Africa Calls.

Chapter 21.
                                                                       

'One Eye' as he was locally known, hated humans with a passion. He detested their shapes, and their smell, and the way they all hung around the other animals in those smelly things, belching clouds of dirty grey smoke into the air near his pride.
He had been caught in a poachers snare that fortunately had snapped, but had pierced his eye and left him blind in that eye hence his nickname 'One Eye'.
                                                         

For several days he had been in agony, with flies festering around the eye, which if he wiped with his paw made him howl in pain.
Hunting was now difficult and the females especially in the pride had rejected him. He was getting too old and now being wounded was shunned. In the end he had slunk away and now had to fend for himself.
The other day he had come across a kill, a couple of days old, probably a leopard kill. He preferred fresh meat, but this had staved off the hunger pangs for awhile, but he was finding hunting on his own getting more difficult as time went by.
He had tried several times  hiding under some bushes, waiting and watching, just in case, when some Masai tribesmen  brought their goats into the corral, one might have strayed, but the barking of the dogs had alerted the men, and frighted him off. The pangs of hunger were never far away.
                                                       

Today he was lying up in a small hollow, hidden by long grass and a few bushes that overhung the hollow giving him some shade from the heat.
He had heard the slight bang and then a hissing noise and the  vehicle slide to a stop.  Then the  sound he hated, human voices.
Curiously he watched from his hiding place. He heard an odd sound, the door opening and then saw two legs jumping down.
Voices filled the quietness that had been around.Van Piet kicked the tyre, "Bloody hell" he swore under his breath. This was the last thing they needed. They were already running late due to the storm that had come up. It had not lasted long, but long enough to make problems. Thankfully it had passed and now everywhere was steaming in the heat.                                            

The game track had become very muddy and slippery and he had had to drive carefully so as not to get bogged down in the mud.
Patel jumped down and carefully made his way to the back of the truck and lifted up a flap of the tarp. The cubs immediately snarled at him, but otherwise they looked alright. He tied the flap back and made his way to the front of the truck.
"Thank god, man, there is a spare tyre. Can never trust the garage to put the bloody thing back again when repaired.  Not new, but should get us up and going again. Hope the rest of the road is ok.  Luckily the airstrip is not that far from here. They only use it for emergencies, a strip left over from the civil war, a bit rough, but it was the nearest place the plane could land."
"Right let us get this repaired, I do not like to hang around here."
Both men quickly started to change the tyre.
The lion watched all of this with interest. He was hungry, anger grew up in him.

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Another week of building up the fur, and correcting small mistakes as I see them.
I was starting to feel a little bogged down with it, but thanks to a nice comment I was able to see the picture in a new light.
Next week you should see a lot more done!
Have a good week.