I don't know how much reality there was to the three legged
leopard, but I remember many encounters thoughout the years of leopards at
Kijabe. They made their rounds around a large area which brought them
back to Kijabe once or twice a year. You always knew that they were
coming when you saw the baboons along the five mile road. That was the
direction they came to Kijabe in and the baboons always followed them.
First there would be stories of baboons at the first ravine. Then
there would be stories of missing sheep and goats just before the second
ravine. Then there would be no locals in sight after about 5:30 and you
knew the time had come. Put up the dogs that you wanted to keep, put out
the cats with some hope that they would not come back. Put your rungu
next to your bed. Close the bedroom window at night. Listen to distant
barking, and cries and wonder to yourself.....
And when you had to walk home at night from RVA after the Monday Night
Football on Saturday night. You walk slow and deliberate, singing loud
and laughing like you are fearless until you smell that stench of wild
cat. You feel the frozen hair on the tips of your skin begin to shudder.
You force your feet to walk with confidence even though they feel like
jelly. You feel somewhat ok as long as the dog next door is still
barking, and then it stops. The cadies stop chirping, the incessant
chirping of grasshoppers and crickets suddenly become silent. And now you
know that there is danger around you. You keep talking out loud in brave
tones to show you have no fear, as each step is like a field of knee deep
mud, and somehow in the hours pass in the few minutes that it takes to
reach your house, you arrive at your steps with a sudden burst up the
steps as if the claws are already lodging in your back. As you burst into
the house, mother looks up and asks how your time was. You mumble "fine"
as she says that you should be careful, because there are rumors of the
Leopard being back. You laugh and say that you are fine and you think
that it is gone by now as you melt upstairs and collapse in bed.
And thus you become a part of the legend of the Leopard.