The Daughters of the Darkness

by Luke Phillips

  Catherine studied him in silence for a moment, narrowing her eyes questioningly.

  “Let’s hear it, what’s bothering you?” she asked.

  “I was talking to Jericho about the strange behaviour this pride is showing. I suggested that maybe the females are getting bigger and stronger because of the changes in their environment and because of the risk to the cubs from the males. But there’s something about their behaviour too.”

  “Well, we know sexual dimorphism is most exaggerated in species where there is intense, polygynous competition between males for access to females,” Catherine stated, sitting back.

  “Like lions,” Thomas nodded.

  “Yes, but as you say, these lions don’t seem to exhibit those physiological differences,” Catherine added. “In a way, they’re more like wolves. Wolves show much less variation in their sexual dimorphism, and their social groups are made up of a monogamous pair and their offspring. This pride show very close bonds. They even seem to have a clear alpha animal. Of course, this is all on your say so though,” she smiled teasingly.

  “Just remember what happened last time you doubted me,” he laughed.

  Catherine smiled then hesitated as a thought crossed her mind. “Come to think of it, I do remember reading about one species of cat that didn’t show a huge range in sexual dimorphism, and had a pack structure more like wolves,” she offered quietly.

  “Oh really, which?” Thomas asked, confused.

  “Smilodon, a sabre-toothed cat,” she laughed. “All three sub-species were family pack hunters. Maybe we’ve found the Cannich cat’s African cousin.”

  “Trust me, she’s not that big,” Thomas said, shaking his head.

  “I’m only kidding,” Catherine comforted him, getting up and slumping down next to him on the sofa. “I’m sure you’re right and the changes we’re observing are down to climate and behaviour factors. It’s okay not to have all of the pieces of the puzzle you know?”

  “I know,” he admitted. “Best get out there and try to find some of the missing ones.”

  He stepped off the porch just as Jericho emerged from his own tent. The Irishman had also taken advantage of a fresh shower and a change of clothes. He carried a rather tattered rucksack over one shoulder, and slung it onto the passenger side of the customised, two-seat Jeep Wrangler. Thomas walked over to him.

  “I’m going to take Rhodes with me,” Jericho nodded as the big boerboel sauntered up to them. “Can you keep an eye on Saka?”

  “I can go one better, I’ll take her with me,” Thomas replied.

  “Good, that’ll keep her out of the kitchen,” Jericho grinned.

  “Other than Rhodes, are you taking any protection?” Thomas asked. “Especially given the attention we’ve been attracting lately.”

  Jericho raised an eyebrow as he opened the glove compartment. Sitting inside was a bulky, odd looking revolver finished in hard chrome. Thomas could see it had an unusual design, with the barrel aligned with the bottom most chamber of the square shaped cylinder, rather than the top like most.

  “This here’s the rhino,” Jericho explained quietly. “It’s just about as ugly and as hard hitting as the real thing. I see it as Africa’s version of the credit card. You don’t leave home without it.”

  “Nice,” Thomas replied with a sarcastic glance. “Seriously though, watch your six.”

  “Always do,” nodded Jericho.

  Thomas watched the Jeep roll out of camp. As the dust thrown up in its wake began to settle, he noticed Saka slink out from behind the kitchen. She was in the process of gulping something down when she spotted Thomas watching her. She froze, and her large, bat-like ears pricked up immediately as she dropped her head and prepared to spring away. Thomas guessed that as a professional thief, she was more than used to having retribution literally thrown at her when caught in the act, something she was now bracing for. Realising she wasn’t about to be on the receiving end of such punishment, the mottle coloured canine relaxed and yawned casually, taking a few steps towards him.

  “Feel like putting those skills to good use for once?” Thomas said softly and kindly.

  Saka trotted over to him and as he knelt to greet her and butted him in the chest with the top of her head. She pushed her muzzle under the embrace of his arms, pushing against him and rubbing her cheek along his flank as Thomas made a fuss of her. As Thomas looked round, he saw Catherine leaning over the porch rail, her camera trained on him and Saka. She was smiling.

