Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3: THREE RESCUES MORE

There was a superstitious belief within the African landscape, believed by many of the animals and denied by many of the others, that black leopards are embodiments of great misfortune. The same superstition was not widely believed by Asiatic creatures, due to black leopards being far more plentiful in Asia. The king cheetah could only hope that his clan’s matriarch would be comfortable with a black leopard being amongst her clan, and that she would not lose too many subordinates if she accepted the black leopard cub into her clan.

It was approaching sunset around the time that the king cheetah and the painted dog made it back to their clan with the two leopard cubs from the previous chapter. The clan had begun feeding on a rhinoceros mother whom their black-backed jackal companions found trapped in dried mud. The rhinoceros’ skin was too thick for the jackals to have bitten into themselves, and they luckily had the powerful jaws of their hyena clanmates to make the rhinoceros meat accessible to them. (The thought of a rhinoceros being eaten alive may offend some people, as rhinoceri and elephants in vulnerable situations are susceptible to predation by lions and spotted hyenas. Alas, feelings and pain matter not in the Animal Kingdom –– survival does. Furthermore, the rhinoceros would have taken even longer to die if she was left in the dried mud.)

The rhinoceros mother’s eleven-month-old calf was watching from a distance, who apparently did not become trapped in the mud with their mother. The king cheetah and the painted dog noticed the rhinoceros calf as they approached their clan, with the mother having become numbed at that point to the pain inflicted by the hyenas’ jaws. It helped her that spotted hyenas are fast eaters, in order to consume as much meat as possible without their prey being stolen by lions.

The brown hyena and the ring-necked spitting cobras were dismissed from guarding the king cheetah and the painted dog as soon as they made it back to their clan’s territory with the two leopard cubs. The brown hyena carried the cobras, coiled around his neck, back to their burrows. The aardwolf and the bat-eared fox curiously wandered toward the rhinoceros calf upon returning to the king cheetah’s clan.

When the king cheetah and the painted dog were close enough to their clanmates for them to have seen both of the cubs, some of the spotted hyenas had unsettled reactions upon seeing the black leopard cub. The clan matriarch and the jackal family seemed indifferent, but curious as to why the cheetah and his mother returned with two leopard cubs, particularly with one of them being melanistic.

The hyena matriarch approached the king cheetah and the painted dog. “What is the purpose of bringing these cubs here?”

“We found their mother killed,” answered the king cheetah. “My whole upbringing, I have been called a cheetah-leopard. I believe that these cubs are my half-siblings, as I am sure that I am the offspring of a cheetah and a dark leopard. Why else would I have bright skin, yet such large dark markings? Neither a cheetah nor a bright-coated leopard has markings as large as mine are.”

The hyena matriarch thought that was a considerable statement, as well as an interesting one. “I see, but tell me –– assuming I am correct and you are interested in raising these cubs, why is that so? Male cheetahs and male leopards do not raise young, and you are male yourself.”

“A male I am, but my bloodline is tainted as a result of me being of unnatural procreation, so I cannot efficiently breed. I have an opportunity now to assist in the survival of the felids by raising my half-siblings under the protection of your clan, just as I have been raised under.”

The painted dog spoke on her cheetah son’s behalf. “My son has assisted in many hunts for our clan. Is the right for him to see these cubs toward maturity the least that is owed to him?”

The king cheetah could have attempted to raise the cubs without the clan’s involvement, but it was as obvious to the hyena matriarch as it was to the cheetah and the painted dog that the black leopard cub would have been much more vulnerable to any creature who would have wanted to exterminate her. Both of the cubs were female.

“I understand your wish,” said the hyena matriarch to the king cheetah. “I have no qualms with what you ask of, but there are members of my clan who seem as though they are discomforted by the thought. They would not be obliged to remain in my clan, so is one dark leopard cub and their littermate worth losing ten or fifteen members of my clan? If not more?”

The king cheetah knew that would be an inevitable valid argument, for which he had sent the Egyptian vulture to retrieve a friend of his to speak for him. Luckily for him, his friend arrived just in time, letting out a non-aggressive roar to inform the hyena clan of his appearance.

His friend was the white lion, who led a pride of lions not far from the king cheetah’s clan. He was the only white lion male within fifty square miles of the clan’s territory, and the mightiest lion within a hundred square miles. Contrary to the misperception that white lions are less likely to survive than normal lions, white lions benefit from moonlit nights, sandy riverbeds, tall vegetation, and winter grasses to the point of being equally successful hunters as tawny-colored lions.

