Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [47]
As it developed, the last half of that description fit our accommodations perfectly.
Bill had told us prior to our arrival that Tarangire, being less developed as well as less famous than the Serengeti or Ngorongoro, was a tented camp. Exactly what this meant was not spelled out. I’m not sure Bill knew all the details himself. But we quickly learned them. There were twelve big tents, arranged in a straight line facing distant hills.
Ours was large if not spacious, with a ceiling high enough to allow us to move around inside without having to bend. Furnishings consisted of a small table on which was placed a pitcher of (hopefully) boiled water and a glass (that had hopefully been cleaned in boiling water). There was a small camp chair and, aligned on opposite sides of the tent and about six feet from each other, two individual cots with bedding. A kerosene lantern hung from the tent’s apex. The dull green canvas walls reflected a lack of maintenance sufficient to suggest that nothing like a preservative or cleaning compound had come in contact with the aged material since the British had abandoned East Africa to the locals back in the 1950s. In places, the primitive, heavy fabric was torn or peeling. Out the tent’s back entrance was a portable toilet that was open to the sky and enclosed on three sides by wooden slats.
My wife, who is less than fond of camping, surveyed our other-than-five-star accommodations.
“It’ll be all right,” I told her. “It’s only for two nights.”
She nodded . . . dubiously.
Given the option of staying in any of the vacant tents, Bill and Sally had understandably chosen one several sites away from ours. As we settled in for the night, the temperature remained pleasant while the air retained the freshness of the day but without the exacerbating heat. Having turned out the lantern, I used my small flashlight to find my cot and slip beneath the more-or-less clean blanket and single sheet.
“Good night, hon.”
“Good night,” she replied tiredly.
Some two minutes later, a sound reverberated through the tent’s interior. It was a long, low baying, the kind a vigorous steer might make after undertaking six months’ opera training in Milan. A single extended bellow followed by a series of shorter coughs. It wasn’t unimpressive.
Nor did it escape JoAnn’s notice. Any hint of the fatigue incurred as a consequence of the day’s long drive vanished from her voice.
“What was that?”
I did my best to sound blasé. “The lions.”
Her response emphasized each word carefully. “What ‘lions’?”
“Just ‘the lions,’” I replied diffidently. I tried to will myself instantly to sleep. It did not work.
I could hear her moving around and sitting up on the other cot. “There are lions here? How close are they?” As if responding to a cue card, another of the large unseen felines promptly embarked upon an imposing extended bawl. As soon as he or she stopped, the cry was taken up by another, and then another. The bellowing was now coming from multiple directions and no doubt from different prides. From a traditional choral standpoint their liturgy was limited, but no less impressive for the lack of Latin.
“Not too close,” I offered, more out of hope than knowledge.
JoAnn bought that about as much as she accepted that I had suddenly become fluent in Swahili. “How do you know? How can you tell? How close are they?”
I tried another tack. “We’re fine. They won’t bother us in here.”
Her flashlight winked on. A bad sign. She played it over the interior walls of the tent, pausing briefly to isolate a gigantic Jerusalem cricket that was ascending the back wall. “What do you mean, ‘we’re fine’? Don’t you see this canvas? It’s all rotten! A lion could get in here with one swipe!”
“Maybe one could,” I argued weakly, “but they won’t.”
“Oh no? How do you know that?”
“I just,” I sputtered, “I mean, they don’t, that’s all.” All else having failed, I fell to resorting to logic. “If they did, nobody would rent these tents.”
“That’s not a good enough reason.” The light moved, and I felt her presence against