Tiger, Tiger

by Philip Caveney

  Trimani sank obligingly onto his hands and knees.

  “It’sh dark, remember, and I’ve only got the moonlight, because coming down the tree, I knocked the flashlight on the rifle barrel and smashed the lens.…” Harry began to move stealthily forward, the broom held ready to fire. “I crept through the long grass, looking from side to side,” he narrated. “I couldn’t see much, but from time to time, I heard the tiger’sh roar.…” Trimani responded with a low rumbling growl. “That’sh very realistic!” observed Harry. “Now, sneaking forward, I didn’t see the thorn bushes until it was too late!” Harry thrust one foot into the tangle of chairs and began to thrash noisily around in them. “I was caught!” he yelled. “Immobile! And the more I struggled, the more my clothing seemed to snag. Now, the tiger, hearing the movement below him, began to creep forward acrosh the top of the rock until he was directly above me—”

  Trimani leaned forward over the edge of the bar and gave a blood-curdling roar.

  “I say, that’sh really very good, you know … but I was held with my back to the rock and couldn’t turn to face the attack. My left arm was held back like this, and the right side of my shirt hooked too. I could sense that the tiger was about to come down on me, so I stopped thrashing about and gazed upwards.” The recollection of the incident seemed to sober Harry up abruptly. His voice became more lucid. “I could just make out the glint of its eyes as it began to move down toward me. I’ve never been more terrified than I was in that moment, Trimani. I thought I was going to die, I really did. But at the last instant, the instinct for survival asserted itself. I still had the rifle in my hands and I twisted it around, so that it was resting on my left shoulder, pointing upwards.… There was no time to aim. Small rocks began to fall on me, and I could hear the noise of the tiger’s body sliding off the rock and into space. It was coming down right on top of me … right on top, mind you! The weight of it alone would be enough to crush me and the claws and jaws would be ready to tear me to pieces. The tiger was cornered and in pain, it would kill me if it could … I squeezed the trigger! Bang! The shot echoed in my ears! I heard a squeal and the tiger seemed to fly over my head suddenly, as though the impact of the shot had given it wings. It came down in front of me, landing hard, its striped body shuddering. It lay there for a moment and I thought it was finished, but then it lifted its head and it looked at me. It looked at me! And there was just a look in its eyes and it seemed to be asking me why, why, why had I done this thing? And then … then…” Harry broke off in alarm as a sudden savage pain erupted in his chest. He gasped, clutched at his heart and the broom clattered to the barroom floor. Trimani, still crouching on the top of the bar, looked down at him in alarm.

  “Tuan? What is wrong?”

  “Trimani, I think I—” Again the sentence collapsed into a brief exclamation of pain. The colour drained from Harry’s face. Trimani began to scramble down from the bar. Harry tried to take a step, but his leg was still amongst the chairs and he fell forward in a sprawl, bringing several of them clattering around him. He slumped down onto his face but then Trimani was beside him, turning him over.

  “Tuan, what is the matter with you?”

  Harry’s face was ashen.

  “Too much to drink,” he hissed through teeth that were gritted in pain.

  “I get help!” cried Trimani desperately. He leapt up and raced out of the bar, his footsteps pounding on the wooden floor.

  Harry groaned softly. He tried to sit up, but another spasm shook his body and he thought it better to lie still and wait. From where he lay, he could see the stuffed head of the tiger snarling down at him from above the doorway. He gazed back calmly, unafraid. The tiger’s head seemed to grow slowly in size and it lost definition, dissolved into a huge orange blob that sizzled in front of Harry’s eyes like a great ball of flame. Heat enveloped him now but then it was abruptly cool and there was a firmness beneath his back. His vision focussed briefly and he saw a grey anonymous ceiling above his head. Set into the ceiling at regular intervals were a series of glowing orange tigers’ heads, which whizzed past over him and away as he sped down a corridor on oiled silent wheels. Then hoods slipped down over his vision and he thought it better to rest, so he let the clouds of sleep that were tugging insistently at his brain, take over and float him downwards into a deep and dreamless world. He no longer felt any pain and a last vague thought wheedled its way up from his subconscious mind.

  “Death. That’s one thing we forgot to drink to.”

  But then he could think no more, and he slept in silent blackness.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE NIGHT was calm and humid. Haji lay some twenty yards away from the body of the female Upright that he had killed earlier that day. He was concealed by the stout limb of a fallen tree and he lay on his side, occasionally dozing or lapping at the festering wound on his right foreleg. From time to time, a slight breeze carried the stench of decaying meat in his direction and his stomach churned at such torture; but the young Upright was on the scene as usual, perched in a tall Kapok tree off to the right of the kill and Haji had already resigned himself to losing what was left of the meat. Still, he lingered at the scene, hoping perhaps that the Upright would fall asleep or, better still, give up and return to his own lair.

