Of Leopards and Men

After seven years as the officer in charge of Monk’s Cowl, the valley gave Alan Howell a farewell that he would not easily forget.

It was the evening of 14 March. Paul and Sue Ross arrived for supper at the gate, which was locked, so Alan decided to walk from his house, down the unlit road, to open up for them. It was a cool evening. Gentle rain had fallen that afternoon and the moon was shrouded in cloud, but there was enough dim light to find his way. He had walked this road a thousand times.

As he approached the boom, he froze: not fifteen metres ahead, silhouetted against the spreading beam of the security light, was the shape of a very large cat. It, too, stopped, and the two were locked, eyeball to eyeball, for a couple of heartbeats that passed in super-slow motion.

Thump.

Alan’s brain processed information at a rate that would have made IBM’s eyes water. ‘Okay,’ he thought, ‘it can’t be a serval: too big, the ears aren’t pointed, and the tail’s too long. Crikey, it’s a leopard!’

Thump.

The leopard, meanwhile, was doing its own calculations. ‘Apple sauce,’ it thought.

As if in response, Alan’s next reflex was defence. He reached to his belt: just his penknife. In an instant, he was transported back six thousand years, clad in animal skins, alone, and thoroughly exposed. He looked around for a rock.

Thump.

The leopard, meanwhile, calling on inherited memories of its own, recognized the movement of Alan’s hand. ‘Sorry, but some other time, human,’ it thought, and took off at pace up the hill, and into the dark.

Thump… thump… thumpthumpthumpthumpthump…

Adrenalin pumping and not daring to look behind him, Alan ran to the gate. After opening, Paul said, ‘Geez, you look psyched up; I’ll race you back to the house.’ ‘No ways, Bru,’ said Alan. ‘Let me in, right now!’

It’s a great story – Alan will tell it to his grandchildren as they sit around the fire on cold Canadian evenings, reminiscing about his halcyon days in Africa – but it’s not new. The funniest Bushman painting is in a cave near Didima Gorge. It shows a Bushman running, stick-legs in typical sprinting pose, closely pursued by the gaping jaws of an enormous leopard. I came across it once with Graham Barry, who commented in his dry way, ‘this wasn’t a self-portrait.’

We’d known for a while that a leopard was around, but the gratitude Alan feels at having met it will be mixed with thankfulness that, unlike many ancient Bushmen before us, he lived to tell the tale.