“Yeah, basically it means he’s bloody lazy!”
The penghulu shook his head.
“No, you say this because you think like a white man, and the white man must be always doing something. For a Malay to hunt Si-Pudong, there must be a strong reason, like revenge—tiger eat his wife or children, or he badly need money for some reason.” The penghulu pointed at the scarred corpse. “Many of the people who do this, they do it because they believe a piece of the body will save them from harm, will make them brave and strong like Si-Pudong, will give them children, make wife love them more.… And others, Tuan, others will use their tokens to sell when times are hard. It will put food into their bellies when they are hungry, will buy special presents for the ones they love.” The penghulu spread his arms in a gesture of inquiry. “What would you have done with the beast, Tuan? Stuffed him and stood him in your fine house? Made a rug of him for your good friends to place their feet on? Cut off his head and fixed it to a wooden board to hang from a wall? You have no beliefs about him yourself, for you are not of the same land as he was. You do not share the same trails as he, you do not drink of the same water. Surely if Si-Pudong belongs to anyone, then he belongs to us.…”
The penghulu’s carefully considered words had shamed Bob, but he did not want to admit it.
“It’s easy for you to talk,” he blustered. “You didn’t sit up that bloody tree in the rainstorm! Anyway, I’m damned if I’m going to leave the rest of the carcass here for those ungrateful parasites.” He strode to the Land Rover, threw his rifle into the back, and then returned to the tiger. Going down on one knee, he attempted to drag the beast along, but he could not even budge it a few inches. “Give me a hand with this,” he grunted to the penghulu. “At least I should be able to get a few quid for it in Kuala Trengganu. They say the bones bring a good price.” The two men heaved ineffectually at the tiger for a few minutes, but it had taken four strong men to carry him out of the jungle and it was apparent that they would never lift the carcass high enough to get it into the Land Rover.
“Call some of your friends down from their houses,” gasped Bob. “We need a hand here.”
The penghulu shook his head regretfully.
“Alas, Tuan, I fear they will be too frightened by your shooting before!”
“Don’t be bloody silly! The gun’s in the jeep now and it will only take a moment. Call them down.”
“They will not come, Tuan. Perhaps if you were to offer a few dollars…”
Bob’s face reddened with anger.
“I bloody well will not,” he retorted. “I’ve handed out enough cash these last few days to pay for an army.” He took a long silent look around him at the grim faces watching from the doorways of houses and then he gave a formless shout of exasperation. He stood up and went back to the Land Rover, clambered into the seat, and kicked the engine alive. The penghulu ran after him.
“The Tuan is leaving?” he enquired politely.
“Damned right I am. You can keep the bloody tiger and good riddance to it! It’s no use to me in that state, anyway.”
“But Tuan, perhaps if both of us try again…”
“No, no, forget it! I’m going home to get some sleep.” A glint of moonlight caught something lying on the passenger seat. Bob picked it up and examined it carefully. It was a silver lipstick case. In the midst of his rage, Bob found an unreasonable target on which to focus his disappointment. If it hadn’t been for her, he would never have left the tiger.
“Bitch,” he muttered. He flung the case carelessly away, wrenched the vehicle into gear and accelerated out of the kampong, leaving the penghulu staring after him with a bemused smile on his wizened monkey-face. The penghulu reached thoughtfully beneath the open neck of his white shirt, where the tiger’s claw hung in a tiny leather pouch around his neck. He had felt quite confident about coming down to confront the white man and sure enough, the power in the claw had saved him from being shot. He glanced at the carcass and grinned. It was his own cleverness that had secured the remains of the beast and the penghulu of Kampong Machis could hardly deny him a share in the profit they would make from the herbalists. On impulse, he walked over to the tiger and placed one foot on it, mimicking the traditional pose of the victorious white hunter. For this, he received a burst of sporadic applause from the watching villagers, who appreciated that he’d scored a sizeable victory over the aggressive Australian. Now, satisfied with the outcome of the adventure, they began to drift back into their houses to resume their interrupted repose.
