Wolf in Tiger's Stripes

by Victoria Gordon

  “I’m committed to the man who is paying me to be neutral.” She finally spat out the words as if they tasted bad. “That’s what I’m being paid to be, neutral, even if we were to ignore my integrity as a professional. Which, by the way, we will not do.”

  “But Judith. Surely you, of all people, can see the true significance of all this, the importance of it being handled correctly. After all, this is of world-class import.” Derek’s voice was as calm as Bevan’s. It was his attitude that differed. There was an oily quality to it, something that smirked and smarmed.

  “Of course I do, Derek,” Judith said, fighting for calm in her own voice. Then, suddenly, the words flowed almost without conscious thought, pregnant with sarcasm and a contempt far deeper than she’d ever realized. “I mean, you know I’ve always been scrupulously neutral, absolutely, totally fair. Haven’t I, Derek? You, of all people, should know that. But what’s fair now? What is it that you want from me? From all of us?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but Judith charged on, giving him no opportunity. “One minute you’re trying to talk us all out of believing what we’ve seen with our own eyes, and the next you want us all to collaborate on some amazing cover-up to protect a creature we’re not supposed to believe we’ve even seen in the first place. And now this ridiculous business about numbers and keys! How childish. What do you intend to do, leave those who disagree with your plans stranded here, while you contact all the media and start putting your own spin on this?”

  She flung her hands in the air, waving expansively in a gesture of bewilderment. “I don’t understand you any more, Derek. I don’t know if you’re asking me to compromise my principles or if you’re just assuming I don’t have any in the first place. But either way, I don’t like it and I’m certainly not going to put up with it.”

  Which was true enough, although she was beginning to believe she had never understood Derek Innes. Suddenly the analogy of a western became too real, and slightly frightening. There seemed no doubt that Ron Peters had come unhinged, and Judith was no longer certain that Derek himself was much more balanced.

  “I don’t understand any of this, but I’m with Judith.” Jan Smythe’s voice was hard-edged, raspy and ragged. She moved forward to confront Derek, who, surprisingly, leaned back in retreat from her small but determined presence. “I don’t like it one little bit. Just what is going on, Derek? I didn’t pay that much attention before, when you were telling us all about how this search would help the conservation movement so much, and how Judith was sympathetic to the cause, and manageable. But I can tell you this much. I don’t like the way you’re acting now, and I don’t like the way this whole thing is shaping up. Not one damned bit, I don’t. You’ve been trying to discredit me and my work, and now, well, there’s no sense to any of it. So I repeat, I’m with Judith. I’m not going to put up with it, either!”

  “Surely it’s obvious,” Derek said, his voice hot and angry now, filled with bluster. But there was a thread of weakness in his attitude, too, and in the face of blatant mutiny in the ranks, that thread had begun to stretch, perhaps even to unravel.

  He glared round the tent, and when his eyes caught Judith’s, she saw madness there, a frightened madness that caught her by surprise. Once seen, it was as he’d said, obvious. Derek was a megalomaniac, and very, very close to tipping right over the edge.

  Without realizing it, Judith had backed in close against Bevan, and now she felt his tension, knew that he, too, was aware of how dangerous the situation was getting. But when he spoke, it was in that same calm, gentle voice, a voice so soft she could almost see the tension in the room begin to relax in response.

  “Some of it is certainly obvious, Derek,” Bevan said in that deceptively mild conversational tone. “But I do have one or two questions, if you’d be so kind as to enlighten me.”

  It was amazing. Derek actually began to puff and preen, affected by the deference in Bevan’s voice and attitude. A deference, Judith knew, that concealed muscles coiled and ready for immediate action should it be required. She could feel Bevan’s alert readiness. He was playing a game of his own, and ready, just in case, for physical action if it was needed.

  His large hands, hands she knew to be so incredibly strong and so astonishingly gentle, took her shoulders, moving her aside and guiding her so that she was behind him, out of his way, allowing him to move to where he was face-to-face with Derek. Not close enough to be threatening, nor was there anything perceptibly threatening in Bevan’s manner.

