the red dust rising round it.