The Pride of Africa

She died. In one single last moment, her final breath slowly seeped out of her. A soft whistle, perhaps more of a wheeze. It was done. She died. She tried to protect her child, she tried so hard. She had given everything she could.

*** 12 Hours Earlier ***

Sarah awoke to a beautiful rising sun over the African plains. It was simply breathtaking. She quietly thought to herself, wondering how anything could be as beautiful as this? She paused a moment to just take in the mesmerizing beauty. Her daughter shouldn’t be allowed to miss something like this. How could she still be sleeping? She was always sleeping.

Sarah rolled over and gently kicked her daughter awake in the cot next to hers in the tent. Jessica, being the typical teenager, wasn’t too thrilled about being stirred out of her beauty rest. She grumbled and rolled back over, but that wasn’t deterring her mother who kicked her again repeatedly.

“Wake up you lazy bum. Look at this! How can you miss this? It’s incredible.”

“I’m sleeping!”, puffed a rather annoyed Jessica.

The sun crested the mountains in the distance and sent a streaming light that cascaded across the entire horizon. It was magnificent. Such transcendent beauty that appeared to traverse the entire continent, the entire world. A sunrise of a lifetime. And her daughter wasn’t budging.

Sarah watched the sunrise until it crested the trees and then went off to start looking for breakfast. She had assumed that her guides were already preparing it, she just had to find the one they called Gary. He was the honorary cook in the group. He told them his real name at the start of the tour, but there was simply no way that she would be able to pronounce that and so everyone now just called him Gary. It seemed rather rude to not use his real name, but it appeared that he was used to it now with the clients on these tours.

Gary was busy cooking food and she pulled up a plate with some of the other guests and idly chatted about how the day finally arrived. Today was the day, the day they would finally go out looking for lions. It was the sixth day on the guided tour, and they had seen so much of the amazing wildlife that Africa had to offer. But they hadn’t found the lions yet. Today was the day they would venture into the area where the guides knew there was two competing prides.

The guides had assured them that today was the day that they would finally find lions. The safari was focused on wildlife and by extension photography so quite a few world renown photojournalists and photographers regularly went out on these expeditions. Which made the guides good—very good. They excelled at their art, being able to traverse the plains and bring the many different tourists to the most picturesque landscapes and wildlife.

Jessica, hair scattered everywhere, finally joined Sarah at the table. Blurry eyed, seeing double, stuffing food rapidly into her mouth, she exclaimed, “Oh, it’s today isn’t it? The day all this magic is supposed to happen?”

“Yep. The day you wanted to see more than the rest as I recall. You’d never know it though, given I couldn’t drag you out of bed this morning.”

“You might have been able to drag me. Well, maybe not. But look, I’m up, fully prepared now to embrace the day!”

Sarah looked over at her daughter and just chuckled. As ready as she probably would get anyway. The safari, which was almost like a caravan in their line of trucks, started packing up and preparing to move deeper into the Serengeti. Most of the caravan would head to their next stopping point another day’s journey into the Serengeti, while the two trucks full of the wide-eyed tourists would venture off to find their elusive predators.

The excitement in the group was tangible. The camp was broken down, packed up, a bustle of excitement and commotion. Half the trucks had already departed as the tourists were being loaded into their respective trucks. Sarah and Jessica were among the first in the truck and had picked the ideal locations for viewing and photography. For all of Jessica’s jesting earlier, she was excited. This was the day she had been waiting for.

She hadn’t just been waiting for it, she had been planning it. For three years she had painstakingly planned this entire trip. She had worked incredibly hard for it as well. How many girl scout cookies does it take to earn enough money to go to Africa? It’s more than she could count, she knew that. And girl scout cookies were just the beginning of her saving for this adventure. There was bake sales, car washes, school functions, if someone could name it, she had done it to earn the money for her safari. And it was her safari, all these other people were guests on her adventure. Which means it was absolutely reasonable that she made sure she got one of the best seats.

She sat in the middle of the truck on the outside. Sarah sat directly in front of her. They both wanted the outside seats, in the middle of the truck. This ensured an almost perfect three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the Serengeti. It was spectacular, what a day this would be.

Jessica was literally bouncing in the seat with anticipation. Sarah couldn’t remember the last time she saw her daughter so engaged. Granted, she had been this star struck the entire journey, but it had been years since her daughter was filled with this much… she really didn’t even know how to describe it… this much… life. Years since she had been filled with this much life. She was alive, drinking in every moment of this exploration, and being completely enthralled with the experience. It was rewarding for a mother to see it. Sarah felt that she was watching her young daughter literally transform into the woman she would become on this trip. It was simply unforgettable. What a vacation. They would remember this trip for a lifetime.