  And when Derek nodded, condescending to Bevan’s request, Judith could only listen to the questions and answers with growing astonishment as Derek, the politician, was manipulated by Bevan, the grazier, into doing exactly what Bevan had intended should be done right from the start.

  Roberta, Ted, and Ron would make a quick run north for new supplies, maybe going as far as Smithton, on the coast, and Judith soon came to terms with the Tasmanian concept of “quick” when it was revealed that it would take most of the day for the return journey.

  “Might only need to go as far as Trowutta, or Roger River, or Edith Creek,” Ted mused out loud. “We didn’t come in on that road, and it’s been years since I was up this way, so I don’t know what’s available, or where.”

  He got no argument, nor was there any about the real issue: nobody would say one word about what they’d already seen to anyone. Not to anyone at all.

  And if anybody seriously believes that, I have this bridge for sale in Brooklyn. The mere thought brought a hint of a grin to Judith’s lips, but she kept the thought private even as she looked to the sky, hoping for a vision of flying pink pigs. Still, she thought, there was a chance. Roberta and Ted seemed unwilling to rock the boat any further, and the Ron-the-conservationist could surely be trusted to do whatever Derek instructed.

  Or could he?

  Could Derek be trusted, for that matter?

  Not on any day that ends with “Y.”

  As Judith glanced into the laughing eyes of Bevan Keene, she determined that it might be more dangerous to trust him than to trust Derek.

  30

  The rest of that day was, for Judith and everyone else left in camp, little short of a living tension headache, a nightmare of unease and unrealistic expectations that were never met. They went through all the motions, going out and collecting film, checking sensors, but it was all done in a fog of super-sensitivity, super-caution, as if what might be out there watching was the boogeyman, rather than the elusive, legendary, almost mythical animal they’d come to find.

  They spent the entire day looking over their shoulders, moving like ghosts themselves, or trying to, as they attempted and usually failed to make their way through the thick scrub without noise, without doing anything – whatever that anything might turn out to be – to frighten away the tiger they thought they’d seen that morning.

  Not that it mattered. By the time the provisioning party returned just before dark, nobody had seen one thing even worth talking about.

  And so it went for the next several days, days in which their unrealistic expectations gradually faded as tiredness and, eventually, boredom reclaimed the atmosphere. Only Jan managed to maintain her enthusiasm. She carried her mini-camera everywhere, even when “visiting the bushes” and slept with it snuggled up to her like a teddy bear.

  Everything fell back into the earlier routine, except in the case of Derek. It seemed to Judith that he spent an inordinate amount of time away from their base, driving out daily. He said it was to check various aspects of the global positioning system he’d brought. Whatever he was up to, it wasn’t anything he’d discussed with his side of the expedition. They were the ones who seemed most concerned by the apparent secrecy he was displaying. And with every day that passed, he seemed to become more tense, more irritable.

  “He’s got more than the GPS unit,” Judith overheard Ron Peters complaining. The militant conservationist clearly fancied himself as Derek’s second-in-command, and he was edgy and
nervous as a result of not being asked to share in whatever was going on. He’d taken to following Derek around like a lost puppy but gained only snarls and rebuffs for the effort.

  “He’s also got a cell phone, for all the good it’ll do him out here,” Ted Norton remarked. “The global tracking gizmo is halfways logical, I suppose, but a cell phone? Half his bloody luck at getting that to work, with the nearest towers either way up at the coast or over along the Midlands Highway. I can’t see the sense in any of it, myself. We know where we are, and who else matters?”

  Judith could only agree, although she’d yet to even test her own cell phone, bought at Jeremiah’s insistence and never used to check in with him.

  Derek was also becoming increasingly paranoid, Judith thought, although she tried, in all fairness, to dismiss that notion as her own reaction to distrusting him so thoroughly in the first place. Still, he kept a small cache of detailed topographical maps and was as possessive about them as Jan was about her cameras. They were with him at all times, and he was suspicious and surreptitious about consulting them whenever any of the others might see him. The one time she inadvertently surprised him in the process of consulting one, he hurriedly folded it closed and shot her an angry glare.

