Born Wild by Tony Fitzjohn

driving aroundKora with an increasingly smelly dead goat in the back of the pickup and calling her every mile or so. We were doing this one afternoon a few miles from camp when I saw a small lion cub walking across a lugga and into a bush.
    I looked across at George and said I thought it might be one of Lisa’s. George harrumphed his disagreement but I jumped out to investigate. The sand in the riverbed was covered with the tracks of cubs – a good sign – so I pushed on further. The tracks led to a bush into which I gingerly stuck my head. There was an earth-shattering roar and a blast of hot breath hit me full in the face. I toppled over, falling flat on my back. I returned to the car, knees shaking and breath coming in panicked pants. George was chuckling happily and pointing behind me. It was Juma and we had disturbed her with her cubs. We hadn’t fed her for a while so I chained the carcass to a tree and we sat down to watch what would happen. They were all shy so we had to wait for a while, but after a few minutes Daniel and Shyman poked their heads out of the bush and tottered over to the carcass. Then Juma’s big head came out again. She looked around suspiciously. Suddenly, behind her, came Lisa’s three cubs – Kora, Lisette and Oscar – but not a sign of Lisa.
    We couldn’t work out what had happened. The cubs were very small and emaciated but they were alive and there was no way they could have looked after themselves and survived for almost a month on their own. We knew they hadn’t been with Juma because we’d been tracking her and her cubs. And they hadn’t been with Christian either. It was a mystery: one that remains unsolved as we never saw Lisa again and never found out what had happened to her.
    We were devastated. Lisa’s disappearance left a big hole in our lives. She was a lovely lioness – so friendly and trusting. But Juma was wonderful too, if in a different way. She immediately adopted Lisa’s cubs and looked after them from that day onwards. It washard work for her. She was a brilliant hunter but it was much harder hunting without Lisa, and five cubs were a lot for her to bring up on her own. In a normal situation she would have been part of a pride and the extra burden shared between a group of lactating lionesses, but Juma was alone. We helped out with babysitting duties while she went hunting and also with a bit of meat and cod liver oil every now and then. Amazingly it worked. Lisette, the weakest of Lisa’s cubs, had a hernia and died young but the others grew up to be strong and resourceful.
    Whenever George got a bit of money – from his publishers, his pension or supporters of the lion programme – he would give some to Terence to hire people from Asako to cut more roads. Terence and Erigumsa Dirkicha were utterly tireless and their expansion of Kora’s road network was fast, efficient and longlasting. Terence could make a little money go a very long way. We all had to. We did most of our vehicle maintenance in the bush, sometimes making spare parts out of wood and used inner tubes. Keeping old cars working on bad roads is extremely hard work but the police and provincial commissioner’s workshops in Garissa were extraordinarily helpful. They would take our cars into their workshop when I was in town and let us cannibalize parts from their crashed vehicles or borrow parts until we could replace them.
    Police Superintendent Philip Kilonzo was a constant support when we had illegal grazing and would send in patrols to move the herds out of Kora whenever we needed him to. In return we would always help his patrols with food and fuel when they were moving through Kora. One such patrol came through when George and I had been out with the lions. They had set up their tents too close along the road near Kampi ya Simba. The fence was there for a reason: we returned to find all the men lined up behind their officer being