The rains had finally restarted. For at least a month before they finally returned the buffalo in the crater wandered back and forth searching for every blade of grass that still grew. Cyclone Ida had stolen every drop of water from East Africa for her tempest against southern Africa.
The ton-heavy buff could withstand a month or so with little to eat. They’d spent their lives chomping down 20 kilos of fodder daily, building the most formidable muscles on the veld, and the crater still had good sources of water and salt.
And the baby buff were OK, too. The mother’s milk remained plentiful and they didn’t start grazing until nearly a year old.
It was the juveniles who suffered. No longer fortified by mother’s milk they were expected to eat more voraciously than practically any living thing on earth, growing almost as fast as a mushroom in a forest.
But there wasn’t enough for them. So they were the first to weaken. They licked the abundant salt forming on the receding ponds as if it were grass, ingesting far too much. With too much salt the calcium wouldn’t deposit right. Their bones softened and they made themselves thirstier and thirstier.
What was worse was that the mothers no longer guarded them. From time to time the 2-year old juvenile would wine as if he were only a few months old, then instinctively the mother twisted around with that terrifying speed that so frightened hunters.
But as she stared at the juvenile waddling towards her, she seemed to look beyond him as if trying to remember something, then turned and ambled away.
When night descended on a drought-stricken plain the normal vigilance of the prey animals was horribly taxed. They all knew this was a feast time for the predators. They all knew that often the lions killed even when their bellies were full, just because it was so easy.
But the weakness the hot day left in them was too hard to overcome. Buff don’t see well. With them it’s all smell and sound.
Normally tightly packed together the herd drifted apart, some settling down to chew their cud, others stumbling a few feet further away when the nightjar swooped out of the darkness with its nearly inaudible chirp. Soon the juvenile was no longer in the middle where he’d learn to stay.
Soon he was at the edge of the herd. The temperatures dropped even more. His weak legs began to ache and he wanted to lie down. The breezes settled with what seemed the last distant whoop of a hyaena.
It was a full moon but thick clouds that would form rain in the morning passed in front of the night orb and the veld grew as dark as a black blanket.
The two gallant brother lion attacked.
It was amazingly quick. They’d watched the juvenile buff for hours, keeping low to the grass and at the edge of the forest. The patience they’d lose by morning had been intense. The juvenile drifted only inches every few minutes from the dissipating herd, but it seemed like hours before it was in reach of the brothers’ hiding place under an old dead tree that had fallen to the ground.
The smaller brother sank his fangs into the neck of the young buff and started the lengthy process of strangulation.
The young juvenile buff was still incredibly strong. It pulled itself backwards even as the lion held its head to the ground. It tried to wine or cry but the esophagus was squeezed shut by the lion’s massive jaw.
The second brother raced up to tug on the young buff’s rear foot trying to bring it back to the forest, somewhat at odds with his brother that was still struggling to make the ultimate kill. Then the buff’s leg snapped.
The snap of bone was crisp, clear and unusual. The whole buffalo family was mobilized as if by a siren. Females pushed to the front as they finally recognized the juvenile’s pathetic attempt to wine.
Now fully sensing the lion, the adult buffalo counter-attacked. The largest brother immediately let lose the leg and slapped one female buff on the side of her face with his long sharp claws, tearing some of the hide off her cheek. The adult buff groaned then swung her rack nearly cutting the lion in half.
The juvenile was losing strength fast. It had somehow managed to pull itself and its attacker a long way from the forest, but the smaller brother lion had gone seemingly unnoticed by the attacking buffalo who were still chasing the larger brother. Finally the juvenile buff collapsed on its legs, the one broken leg twisted strangely under its belly.
As the smaller brother unlocked his jaws the young buff gave out a horrific, loud dying moan. Dozens of adult buff pivoted on the spot and in an instant tore at him. Moments later a dozen giant horns flung angrily randomly all over the place as the killer lion gave way and ran to his brother on the dead tree sticking out of the forest.
The agitation among the buff was considerable. Dawn broke as three or four buff aggressively nudged the now dead juvenile. There were moans and loud coughs of hot, angry breath. The biggest males moved towards the tree limb where the lion lay sprawled looking at them, but despite how powerful they might have been on the ground, they couldn’t reach up to the tree limb.
The nudging of the dead juvenile and random vocalization subsided. More than ever now the buff needed water and salt, and there were still many mothers nursing many babies, and they in particular urged the pack to move away.
But the big males couldn’t make sense of the buffalo fur lying inert on the ground and it took many more minutes before with a grunt and fast twist of their head they quickly followed the females, abandoning the dead juvenile.
The smaller of the two male lion, the one who had made the kill, jumped to the ground, lowered himself slightly and slithered towards the carcass. The bigger brother joined him as soon as he heard his brother’s eating begin.
But the buff also heard the tearing of the hide and squeak of the lion’s steel teeth on the weakened bone, and back they ran, groaning and flailing their giant racks until the lion were practically surrounded. At the very last moment the smaller brother jumped away from a giant pointed horn that was about to kill him.
The two brothers ran back into the forest and hopped back onto the tree.
Several times in the early morning we watched this scenario recur. We were the first down into the crater at dawn and we got the best spot along the road to see it all.
With each episode the brother lions had a few more moments to feast on the juvenile. With each encounter the juvenile buffalo’s smells grew confused with the lion’s adrenaline and the strong innards spilled all over the plains.
Finally the buff seemed to wonder what they were doing. True, they hated lions and attacked them all the time, but not when they were so thirsty and in such dire need of salt.
Finally, hours after the original attack the family of buff crashed out of the forest leaving the two brother lions feasting on the carcass. Before long each would fill his tummy with 50 or more pounds of meat, enough to last several days at least.