The scent of the dying wildebeest drove the hyena pack deep into open fields near the river. This was where the lionesses hunted. If she hurried the pack could bring down the animal, eat most of it and scatter before the pride arrived. There were pups to be fed.
The wildebeest was thrashing about, trapped in a mud hole. White Spot, the leader, divided the pack into two groups. Her group attacked from the front, the other group attacked from the rear. The kill was over in minutes.
Split-Ear, the oldest and slowest of the pack, would be among the last to eat. She stood at a distance from the others watching them tear chunks of flesh from the wildebeest carcass. While they fed, Split-Ear nervously paced in a small circle, sniffing the air. This was lion territory. If game was not so scarce in the fields north of the river, the pack’s traditional hunting grounds, they would have avoided this place. Split-Ear’s low-pitch cackling reassured the pack nothing was amiss; they engorged themselves, leaving very little for the lower-ranking hyenas.
Split-Ear heard the snapping of dry grass; she stood up on her hind legs sniffing the air. Lions! She screamed an alarm, a series of screeching cackles that sounded to the human ear like bouts of hysterical laughter. The old hyena ran toward the pack but was cut down in mid-stride by a lioness that leapt from the darkness sinking her teeth into Split-Ear’s throat.
White Spot rallied the pack with combinations of growls and shrill cackles. Unlike Split-Ear, her alarm was not one of fear it was a reminder the survival of the pack depended on each animal’s will to fight. White Spot knew there was a good chance the pack would not prevail against the lionesses. What hope there was depended upon the ferocity of the pack. She greeted the lionesses with a defiant deep-throat cackle and charged.
Tarabu heard the lionesses’ roars come across the open field into the low mountains where he was resting. He stood up. Something was wrong. He started down the mountain at a fast trot. As he drew closer he smelled hyena and heard the cackling of the retreating pack. His trotting run turned into a fast gallop. By the time he reached lionesses he had passed the remains of Ijoma, the lioness who raised him after his mother was killed by poachers, and two young, hyenas. His mate, Alele, was standing over Ijoma licking the dead lioness’ wounds.
Tarabu ran past the pride in search of White Spot, He and the hyena leader had crossed paths before. He had let her live this long because of the great deference she showed to the pride’s territorial boundaries. Tonight White Spot had broken the truce. Tarabu could not allow her to escape punishment, too much damage had been done. White Spot would have to die.
Once he found White Spot’s scent, it was easy to track her. She had been moving toward the den, a cave hidden behind a patch of jarrah trees, but suddenly veered away from it. She was moving slow. Tarabu smelled blood in the air; the hyena leader was injured.
White Spot waited for the lion on top of an abandoned anthill. She was bleeding too heavy to outrun him. If she was lucky, she might inflict enough injuries to convince Tarabu to leave her pack alone.
The lion saw White Spot standing on the anthill, snarling in an attack position. He rushed toward her. Using his speed and weight he slammed into her, knocking the injured hyena off the mound. Before White Spot could recover he attacked, breaking her back with a single swipe of his great paw..
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The Hyena Tale is a modern fable, a story that illustrates what it is like being a woman running counter to a male patriarchal system. Hyena women are females who either by genetics or circumstances spend a good part of their lives laboring under the weight of negative perceptions and labeling. Like White Spot, the hyena leader, these strong, assertive, independent and immensely capable women live in a state of “high anxiety”, always aware of the fact male dominated cultures will tolerate their non-conforming lifestyles and behaviors only to a point; incurring the wrath of the lions, strong males in positions of power, invariably places hyena women at great risk of having their backs broken.
There are stories and songs I would love to share with a pack of hyena women; I envision the pack sitting around a campfire, eating and drinking, singing loudly and dancing until we drop from exhaustion.
That’s when I would share my tales of life, love and loss as a hyena woman living among lions. It would be my way of embracing each one and saying, “the world is a far more fascinating and vibrant place because you are here.”