No creature in the landscape was more curious of the king cheetah’s capabilities than the white lion, with his coat and his mane as white as ice. How the “cheetah-leopard” would triumph in Mother Nature’s test of survival, with his coat as bright-colored as a cheetah’s or a white lion’s and his black markings drastically larger than those of cheetahs and leopards, was a source of curiosity like nothing else for the white lion.

The hyena matriarch greeted the white lion. “I suppose you have something to say relating to the cheetah-leopard’s finding?”

“You are correct,” responded the white lion. “I mean not to boast, but I am regarded by many inhabitants in our lands as a personification of purity and royalty. Why are there so many within your clan who seem perturbed by the dark leopard cub, seeing as I can attest that there is no harm in a dark leopard?”

There was a silence before the white lion continued speaking. “For such a being as the dark leopard who is believed to bring bad fortune onto any creature with whom they cross paths, I consider it quite a lucky coincidence that the dark leopard cub was brought to your presence at the same time that your clan is feasting on a whole rhinoceros. Enough fresh meat will remain for the male hyenas in your clan, who always eat last, to fill themselves. If that is not a blessing, it would intrigue me to hear what you would consider to be such.”

The hyenas who were initially wary of the black leopard cub proceeded to look at each other as though they were considering all that the white lion said to them. After all, spotted hyenas in captivity have been observed displaying cooperative problem-solving skills that were superior to those of captive chimpanzees. That is not a feature of a non-intelligent animal, and spotted hyenas are intelligent –– so were any of the clan’s hyenas seriously going to buy into a superstition that the white lion thought was obviously preposterous?

“You may mark my words that if I am wrong about the dark leopard cub, I am not so good a judge of a creature’s worth as a white lion ought to be. If that were to be the case, then may I be regarded as inferior to the lineage of the cubs I eradicated upon winning my authority over my pride.” Whenever a male lion takes over a pride, he will kill the former pride ruler’s cubs in order to make the lionesses receptive to mating. There would have been no insult greater to a lion than to have been told that his genetics were unworthy of passing on.

“I have something to say,” a deep voice said abruptly.

It was the rhinoceros mother, who still had her consciousness. She was in no state of suffering. “I place no fault onto the dark leopard cub for my fate. As soon as I became stuck in this mud, I was relying on the mercy of any flesh-tearers who would help me perish more quickly. Soon, I will be a mountain of leavings for the vultures to drive their beaks into. I understand the circle of life just as fully as those whom I am helping to nourish.”

She then spoke to the king cheetah. “I believe it to be fate that brought you to your half-siblings, if these cubs truly are of relation to you. May I ask one thing of you?” The cheetah walked towards the rhinoceros mother, signaling to her that he was giving her his full attention. He figured he knew exactly what she was about to ask.

“My calf is nearby. As you raise your half-siblings, let my daughter be of value to you and your clan so that she may live to maturity.” Fortunately for her, the king cheetah had already been thinking about the rhinoceros calf. He was going to ask the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox, whom the calf was already acquainted with, to identify the calf’s sex until the rhinoceros mother confirmed that her calf was female.

The king cheetah turned towards the hyena matriarch. “Indeed, the calf could be of immense use to us.”

“How so?” asked the hyena matriarch. “Would devouring the calf not be more convenient for our clan?” The white lion was intending to claim the rhinoceros calf as his own prey, but he too was curious about the king cheetah’s reasoning.

“The calf and her mother are both wide-lipped rhinoceri. Have you noticed that the rhinoceri in our lands have either beak-shaped upper lips or widely shaped upper lips? The wide-lipped females are more social than the beak-lipped rhinoceri, and what luck that the calf in our presence is a wide-lipped female.” The African rhinoceros species are classified by humans as the hook-lipped rhinoceros and the square-lipped rhinoceros, but seeing as humans are more likely than animals are to be familiar with hooks and polygons, ‘beak-lipped’ and ‘wide-lipped’ are also accurate names.

“That would seem to explain why the calf did not get stuck in the mud with her mother,” continued the king cheetah. “The mother seems to have been foraging away from the group while her calf was asleep and surrounded by other adult rhinoceri.” In his endless desire to better understand the creatures with whom he coexisted, the king cheetah had learned that groups of square-lipped rhinoceri consist of females and their calves with the assistance of the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox, who were able to identify the sexes of the adult rhinoceri as they searched their waste for dung beetles. It would be needless to say that the cheetah’s pursuit of knowledge proved to be most useful.

“Enlighten us as to how a rhinoceros’ social habits would benefit us,” requested the hyena matriarch. She had to press him, but she had no doubt that the king cheetah would be able to validate everything that he was telling her. If any carnivorous mammal knew an exceptionally intelligent big cat when they saw one, it was a spotted hyena matriarch.

