The Lion Who Stole My Arm Read Online Free PDF Page B

and closer.
    “They will lose their kill,” Issa said, handing the binoculars back to John.
    “Yeah!” John grinned. “That’s what I’m betting on — two hungry youngsters who missed out on breakfast.”
    Pedru steadied his hands and looked more closely at the lions. The smaller one, the one with the darker mane, had a notch in its left ear. Pedru felt his gaze traveling down the binoculars and out into the morning air.
    You don’t know it,
he told his lion,
but I’ve caught up with you at last.

    1 waterbuck: a large antelope found in grassland all over southern Africa

P edru watched as the hyenas stripped the waterbuck’s body and cracked its bones for the marrow. There was hardly anything left for the horde of hopping, squabbling vultures. The two lions skulked off and lay in the shade of an acacia a few hundred yards away, just visible through the heat haze with binoculars. The day was still, with no breeze to carry the scent of humans and make the lions wary. With all hope of recovering their kill gone, and no hunting to be done until nightfall, the lions slept. Pedru climbed down from the roof of the Land Rover to join Issa and the researchers, who were quietly planning their attack.
    Beth had plugged her camera into Renaldo’s laptop so they could look at her photos of the two young lions and compare them with the ID pictures. Even though the shots were taken from so far away, everyone agreed that the young lions were Puna’s two male cubs, Samir and Anjani.
    “So all we need to do now,” said John, “is get close enough to get a tranquilizer dart into Anjani, and his brother too, if we can.”
    “How close must you be?” Issa asked John.
    “You are speaking to the lion-darting champion of all of Africa here,” John said with a mock swagger, “but all the same, I need to be quite close to be sure of a good shot. Twenty-five, maybe thirty yards?”
    “Good — not as close as I thought,” said Issa. “They are very hungry, these lions. We can get them close if we have bait to tempt them.”
    “How about this?” Renaldo grinned, holding up a small, dead goat. “I got him out of the freezer just before we left our compound. He’s thawed out now.”
    “Mmmm, and getting smelly, too!” said Beth. “Perfect. Where should we put him, Issa?”
    Before Issa could answer, Pedru spoke up. He pointed to a short line of trees, beyond the acacia where the two lions slept.
    “Those waterberry trees,” Pedru said. “There will be water there, and the lions will be thirsty.”
    Issa nodded and smiled. “That is thinking like a hunter, Pedru. Very good.”
    The plan was that Issa and John would wait in the trees by the goat, each with a tranquilizer gun. Although Issa didn’t own a gun, he had used one many times and was a crack shot. With two guns, their chances of getting a dart into Anjani, or even darting both lions, were much greater.
    “We’ll use this, too,” John said, pulling a small plastic recording device from the back of the Land Rover. “It’ll play the sound of a bush pig squealing. The lions won’t be able to resist.”
    When the lions were tranquilized, John would call Beth and Renaldo to bring the collars from the Land Rover.
    “You will wait with them. It’s too dangerous for you to come with us,” Issa told Pedru. “I don’t trust these dart things,” he added in a whisper.
    Pedru had no intention of being left out of the hunt, even if it meant disobeying Issa, so he didn’t bother to argue. About an hour before dusk, as John and Issa were about to make their way to the waterberry grove with the dead goat, Pedru slipped his hand into John’s pack, took out the recorder, and hid it in his tent. He said good-bye to Issa and John and wished them luck. Then he waited.
    The sun sank and touched the horizon. By now John and Issa would be at the grove — too far away to come back to fetch the recorder.
    “They’ve left the recorder behind!” Pedru told Beth and Renaldo.