  The great silvery orb of a full moon hung suspended in the sky, casting an eerie illumination that infiltrated the dense jungle in a series of slender rays that minted the bushes and swaying grasses with patches of restless dappled light. Haji was incapable of napping for more than a few moments at a time, for there was a terrible sense of insecurity in him this night, a nagging, fretful mood that he was unable to shake off. There had come to him, quite suddenly, the powerful conviction that his days were numbered, that he was doomed. Old age had destroyed him. It had made him incapable of following the old ways and instead, had transformed him into a kampong-thief, a devourer of Uprights. This had never been his way before and the sheer wrongness of it burdened him with a powerful sense of shame that gave him no rest. Survival was a hollow achievement when it caused him to live in such a way.

  He got to his feet and began to pace up and down behind the log, growling low in his throat. The Upright would probably hear him, but for the moment, he did not care about that. His useless paw hampered him even in such aimless movement, and the insecurity in him turned quickly to a powerful rage, an all encompassing anger that for the moment he was unable to direct at anything. A first long rumbling roar escaped from his throat and it seemed to echo in the night.

  There was a brief silence and then Haji’s sharp ears detected a brief rustle of movement in the Upright’s tree, as the young Australian shifted position. Haji stopped pacing and fixed the tree with an intense glare. He could see it quite clearly in the moonlight, could even discern the low fork where the Upright had fixed his wooden seat no more than twelve or fifteen feet from the ground. Haji’s rage continued to grow in intensity, a brooding powerful mood that quickly began to blot out the tiger’s limited powers of reasoning. Soon even his healthy fear of the black stick was forgotten, for now the Upright was a focus for Haji’s rage, the object against which all his bitterness must be directed. Pressing his body low against the ground and keeping his gaze fixed on the tree, Haji began to circle around to his right, slipping silently through the tangle of undergrowth that separated him from his goal. The distance shortened rapidly and Haji could now see quite plainly that the Upright was looking in the opposite direction, that he was totaly unaware of the vengeful creature creeping up behind him.

  Now Haji could see the hated black stick and this, more than anything else, served to antagonize him, racking his hatred up into a brief, senseless bout of madness. Without further hesitation, he began to race directly at the tree, covering the remaining yards in a matter of seconds. With a bellow of rage, he launched himself directly at the machan.

  Then all was chaos. At the last instant, Bob turned and found himself gazing full into the face of death. Haji’s forepaw
s struck the broad fork of the tree, and for an instant, the cat hung suspended by his claws while he tried to lever himself forward to tear at the creature that had for so long tormented him. Bob screamed aloud in pure terror and made a clumsy attempt to bring his rifle around to bear on the cat that was mere inches away from him; but the barrel hit a stout branch and the gun went off prematurely, firing harmlessly into the treetops. The shattering roar of it assailed the night and the tiger’s eyes were momentarily lit with fire. Bob, caught fast in the worst nightmare of his life, felt the hot gusting raw-meat breath of the cat on his face. Hanging precariously by its claws, it was inching toward him, its face a mask of demonic fury. A roar spilled from the open jaws, seeming to shake the entire tree down to its roots. Desperately, Bob struck out with the butt of the rifle, slamming it full into the tiger’s face and the cat snatched it in his foaming jaws, gave it a quick sideways wrench and sent it spinning away like a useless toy. Without waiting to see anymore, Bob scrambled away further up the tree, but Haji, pulling himself higher into the lap of the fork, came after him. Somebody had once told Bob that tigers had very limited climbing ability and he could only pray to God that this was the case as he clambered out along a network of thinner branches with the tiger’s jaws slavering at his heels. He edged along as quickly as he dared, terrified that a branch might break and send him down to the jungle floor, where the tiger would make very short work of him. He felt the branch beneath his feet bow dramatically and glancing back, he saw to his horror that the tiger was inching his way out along the limb on which he was standing. With an oath, he scrambled higher, lost his footing, dangled precariously for several moments by his hands, while his flailing feet searched for a new hold. Haji reared up and swung at his feet with his forepaws but this extra action caused the branch on which he was crouching to give out a long agonized splitting sound and he was obliged to move quickly back to the fork with a snarl of baffled rage. Once there, he turned back to watch the struggles of the Upright. Bob was beginning to panic. His feet could find no suitable hold and his hands, wet and slippery with his own sweat, were failing to grasp the smooth bark of the limb above him. He glanced desperately down at the jungle floor. He could see his rifle lying there, but doubted that he could drop to the ground, retrieve it, reload and fire, all before the tiger dropped onto him from above. The only substantial limb below him was the one which had already been splintered by the tiger’s weight. It was drooping down at an alarming angle and looked incapable of supporting more than a few pounds. Bob realized that his only hope was to somehow pull himself more securely onto the limb from which he was already hanging. He clenched his teeth and digging his fingers as much as he could into their precarious hold, he flexed the muscles of his arm and began to raise himself tenaciously toward the branch.

