by Ruskin Bond
With that loud alarm shrilling in his ears, Mustela knew there would be no successful hunting for him till he could put himself beyond the range of it. He raced on, therefore, abashed by his failure, till the taunting sound faded in the distance. Then his bushy brown brush went up in the air again, and his wonted look of insolent self-confidence returned. As it did not seem to be his lucky day for squirrels, he descended to earth and began quartering the ground for the fresh trail of a rabbit.
In that section of the forest where Mustela now found himself, the dark and scented tangle of spruce and balsam-fir was broken by thickets of stony barren, clothed unevenly by thickets of stunted white birch, and silver-leaved quaking aspen, and wild sumach with its massive tufts of acrid, dark-crimson bloom. Here the rabbit trails were abundant, and Mustela was not long in finding one fresh enough to offer him the prospect of a speedy kill. Swiftly and silently, nose to earth, he set himself to follow its intricate and apparently aimless windings, sure that he would come upon a rabbit at the end of it.
As it chanced, however, he never came to the end of that particular trail or set his teeth in the throat of that particular rabbit. In gliding past a bushy young fir-tree, he happened to glance be path it, and marked another of his tribe tearing the feathers from a new-slain grouse. The stranger was smaller and slighter than himself—a young female—quite possibly, indeed, his mate of a few months earlier in the season. Such considerations were less than nothing to Mustela, whose ferocious spirit knew neither gallantry, chivalry, nor mercy. With what seemed a single flashing leap, he was upon her—or almost, for the slim female was no longer there. She had bounded away as lightly and instantaneously as if blown by the wind of his coming. She knew Mustela, and she knew it would be death to stay and do battle for her kill. Spitting with rage and fear, she fled from the spot, terrified lest he should pursue her and find the nest where her six precious kittens were concealed.
But Mustela was too hungry to be interested just then in mere slaughter for its own sake. He was feeling serious and practical. The grouse was a full-grown cock, plump and juicy, and when Mustela had devoured it, his appetite was sated. But not so his blood-lust. After a hasty toilet he set out again, looking for something to kill.
Crossing the belt of rocky ground, he emerged upon a flat tract of treeless barren covered with a dense growth of blueberry bushes about a foot in height. The bushes at this season were loaded with ripe fruit of a bright blue colour, and squatting among them was a big black bear, enjoying the banquet at his ease. Gathering the berries together, wholesale with his great furry paws, he was cramming them into his mouth greedily, with little grunts and gurgles of delight, and the juicy fragments with which his snout and jaws were smeared, gave his formidable face an absurdly childish look. To Mustela—when that insolent little animal flashed before him—he vouchsafed no more than a glance of good-natured contempt. For the rank and stringy flesh of a pine-marten he had no use at any time of the year, least of all in the season when the blueberries were ripe.
Mustela, however, was too discreet to pass within reach of one of those huge but nimble paws, lest the happy bear should grow playful under the stimulus of the blueberry juice. He turned aside to a judicious distance, and there, sitting up on his hindquarters like a rabbit, he proceeded to nibble, rather superciliously, a few of the choicest berries. He was not enthusiastic over vegetable food, but, just as a cat will now and then eat grass, he liked at times a little corrective to his unvarying diet of flesh.
Having soon had enough of the blueberry patch, Mustela left it to the bear and turned back toward the deep of the forest, where he felt most at home. He went stealthily, following up the wind in order that his scent might not give warning of his approach. It was getting near sunset by this time, and floods of pinky gold, washing across the open barrens, poured in along the ancient corridors of the forest, touching the sombre trunks with stains of tenderest rose. In this glowing colour Mustela, with his ruddy fur, moved almost invisible.
And, so moving, he came plump upon a big buck-rabbit squatting half asleep in the centre of a clump of pale green fern.
