The Lion

An unnamed narrator arrives at a National Park reserve in Kenya, near the base of Kilimanjaro. Waking at dawn, he finds a tiny monkey on his pillow and a miniature gazelle on the veranda that licks his fingers. Both creatures regard him with gentle, melancholy eyes. The mist lifts to reveal a vast clearing and a distant water hole where hundreds of wild animals mingle peacefully. Overwhelmed by a longing to share their world, he walks toward them.

A child's voice stops him. He discovers a small figure in gray overalls leaning against a thorn tree, whom he mistakes for a boy of about 12. She is Patricia, daughter of John Bullit, the Warden of the Reserve. Patricia forbids his approach not for his safety but to protect the animals' peace, telling him he lacks the special knowledge to be accepted. She describes each animal at the water hole with intimate familiarity, speaking in a flat whisper so as not to disturb the wildlife. She reveals that she speaks several native languages, including Masai. When Patricia learns the narrator is leaving the next day, she abruptly withdraws her friendship, declares she has no friends, and disappears among the animals.

The narrator carries a private letter for Bullit's wife, Sybil, from her school friend Lise Darbois. Sybil summons him urgently. She is a tall, fair-haired young woman who hides behind dark glasses, her face prematurely aged, though her gray eyes remain beautiful. Desperate for news of Lise and the civilized world, Sybil dreams of sending Patricia to school in France. Kihoro, the family's old one-eyed tracker from the Kamba people, enters silently and reports that Patricia has only just woken. The narrator knows Patricia has been awake since dawn but conceals this, sensing Sybil must not learn how far her daughter roams.

Bullit arrives: enormously tall, powerfully built, with auburn hair and a face like a wild beast's muzzle, carrying a kiboko, a rhinoceros-hide whip. He and Sybil embrace with absolute tenderness, yet tension emerges when she insists Patricia must leave for schooling and he gently resists, noting school previously made the child ill.

Later, Bullit follows the narrator into the bush. Kihoro, who secretly shadows Patricia on all her expeditions, reported their dawn encounter. Bullit thanks the narrator for keeping silent, and the two men share a moment of laughter that sparks genuine friendship. Bullit explains that Patricia possesses an inborn gift for communicating with animals, one he has never seen equaled. Over whisky, he recounts his past as the legendary "Bull Bullit," professional hunter and ivory poacher. He describes the hunter's paradox: To kill skillfully, you must understand animals, and to understand them, you must love them. One day the blood lust vanished, and his love transformed into a desire to watch animals live.

At a formal tea party that evening, Patricia has not returned as darkness falls. A distant lion's roar fills the room. Kihoro appears, winks at Bullit, and vanishes, signaling Patricia's safety. When she arrives, Sybil urges Bullit to resume a hunting story, but Patricia locks eyes with her father in a fierce battle of wills, compelling him to stop. She cannot bear to hear about the animals he once killed. Sybil breaks down, revealing that the creature Patricia waits for each evening is a wild lion named King.

Driven by a need to see the story through, the narrator cancels his flight. Patricia leads him through dense jungle to a wide plain shaded by a single tree, beneath which lies King, a magnificent lion. Patricia sits between his enormous front paws and talks King through accepting the narrator. She demonstrates her control by leaping on King and pulling his ears; he responds by batting her through the air with calibrated force. Patricia explains that Kihoro found King as a blind, abandoned newborn in a hollow tree, and she nursed him with a feeding-bottle and named him King. Bullit later reveals that King had to leave the family home because Sybil grew terrified of the growing lion. King was driven to the far boundary of the Reserve while Patricia was sent to school, but both returned immediately. Sybil begged Bullit to shoot King, but he refused, knowing Patricia would never forgive him. They reached a compromise: Patricia trained King to meet her only at the distant tree.

The narrator encounters two Masai, members of a pastoral people living near the Reserve: the elderly chief Ol'Kalu, scarred from a lion fight, and Oriunga, a morane (young warrior) of extraordinary beauty and arrogant indifference. Oriunga shadows Patricia, watching unseen as she commands King to drive off his jealous lionesses. Patricia reveals she told Oriunga exactly where she meets King, deliberately engineering a confrontation. At a feast celebrating Ol'Kalu's successor, Oriunga formally requests Patricia as his wife; Bullit diplomatically refuses. On the feast's outskirts, Patricia leads the narrator to where Ol'Kalu lies dying, abandoned according to Masai custom: The dying are left outside to prevent evil spirits from haunting the community. His last delirious word is "Lion."

Patricia orchestrates a first encounter at King's tree, holding the lion back and repeatedly setting him at Oriunga before pulling King away at the last instant. Oriunga never flinches but warns that next time he will use his spear. The narrator realizes with dread that Patricia now seeks to exercise authority over beasts and men simultaneously.

The climax comes days later. Oriunga appears at the tree in full ritual combat gear: a huge painted shield and his spear tipped with a lion's mane. Though the traditional Masai lion hunt is a group rite, Oriunga has come alone to kill King and claim Patricia. Patricia realizes with anguish that her game has become real. She screams at Oriunga to stop, but he hurls his spear into King's body. Patricia shrieks as though her own flesh has been pierced, releases King, and urges him to attack. King leaps on Oriunga, shattering his shield. Bullit arrives at speed in the Land Rover, seizes Kihoro's rifle, and fires two shots. King is killed instantly.

Patricia stands over King's body and tries to lift his lifeless paw. She touches the eye that always seemed to wink at her, but the stare is blank. She turns on Bullit with loathing, telling him never to touch her again. When Bullit promises Kihoro will find her another cub from King's litter, Patricia replies that she will rear it and love it and then Bullit will shoot that one too. She discovers his final betrayal: He always had Kihoro follow her, and Kihoro obeyed her father, not her. She rejects them both and bends over King, the only one who never deceived her. Vultures circle overhead, and Patricia, who has understood their meaning since infancy, confronts death for the first time.

She begs the narrator to take her away, and they leave before moonrise. Patricia packs school clothes and refuses to let Sybil accompany her. In the car she sits hunched and silent, refusing even to glance at an elephant blocking the road. As they pass the turnoff to King's tree, she grabs the door handle, then forces herself to let go. Under a high moon, the car crosses a dried lake bed where herds of animals perform a ghostly dance in silver light. Patricia grasps the narrator's hand and whispers that King is alone, all alone, forever. Her first sob is agonizing; then the tears come freely, and she weeps as any small child might, anywhere in the world. The beasts dance on.