She looked at him with mixed pity and disgust. “Maybe I should remove the temptation. I will go away--far away. Maybe you’ll find someone else to crouch with.”
“Why? Am I ugly?”
“No.”
“Stupid??”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then why not??”
“You are great for a story or a joke, but the thought of you mounting me makes me sick. Even pity won’t make me crouch for the likes of you. Understand?”
She turned to leave.
“You never know how long a single female can make it in this land.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Then, as if on cue, a hyena came up from the grass and growled menacingly. Gamu stood protectively in front of Elanna, then with a snarl chased the hyena off ferociously into the bushes.
Behind some bushes Gamu began to beat the earth, while Griz’nik began to shriek horribly. Gamu growled and tore into the earth, and Griz’nik made one heart-rending yip, then fell silent. Griz’nik got the rabbit he had cached away and watched with amusement as Gamu minced it in his jaws, soaking his face in blood, then wiping his mane with his paws to bloody them. “Not bad,” Gamu whispered.
Gamu returned to the shocked Elanna a bloody mess. “I saved you that time. But they will be back, and in greater numbers. You need me. Someday you’ll come to love me.” He nuzzled her, getting a spot of blood on her cheek.
She shrank from his touch. “If you respect me at all, you’ll keep this locked away inside of you and never mention it again. And unill I’m through my period, I’d really prefer that you sleep apart from me. Stay nearby, but don’t touch me.”
The icy silence that she began continued for some hours. Gamu was beginning to feel the isolation of his old rogue life coming back on him again, and he was listless and miserable. Finally, when hunger began to set in, he said, “Elanna, it’s time we tried to hunt, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
She had spoken! Hearing her voice again was a balm for his woes, and he did anything to hold her in conversation, becoming too talkative to seriously stalk prey. Instead they settled for making a new kill by watching the buzzards. Elanna knew how to watch the skies, and she soon spotted the wounded gazelle that had escaped one lion only to fall to another.
Gamu, who was very hungry, roughly grabbed the shrieking beast by the hindquarters and began to tear into the muscles of its haunch, satisfying his hunger with living flesh.
“Stop!” Elanna shouted. She drew close to the weakly-panting gazelle and said softly, “Think about Aiheu’s realm. Soon you will be out of pain.” She took the gazelle’s neck between her teeth and cut off its breath. And in a few moments, when the body had slumped into a final slumber, she looked up at Gamu. “What’s with you, anyway?? Can’t you wait for a clean kill? You hunt the way you woo females!”
The birds began to gather, but Gamu looked up hatefully. He was already angry, and their unwanted company set him off. “Stupid birds! Piss off!”
The vultures looked at each other, stunned.
“I said piss off!”
They took to the air before he had a chance to charge them, but then they circled maddeningly just out of reach of his leaps and shouted at him, “Gamu, Gamu! Naughty boy! We know who you are and we know what you did!”
He was mortified. He shouted “I’ll pluck you and eat you!”
“You can’t fly!”
“And you can’t fly forever! You’ll have to land sooner or later!”
“Promises, promises! Look at the naughty kitty! Time someone taught him some manners!” They flew off, laughing.
Gamu stalked back to Elanna who stared at him. “So, what are YOU looking at!”
“What did they mean? They know who you are and what you did?”
“It’s between them and me. Besides, how should I know? Maybe he saw Kubali trying to seduce me. Just drop it.”
She looked away from him. “If you say so.”
“I didn’t mean to snap. Sorry, my dear. I just hate buzzards, that’s all.”
CHAPTER: A WAR OF ATTRITION
A lone lion made his way through the grass with the fearful, empty tread of the recently exiled. His old friends, his family, and his familiar grounds were behind him, perhaps forever, but this time he did not seek solace in a new beginning. He bore an extra weight on his shoulders that made his ears a little flatter, his tail a little lower and his step a little slower than most.
“Oh gods,” he muttered to himself, for he was once again his only audience. “Oh gods, what could I have done? What could I have said differently? I was happy, truly happy and willing to spend my life with her! She wouldn’t even tell me what I did? One moment she loved me, and now she has driven me away, and all I want to do is go to sleep and never have to wake up!”
Memories of the blissful moments he had spent with Elanna came crowding over him, torturing him in his loneliness. If only Gamu had known what his lie had caused, he would have reveled in perverse satisfaction. Kubali fell to the ground and sobbed. “Oh gods, you’ve taken away everything I lived for! Why not let me die! Oh gods!”
Unaware of the extent of his mischief, Gamu was busy trying to solidify his claim on Elanna. He felt victory, complete victory, waited for him over the next rise or behind the next rock.
Gamu alternated fear and tenderness, playing on Elanna’s helplessness and setting himself up as her one salvation. So far it had not resulted in a mating with Elanna, the mark of his absolute and utter destruction of Kubali. Knowing that Kubali had something that had eluded his grasp was more frustrating than his unfulfilled desire.
She refused him consistently. Once, in the throes of passion, he followed her about with a tense purring in his throat. He reached out with a paw and shoved her rump down, starting to mount her willingly or unwillingly. She turned about smartly and cuffed his face with all her might. As he lay stunned on the ground, she snarled at him. “Touch me there again and I’ll leave scars visible at night!”
She got very little sleep throughout the next day and night. She was afraid of him, almost as afraid as she was of the hyenas.
The end of her receptive period offered Elanna some relief from his constant entreaties, but his war of attrition shifted to other fronts. He went from a prospective lover to a caretaker.
“Lannie, if you will pledge to me, I will find a pride where you can be a queen again. You could hunt with pride sisters again as you once did. You can be respected.”
It went on subtly, day after day. Like water running across once baked earth, he began to gently, patiently wear gullies in her firm resolve. She did not grow to find him handsome, but she began to submit to his kissing her. She never kissed him back, but Gamu felt that would come with time. “It’s like that hyena game, whatever in hell that little weasel called it.”
Flush with what he perceived as signs of success, Gamu was more bold in taking leave of Elanna to chat with Griz’nik and keep him apprised of his progress. With a plan that ingenious, Gamu had to brag to someone or he would burst at the seams.
Never did Gamu pay any head to the circling buzzard overhead who watched--and listened carefully.
CHAPTER: MARKAAAGH’S ERRAND
Markaaagh saw what he thought was a dying lion. He had a personal preference, hoping it was not Kubali. Despite his professional detachment, he had grown rather fond of the polite, intelligent lion. He lighted next to him, hoping to at least say something to ease his torment at the end.