The rabbit hounded straight into the air, his big, childish eyes popping from his head with horror. Mustela’s leap was equally instantaneous, and it was unerring. He struck his victim in mid-air, and his fangs met deep in the rabbit’s throat. With a scream the rabbit fell backwards and came down with a muffled thump upon the ferns, with Mustela on top of him. There was a brief, thrashing struggle, and then Mustela, his forepaws upon the breast of his still quivering prey—several times larger and heavier than himself—lifted his blood-stained face and stared about him savagely, as if defying all the other prowlers of the forest to come and try to rob him of his prize.
Having eaten his fill, Mustela dragged the remnants of the carcass under a thick bush, defiled it so as to make it distasteful to other eaters of flesh, and scratched a lot of dead leaves and twigs over it till it was effectually hidden. As game was abundant at this season, and as he always preferred a fresh kill, he was not likely to want any more of that victim, but he hated the thought of any rival getting a profit from his prowess.
Mustela now turned his steps homeward, travelling more lazily, but with eyes, nose and ears ever on the alert for fresh quarry. Though his appetite was sated for some hours, he was as eager as ever for the hunt, for the fierce joy of the killing and the taste of the hot blood. But the unseen powers of the wilderness, ironic and impartial, decided just then that it was time for Mustela to be hunted in his turn.
If there was one creature above all others who could strike the fear of death into Mustela’s merciless soul, it was his great-cousin, the ferocious and implacable fisher. Of twice his weight and thrice his strength, and his full peer in swiftness and cunning, the fisher was Mustela’s nightmare, from whom there was no escape unless in the depths of some hole too narrow for the fisher’s powerful shoulders to get into. And at this moment there was the fisher’s grinning, black-muzzled mask crouched in the path before him, eyeing him with the sneer of certain triumph.
Mustela’s heart jumped into his throat as he flashed about and fled for his life—straight away, alas, from his safe hole in the tree-top—and with the lightning dart of a striking rattler the fisher was after him.
Mustela had a start of perhaps twenty paces, and for a time he held his own. He dared no tricks, lest he should lose ground, for he knew his foe was as swift and as cunning as himself. But he knew himself stronger and more enduring than most of his tribe, and therefore he put his hope, for the most part, in his endurance. Moreover, there was always a chance that he might come upon some hole or crevice too narrow for his pursuer. Indeed, to a tough and indomitable spirit like Mustela’s, until his enemy’s fangs should finally lock themselves in his throat, there would always seem to be a chance. One could never know which way the freakish Fates of the wilderness would cast their favour. On and on he raced, therefore, tearing up or clown the long, sloping trunks of ancient windfalls, twisting like a golden snake through tangled thickets, springing in great airy leaps from trunk to rock, from rock to overhanging branch, in silence; and ever at his heels followed the relentless, grinning shape of his pursuer, gaining a little in the long leaps, but losing a little in the denser thickets, and so just about keeping his distance.
For all Mustela’s endurance, the end of that race, in all probability, would have been for him but one swift, screeching fight, and then the dark. But at this juncture the Fates woke up, peered ironically through the grey and ancient mosses of their hair, and remembered some grudge against the fisher.
A moment later, Mustela, just launching himself on a desperate leap, beheld in his path a huge hornets nest suspended from a branch near the ground. Well he knew, and respected, that terrible insect, the great black hornet with the cream-white stripes about his body. But it was too late to turn aside. He crashed against the grey, papery sphere, tearing it from its cables, and flashed on, with half a dozen white-hot stings in hi
s hindquarters prodding him to a fresh burst of speed. Swerving slightly, he dashed through a dense thicket of juniper scrub, hoping not only to scrape his fiery tormentors off, but at the same time to gain a little on his big pursuer.
The fisher was at this stage not more than a dozen paces in the rear. He arrived, to his undoing, just as the outraged hornets poured out in a furiously humming swarm from their overturned nest. It was clear enough to them that the fisher was their assailant. With deadly unanimity they pouched upon him.
