Ghosts of Tsavo by Philip Caputo

Author:Philip Caputo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2002-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

CHASING THE CHIMERA

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with…

—Macbeth

May 16, 2001—Kanderi Camp, Tsavo East

I WAKE UP just before six, roused out of a nightmare by the sound of a camp attendant pouring hot water into the bucket outside my tent. The nightmare was one of those quasi-hallucinatory narratives induced by Lariam. In literary terms, Lariam dreams are pre- rather than postmodern, having a logical structure—beginning, middle, end. As soon as my eyes open, the story flees my mind. All I can remember is that I was locked in a spiritual battle with some vague satanic force, and that I won. Despite the triumph, a sense of an evil presence lingers as I splash smoke-scented water on my face, dress, and watch the morning stars vanish one by one.

The creepy-crawlies leave me as I eat breakfast in the mess tent with the rest of the cast: Dr. Craig Packer and his protégée Peyton West from the University of Minnesota; Ogeto Mwebi, a soft-spoken Kenyan who heads the osteology department at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi; zoologist Dennis King and his companion, Sarah Hamilton; our safari outfitter, Verity Williams; and photographer Bob Caputo, who is no relation to me, as evidenced by the disparity in our stature: Close to six five, he’s got me by nine or ten inches.

The meal is a rushed, dietetic affair—a slice of toast, a bowl of cereal, coffee. We need to get into the field before the day turns hot and sends the lions into hiding. We divide up into teams, with each assigned a destination, and drive out of our camp at the edges of the Kanderi swamp. Peyton and I are in the Land Rover that she and Craig brought up from Tanzania. We head west, toward a place called Ndololo, where we’ve been told a lion pride has taken up residence. The vehicle has seen hard use, and looks it. Peyton handles it skillfully and is at ease with the right-hand steering, which isn’t surprising. She’s spent the better part of the past few years piloting this battered box of steel and rubber around the Serengeti, seeking to discover why lions grow manes. She will be in Tsavo for the next 23 days investigating the question from the opposite angle: Why do the lions here not grow manes?

Beyond that, she and Craig will try to determine if Tsavo lions really are different by studying their behavior, and they’re going to do that by subjecting them to a series of experiments using two life-size dummy lions that were employed for the same purpose in Tanzania. The dummies are Craig’s innovation. They were made in Hong Kong, according to his specifications, and each lion can be coiffed with one of four imitation manes sewn in different lengths and colors. To make sure the colors were authentic, Craig had supplied the Hong Kong manufacturers with mane hairs taken from real lions. Thus, each dummy can assume one of four identities.

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