But the penghulu sat up a little while longer at the scene of his victory, gazing thoughtfully at the dead tiger and smoking a last, incredibly satisfying cigarette.
* * *
HAJI AWOKE to a familiar sound: the distant mournful cry of Timah, who, oddly enough, was still avidly seeking a mate. The force of her roars suggested that the young male, for all his apparent strength, had been unable to mate with her because of his lack of experience. Haji felt much stronger now and he did not hesitate to leave the cool sanctuary of the cave and go in search of Timah, responding occasionally to her call with his own deeper roar.
After half an hour’s search, he managed to find her. She had taken up residence beside a wide jungle stream and she was pacing restlessly up and down beside it, for she was now at the height of her oestrus and would find no rest until she was fulfilled. She displayed no surprise when Haji emerged from the undergrowth, but moved forward to greet him and as she had on the previous occasion, she patrolled up and down in front of him, rubbing her flank against his, and pausing to give a slow sensuous stretch that was primarily designed to excite him. He responded quickly, for Timah was certainly no stranger to him. He nuzzled at her neck with his mouth and she flopped down in the grass for a moment, purring luxuriously as his warm tongue lapped at her ear. Abruptly, she rose to her feet, prowled a short distance, then went down again, presenting herself to him with her tail slightly raised. Haji followed silently, clambered astride and entered her with well-practised ease.
The union was brief, twenty seconds at most, with Timah emitting a series of low guttural moans indicating her pleasure. As the union came to climax, Haji lowered his head and gripped the fold of skin around Timah’s neck tightly in his jaws, then gave a peculiar, high-pitched squeal as he ejaculated. Now, the first consummation completed, Timah felt abruptly insecure and began to protest that she must be released. She dislodged Haji with an unceremonious jerk, whipped around, and launched a boisterous attack on him, boxing at his head with her heavy forepaws. He fell back before her, blocking the most severe of her swings, but not attempting to counter the attack. After a few moments, Timah seemed to lose strength and she simply flopped down in exhaustion, rolling onto her back and letting her legs hang awkwardly above her. Haji sat down quietly a few feet away, watching her intently. The only movement was the occasional spasmodic twitch of her tail. Five minutes passed and it was deadly silent in the jungle, the birds shocked to silence by the tigers’ earlier commotion. Now, Timah’s head lifted a little and Haji crept forward to nuzzle at her face again. She rolled onto her side, growling softly as the yearning to copulate reasserted itself. She got to her feet, walked a short distance and flopped down to present herself for a second bout of lovemaking. The entire process was repeated, right down to the brief quarrel afterwards and indeed, it was repeated again and again all through the day and the following night at intervals of between five and twenty minutes. During this time, Haji and Timah had no thought of food and only during the late hours, after they had mated some forty or fifty times, did they allow themselves the luxury of a brief nap between sessions. While the oestrus lasted, Haji and Timah would stay constantly together, and only when it was at an end would they separate and return to their more usual life patterns. If the union was successful and Timah found herself pregnant, then she would have the unenviable task of raising and feeding the resulting litter for up to two years, when they would be capable of looking after themselves. I
n that time, save for chance encounters, she would not normally expect to have Haji’s companionship again. Such was the simple and solitary life that nature had evolved for the tiger.
Fending off another of Timah’s bouts of boisterous insecurity, Haji had a brief vision, a memory of other times when he had performed this strange old ritual and there came to him the conviction that, if he was successful in siring offspring this time, then it would surely be the last time, for he was very old now and was already past the age when most male tigers lost their ability to reproduce. He had no way of knowing how many cubs he had fathered and there was still, in his mind, the vague, fretful memory of his other mate Seti, who had died trying to deliver her last litter.