With a startled screech the fisher bounced aside and plunged for shelter. But he was too late. The great hornets were all over him. His ears and nostrils were black with them, his long fur was full of them, and his eyes, shut tight, were already a flaming anguish with the corroding poison of their stings. Frantically he burrowed his face down into the moss and through into the moist earth, and madly he clawed at his ears, crushing scores of his tormentors. But he could not crush out the venom which their long stings had injected. Finding it hopeless to free himself from their swarms, he tore madly through the underbrush, but blindly, crashing into trunks and rocks, heedless of everything but the fiery torture which enveloped him. Gradually the hornets fell away from hirn as he went, knowing that their vengeance was accomplished. At last, groping his way blindly into a crevice between two rocks, he thrust his head down into the moss, and there, a few days later, his swollen body was found by a foraging lynx. The lynx was hungry, but she only sniffed at the carcass and turned away with a growl of disappointment and suspicion. The carcass was too full of poison even for her not-too-discriminating palate.
Mustela, meanwhile, having the best and sharpest of reasons for not delaying in his flight, knew nothing of the fate of his pursuer. He only became aware, after some minutes, that he was no longer pursued. Incredulous at first, he at length came to the conclusion that the fisher had been discouraged by his superior speed and endurance. His heart, though still pounding unduly, swelled with triumph. By way of precaution he made a long detour to come back to his nest, pounced upon and devoured a couple of plump deer-mice on the way, ran up his tree and slipped comfortably into his hole, and curled up to sleep with the feeling of a day well spent. He had fed full, he had robbed his fellows successfully, he had drunk the blood of his victims, he had outwitted or eluded his enemies. As for his friends, he had none—a fact which to Mustela of the Lone Hand was of no concern whatever.
Now, as the summer waned, and the first keen touch of autumn set the wilderness aflame with the scarlet of maple and sumach, the pale gold of poplar and birch, Mustela, for all his abounding health and prosperous hunting, grew restless with a discontent which he could not understand. Of the coming winter he had no dread. He had passed through several winters, faring well when other prowlers less daring and expert had starved, and finding that deep nest of his in the old tree a snug refuge from the fiercest storms. But now—he knew not why—the nest grew irksome to him, and his familiar hunting-grounds distasteful. Even the eager hunt, the triumphant kill itself, had lost their zest. He forgot to kill except when he was hungry. A strange fever was in his blood, a lust for wandering. And so, one wistful, softly-glowing day of Indian summer, when the violet light that bathed the forest was full of mystery and allurement, he set off on a journey. He had no thought of why he was going, or whither. Nor was he conscious of any haste. When hungry, he stopped to hunt and kill and feed. But he no longer cared to conceal the remnants of his kills, for he dimly realized that he would not be returning. If running waters crossed his path, he swam them. If broad lakes intervened, he skirted them. From time to time he became aware that others of his kind were moving with him, but each one furtive, silent, solitary, self-sufficing, like himself. He heeded them not, nor they him; but all, impelled by one urge which could but be blindly obeyed, kept drifting onward toward the west and north. At length, when the first snows began, Mustela stopped, in a forest not greatly different from that which he had left, but ever wilder, denser, more unvisited by the foot of man. And here, the wanderlust having suddenly left his blood, he found himself a new hole, lined it warm with moss and dry grasses, and resumed his hunting with all the ancient zest. Back in Mustela’s old hunting-grounds a lonely trapper, finding no more golden sable in his snares, but only mink and lynx and fox, grumbled regretfully:
‘The marten hev quit. We’ll see no more of ‘em round these parts for another ten year.’
But he had no notion why they had quit, nor had anyone else—not even Mustela himself.
The Leopard
Ruskin Bond
I first saw the leopard when I was crossing the small stream at the bottom of the hill. The ravine was so deep there that for most of the day it remained in shadow. This encouraged many birds and animals to emerge from cover, even during the hours of daylight. Few people ever passed that way: only milkmen and charcoal-burners from the surrounding villages. As a result, the ravine had become a little haven of wildlife, one of the few natural sanctuaries left in the area.
Nearly every morning, and sometimes during the day, I heard the cry of the barking-deer. In the evening, walking through the forest, I disturbed parties of kaleej pheasant, who went gliding down the ravine on open, motionless wings. I saw pine-martens and a handsome red fox. I recognized the footprints of a bear.
As I had not come to take anything from the jungle, the birds and animals soon ‘grew accustomed to my face’, as Mr Higgins would say. More likely, they recognized my footfalls. My approach did not disturb them. A spotted forktail, which at first used to fly away, now remained perched on a boulder in the middle of the stream while I got across by means of other boulders only a few yards away. Its mellow call followed me up the hillside.
The langurs in the oak and rhododendron trees, who would at first go leaping through the branches at my approach, now watched me with some curiosity as they munched the tender green shoots of the oak. But one evening, as I passed, I heard them chattering with excitement; and I knew I was not the cause of the disturbance.
As I crossed the stream and began climbing the hill, the grunting and chattering increased, as though the langurs were trying to warn me of some hidden danger. I looked up, and saw a great orange-gold leopard, sleek and spotted, poised on a rock about twenty feet away from me. The leopard looked at me once, briefly and with an air of disdain, and then sprang into a dense thicket, making absolutely no sound as he melted into the shadows.
I had disturbed the leopard in his quest for food. But a little later I heard the quickening cry of a barking-deer as it fled through the forest.
After that encounter I did not see the leopard again, although I was often made aware of his presence by certain movements.
Sometimes I thought I was being followed; and once, when I was late getting home and darkness closed in on the forest, I saw two bright eyes staring at me from a thicket. I stood still, my heart thudding against my ribs. Then the eyes danced away, and I realized that they were only fireflies.
One evening, near the stream, I found the remains of a barking-deer which had only been partly eaten. I wondered why the leopard had not hidden the remains of his meal, and decided that he had been disturbed while eating. Climbing the hill, I met a party of shikaris resting beneath the pine trees. They asked me if I had seen a leopard. I said I had not. They said they knew there was a leopard in the forest. Leopard-skins were selling in Delhi at a thousand rupees each, they told me. I walked on.
But the hunters had seen the carcass of the deer, and they had seen the leopard’s pug-marks, and they had kept coming to the forest. Almost every evening I heard their guns banging away.
‘There’s a leopard about,’ they always told me. ‘You should carry a gun.’
‘I don’t have one,’ I said.
The birds were seldom to be seen, and even the langurs had moved on. The red fox did not show itself; and the pinemartens, who had become quite bold, now dashed into hiding at my approach. The smell of one human is like the smell of any other.
And then, of course, the inevitable happened.
The men were coming up the hill, shouting and singing. They had a long bamboo pole across their shoulder’s, and slung from the pole, feet up, head down, was the lifeless body of the leopard. He had been shot in the neck and in the head.
‘We told you there was a leopard!’ they shouted, in great good humour. ‘Isn’t he a fine specimen?’
‘He was a fine leopard,’ I said.
I walked home through the silent forest. It was very silent, almost as though the birds and animals knew that their trust had been violated.
‘And God gave Man dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth…’
For a leopard-skin coat value one thousand rupees.
[First published in The Illustrated Weekly of India, 1972]
The Man-eater of Mundali
B.B. Osmaston
Jaunsar-Bawai, which includes Chakrata, is an outlying portion of the Civil District of Dehra Dun. It is situated north-west of Dehra, between Mussoorie and Simla, and is very mountainous throughout, the hills ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 feet in altitude. These hills, except on southern aspects, are mostly clothed with forests of deodar, fir, pine, oak, etc., and mountain streams and torrents flow through the valleys. In summer the climate is pleasantly cool, but very cold in winter, with heavy falls of snow down to 6,000 feet. There was much game in the form of gooral, barking deer, serow, musk deer and leopard; also partridges, chukor and several species of pheasants. Sambhar pig were scarce, and chiral, absent altogether. Tigers literally avoid these hill forests, not because they dislike the cold, but because they find feeding themselves difficult, if not impossible. In the plains sambhar and chiral constitute their main food supply, but these are scarce or non-existent in the hills.
