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He lay low, in a kind of declivity—not a Lion’s usual response to aggression, but how was he to know? Before long a quartet of uniformed men came near. They pitched their tent, and lit their campfire, within a few yards of where he had dropped like a felled potterpine. It took the Lion a few moments to realize they were responsible for the portable thunder. The rifles leaned against one another, reeking still of burnt gunpowder.
He was afraid his body odor would give him away, or the rumbling of his stomach. The hunters were noisy from drink, though, and he had nothing much to fear from them except what he learned about hunting. They traded tales of knocking off deer, skinning and mounting ocelot, tanning the hide of elk, beheading lions and having their skulls stuffed with sawdust and their teeth waxed. And spheres of polished onyx inserted in the emptied eye sockets.
Brrr’s blood went slow, as if turning to gelatin. Even when the last hunter had nodded off, and the campfire collapsed into bright char and hiss, his whiskers never twitched. Were the hunters to sniff him out, stand over him and give him a head start at the count of ten, he wouldn’t have been able to move. The bombast of hunterly boasting had hexed his limbs into basalt.
The hunters woke before dawn. One of them all but pissed on Brrr, but the guy was sufficiently hungover not to notice. They kicked sand over their campfire and hoisted their rifles and packs, and crashed like rhinos away from Brrr’s sanctuary.
He resigned himself to living in hiding for the rest of his life: to remain a rogue, unattached and unnoticed. And safe. Though what kind of a life would that be? He remembered with the instant nostalgia of youth the Lurlinists singing their anthems, the rare hikers chatting over landmarks, the lovers twisting by firelight against each other, as if trying to relieve a fatal itch. The choice of renunciation he was making was gloriously disappointing and refreshingly sad.
It was his first adult decision and therefore almost immediately revoked. A few days later he stumbled—literally—across the inaugural test of his mettle.
Evening. Brrr had been on the lookout for a growth of sweet forest pumpkin, which he especially favored. He hadn’t seen the fellow on the ground, and he’d stepped right on him. The pressure of his paw had awakened the hunter out of a torpor of pain. “Help,” said the man. Brrr leaped back, as terrified as he was surprised.
It was the youngest of the four hunters, the least offensive, though no saint either, by the stench. The fellow’s leg had been all but snapped off in a trap of some kind. Flies were making a banquet of the pus.
“Open the trap,” begged the poor sod. “Let me free, or else eat me at once. I’ve been here days beyond telling.”
Surely it can’t be more than three days, thought Brrr, but he didn’t contradict.
“I can’t bear another night,” claimed the fellow.
“The very dark,” said the Lion. This didn’t seem enough, so he added, “Isn’t it very very fright-ful?” It was his first remark to anyone other than himself, so it was the first time he heard himself sound like a pantywaist. What was that all about?
“I beg you. Mercy, for the love of the Unnamed God.”
The Lion backed up, his rump high in the air, his whiskers a-twitter.
“Release me or do me in—one or the other,” said the man, and fell to moaning. “Kill me and you can chew this wretched leg off my torso at last.”
“Actually, I’m very vegetarian,” said the Lion, proud of the actually. Is this how conversation was supposed to go? Your turn.
The young man reached again, for what must have been the ten thousandth time, to try to open the trap by force, but the thing was built to hold. He hadn’t the strength by himself, and the trap wouldn’t yield.
“You pull that side and I’ll pull the other,” said the fellow. “Together we can open it. Then, maybe you could cart me to a settlement, or at least to a stream. I’ve been rotting here with nothing to drink but the dew I could lick off the vegetation.”
But the Lion found the teeth of the trap alarming. “That’s a very iron mouth,” he observed. “Far too very dangerous. Look what it’s done to you.”
“It’s sprung, it can’t spring again. Hunter’s traps don’t work like that.”
Brrr shook his head.
“You imbecile. You flathead. I’m begging you—”
“I can’t risk it. There are those who rely on me for support,” said the Lion, thinking: Myself, for one, and one is enough. “Besides, I haven’t those curving shrimplike fingers you have. I can’t just purr the thing off you, you know.” He was trying for a jocular tone, but it seemed to lack smack, and the hunter’s distress was, well, distressing. Brrr pawed about, keeping a fair enough berth, sniffing and tossing his mane. “So this is a hunter’s trap, and you’re a hunter. And I’ve just put the two concepts together. Aren’t you a little bit very ashamed of yourself?”
“I’ll give you anything. Every nickel florin I own. My father’s cottage—it’s freehold, no mortgage, running water, two fireplaces, stunning views.”
“A cottage among very human cottages?”
“Nicely done up. You wouldn’t even have to redecorate.”
“Cottages filled with the fathers of hunters? I don’t think so.”
The man fell back, stunned into silence, and then began to weep. Quietly, noxiously. The Lion was appalled and faintly offended. This wasn’t quite as much fun as he’d imagined. The human raised himself on an elbow and managed quaveringly to say, “You have a pride nearby—someone old enough to know how to show mercy to a stranger in your kingdom…”
“I’d go for help,” said the Lion, “but I’m afraid no one is very near.”
“Help is near enough. If not from your clan, then from mine. I just got separated from my pals. Not long ago, really. They probably only made it back to the base camp by now. And look, in case the base camp has pulled up stakes, there’s a small cadre of the Wizard’s forces stationed at Tenniken. I’m one of their number—hunting with my mates on behalf of the regiment. They’re loyal to the Wizard of Oz! They will come for me if you tell them where I am. Soldiers don’t abandon their own.”