He dropped patiently down into the grass and watched as Timah slumped yet again into exhaustion. For a moment, an image of Seti’s blind eyes assailed him, but then it was gone, lost in the jungle of half-formed visions and images that surfaced occasionally in his brain. He concentrated on the slow, serpentlike coiling of Timah’s tail, and he waited for desire to come to her again.
CHAPTER 17
MELISSA WAS FUMING. She stalked silently along the road, her hands in the pockets of her shorts, painfully aware that she had made a complete fool of herself. Bob Beresford had not turned up at the swimming pool that afternoon. That much would have been bad enough, but so confident had she been about her conquest that she had herself invited Victoria Lumly and Allison Weathers along to witness the triumph. At first she had been quietly confident about the assignation, but as the afternoon wore slowly onward and there was still no sign of Bob, she had begun to feel quite wretched, a creature of ridicule. Of course, the acid-tongued Victoria had lost no opportunity to press home the point, feigning wide-eyed innocence as she said “helpful” things like, “Perhaps his jeep broke down,” or, “Are you sure it was today you told him to meet you?” Meanwhile that dreadful Allison had just snickered and giggled the entire day away. At last, Melissa could stand it no more and she had simply sneaked away, leaving the two insufferable creeps to their own devices.
Now, walking back along the coast road in the direction of her estate, Melissa began to examine the possibilities. Had she come on too strong with him, perhaps? She’d always been led to believe that men liked girls who showed a little initiative; and besides, he’d been keen enough the night before, there was no doubt about that. Perhaps he really had got himself into an unavoidable situation at work … maybe he would get in touch with her soon.…
She snapped her head up as a strange, distant sound reached her ears. It seemed to come from the direction of the jungle, an eerie, prolonged caterwauling that culminated in a short high-pitched shriek. Melissa put her head to one side and listened, but all was silent now. She frowned, shrugged, trudged onwards again. Monkeys, no doubt …
“I bet they don’t have this trouble,” she muttered to herself.
The sound of a familiar car engine interrupted her thoughts and she turned, half expecting to see a battered Land Rover pursuing her. In seconds, a succession of brief images flickered through her mind’s eye: Bob had been unavoidably delayed, but now he would leap from the Land Rover and take her roughly in his arms … and Melissa of course, would insist that the two of them go back to the swimming pool, if only for a brief time, just so that Melissa could see the looks of shock on the faces of those two arrogant Medusas, Victoria and Allison … and then, she and Bob would ride off to some quiet little spot where they could …
The images died abruptly. It was not the Land Rover at all but her father’s car, returning from the barracks. He was smiling at her from the driver’s seat and opening the passenger door for her to get in. He must have been vaguely surprised by the look of disgust she favoured him with.
“Is there something wrong, dear?” he asked mildly.
“Yes, there is!” she complained bitterly. But she walked to the car and clambered into the passenger seat, slamming the door shut behind her.
“What have you been up to today?” enquired Dennis.
“Swimming pool.”
He raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Did you forget your towel then?”
“I didn’t go there to swim.”
“Ah … that would explain it.” He accelerated the car away from the verge. “Go by yourself?” he asked.
“With Victoria and Allison.”
“I thought you didn’t like them.”
“I don’t. They’re disgusting.”
“Ah … yes…” Dennis noted to himself that his daughter was in a singularly strange mood today, but he had learned from long experience that it was pointless to try and pursue any of her more puzzling remarks in search of some explanation.
“Did you er … see Bob Beresford at all, today?” asked Melissa.
“No, I didn’t. But I did hear something interesting about him.…”
Melissa sat up and took notice.
“Oh? What was that?”
“Well, it seems he had a bit of a nasty trick played on him last night. He left somebody to guard the tiger while he went away for a while and when he got back, the villagers had taken a few trophies of their own…”
Melissa stared at him.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“They chopped the tiger up, dear. Took the teeth and claws from it, hacked it about with knives. Apparently it was good for nothing by the time Beresford got back to it, so he ended up just leaving it there. Damned shame, really…”
Melissa turned to gaze blankly at the straight strip of road ahead. On either side, the jungle was a thick impenetrable screen of fronds and behind the treetops over to the west, the sky was rapidly reddening as the sun began to journey down to the horizon.