  “He’s up to something,” Judith said to Roberta. “Mind you, he’s always up to something, but unless it’s my imagination, he’s getting more paranoid every day.”

  “The man couldn’t lie straight in bed,” was Roberta’s reply in typical Australian phrasing. Roberta not only didn’t trust Derek, she didn’t like him and wasn’t shy about showing it.

  For his part, Derek seemed content to give the attractive grazier a wide berth. Probably, Judith thought, because Roberta controlled the cook tent and Derek did enjoy his tucker, so long as it wasn’t wallaby.

  But as the days passed, it was another man whose presence caused Judith the most concern. Bevan’s insistence on keeping his own distance from Judith was an attitude that had gone from being confusing to annoying to downright frustrating, not least with her memories of their lovemaking in her own bed. Intellectually, she could understand him wanting to protect her neutrality as official recorder for the expedition, but her emotions refused to be dictated to by her mind. She had only to look at Bevan under some circumstances to feel that too-familiar softness in her loins, to feel her nipples throbbing in response to her emotional urgings.

  But what did he feel? It seemed impossible to her that he wouldn’t be experiencing some comparable emotions, unless he was an even more skilled trickster than she dared believe. Was he merely toying with her? Had he toyed with her from the very beginning? Had she allowed that? Had she, in fact, encouraged it, sought it out, actually wanted it?

  Get a life, Judith Theresa. You’ll be as paranoid as Derek if you keep this up.

  But Derek’s erratic behavior was taking a toll on everyone’s patience by the end of the following week, except, for some reason, that of Bevan, Roberta, and Ted, who went about their chores in an aura of total calm. If anything, they seemed more amused by his behavior than annoyed by it.

  Until the day he returned from his solo trek with a strange, frenetic sort of atmosphere about him, his eyes wild, his every move jerky and slightly out of kilter. They’d all been a bit edgy because of the ongoing drizzly mist that Ted Norton called “west-coast sunshine,” but it was obvious there was more than just the weather on Derek’s mind.

  Judith put her own angst aside and demanded that Bevan accompany her to where they could speak privately. “There is something really wrong with Derek,” she insisted. “I genuinely believe he might be cracking up, although I can’t see why. Do you think he’s sneaking off to do drugs or something?”

  Bevan’s slow grin, normally sufficient to melt her heart and wrap her soul in a sort of security blanket, now served only to infuriate her as he said, “Not to worry. It won’t be too long now, I think, and all will be revealed.”

  Calm. Too calm. Too ... knowing.

  “You know something,” she said. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Because you must see it for yourself without my influence or any input from me,” he replied, his voice still quiet, still calm, even more infuriating because of it.

  “Great! Is this the prelude to another one of those ‘Trust Me’ pleas? Trust you? I think you’re even more deceitful than he is!”

  “Ah, that’s what I love about you, Judith Theresa. Your ability to see things clearly.” And now his grin was huge, if predatory. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I don’t want you to trust me. I don’t want you to trust anybody, especially right now. Just have faith in your instincts and your own integrity. That’s all I ask.”

  “Maybe you ask too much.” Her feelings were hurt. He was still toying with her, still leading her around by an emotional leash she had woven herself, and it rankled. She clenched her fist, fighting off the urge to smack him, and managed sufficient control to turn on her heel and march away, back straight, eyes brimming with tears of mingled anger and pain.

  By that afternoon, Derek’s nervous tension was almost a visible entity, and everyone was on edge as they gathered in the cook tent to avoid the misty drizzle outside. All the work was done for the day, but it was too early to settle, and tempers were exacerbated by sodden clothing, wet feet, and the incessant, ubiquitous mud. Most of the party were content to sprawl where they didn’t get rained on, but Derek was constantly pacing, a nuisance in the cramped tent, even without his incessant chatter.

