Leticia and Sonny had instructed us that the afternoon game drive would commence as planned, minus one.
Charlotte and I arrived in reception a few minutes before three and waited for the others. It took Charlotte a second time to tell me to change my shirt from a blue one to a more suitably colored one.
“Rookie,” Jack greeted me when he and Geri arrived. “Glad to see you have changed from your offending shirt.” Geri slapped him. “Come on, if she had worn a sensibly colored shirt earlier we would have had a lovely morning game drive. But noooo…she has to go back to her room, unlawfully enter—”
“Hey!” I interrupted, unsuccessfully.
“His room and find his mutilated body. If we had left on time, we could have left that pain in the a—”
“Jack! Language! And don’t speak ill of the dead,” Geri yelled.
“Excuse me, ladies.” He tipped his tan canvas hat at us. “We would have left Dr. Higgins behind and had a lovely morning and been spared all the gory images. Instead, we were stuck here all morning.” He walked up to me and gave me a wink. “I blame you for this.”
“Are you going to be the new troublesome traveler?” I asked. “Because we all know what happened to the last one.”
“Naomi!” Charlotte admonished me.
“The hyenas got him.” Jack laughed, like a hyena. Not everyone found it funny.
I bit my lip to hold in the laugh, while Charlotte rolled her eyes. Jack’s cackle really would give one nightmares and I wondered again if it had.
Sonny and Ray arrived and called us out to our ride. “Well, at least I don’t have to sit up front,” Jack said. Geri slapped him again. “What? I’m just trying to look on the bright side. His death has brought me joy. I doubt he brought any joy when he was alive.”
Sabrina’s eyes widened at the disrespectful comment. She nudged Zaden and he climbed in the Land Cruiser, followed by Zonah. The guys kept their heads down as they slid into the first row. The Vankeys went in the second. Not wanting to split up the Wallaces, Charlotte sat in the second row and I headed for the third.
“Ready to find some wildlife?” Sonny yelled out, standing on the driver’s seat.
“Yes!” we yelled out with just a little less exuberance than we had the day before.
“More importantly, Ray, are you ready to find us some wildlife?”
Ray saluted and hopped in his seat, on the front of the Land Cruiser. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and I grew sweaty just looking at him. We drove away from the lodge and away from any sign of civilization.
It was as if the morning never occurred. We each sat, cameras at the ready, for whatever great sight the next turn would bring. Ray pointed to the right, then pointed straight, then held his hand up to stop. He cupped his hand around his ear and listened. Colin leaned forward to ask Sonny a question but Sonny held his hand to his lips to silence him. We sat for thirty seconds while Ray listened to something the rest of us couldn’t hear.
With exuberance, he pointed to the left and we took off slowly.
A minute later, we were through a clearing, in front of a slow-moving river. We stopped and saw a large herd of African, or Cape, buffalo walking along the bank of the river, across from us. Ray pointed to the right and told us, “I heard the impalas’ warning call. I knew danger was close.”
And that danger was three lions, older than cubs but not full grown. “A few years old,” Sonny whispered. They were crouched down watching the approaching herd, having camouflaged themselves in the tall grasses.
From what Sonny deemed a safe distance, and I thought was too close, we watched the lions as they observed their prey.
Three buffalo, one large male, a smaller female, and one smaller one, their baby maybe, straggled away from the herd and the lions perked up. There were murmurings in our group and clicks from our various photographic equipment. Sabrina clung to Zaden as the scene unfolded. When the lions felt the three were far enough away from the safety of the herd, they attacked.
They sprung from their hiding space with more speed than I expected. The three buffalo turn and ran, all in different directions, leaving the youngest and the smallest unprotected—the lions’ plan all along. The three lions attacked the calf and brought it down. Several of us gasped at the ferocity and quickness of it.
“Oh no! The baby,” Sabrina cried. The others, with less maternal instincts maybe, shushed her. We watched in silence as they kept the struggling young buffalo down, a few feet from the river. As the fight continued, the four slid toward the river.
Charlotte covered her face and watched the scene unfold through the spaces between her fingers.
The lions struggled to keep the young buffalo down. The grunts and the growls of the fight reached us a few hundred feet away.
One of the lions jumped away from the water.
“A crocodile!” Colin cried out, pointing to the river’s edge.
The crocodile and the three lions fought over the small buffalo. Patches of black could be seen in between them, struggling. The calf slid more into the river, as the crocodile appeared to be winning. A tug-of-war for dinner. The lions fought back harder to keep their hard-fought meal. Outnumbered, the crocodile finally lost and slithered back into the water. Three against one—it was a closer fight than I would have expected.
Fixated on the fight, we didn’t notice the herd of buffalo returning. Geri tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. “They’re coming back,” she whispered. “They’re coming back for the baby.”
“It’s too late,” Zonah mumbled. Sabrina reached for him and held his hand.
The large herd of black slowly approached. Packed together, they were a formidable obstacle.
The herd kept approaching. The lions were trapped. The water, and who knows how many waiting crocodiles, were behind them. And the buffalo were closing in. The large buffalo from earlier, the baby’s father perhaps, ran in, head down, and rammed into one of the lions. It flew in the air. The other two held the baby down briefly but their energy and will were decreasing.
I wondered why the buffalo tried. There was no way the little one could have survived an attack by three lions and a crocodile. Just cut your losses, I wanted to tell them. Save yourselves.
But then there was a wiggle. The herd, as a unit, stepped forward. Something black was squirming underneath the two lions. A large buffalo stepped forward and the lions retracted back.
And the baby stood!
“It’s alive!” Charlotte gasped. “It’s alive!”
“Oh my goodness, how did it survive that?” Geri asked.
“I thought the lions would just rip its throat out,” Zaden said.
“Buffalo have very thick and tough hides,” Sonny whispered. “The lions were working together to suffocate it or break its windpipe. The three were trying to keep it down. But that calf struggled until the cavalry arrived.”
The young one was accepted back into the herd. Their large numbers insulated it from further dangers, for now.
The unbelievable scene now over, we drove away, back over the bumpy terrain. We returned to the roadway. On my left, the herd of buffalo resumed their walk together. No stragglers. The lions were long gone, in search of new prey.
I heard a cackle behind me. Hyenas were roaming around, along the roadway.
They had been watching too.
Waiting for their chance.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I’d just watched lions attack a buffalo and there were noises. There were grunts. There were squeals. There were footsteps.
We had passed the cackling hyenas afterward. They communicated with noises, like we communicated with words. Ray had found the enfolding drama because of the impalas’ calls.
Life had volume.
Death had volume.
How did Dr. Higgins die and we didn’t hear it?
Charlotte and I were right next door. How did we not hear it? He couldn’t have been farther away than the calf had been from us.
How, in the middle of a clear and quiet night, did we not hear him struggle? Not hear him yell in terror at the sight of the hyenas? Not hear him yell for help?
Something wasn’t right.