  “It’s not every day you get such a photo opportunity,” she called out. “Do you think you might need a pack, out in the African sun?” she added sarcastically, lifting his canvas backpack from where he’d left it on the tent’s porch. He walked over and took it from her, gently lifting her hand and kissing it in appreciation as he did so. He checked inside the pack to make sure it still contained everything from the day before; a radio, first aid kit, two canteens of water and his antler handled bowie knife. He gave her a quick nod and turned, but she pulled him back, handing him a black cattleman style hat. It had a tan coloured leather band, ordained with a single tooth of a mountain lion. The hat had belonged to Logan, Thomas’s friend from Wyoming, who had been killed by the Cannich cat. He nodded again, putting it on as he walked back out into the sun.

  “Just be careful,” she cried out after him, still smiling.

  “We’re armed to the teeth,” he replied, nodding towards Saka.

  Mansa provided him with further supplies of biltong, trail mix and dried fruits. The thin African also passed him a sealed plastic bag of salted fish fillets for Saka.

  “She seems to like them,” Mansa said knowingly.

  “Some hunter hey,” Thomas shrugged. “Perhaps we should have called her mwizi instead,” he added, using the Swahili word for thief.

  “She is just true to her nature,” Mansa replied courteously. “After all, a hunter is a thief that steals life. She embraces this, as must we all. The only thing that separates us is the opportunity to show respect for our prey, not something all men share.”

  “That’s rather profound Mansa,” Thomas replied, “I’ll do my best.”

  “Just remember, few plans or principles survive a first encounter with the enemy,” Mansa replied. “When it comes down to it, there is still only one law of the jungle. Kill or be killed.”

  Thomas nodded, somewhat impressed by the elderly African’s straightforward outlook. He packed the supplies into the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He grabbed his binoculars from the equipment tent too, before making a final stop at the gun rack. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and turned to head down the path, when he paused. He looked around almost sheepishly before reaching behind the rack and pulling out what looked like a sawn-off shotgun with a pistol grip. After chambering one round and slipping another two into the magazine, he collapsed the pump grip underneath the barrel, checked the safety, and stuffed the gun into a side pouch of the pack. He filled the cartridge loops of his shooting vest with ‘00’ buckshot shells as he did so. He wasn’t going to take any chances whilst out on his own, and he felt better having it at arm’s reach. The gun was a Serbu Super Shorty, something he had carried for bear defence whilst working in Wyoming as a tracker.

  As Thomas walked through the crew camp, he noticed Mason steadily tracking him with the camera. He smiled and walked over as Keelson joined them.

  “That’ll make a nice filler shot somewhere,” Mason laughed. “The great white hunter off to settle the score.”

  “I just want to see where our friends went,” replied Thomas.

  “We’re going to document the fortification of the camp, then head out and get some stock footage,” Kelly explained.

  “Don’t go too far,” Thomas warned, “all the guns are elsewhere today, and after last night, I can’t shake the feeling we might be being watched.”

  “You could always let us come with you and give us something real to film,” Kelly pushed hopefully.

  “I need
to move quickly and quietly,” Thomas explained, shaking his head. “Once I get a better idea of their territory, we can talk about group excursions okay?”

  “You’re making my job very hard Walker,” Keelson scolded playfully.

  “You practically got an entire series worth of action last night Kelly,” Thomas laughed. “Get your stock footage and do some editing today. I will make it up to you.”

  “You’d better,” she replied flippantly.

  Thomas tipped the brim of his hat as he walked away, followed by Saka. He paused only for a moment as he reached the point from where they had watched Kanu Sultan the night before. He started to make his way to the baobab tree. As the parched grass became higher, up past his knees, Saka broke into a trot and came alongside. He knew she felt more confident when there were fewer people around. It didn’t take long to reach the place where Kanu’s convoy had stopped. He could still make out their tracks and the stained ground where the scent lure had been left. Saka sniffed at it, wrinkling her nose at the overtly powerful stink. Thomas slowed his pace and began to study the thick carpet of red dust that lay between the clumps of grassland and scattered trees. He soon found what he was looking for. Three good sets of prints showed where a small party of lions had honed in on the scent. This was the trail they had followed in. He guessed that the lions hadn’t crossed the river, and had instead skirted around the camp to the east before heading south again. He decided as it was still early in the day, he might walk in the general direction the prints seemed to come from and see if they led to a crossing of paths further along, presuming the pride returned from whence they came as he suspected.

  He made his way through the grassland slowly, stopping to examine any bent or crushed blades and patches that suggested the lions had passed that way. The savannah was dominated by pan dropseed and rye grasses, with mangled clumps of Bermuda grass, signifying where the soil had been disturbed, or where a bush fire had allowed it to spring up. He thought he could make out a path through it that had been flattened over, possibly by the passing of numerous bodies. Thirty yards in, his instincts were rewarded. A pile of lion scat signalled the trail of the pride. He crouched, carefully checking the wind direction as he waited for Saka to take interest. She flattened her ears as she approached the dung heap, dropping her head as if stalking prey. She nosed around the pile cautiously, making a hyena-like huffing as she did so. She skipped to and fro on her front paws, becoming more excited and agitated simultaneously. This was what Thomas had been hoping for.

  Saka was hardly tame. She rarely followed commands of any sort. Just like a wolf, they had a different set of values to a domestic dog. Saka had never been playful or overtly affectionate as a pup. Suspicion, backed by cold, inquisitive intelligence had always been her predominant characteristic behaviour. She had never been gushingly eager to please like a puppy. She would grow bored very quickly, turning her powerful jaws on anything that had been chewable. In her case, that had turned out to be most things, including tents, saucepan handles, a revolver and any boots she could get hold of. She had loved leather boots as a pup, and Thomas remembered both he and Jericho had lost several pairs during training sessions that became learning experiences for them all.

  Training any animal was easy to get wrong. The main misconceptions were that obedience could only be achieved as either a battle of wills or constant rewards. The trick with getting any animal, including humans, to comply unquestionably is to create the perception they have no other choice, and it is simply the requisite solution demanded by the situation. Presenting yourself as a dominant and arbitrary authority to a dog, especially a wild dog, whose pack instinct and hierarchy is based on strength and dominance, can lead to aggressive challenges. Thomas believed it was vital to show any dog that he had a place in the pack, and like most pack members, that he played an assigned role. For Thomas, that role was teacher and corrector, not always necessarily alpha. His job was simply to equip them with an understanding of what the world required of them. He did this by making them watch him, encouraging them to take their lead from him. Dogs did this naturally, but wild canines had to be convinced of its benefit.

  Hunting dogs like Saka and her cousins, wolves, were natural problem solvers. Their comprehension was based on a more mechanical understanding of how things worked. They learn to do things that are in their interest, and to avoid those that aren’t. Saka for instance, only had to watch Thomas undo the ties of the tent doors once to understand how they worked. Saka’s competence was born from her desire to get outside and be free. A dog accepts their environment more readily, less questioningly. When a dog finds something it cannot do, its natural instinct is to turn for help towards the nearest human. A dog could be trained or shown how to open the tent doors, but it was far less likely to discover how to do so under its own, tireless investigation. In Saka’s case, she would continue trying new methods, or adapt them until she found a solution. Even if the solution was simply give up, it lacked a reliance on Thomas or any other human for help.

  This became the basis of his simple training with Saka. He had to exhaust every possible way of Saka not cooperating with him until it became her natural instinct to do so. Even then, he had restricted her to only the bare essentials of commands. ‘Stay’, the easiest, was so imbedded in her that she would be rooted to the spot for hours if he didn’t release her. From rescuing her in the den, to fending off lions, her acceptance that ‘stay’ meant being out of danger was now natural instinct. ‘Go on’ was a release command, or one that gave her the freedom to explore further – something she needed little encouragement in and obeyed gladly. ‘Here’ was a simple recall, and again her understanding of Thomas’s protective role played a vital role in her compliance. ‘Out’ was a warning command, telling her something was none of her business or dangerous. It had only taken a single encounter with a crested porcupine to convince Saka the benefit of this one. But it was the fifth and final command that Thomas had use for today.

