Londolozi

Londolozi Game Reserve, South Africa. 

I scramble to my feet and hurl myself at the tree. My legs are clumsy. My heart beats in my mouth. The tree is old and dead; the trunk grey and knobbly. I reach, fumbling for handholds. 

And look back. 

The leopard's head emerges from the bank above the river. She shakes herself. And sees me.

I jump, grab onto a stub of branch and haul myself up. My boots and knees scrape on the bark.

The leopard bursts up from the bank and runs after me. She leaps at the tree trunk. Reaches up a paw. Her claw rakes my leg and hooks onto my boot. She's pulling me back down.

I have my arm around a branch now. I kick the paw with my other boot. Leather rips. The leopard tears at the bark, lets go and drops to the ground.

I climb farther up.  

The leopard pads back and forth below me, grumbling: tawny body, dark brown spots. Young, but big enough. She strolls over to where my backpack lies and begins to maul it. Food. She shakes it from side to side. 

The sun beats down through the grey branches of my dead tree. I'm sweating, breathing heavily. I have no voice; I can't make my voice cry out. I just want to throw up. 

I've been so stupid: My first safari and we'd stopped for lunch. 

I wanted to photograph crocodiles in the Sand river, but the others didn't. When the river was just over there! So I wandered away from the jeep, leaving the small, tedious party behind. With my backpack slung over one shoulder, I slipped into the bush. 

Through a cluster of trees, I found a shallow escarpment: a steep bank, down to the river. An old dead Jackalberry overhung its weary, slow moving surface. The day was hot and heavy. 

I was disappointed: no crocodiles. In fact, hardly any wildlife at all; the bush was empty and silent. I hadn't even taken my camera from—

A heavy punch knocked me off my feet. Yanked away my backpack. 

I landed, stunned, in the dust.

From the corner of my eye I caught the leopard scrabbling at the edge of the bank and rolling away down towards the river. She'd misjudged her landing. But for the backpack, I'd be horribly dead. 

Somehow I got myself up and ran for the dead Jackalberry tree. 

It was then I saw the leopard rise up from the river bank.

I see her now, pacing below me, grumbling; frustrated by the backpack .

Inadvertently, I snap a branch. The leopard looks up. The backpack leaves her mind. 

She pads nonchalantly over to the base of the tree. Her cold green eyes lock onto mine. Her lips stretch back. Her mouth gapes with smooth, wet fangs. 

The leopard begins to climb, clawing her way up slowly. She's not in any hurry; she places each paw meticulously. Her muscles ripple. Her green eyes never leave mine.

I climb faster. Awkwardly, because I'm a feeble human and wear boots; and because I'm in pain: my calf has been sliced. Blood oozes into my boot and leaves red smudged on the bark.

The tree trunk forks into a pair of grey limbs. A pair of baboons bark excitedly above me. Normal diet for a leopard, right? So I work my way onto the other limb which extends horizontally, well over the river. I'm clumsy; in danger of falling off. I have to turn, sit and straddle the limb, shuffling backwards over the water. 

The leopard pauses where the tree divides and considers the skinny baboons leaping confidently between dead branches. Then she considers me: nearer, wriggling rearwards; boots swinging gracelessly in the air beneath.

She's not stupid. 

She sniffs a smudge of my blood and follows me. A superb climber: claws sinking deeply into the wood; balance perfect; body tight to the limb. Eyes unblinking. 

She's stalking me.

I wipe sweat from my face with my dirty sleeve and work my way backwards; facing the leopard. Keeping my distance. I snag my safari shorts; fabric rips. I hear a goat bleating, but it's me: whimpering. I try to shout, but all I produce is a high-pitched strangling, lost among the scrub.

The leopard inches closer. She licks her lips! She'd leap but we are over the river bank, We'd be in the water. 

A dead branch, not much better than a thin stick. I I break it off and thrust it at leopard. She bats it away with a claw. It spins down to the river. 

The leopard yawns. She yawns! A pink cave of a mouth; fangs like pointed fingers.

I would try kicking, but I'd lose my grip. My pockets. Something to throw, perhaps land in her mouth; unbalance her. I pull out a cigarette lighter. Throw it. The thing bounces off the leopard's forehead. She blinks and we both watch the lighter follow the stick into the sludgy water below.  

And, yes. 

Now there are crocodiles. 

I cough a hysterical laugh. The crocodiles are like something out of a children's book: mouths yawning, waiting for me to fall into the rows of wet teeth.

They aren't stupid either. Only me. 

The crocodiles contemplate me nudging farther and farther out and the tree limb becoming a branch. It's more and more difficult to balance. The branch sways up and down as I shuffle. 

The leopard won't give up. She keeps following me, working on her own balance now. 

We creep farther out over the water. The branch bends a bit more with both our weights. And creaks. When it goes, it'll snap suddenly. 

The leopard has also been looking down at the crocodiles. But I'm irresistible. She creeps a little nearer. So close now. A tentative paw reaches out, a few inches from my thigh. Like she's beckoning me. I can smell her sweet, meaty. breath.

  High up on other branches the baboons, are watching us. They look entertained, smirking at each other.. 

The branch bends and creaks. 

I look at the leopard. 

The leopard looks worried. But not half as worried as I am.

The branch creaks again.