Part 6
For several seconds, no one in either vehicle spoke. Then Asha’s voice turned clipped and procedural.
“Juma, keep the lead truck between the lion and the team. Neema, I need a breathing count from here. Nobody gets out until the lead truck is in position.”
Juma eased the truck forward at an angle, not charging Jabari but steadily narrowing the distance. The second vehicle moved with him. The engines idled loudly; doors remained shut. Jabari held his ground until the lead truck was less than forty yards away. Then he climbed the bank in three long bounds and stopped on the ridge. He did not leave.
From the higher ground, he watched the vehicles reposition around Baraka. His flanks were not hollow, and there was no blood on his muzzle. Nothing in the ravine suggested that he had fed.
Baraka drew eight shallow breaths in a minute. His visible eye was open, but the lid sagged. Each time he tried to pull his trapped leg, the cable bit deeper and the roots held.
“He’s exhausted,” Neema said. “Still responsive.”
Asha calculated the dose, checked the dart, and fired from the vehicle. It struck high in Baraka’s shoulder. His ear flicked once. The team waited while the drug took effect, watching his breathing and the movement at the end of his trunk.
Only when Asha was satisfied did Juma place the lead truck broadside as a barrier and let the rangers out on the protected side. One ranger remained in the passenger seat with the engine running, watching the ridge.
“Trunk first,” Asha said.
They pulled Baraka’s trunk straight so the airway remained open and clear of loose soil. One ranger stayed at his head, counting every breath aloud. Another monitored his pulse at the ear while Asha examined the trapped leg. The cable had cut through skin above the foot and disappeared under swollen tissue on one side, but the limb below it was still warm.
“We cut the roots before the cable,” she said. “If the tension releases the wrong way, it could pull tighter.”
Juma and a ranger cleared loose branches by hand, then used a saw on the smaller roots. The largest had to stay; it was bearing too much of the bank. Neema passed Asha the long-handled cutters, then glanced toward the ridge until Asha called her attention back to the cable.
The first cut released one loop. The cable snapped against the dirt hard enough to make everyone flinch. The second loop was embedded. Asha worked it free a fraction at a time while Juma held the cutters steady.
“Again,” she said.
Juma shifted his grip. Metal gave with a blunt crack.
The severed cable fell away from Baraka’s leg. The wound beneath it was deep and packed with dirt. Asha flushed it until the runoff cleared, assessed the deeper tissue damage, and administered antibiotics. She started fluids while the team kept cooling him as the heat rose, working in short, practiced exchanges and keeping the breathing count continuous.
At 8:17, a ranger at the vehicle said, “Lioness. North side.” Everyone looked up. Two lionesses had emerged from the brush above the far bank. They were lean from the end of the dry season, their attention fixed below. One stopped beside Jabari. The other continued down the slope, not charging, but closing the distance with the steady approach of a predator investigating an animal that could not stand.
Juma ordered the entire team back toward the vehicles. Neema reached the nearest door while the lookout kept the engine running. Before Juma could swing the lead truck across the slope, Jabari moved. He came off the ridge fast, cut across the descending lioness’s path, and struck her high on the shoulder with an open forepaw. Dust lifted between them. The lioness snarled and swiped back. Jabari did not pursue her, but he held the narrow path until she turned uphill and joined the other female beneath the trees.
Then he returned to the ridge. Neema checked the time and wrote it down without assigning a reason.
By late morning, Baraka’s breathing had steadied. The swelling in his leg worried Asha, but she could find no sign that the cable had cut off circulation. He had a chance if he could rise. The longer he remained down, the greater the danger.
Asha administered the reversal agent and ordered everyone into the vehicles. They backed away to give Baraka open ground. For a while, nothing happened. His ear moved. The end of his trunk curled, flattened, and curled again. Then his head lifted several inches from the dirt.
“Come on, old man,” Juma murmured. Asha heard him but did not object.
Baraka drew his front legs under his chest. The injured one shook. He pushed with the other leg and rocked his weight forward, but after hours on his side, his shoulder folded. He came down heavily against the bank.
Neema caught her breath. Asha kept her eyes on Baraka. “Wait.”
“How long?”
“Three more minutes. Then we reassess.”
It was the kind of answer that would once have made Neema angry. Now she watched the elephant rather than her mother.
Baraka lay still for almost three minutes. His trunk scooped up a patch of dirt and threw it weakly over his shoulder. Juma gave a small, disbelieving laugh.
“Competent,” Neema said.
Asha glanced at her. “Yes.”
On the second attempt, Baraka changed the angle. He rolled forward onto the scarred left leg first, braced the end of his trunk against the ground, and brought his hindquarters under him. For one second he balanced on three legs, his newly injured right foot barely touching the earth.
Then he stood.
He remained beside the bank, rocking slightly, while dust slid from his flank. No one moved the vehicles. No one called out. On the ridge, the two lionesses had disappeared into the miombo scrub. Jabari was still there.
Baraka lifted his trunk toward the wind. They felt the sound through the truck floor before they heard it clearly: one deep note, a pause, then a second.
Neema’s hand tightened around the field notebook. Jabari raised his head.
For several seconds, the lion and the elephant faced one another across the ravine. Baraka did not spread his ears or turn to charge. Jabari did not lower himself into a stalk. The distance between them remained more than a hundred yards, heat shimmering above it.
Then Jabari turned west. He walked along the ridge without looking back, his mane briefly catching the pale sun between the trees. A few moments later, the VHF bearing swung west and the signal weakened.
Baraka took one careful step on the injured leg, then another…
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