  “This is perfect weather for us to see a tiger,” he said. “I’d expect one to be on the move early in weather like this. The moist air holds scent well, and there’s just enough breeze, and—”

  “Just like almost every other day since we got here,” said Ted, who kept having to move his feet every time Derek passed where Ted was sprawled near the entrance, carefully plaiting lengths of leather into something or other. “Derek, will you please just settle? Every time I get comfy, you make me move, and I’m too old for that sort of nonsense.”

  Derek ignored the complaint. He poked his head out through the tent flap, then abruptly jerked back inside the cook tent.

  “Jan.” His voice was a whisper but his excitement was obvious, and contagious. Even as the photographer moved across the tent to join him, the rest of the group also surged toward the entrance. It was clear Derek had spotted something extraordinary, which could only mean one thing.

  This time their tiger was closer. Much closer. Just across the small rivulet that passed by the camp. And this time it was moving, lifting its distinctive head from where it had been drinking, backing away from the edge of the stream in careful steps that couldn’t help but be captured on film.

  And Jan was filming. She not only had her minicam, but she had dragged out a conventional video camera with a long, bulky telephoto lens. When the animal turned to look back, its attention on something in the scrub behind it, Jan took the opportunity to scuttle over to where she could get a dead rest on the side of a parked vehicle to minimize instability.

  Everyone gasped, but the animal appeared not to notice her. Instead, it turned and lumbered back into the dripping undergrowth, moving in the same curious, almost clumsy-looking gait Judith had so often seen on old films from the Hobart zoo. One moment it was there, clear as day, or what passed for daylight in the incessant drizzle. And then it was gone. Just like that.

  Everyone exhaled with heavy sighs, as if they’d been holding their breaths collectively.

  Then Derek’s voice broke the silence. “Well, I guess that ought to be proof enough!” And there was not only smug satisfaction in his voice, but a sort of unholy fanaticism in his eyes that was mirrored in the eyes of his conservationist companions. Derek was positively electrified, his body jerking as if guided by invisible wires.

  Judith wondered yet again if he was on some sort of drug, then realized that it didn’t matter. He was teetering on the brink of a breakdown, and the reasons were no longer the issue. Why could
n’t Bevan see it?

  The answer was obvious. Derek had moved so that he was out of Bevan’s line of sight.

  “You reckon that’s proof enough, do you, Derek?” Bevan’s question followed a lengthy silence in which everyone else had done nothing but look at each other and at the emptiness where the animal had been. Bevan’s voice wasn’t overly loud, but the sarcasm in it fairly shouted.

  “There has to be three, maybe four minutes of film,” said Ron Peters. “I counted.”

  “And there’ll be tracks, for sure. That sandy place it was drinking should be perfect for getting plaster casts of its tracks.” This, surprisingly, came from Ted, which lent a certain veracity to the remark.

  His comment drew Judith’s attention, and she looked to see that Ted, too, was watching Derek with a cautious, worried look. Glancing around, Judith saw that the others were noticing Derek’s eccentric behavior, too. Ted had moved in beside the conservationist, and Reg was watching Derek closely. Ted was trying surreptitiously to draw Bevan’s attention to Derek. But he was being too subtle.

  Bevan was staring squarely at Judith, who took one look at the devils dancing in his laughing eyes and reared back in cautious surprise. “Right then,” he said. “We’re all agreed?”

  “No!” she cried, and it was an involuntary, unthinking cry. Then she did think, and could only repeat it. “No, no, we are not agreed. There’s something really, really wrong here, and I’ve had enough. I want this out in the open. Now. Whatever it is. Please, Bevan.”

  She focused on Bevan, flicking her gaze between him and Derek, silently pleading with him to notice, to realize that there might be far more at stake here than a mere agreement about what they had or had not seen.

  There was a long pause, during which she knew everyone’s eyes had turned to her, during which she knew everyone was confused by her reaction. But she couldn’t break Bevan’s gaze. She could barely even breathe. Bevan returned her gaze silently, his own confusion apparent. And then, miraculously, he got it. He broke his visual lock with her, turned and ran his gaze over the rest of the assembly. When he got to Derek, there was a perceptible pause, then Bevan turned back to her and visibly shivered.