“Oh my God…” she whispered.
“What’s the matter?”
“It must have happened while he was driving me home.”
“Uh … yes, I suppose it must.”
“Well, don’t you see? He’ll blame me for it! He obviously thinks it’s my fault!”
“Surely not…”
“Yes, of course he will!” She sank her face into the palm of her hand with a groan of misery. “He won’t even want to know me now,” she concluded glumly.
“Oh, now Melissa, I do think you’re being dramatic about this,” reasoned Dennis. “It’s hardly your fault, after all.”
“The point is, if he hadn’t had to drive me home, he’d have been with the tiger all the time … the villagers wouldn’t even have had the chance to get at it. It stands to reason that he’s going to blame me. For God’s sake, that’s obviously why he didn’t turn up at the swimming pool today!”
“Oh, I see…” Dennis frowned. He did not have much experience of discussing this kind of thing with his daughter and he felt distinctly uncomfortable. He gave what he thought was a reassuring smile. “I’m sure he’ll soon get over it,” he murmured lamely.
Melissa looked far from convinced.
“How long will that take?” she retorted sulkily. “There’s not much time.…” She turned to gaze silently out of the open window.
“What peculiar little plot is she hatching now?” thought Dennis uneasily. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he really knew very little about his daughter. Oh, she’d inherited Kate’s willfulness right enough, a determination to achieve any goal she set her sights on, that much he knew. But unlike her mother, Melissa seemed to possess an ability to divorce herself from her emotions. She was always working on some calculated little scheme or other, but the secrets of them were never divulged until it was too late and the prize, whatever it was, safely netted. For once, the object of her attention seemed well and truly transparent. Bob Beresford. But something told Dennis that it couldn’t be as straightforward as that. For one thing, Melissa wasn’t acting like somebody who had been smitten by an infatuation; anyway, she was too sensible for that kind of thing. Beresford was simply a means to an end, but what that might be was anybody’s guess. One thing w
as for certain. For Beresford, it was only a matter of time. Regardless of her reasons for pursuing him, Melissa always got what she wanted in the end. That much had been proved time and time again in the past.
She sat now, leaning slightly forward, her chin resting on her clenched fist, her elbow resting on one knee and her face bore an expression that suggested earnest concentration.
“Penny for them,” said Dennis drily, and was not unduly surprised when he received no reply. Melissa had retreated to her own world, where she was the only real inhabitant and the rest of mankind merely pawns to be manipulated. This was the familiar pattern. Whatever it was she was plotting now, it ultimately meant trouble for somebody.
The route took them past a short stretch of roadside fruit stalls on the side of a small kampong. An old herdsman was driving a sizeable flock of goats across the road and Dennis was obliged to ease the car to a halt. Instantly, the appalling stench of durians came flooding in through the open window. Despite his years in Malaya, Dennis had never managed to get used to it and he had to exert considerable effort to stop himself from retching. Furthermore, the glaring sun on the roof of the car quickly transformed its interior into a large pressure-cooker, but the herdsman, a boney old man in a grubby sarong was evidently in no great hurry to get his flock across. A couple of young boys from the stall seized the opportunity to run across and thrust a couple of durians in through the open window, while they noisily enticed the “Tuan” to buy them. The boys were laughing uproariously for they were well aware of the revulsion that the fruit generally instilled in white people. Dennis was obliged to hand them some coins simply to get them to take the wretched things away and as this was their ploy, they moved off, well-satisfied. But the stink had now permeated the interior of the car and even Melissa was inconvenienced enough to stop plotting and place a hand over her mouth and nose. With a sinking feeling, Dennis noticed that several of the goats had decided to sit down in the middle of the road and the herdsman was gazing at the car with a broad grin on his face. Dennis felt in his pocket for some coins and he sighed.
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