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This is for the best—you’ll see.”
    A horrible woman named Miss Le May was found for me, and then another when a dead black mamba happened to turn up in Miss Le May’s bed. All told, three governesses failed as well as a handful of tutors, and my father finally seemed to give up on the idea. No more tutors appeared on the horizon, and I began to believe I had won and felt pleased with myself for battling so well.
    At the end of October, I turned twelve. Not long after, my father arranged for us to go away for a few days, just the two of us. Though the trip was for business and had nothing to do with me, I was glad to be invited along, since the alternative would have been to stay at home alone with Mrs. O.
    We headed for Nairobi by train to settle some dealings my father had there with the bank. When we were finished in town, we went north to Kabete Station to visit my father’s friend Jim Elkington on his ranch at the edge of the Kikuyu Reserve. As we rode, I sang out bits of Swahili and Bantu tunes.
Twende, twende kupigana,
went one warrior’s song I loved. Let us go, let us go, to fight. When I tired of my own voice, I asked my father to tell me stories. In general, he was close-lipped, hoarding his words as if he were afraid someone would make off with them, but he was different when we rode. He seemed to like to talk then.
    He would tell me the Greek myths he remembered from his time at school, the Titans and heroes and various gods, thrilling depictions of the underworld. At other times he spoke of the generations of tribal wars between the Masai and Kikuyu, fierce battles and cunning, night-time victories, or about how to hunt and to survive. To shoot a charging elephant, you stood your ground and aimed between its eyes. If you missed the brain, you wouldn’t live to attempt your shot again. For a puff adder, you backed away as soundlessly as possible, a few inches at a time, trying not to let your heart persuade you into panicking. For the deadlier black mamba, you ran flat out. A man could always outrun a mamba, but would never survive a fully landed strike.
    The day we rode out to Kabete Station, my father’s mind was on lions. “A lion has more natural intelligence than most men,” he said, pushing his bush hat back off his forehead with a fingertip. He wore khakis for riding—a light cotton shirt, trousers the colour of sand, and boots that would have had a high polish in the English countryside but here were rinsed with layers of red silt. “He also has more courage than a man, and more determination. He’ll fight for what belongs to him, no matter the size or strength of his rival. If the rival has a drop of cowardice in him, he’s dead already.”
    I wanted him to go on talking, all the way to the Elkingtons’ and even further. If I just listened hard enough, I thought I might one day know everything he did. “What if two equal lions battle for territory, or for a mate?”
    “They’ll each size up the other, testing the odds. A lion is more cautious on equal footing, but even then he won’t back down. He has no fear, you see, not as we understand it. He can only be exactly what he is, what his nature dictates, and nothing else.”
    “I wonder if this can be true of the Elkingtons’ lion,” said Bishon Singh, our Sikh groom. He had journeyed with us to care for the horses and rode just behind with my father’s man, Kimutai.
    “That damned animal makes me nervous,” my father answered. “I don’t mind telling you. It’s unnatural for a wild creature to be kept like that.”
    “I like Paddy,” I said, remembering how I’d once seen Jim Elkington rub him like a cat. “He’s a good lion.”
    “Which only proves my point,” my father said, while behind us Bishon Singh clucked his agreement. “You can take a cub from the savannah as they have, and raise it like a pet if you like. In a cage, as some do, or running free like Paddy. You can feed it fresh meat so it never learns to