'And lions bring fleas,' the older man had added quickly. Even then, Leon knew that his father was trying to take some of the scare from what he was about to say.
The elder Seronga told him that as kings of the plain, lions were privileged to sleep late every morning. When the cats woke, when they had yawned and preened, they would hunt zebra or antelope. Those were animals with meat on them, enough food to make a difficult chase worthwhile. Maurice assured Leon that lions ignored men unless they got in their way. Then the great cats would not hesitate to attack.
'For a snack,' Leon's father had said with a grin. 'Something to give to the cubs.'
Leon took the warning very, very seriously. The boy had once dangled a piece of hemp over the head of a small dog. It jumped up and bit Leon instead. The bite had hurt him terribly, burning and stinging at the same time. Even Leon's toes had tingled with pain. He could not imagine the agony of being dragged down by lions and bitten all over. But he had faith that would not happen. His father or the other men would protect him. That was what adults and leaders did. They protected the smaller members of the family or tribe.
Even the smaller men, like Leon.
On that great and majestic morning, the hunters from Moremi were after giant forest hogs. The brown-and- black bristled herbivores inhabited the intermediate zones between forest and grassland. That was where hog ponds and the reeds they liked could be found. A family of the animals had been spotted the day before by one of the men. The pigs moved in small groups and tended to become active not long after dawn, before predators were up and about. Leon's father had told him that it was important to catch the hogs when they were just beginning to forage. They knew the lions were not awake yet. That was when their attention was primarily on food and not on potential predators.
The men were successful that morning. They killed a fat old hog that had wandered from the group. Or maybe the group had wandered from the hog. Perhaps they had left it out there as sacrificial prey. The knee-high pig was speared by Leon's uncle, who had crept close from behind and then launched himself at the beast. Leon could still hear the animal's squeals of pain and confusion. He could still see that initial jet of blood from behind the pig's shoulder. It was the most exciting thing he had ever experienced.
Leon's father had rushed forward. The dying animal was flipped onto its side before the other hogs were even aware that anything had happened. The beasts did not scatter until Maurice had already knelt on the beast's shoulder, pinning it, and slashed its throat. The animal was quickly noosed with one of the ropes. That would prevent it from bleeding and attracting carrion feeders like silverbacked jackals. The blood would also keep the meat moist as they transported the heavy carcass under the searing sun.
While Maurice and his brother stanched the bleeding, the young boy and the other men found two long branches. These were quickly stripped with the knives and used as carrying poles. Before the pig was trussed, Maurice paused to slip a bloody finger between his son's lips. Then he bent very close to his son. He wanted the boy to see the conviction in his eyes.
'Remember this moment, my son,' the elder man said softly. 'Remember this taste. Our people cannot survive without shedding blood. We cannot exist without risk.'
Less than four hours after the men had set out, the animal had been slung loosely between the poles and was being carried home on the shoulders of the men. Leon walked to the side. His job was to hold the end of the noose and keep it tight. Leon was never so proud as when they walked into the village with his kill on the end of a leash.
The hog was a good-sized animal that fed the village for two days. After the meat was finished, its bones already carved into trinkets for sale to occasional tourists, another group of men went out to hunt. Leon was sorry not to be going with them. He was already thinking of tackling a zebra or gazelle and maybe even a lion. Leon even told his mother of his dream to kill a great cat. That was when he got his nickname. Bertrice Seronga told her son that only a prince could get close enough to kill a king.
'Are you a prince?' she asked.
Leon said that maybe he was. The woman smiled and began calling him Prince Leon.
Leon went on nearly 300 hunts during the next five years. By the time he was thirteen years old, Prince Leon was already leading his own parties. Since a son could not command his father, Maurice proudly withdrew from those hunts so that his son could learn about leadership. During that time, most of the kills were also his, though Leon never did slay a lion. But that was not his fault, he decided. It was the lions' doing. The king of beasts was much too smart to come within range of his spear.
Seronga wondered, then, if the lion is so powerful and so clever, who could kill it? The answer, of course, was death. Death killed the lion just as death must kill the most powerful of men. Leon wondered, though, if the lion was strong enough to hold death back. He had once watched a lioness die after making a rare solo kill of an antelope. He wondered if the lioness had expended herself in the chase. Or, knowing that she was soon to die, had she held off death long enough to enjoy this one, last chase.
In 1963, the world changed. Leon's thoughts turned from the habits of animals to the habits of men.
Hunting became more difficult as the men of the Batawana tribe had to go farther and farther to find game. At first, they thought the ranging habits of the animals had changed. Seasonal lightning strikes had caused fires that changed the landscape. Herbivores had to follow the grasses, and meat eaters had to follow their prey. But in 1962, men from the capital city of Gaborone and from London arrived in the small village by airplane.
At the time, Botswana was known as Bechuanaland. It was a British protectorate and had been so since 1885. It was being protected, Leon had been taught, from South African Boers and other aggressors. The white men from Gaborone and London told the Batawanans that the animals were being hunted out of existence. The men said that the tribespeople had to change the way they lived or eventually they would perish.
The men from Gaborone and London had a plan.
With the blessings of the elders of all the local tribes, the government transformed the entire floodplain and vast, surrounding areas into the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. Tourism rather than hunting would become the mainstay of the people of the region.
A good deal of money was paid to every family. Construction teams arrived by truck and airplane three weeks later. They razed the old village and built houses of wood and tin. Farther out, where there were no signs of civilization, they also built the Khwai River Lodge. They made that of stone and tile. Each week, the trucks that brought food to the lodge also brought food that the villagers could buy. Schools were established. Missions that had been responsible for education and medical care took a more active role in the running of the local villages. The old gods, gods of the hunt and of thunder, were displaced and forgotten. Radios and then television replaced storytelling. European-style clothes and jewelry and housing were coveted. Life became less arduous.
