Lions and Tigers and Locks. Oh, my!

“Ew! Now I've got a hand all full of tiger snot!”

Even as the words fell from her lips, Christina thought, “There's something you don't say every day.”

She stepped aside and rinsed her hand at the garden hose. “Do you have a cold, baby?” she asked Whoofers. Whoofers, for her part, just rubbed back and forth against the mesh of her enclosure. Christina reached through and stroked the tawny flanks as they passed by. Whoofers chuffed contentedly. “You can't beat this with a stick,” woman murmured.

Her daughter, instantly recognizable as such since they had the same broad hips, wide eyes, and way of carrying themselves, stepped away from her raking and crouched near the cage, pressing a palm up for the tiger to sniff, just as her mother had done. Whoofers obliged without a sneeze this time, then took a gentle, friendly, mostly-toothless nip at the heel of the teenager's hand.

“You get a love nip,” her mother lamented. “All I got was snot.”

The two chuckled quietly. Jenelle assessed the big cat. “I don't think she's sick. She looks fine. Maybe she just had some dust irritating her. After all, she's pretty old. She's entitled to a sneeze once in a while.”

Mother and daughter went back to work raking and weeding. They made their way around the sanctuary at a leisurely pace, savoring the company of the big cats and stopping to visit with favorites. Simba II, an elderly lion twitchy with feline distemper, won a laugh from the pair of volunteers when he leaped majestically onto his plywood perch only to skid and land on his side. He shook himself off as if to say, “I meant to do that,” and settled down, king of his little domain.

The pair waved at Jenna, one of the employees, as she came chugging past on a Gator, making the rounds with dosed snacks for the animals that needed noontime medication. Routine morning feeding was done in teams, one to lock down and feed the cats, the other to clean the enclosures while the animals were gated securely in the wooden houses fitted to the cages. There were no teams for medical feedings, since the cages were already clean. Jenna would lock the cats out of their houses, switch the food dishes through the hatches at the back, and raise the gates to give the cats free access.

Jenelle and Christina skirted Sabrina's enclosure, as they always did when Lewis, her owner, was napping with her. They envied him, curled up with the magnificent white tiger by her little private pool. As the official cat psychologist, Lewis had assured them that he had hand-raised Sabrina from a cub, that she viewed him as family, and that they needn't worry that they'd startle her and provoke an attack. Still, the two agreed, better safe than sorry. They'd seen the usually friendly Niakahn turn instantly from chuffing kitty to snarling beast at the mere sight of a tall, skinny man wearing a baseball cap. Hand-raised or not, Sabrina was, like Niakahn, a wild animal. They were taking no chances.

Chores were reversed when they got to Sasha's enclosure. Though Sasha was small, she was strong, and might yank the rake right out of Jenelle's hands. Christina, taller and stronger than her daughter, loved raking near Sasha because it felt like a game, with the human snatching cut grass from near the cage, and the lioness shooting a paw out the slim gap underneath to bat at the rake. Woman and teen piled clippings and weeds near the broad path. They'd gather it later in a Gator and take it to the dump pit, where it would be tossed in with the nasty gatherings from the morning's cage cleaning rounds.

A sudden noise caught their attention, and with almost balletic precision, two heads swung to check out the source of the sound – the bobcat cage, just beyond Sasha's enclosure. Two pairs of eyes opened wide at what they saw. Simba II was out again, darting back and forth just outside the bobcats' home, smacking at the heavy chicken wire separating him from the panicked cats inside. This had never happened when they were on duty before, but they knew the drill. Christina raised Richard, the Director, on the walkie-talkie. Jenelle sidled swiftly to the nearest fire extinguisher, careful not to lose sight of the wayward lion.

Christina glanced around. Some of the enclosures had vestibules that they could be comparatively safe inside, and she spotted one before remembering that they didn't have keys. Both inner and outer doors of the vestibules were kept tightly padlocked to prevent escapes. Simba II's enclosure, an older one, had no such vestibule. Christina and Jenelle always double-checked, sometimes triple-checked, the padlocks, no matter how many times they'd seen an employee or another volunteer check. Every time they passed a cage entrance, they'd give the lock a tug just to be on the safe side. They'd been told time and time again, “Never forget to double-check. Because the cats won't.” Just as they took no chances with Lewis and Sabrina, they took no chances with any cat's potential exit point.