The trucks rolled out across a blistering hot day. Even in the morning it was sweltering. The guides passed water around to all the passengers as the trucks started their laborious journey. They could travel a decent distance in a day, but even so it was slow going. These roads weren’t exactly interstate material. They churned along and the guides actively explained about the culture of the local people and about the history of the area. The presentation of the material worked to engage the guests as several hours passed as the caravan neared where it expected to approach the anticipated wildlife.

A guide was in the middle of explaining elephants in the area and he suddenly grew silent. Then he explained. “We are getting close now, you people. Very soon. We will stop talking for a while now and we watch, and we listen. Let us see what we see.”

The slow lumbering of the trucks continued as they crossed more ground. Heads swiveled and exclamations were silently expected, but after ten minutes the excitement seemed to subside and almost a depressing feeling collapsed on the event. Time slowly marched on, in an eerie silence. But there was still a hushed anticipation that was among the onlookers. And then Jessica saw them, a pride of about fifteen lions relaxed in the shade of several trees. The trees didn’t offer much shade, but the lions sprawled out in what there was.

Jessica stood up, an unconscious reaction to finally finding her objective, and of course the minute she rose every head in both vehicles swiveled to where she was looking. A muffled exclamation rose as everyone finally took in the view. Awe. Beauty. Magnificence. There were several simple wows that were heard throughout the crowd, perhaps that was the best description.

The trucks finally rolled to a stop, and cameras appeared from everywhere. The mad rush of clicking could be heard throughout the entire expedition as non-stop photographs were being captured. The group stayed for an hour, just basking in the joy of the experience. The guides seemed to keep an accurate heartbeat on the group and perfectly judged the timing of when the group was ready to move on and see new sites. Alhaadi, the talkative leader in their vehicle, asked if the group was ready to move on and was given the murmur of accent from the group at large. Sarah looked back at Jessica to see if she really wanted to move on, but she was already scrolling through her camera staring at the pictures to make sure she captured the ones she wanted. Apparently, she was good to go.

The driver turned-over the truck and fired it up and threw it into gear. Jessica and Sarah were in the front vehicle and it was preparing to roll out when it happened. It happened so quickly, no one even knew what was going on. The trucked just inched a foot forward and there was a bone-chilling scream.

The lioness came out of nowhere, full steam, running at max throttle right towards Jessica. Sarah whipped her head in the direction of the scream and half a heartbeat later let out a scream of her own. She was terrified, horror-struck. She could see exactly where the lioness was looking and its charge was nonwavering, and right for Jessica. The whole world slowed, every moment of a heartbeat taking an eternity. Sarah was half out of her seat, half crawling over it to get between her daughter and the charging lioness.

Jessica was in complete shock, entirely catatonic. She wasn’t even sure where she was in that moment, all she could see were those two eyes. They were pounding forward, directly at her, looking into her eyes. The gaze unwavering. Complete and utter focus, and tremendous speed. She was going to die, in that moment she knew it, she had a clarity of understanding she had never had in her life before. These were her final moments.

Sarah was thrashing and screaming almost in unison as she tried to get around the protective roll bars. She couldn’t make it to Jessica, she just didn’t have the time, the lioness was just moving too fast. There was nothing she could do. She screamed as much in terror as she did in helplessness. She had to protect her daughter! A mother should be able to protect her daughter!

The lioness’ charge morphed into a graceful leap directly toward Jessica—mouth open, jaws anchored, eyes transfixed. A single shot rang out. The lions body torqued in midair and slammed into the side of the truck with a whack and rush of air that was amplifying. A horrifying silence permeated the entire scene. No one said anything, no one moved. Sarah gulping in oxygen, still in a frenzy, she was not even sure of the emotion she was feeling. She was still half twisted over her chair and now was looking straight down at the lion. It was taking shallow breathes and had twisted and slowly crawled to be looking at the front of the trunk.

Sarah watched, in a stupor, as the lioness slowly was crawling for the front of the truck. Every move she made was dreadfully painful. Sarah noticed that the moves she made were very deliberate, intentional. She crawled several feet and then couldn’t go any further. She let out an almost silent whimper.

Then they heard the return whimper, but it wasn’t a whimper, it was a meow. The mortally wounded lioness made one more strangled noise, and the cub crawled from under the front tire and shuffled toward his mother. He crawled into her bosom and slowly nestled there.

She died. In one single last moment, her final breath slowly seeped out of her. A soft whistle, perhaps more of a wheeze. It was done. She died. She tried to protect her child, she tried so hard. She had given everything she could.