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LEONA NIGRA

"Leona! Leona Nigra!" the villagers chanted ecstatically. She had come to them more than a thousand times; yet each time was new. Each visit by the black lioness was a miracle, a reassurance that her spirit still strengthened and protected them.

She seemed to materialize from nothingness, as she always did, her black coat glistening in the rays of the setting sun. Regally, she entered the mystical circle that was taboo to all creatures except her. The stone altar at one side already held her bloody offering - a quarter antelope.

"Leona Nigra! Leona! Leona!"

The beat of the drums intensified, and the shaman, clothed in black fur to share her power, danced furiously. The people swayed back and forth, reveling in her presence. Leona paused to survey her worshipers, then paced restlessly along the edge of the circle. She had scented something new. Something that did not belong here.

Sir Thomas Huxtable narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sun.

"She's a lioness, all right, not a panther," he muttered. "Extraordinary!" He turned to his guide Tambali. "You were right. You shall have everything I promised you. But first you must help me make her my trophy."

"That cannot be!" Tambali exclaimed with alarm. "Leona belongs to us, and we to her."

Twelve years ago, Tambali had left the village and gone to the city to seek his fortune. He had learned English so that his wife could wear European clothing and his son could be taught to better serve the newcomers who streamed into the Protectorate to rape the land. The others of the village no longer fully accepted him as one of them. But even when he wore his tuxedo or his business suit to render himself more acceptable to a potential client, he remembered that he was a son of Leona Nigra.

The fabulously wealthy British patriarch Sir Thomas, jaded from too many safaris, had seemed like the perfect client to lure with the promise of seeing what no outsider had ever seen. But there had been no talk of killing during the negotiations.

"You call her Leona Nigra?" Sir Thomas asked. "How did Latin slip into this isolated part of the savannah?"

"That is the name she chose to be called when she made herself known to our shaman three generations ago."

"And you've been feeding her every since?"

"Sometimes, she does not come. Sometimes for many moons. The people make offerings and dance every evening to honor her. Because of their faithfulness, she always returns to bless the homeland."

"Don't you have a better use for all that meat

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