CHAPTER 5: THE DEVASTATION

       By herself, Amana collapsed into a ball of misery and reflected on her loneliness, now all the greater. First her mate had died. Then her pride had rejected her. Now her cubs were gone. Tears came like rain, and with them the soot-darkened clouds opened as nature wept, washing down the landscape and fertilizing the dry ground with its life-giving power.

       Amana wallowed in self-pity, as well she might. The faces of death would haunt her the rest of her days. "There was nothing I could do," she said, more as if she were trying to convince herself than as if she believed it. "There was nothing I could do. The fire had come, and they wouldn't leave the hole! I had no time to dig them out!"

       Just then, having trailed her, the leopard cub said, "I'm hungry." She turned and saw him, his spotted pelt soaked with rain and marked with ash-fed mud up to his belly. "I'm so hungry! Please help me! Momma’s dead." He began to sob. "Please help me!"

       "I'm sorry, I just can't. Go away and leave me alone!"

       She fell to the ground and began to count her options. She could try to go home. Mother would be glad to see her, at least. Maybe after the fire they would have pity on her and all would be forgiven. She would see if she didn’t still have the power to melt Mabezo’s icy wrath with her smile and charm as she once did.

       But the leopard cub would not stay silent. "I'm so hungry! Please help me! I’m scared!"

       She looked at the cub. Her cubs were fair, he was black spotted. His nose was black. He even smelled different. Still, she saw the tears in his eyes. She wanted to block out the sight. After all, he was just a leopard. A lioness would never suckle a leopard cub. Leopards were enemies, competitors. They didn't even behave like decent cats. Living in trees, stalking about alone without a law or a structure. Kind of like her for the past few months, to be sure..... 

She looked at the cub, and tears began to run down her face for her own cubs. She patted the ground with her paw, then laid on her side. "Come here, Chui (“leopard”)."

       The cub came reluctantly at first. The lioness was as strange to him as he was to her. Still, her voice was gentle, and her look was motherly. He trundled up to her, crouched by her belly, and seized one of her teats, drawing the warm milk into his wet, shivering body. She was soft and warm and the gentle fondle of her paw on his back soothed his jangled nerves. He nursed for a long time, kneading her abdomen to keep the flow coming, then when he was sated came and lay with his head tucked under her chin. The lioness never told him she would adopt him--she didn't have to. He lay pressed against her body and wept softly. The lioness began to sob, holding the tiny furball to her with a paw as her body shook with grief.

 

 

CHAPTER 6: NIGHT TERRORS

By that evening, the sun had come out. The smell of fire had been washed out of the air and Chui began acting like a normal leopard cub, assuming that Amana could guess how one acted. Chui took to her right away, showering his savior with all the affection he could muster. In return, Amana responded like a normal lioness, becoming protective of her spotted ward and answering his calls with patience and kindness. There were some adjustments in store for both of them, but for the unlikely pair life clung stubbornly to the same pattern it had followed before the fire. 

But the night brought with it time to contemplate the new order of things. Time came for Jamili to ask for his usual bedtime story and for the first time he had failed to do so. Chui snuggled next to Amana’s soft belly to sleep, but two awful gaps were left unfilled. For a moment, Amana felt absent-mindedly to pull her other cubs close to her but her paw explored only open air. She rested her paw on the leopard cub and idly stroked his soft spotted fur until she could fall into a troubled sleep. 

Amana’s brief courtship with sleep did not last long. Her sensitive maternal awareness was pricked by the soft sounds coming from the leopard cub. She awoke to see him moaning, his paws twitching and his eyelids fluttering.

Amana gently shook him. The moaning got louder, and his eyes opened with a start. He sprang on her screaming, “They’re on fire!"

"It was a dream," the lioness said.

"Mom’s on fire!!" The cub ran about in tight, frantic circles in the moonlight. "We gotta get away!"

"It's too late," Amana said. "It’s over. She's gone."

He looked at her and remembered where he was and what had happened. His desolate eyes began to puddle with tears. He took in a deep breath and wailed, "I want my Momma!" As quick as he could take breaths, he let them out in high-pitched protracted shrieks that pierced Amana's heart and startled a flock of ravens into raucous flight.

The lioness came and lay next to him, pushing him to her side, rocking his tear stained face with a paw, and fondling him gently. "I know you're lonely. That's OK. We're both sad now, but the gods are going to help us through this." Tears began to stream down her cheek and she was wracked by sobs. "Please oh gods, help us through this!"

“I want my Momma!”

“I know, Chui! I know!” She kissed the leopard cub. "I want my cubs! Honey, you can’t have everything you want, so you have to learn to be happy with what you have.”

“I’m trying,” Chui stammered, “but I want my Momma! It’s not fair!”

“Few things are,” Amana said, nuzzling him desperately. “But you need another Momma and I need another cub. Somebody out there brought us together, and we should go on with our lives and be glad.” She rolled on her back in anguish and moaned plaintively. “I hope they went to a better place. Somewhere that they’re not hungry or frightened or alone.”

For a long time, they huddled together and wept miserably. In a sad sort of way it felt good to express their anguish rather than keeping it bottled up inside. Then when the sobs died down to an occasional sniffle, he looked at her. “What were their names?”

“My sons were Hamu and Jamili. And I had a little girl named Kata. That was my mother’s name. No one else knew what their names were. I was afraid I’d die someday and it would be like they never existed, but they DID exist and they were beautiful and funny and loving and soft and they deserved better than to choke to death in that hole!"

The cub kissed her and snuggled closer still under Amana’s paw. "I saw my Mom burn up,” he said in a halting voice. “She fell out of the tree, and she couldn’t climb anymore.” He shuddered. “My sisters were screaming.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Momma told me not to look, that I’d have nightmares, but I had to look. I just had to.” He began to cry. “Will the dreams ever go away?”

“Poor Chui!” Amana began to give him an affectionate grooming with her warm pink tongue. “The dreams will go away. But they won’t always be bad. I dreamed about my cubs, and it was a very happy dream. They were nursing and it was so real I swear I could feel their little mouths pressed against me.” She paused a moment and said, “Chui, what was your mother like? Was she like me?”

“Yes. She was nice--like you. Her name was Jaha.”

"Jaha," she said softly. "That's a beautiful name. I wish I had been kinder to her." Tears began to run down her face. "What did she call you?"

Timidly he said, “Kaharabu.”

“I love you, Kaharabu.” She cleaned behind his ears, kissed him again, then said, “Let’s get some sleep, my little Chui. And don’t worry—if you have nightmares, I’ll wake you up.”

 

 

⇐ Предыдущая123456789Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: