Lion Road

Lion Road

I could distinguish at least three distinct roars, but I’m sure there were more. One came from the trail behind me, on the bluffs above the ravine. Another had come from in front of me—from a thicket about a hundred feet away that I could just make out in the moonlight. And there was another one somewhere even closer—right in the ravine. One would roar and then another of them would roar. Sometimes it seemed like the roars were being passed around in a circle.

Jeri came back from the water hole, handed me a full canteen and crouched at the base of a tree. “The lions are talking about whether or not to kill you.”

I knew what she said was true as soon as she said it, and it brought me some relief. The jury was still out. This was good. I could stay where I was and rest until morning.

The nearest of the lions roared again. After that it was quiet. I looked at Jeri. She shook her head. “As your attorney I must advise you against taking the stand.”

But this time she was wrong: it was my turn; I could feel it, and I could feel the chance slipping away.

It came out more like a song than a yodel, and more like a yodel than a shout, and more like a shout than a scream. It was nothing like a roar, except in spirit. It was part death song and partly an appeal.

I kept it simple: rounded vowels, a few labials when I needed some eighth notes. But mostly it was just long wails from the gut. I let the center of resonance move around my body: I stretched my arms out and opened and closed my fists until I could feel it in my hands. Then I put my legs into it, moving my weight from one foot to the other and twisting my shoulders and neck. Somewhere in there I said goodbye to my children, and after that the song was about the tall clumps of bunchgrass stretching across the plateau and the sandy hillocks and somewhere a horizon that I knew would be there with the dawn whether I was there or not.

Once I got going I was in no hurry to stop. It wasn’t so much my own death that I was singing about as just being alive in the cool air of a night that stretched in every direction farther than the icy stars, being alive and being alone and breathing the same cool air as the lions. There were whimpers and there were explosive syllables that laughed at the whole scene and somewhere behind a scrubby shrub the song brushed against some lion fur, warm and smelly and thicker and softer than I’d expected.

I ended with some barks that I thought would say my name. Then I shut up. And then it was quiet. I looked at Jeri. She shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“We may as well go,” I said.

We worked our way up the far side of the ravine. I let Jeri go first and followed about thirty feet behind her. It was me they wanted.

The lions had my back, if they wanted it. Miles to the northeast was a broad river and the camps and villages of our people. There was at least a full hour before dawn.