  Thomas always issued Saka’s commands with the same guttural or softer tones that seemed universal amongst animals, but most closely echoed those made by wild dogs communicating in a pack. He also tried to emulate a behaviour that reinforced the command. As he watched Saka dancing round the lion scat, he slipped his rifle from his shoulder and brought it up, ready and poised as if beginning a hunt.

  “Seek,” he barked.

  Instantly, Saka loped away, loose and alert. She travelled low to the ground, never bringing herself up to her full height. She craned her neck forward, her nose and muzzle only dipping slightly. She was following the scent, but her real gifts as a tracker were in her excellent eyesight and hearing. She moved like an English pointer dog, padding along the flattened path the lions had taken through the grass with an ambling gait that was surprisingly economic for her energy reserves, providing incredible stamina and the ability to hunt prey over long distances. Every fifty yards or so, she would stop, never taking her eyes off the path ahead as she waited for Thomas to catch up. They made their way in complete silence as the sun, and the temperature, rose higher.

  ~

  The trail beaten Toyota bucked and shuddered as it forged a path through the lush elephant grass, the dulled chrome bull bars on its grill pushing the high reaching stalks down and aside like the bow of a ship. Kelly let out a deep sigh of contentment, throwing her head back as she did so and letting the sun warm her skin as it streamed in through the open window and roof. Mason was driving, and she felt content to take in the more aesthetic Africa stretching out in front of them, compared to the bloodier experience it had seemed so far. She closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth.

  They were headed to the village where Thomas had killed the leopard. She was curious to see if their lives had changed for the better in the absence of the man-eater, or if the presence of the daughters of the darkness meant no respite for their way of life. She was also hoping to get an insight on how they saw Kanu Sultan, and if their perspective had changed since Th
omas’s arrival, especially after already reducing the pride’s number. She knew the voodoo and supernatural angle would also play well to a western television audience, and couldn’t help but hope the villagers would divulge their fears on camera.

  She noticed a large white bird take to the air as the noise of the vehicle flushed it from the long grass. She watched it flap awkwardly, observing the terracotta coloured edges to its wings and crest. It reminded her of the herons that she sometimes saw at London’s Richmond Park, a large open space in the capital, close to her flat in Putney Village.

  “It’s a cattle egret,” Mason informed her, noticing the direction of her gaze in the rear view mirror. “Recently they’ve started showing up in the UK, in places like Cornwall and Devon. Possibly the only good thing to come from climate change is the slightly more vibrant wildlife coming to our shores.”

  “Birds I don’t mind,” Kelly replied, still watching the bird’s laborious progress in getting airborne. “You can keep the lions, tigers and bears though thanks.”

  “Oh my,” Mason replied, smiling.

  ~

  Thomas quickened his pace as Saka momentarily disappeared into a thicker patch of straw coloured rye grass. He slowed as a little flurry of banded martins gave away her position. The little, dark-chocolate backed birds with white bellies got their name from the thin black stripe across their faces, making them look like masked robbers. They cursed Saka with a high pitched chirruping as she reappeared on the trail ahead. Thomas could tell she was losing interest; having been distracted by the birds, she was now looking for something else to do and skirted back round to him.

  “Go on,” Thomas called softly.

  As she blended back into the surrounding grass, Thomas gave some thought to the other name given to her kind, the painted wolf. Out on the open savannah, her patchwork hide of black, brown and yellow mottles stood out. But here, in the deep brush and amongst the red and golden hues of the plain grasses, she was almost invisible. As he thought, he caught the sound of a high pitched squeal rise up from a little further in. He realised that Saka’s camouflage had been put to good use. She appeared again, closer to him, and as she threw back her head, he saw her swallowing the remains of a striped field mouse.