Chapter One

A Life Forever Changed

The silence is broken by the clanking of locks and cages being opened. It’s that time again: time to perform. I’ve become accustomed to each performance and usually do it without complaint or hesitation. It’s a way to get out of the cage that I’m in most of the day. Today is not one of those usual days, though. My mood is not good. I’m stiff from lying in my cage so many hours, and my stomach doesn’t feel well. How do I tell my master how I feel? I can’t. All I can do is disobey and not leave the cage when I’m called. Maybe then he’ll see that something is wrong.

My name is Elvis, and I am an African lion. I was named after a famous singer and actor who also did a lot of performances in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I now live. Though it was Elvis’s decision to perform, it has not been mine.

I’m one of the luckier lions. My master is compassionate, and I have never been hit by him or treated unkindly. Many of the big cats that entertain people aren’t so lucky. They’re beaten and forced to perform. If they refuse to do so, they may be abused even more. Though my master doesn’t understand that I shouldn’t be in a cage to entertain people, he isn’t a bad person—just ill informed, like many other people. And speaking of Jonathan, here he comes. He’s dressed in a silly shiny costume that sparkles in the light. He carries a stick with him at all times. They call it a No No or Spook Stick. It’s used on the animals when they’re being trained to perform, or if they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do. The masters use it for their own protection, too.

He calls me for a second time as he holds the door of the cage open expecting me to come out. By now I can tell by the sound of his voice that he isn’t happy about me not leaving the cage. Too bad, I think. I continue to lie on the floor of my cage and stare into his eyes. He knows me well; he backs up, closes the cage door and bolts it shut.

Good! Good, I think, as he walks away in that silly shiny suit. I got my way today, but I had better be careful and obey tomorrow or things might get bad for me. Oh, I know I could take any man down with one swipe of my huge paw, claws extended. My retractable claws are designed to catch large prey in the wild like wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, wild pigs, and other hoofed animals whose natural habitat happens to be the same place my distant family comes from: Africa. In Africa, the lion is the king of his territory with only humans and other lions as predators. There were once millions of lions roaming the savanna, grassy plains, and woodlands of Africa. A little over three hundred lions live in a protected area in the Gir Forest in Asia, but the rest of the remaining wild lions call Africa their home. I have heard that there are more lions in captivity than in the wild now. I’m proof of that!

As my master leaves to fetch another animal to take my place today, I close my eyes and my mind wanders off to another time in my life—a time of pain, loneliness, helplessness, and terror. I go back to a time when I was a young cub, a time that will be in my memory for the rest of my life. I was only a few months old when I was taken from my mother and my brothers and sisters. There I was alone, with my eyes closed, as the darkness of the room made it useless to keep them open and I was tired, so very tired. It seemed like forever to me but, just three days earlier, I had been removed from my beloved family. I missed my beautiful mom with her soft fur that was warm and comfortable, and I missed her kisses. Her tongue was rough and, like all lions’, could clean the meat off the bones of her meals with it. But she gently licked her cubs to clean us and give affection. It was also a way of bonding with each other. You see, families are an important part of a lion’s life. Wild lions live in prides that consist of one or two males and lots of females and cubs. There is safety in numbers, and it also increases the chance of survival. The females work together as a team to chase down and catch prey to feed the pride. The males, or dads, of the pride patrol their territory, watch over the cubs while the moms are away hunting for food, and keep the pride safe from other male lions that might try to take over the family.

I felt safe and at peace when I was with my mom. At times, she would lift her chin, wrinkle up her nose, and open her mouth to read someone’s scent. She always knew when someone was coming and when it was feeding time. Lions can detect scents from other lions and animals by using these special glands. We also have scent glands on our tails and even between our toes!

But now, I was alone and in a dark and lonely place. I could hear noises of other animals crying out for help or moaning with loneliness. I even heard some roars that sounded similar to my mother’s, and I knew there was more of my kind in that place. Humans took me out of my small, cold, steel cage long enough to pop a bottle into my mouth. The milk didn’t taste like my mother’s milk, but I drank because I was hungry. When the lights were turned on in the building, I could see many cages, large and small. A few of the animals inside looked familiar to me, but many did not. They walked on four legs and had fur, but it wasn’t like mine. Some of the fur was striped, some had spots. I would find out later that they were tigers and leopards. Some were large, and some were smaller, such as the lynx and bobcats. As I looked around this large warehouse, my eyes came to stop at the large cage located beside mine. There was a male lion with a mane thick and long and amazing to me. My mother did not have a mane; only a male lion has one, and this was the first time I’d seen one. My mother told me I would also have a mane someday when I was a little older. I couldn’t wait.

I looked intently upon this great lion and worked up the courage to squeak out a hello. I was a bit intimidated by his presence but curious just the same.

“Hello,” I said, so softly that I couldn’t even hear myself. “Hello,” I tried again. He opened one of his eyes and then shut it again. I tried a third time, and this time he answered.

“Hello, young one.”

“Sir, please, can you tell me where I am? What’s this place I’ve been taken to, and where is my mother?”

“If you must know,” he said, his voice deep and low, “it’s a place they call an auction house.”

“A what house?” I asked with a bit of a shaky voice. This didn’t sound good to me.

“An auction house, a place where humans buy and sell animals—in our case, exotic wildlife, big and small cats. You know: lions, tigers, cheetahs, cougars, leopards, and others.”

“Okay. And what do they do to us once we’re sold?” I was truly afraid to hear his reply, but I had to find out what was to be done to me. I guessed I wouldn’t be returning to my family, and my heart felt like it was up in my throat, and I wanted to cry.

“Well, young man, there are lots of things that can be done with you. As for me, I’m being sold to be used for a canned hunt. I’ll be released to a large field or farm, and then I will be shot and killed by a hunter who pays money to hunt me down. I’ll become a decoration, as humans would say, for a mantelpiece above a fireplace, or a rug, or stuffed and put in a room to be viewed by other humans. So much for the ‘King of the Jungle,’ ha? King of nothing now! So, please, leave me be and let me sleep. It’s all I have now. Good luck to you, son.”

I will never forget the look on his massive and handsome face. It was a look of despair and misery. There was no hope for him. I shivered in my cage, unsure if there was any hope for me either. I would just have to wait and see when it was my turn to be sold.