Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [49]
The problem was that in their single-minded attempt to gain control of the free meal, they kept edging closer and closer to the blind.
I didn’t know how much voltage was flowing through the single wire that was both our defensive moat and palisade. But, at that moment, it looked about as effective as a cable downloading music to an iPod. One of the Italians nervously asked the guard if maybe we should call it a night. The guide shook his head no and put a finger to his lips.
Whether it was the presence of the electrified wire or simply fatigue, the two males halted inches from the inadequate barrier. Neither had relinquished his grip on the meat. They were, I estimated, no more than six or seven feet away. I could have stretched out flat on the ground, stuck a hand beneath the wire, and made contact with my toes still hanging over the edge of the ditch. It was plain they weren’t at all interested in us, however. What rendered the situation intimidating was not so much their proximity as the fact that crouching in the blind we were at eye level with them. Seeing a lion at eye level is very different from observing one from the back of a truck or other 4x4. Their mass becomes overwhelming, the definition in the straining muscles awe-inspiring.
Having settled into their tug-of-war, both males had gone comparatively quiet as well as motionless. We began to relax a little. It was plain that sooner or later one male would take control of the meat and walk off into the night with it, just as the females had done earlier. I found myself blinking. It had been a long, hot day. After witnessing the feeding, it would be good to get back to the room, lie down, and relax. Except for a few insects, there was little noise now and . . .
The lions exploded.
I don’t know how else to describe it. For nearly ten minutes, they had been staring at each other, their faces a couple of feet apart, virtually silent as each strained to take control of the evening meal from his brother when, without warning, they erupted in a sequence of roars, slaps, and violent contortions that were powerful enough to, as the learned sages used to say, freeze the blood.
As quickly as the eruption had taken place, it quieted.
One of the women had started to scream, and it had caught in her throat—a sound nearly as extraordinary as the one made by the two lions. Everyone, including me, had momentarily jerked slightly backward. Time, existence, the air . . . had for an instant been stopped. Then the lion brothers resumed their silent contest of strength and will, and a number of human bodies resumed their normal patterns of respiration. It was one of the most extraordinary couple of seconds I have ever experienced, vastly heightened by the fact that it occurred only a few feet in front of me.
Ever since, I have not been able to look at a lion, no matter how quiescent, or sleepy, or indifferent, or far away behind moat or bars in a zoo, in the same way again.
VIII
MEANWHILE, SAFELY BACK HOME...
Prescott, Arizona, Anytime
FRIENDS I MAKE IN REMOTE locales overseas or meet on the trail are wont to assume that the carnivores with whom I have encounters are only to be found in the exotic far-flung corners of the earth: in the searing deserts of Africa and the steaming jungles of Asia, South America, and India. They are wrong. My home state of Arizona is full of hungry predators, some of whom are not even connected with the chief political parties. A sampling of such creatures can even be found in the primary urban areas of Phoenix and Tucson.
Though it continues to grow by demographic leaps and geriatric bounds (Prescott is