It seemed to take forever for Richard to make his way down from the veterinary center with the tranquilizer gun and darts. He'd had to look Simba II up on a chart and mix the dose after he'd been alerted. The two drugs would interact in the dart and neutralize each other if mixed in advance. Though Christina knew that the Director was moving as quickly as he could, it still seemed as if he'd never arrive. The chicken wire was chosen to keep bobcats in, not lions out, and it couldn't keep the frantic bobcats safe forever. If Simba II broke through, his hunting instincts would dive him to pursue the smaller cats. Once he did that, not only would the bobcats lose their lives, Simba II would be branded as dangerous, and he'd have to be destroyed.

Lewis had evidently heard the commotion, because he appeared at Jenelle's side, a fire extinguisher in his hands. “It's best not to move if you don't have to, but if he takes off, keep an enclosure between you and him.”

Jenelle somehow nodded without seeming to move at all. Lewis slowly skirted around Samson's enclosure, positioning himself so he was sheltered, but ready to move in to help Richard if he was needed.

“Why did Jenna unlock Simba II's cage?” Christina whispered to her daughter.

“Maybe one of the cleaners left a bleach bottle again, the way somebody did at Shasta's cage a couple weeks ago.”

The why of it didn't matter at the moment. The lock hadn't latched fully, the ever-vigilant Simba II had knocked it loose, and if Richard didn't arrive soon with the tranquiler, the bobcats were goners.

Much to their relief, mother and daughter caught sight of Richard warily skirting along Serena's enclosure. When he got to the corner, he'd have a clear shot at the escaped lion. Fortunately, Simba II seemed more playful than aggressive, or he'd have already broken into the bobcat enclosure. Still more fortunately, the bobcats had his attention, so he didn't notice Richard's approach. The Director raised the rifle and fired.

Whether it was the noise of the gunshot or the sting of the dart that got his attention, Simba II was no longer focused on the bobcats. He swung around and charged Richard.

Christina held her breath. She and the other volunteers had been told to do what Richard was now doing. “Stand your ground,” had been pounded into them. If you ran, you'd be telling the animal, “Hi, I'm prey. Please eat me.” If you advanced, you'd be announcing that you were a threat. If you stood firm, looking at the cat but not making eye contact, you'd send a neutral message. The cat would stop and reassess the situation. Now Christina realized that she was about to find out if the instructions would really work with an angry lion. Through the rush of adrenaline, she also realized that Richard must be terrified.

Just ten feet short of the Director, Simba II stopped dead in his tracks. Man and lion stood frozen. It was as time had stopped. After an eternity, it became clear that Simba II wasn't just twitching from his distemper. He was getting wobbly on his feet. Slowly he sank to the ground, still watching Richard intently. Out of the corner of her eye, Christina could see Lewis slowly approaching the cat, fire extinguisher at the ready. Another eternity passed by before the lion's great head rested on the ground. Lewis and Richard approached carefully. Simba II was out cold.

Jenna finally appeared, looking ashen and sheepish at the same time, behind the wheel of the Gator. At some time during the standoff, she had fetched a sheet of plywood, which the three of them used as a makeshift ramp to roll the big cat into the back of the Gator. Christina and Jenelle just watched as the trio headed down to Simba II's enclosure. Glancing at each other, they made an unspoken agreement to just go home rather than witness the dressing-down Jenna was sure to get. Jenelle returned the fire extinguisher to its post, Christina gathered the rake and the pruning shears, and together they trudged, weak-kneed, back to the volunteer center.

Christina laughed a shaky laugh as they headed for the car. “And here I thought a love nip and some tiger snot were going to be our stories for today.”

Reaching over, Jenelle gave her mother's hand a squeeze. “Personally, I'm hoping that Simba II's little outing is the story of a lifetime.”