The king cheetah did, of course, support his reasoning. “I have seen mature wide-lipped females in groups of six, not counting their calves. If your clan protects this calf as she reaches adulthood, we could allow her to congregate with other wide-lipped females when she becomes old enough. Our clan would be able to offer enhanced protection for her fellow rhinoceri and their calves, and having a group of rhinoceri amongst our clan would be a perfect deterrence against territorial rivals for us as well.”

The father of the clan’s jackal family also had his questions for the king cheetah. “What of the threat of lions, other than the white lion’s pride? If we host a rhinoceros calf within our clan, would a sizable pride of hunger-driven lions be able to overpower our clan? And prey upon the calf?”

“You ask an important question, Father Jackal,” replied the king cheetah. “My cobra companions, with their ability to shoot blinding venom, can assist in deterring lions.”

“Even starving lions?” asked the hyena matriarch. “You know as well as I do that a mongoose will avoid a lion on their first impulse, but is quite able to fend off four lions at once as a last resort means of survival. You can imagine what an entire pride of lions would be capable of doing to our clan to satisfy their hunger. Would you be willing to bet on your half-siblings’ lives that the cobras would be enough to deter them in that circumstance?”

The king cheetah did not have an immediate answer to that question, but the white lion responded on his behalf. “Of any pride in many tens of miles, mine is the largest. That would remain so if I lent you half a dozen of my lionesses for until the rhinoceros calf becomes mature, on the condition that if I unexpectedly perish during that time, your clan will rescue and raise my cubs to preserve my bloodline.”

Every subordinate hyena in the clan was looking to their matriarch as though the king cheetah made all the sense in the African continent for why they should raise the rhinoceros calf, and as though the white lion’s offer rendered the opportunity unpassable.

The Egyptian vulture had his say as well. “No creature has more knowledge of Egypt of old than us pharaoh’s chickens. I can confirm from many firsthand observations that the intellect of the cheetah-leopard, as you call him, is worthy of the pharaohs.”

The hyena matriarch already had her mind made up prior to the Egyptian vulture expressing himself, but she took a quarter of a minute to act as though she was processing everything she had heard. She then declared her decision, about both the rhinoceros calf and the leopard cubs.

“The cubs and the calf will be raised under our clan’s protection,” announced the hyena matriarch. The clan’s female hyenas quickly proceeded to feast on the rhinoceros mother. The white lion began to make his way back to his pride’s territory.

The king cheetah waited with his mother, the black-backed jackals, and the male spotted hyenas to dig his own teeth into some rhinoceros meat. The jackals killed the time by joining the aardwolf, the bat-eared fox, and the Egyptian vulture in acquainting themselves with the rhinoceros calf. Getting the calf accustomed to a clan of spotted hyenas would be an incremental process, so the male hyenas remained near their female clanmates.

The king cheetah had a moment with his painted dog mother before they approached the rhinoceros calf themselves. “What a set of circumstances this is. You and I, a clan of hyenas, a family of jackals, my circle of companions, and now two leopard cubs and a rhinoceros calf are all sharing territory with each other, none of which would have ever been possible were it not for you. You united hyena and jackal. You did as superbly a job as any dog could have done in raising a felid, due to which I am here now with the chance of my own to raise young. Until you find other members of your kind to join, will you help me rear these cubs? I can think of no one more suitable to ask.”

The painted dog looked down towards the leopard cubs, and lowered her head to rub her snout against them. The cubs both swiped their paws against her snout, and then she gave her answer. “I never anticipated the surprises that you are full of. You are, yourself, a uniter of the pharaoh’s chicken, the shaggy [brown] hyena, the spitting cobras, and the termite-lickers [the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox.] Now you are also a uniter of leopard, rhinoceros, our hyena clan, and our jackal family. A creature would have to be very extraordinary to astound the white lion, and you are extraordinary. I could leave our clan someday, but I decide now that I would enjoy staying in greater measure.”

The king cheetah and the painted dog carried the leopard cubs as they made their way toward the rhinoceros calf, who seemed comfortable enough with her new company. The brown hyena, who was looking to get some rhinoceros meat himself, returned to wait alongside the cheetah and his mother.

Sand and winter and moonlight, all hide the hunters of white.

Strong as the lions of tawny brown, the white beasts have optimal brawn.

Dignified as they are powerful –– wisdom and canines, contained in their skulls……

And all prides led by mane of colorless hair, are destined to thrive anywhere.

–––– Anthem for the White Lion