  Haji’s rage had suddenly dispersed itself and now it was replaced with a sense of curiosity. He turned away, dropped down to the forest floor and padded out beneath the Upright, gazing up curiously at the man’s frantic struggles.

  Bob was, for the moment, unaware that the cat was no longer in the tree with him. He was horribly aware that his shaking fingers were losing their grip and he began to reconsider the possibility of dropping to earth and snatching his rifle; but glancing briefly downwards, he saw the tiger’s amber eyes gazing patiently up at him; the shock of it galvanized him into making one last heave and he swung his legs upwards in a desperate ploy and wrapped them like a vice around the branch. The limb bent downwards with heart-stopping abruptness but then it held and Bob was able to take a better hold with his hands. Hugging himself tightly against his perch, he craned his head around to stare triumphantly down at the tiger.

  “Beat you, you bastard,” he screamed. “Let’s see you get up here!”

  But Haji was already strolling away, the heat of the rage that had consumed him, forgotten now. He paused to sniff at the kill for a few moments but it had been disturbed and he did not trust it. He glanced back at the Upright in the tree. The man was screaming and gesticulating like some agitated tree ape.

  “You thought you had me, didn’t you, you bastard! Well, you won’t get another chance! D’you hear me? I’m going to put a bullet through you if it’s the last thing I do!”

  Haji gave a low growl of irritation and continued on his way, strolling slowly away into the undergrowth with as much dignity as he could salvage after such an untypical outburst. After a few moments, he was lost amidst the undergrowth.

  Bob clung to the branch, trembling violently. He was drenched in cold sweat and now the shock of the experience was fading, he was beginning to realize just how close he’d been to death. In the darkness, the tiger’s great jaws had been mere inches from his face and in his mind, there was a vivid image of the cat’s eyes lit up by the flare of the rifle. They had been full of hatred, those eyes, and they would haunt Bob’s dreams for many long nights to come. Glancing wildly about to assure himself that the cat was really gone, Bob inched clumsily back along the branch and half clambered, half fell back down the tree, swearing rhythmically to himself as he did so. He could remember no experience in his life that had terrorized him as much as this event. The instant his feet struck the ground, he ran to his rifle and snatched it up, rammed a fresh cartridge into the chamber. The stock of the gun bore several deep gouges where the tiger’s teeth had sunk into it. Bob imagined those same teeth tearing into his flesh and he felt nauseated. He loosed off three shots into the air in quick succession and then he moved back against the trunk of the tree, pressing his back against its reassuring hardness. He squatted there, cradling the gun in his arms and glancing nervously this way and that while he waited for the villagers to come. For the first time in ages, he wanted there to be lots of people around him, the more the better. Even in the humid tropical night, he was very cold, and the trembling had become so bad that his shoulders were heaving up and down and he could scarcely control his breathing.

  It was some considerable time before it occurred to him that he was crying.

  * * *

  DOCTOR KALIM advanced up the driveway like the angel of death, dour and sweating in his black clothes. Harry watched his approach with equal grimness, but the visit was certainly not unexpected. It had, after all, only been a matter of time and there was no doubting what the doctor’s topic of conversation would be. Even so, pleasantries would have to be exchanged first. Harry had not grown so tired of the doctor that he had forgotten his manners.

  “Good day, Doctor Kalim. A beautiful afternoon, is it not?”

  Kalim was taken somewhat by surprise. He was obliged to direct a brief glance around the well-ordered garden with its ranks of banana and papaya trees, its stretch of smooth brownish grass and its high, moss-covered stone walls, all resplendant beneath a cloudless expanse of fine blue sky. It was as though he had forgotten momentarily and now, reminded of it and temporarily diverted from his main reason for coming here, he had to agree that Harry was right.

  “Indeed, Mr. Sullivan, a most fine afternoon. But I am thinking that you are lucky to be seeing it.…”

  Harry smiled.

  “Dear Doctor Kalim,” he sighed. “Ever the jovial physician…” He motioned to Kalim to have a seat on the verandah beside him. “Will you take some tea, Doctor?”

  “No, thank you. I have other visits to make, I can stay but a few moments.…”

  Harry breathed a secret sigh of relief.

  “Well then, Doctor, you never come here for social reasons, so you’d better get it off your chest.”

  “I am here,” announced Kalim grandly, “because I am hearing a most disturbing story from one of the medical officers at Kampong Panjang barracks. He is telling me that you are suffering a heart attack yesterday and that you were taken into the barrack hospital for treatment; and that you discharged yourself from there this morning! Is this correct?” Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Kalim threw up his hands in exasperation. “There is no need to confirm it!” he cried. “I can see from the expre
ssion on your face…”

  Harry smiled sheepishly.

  “Yes, but look here, Doctor, I really felt much better this morning.…”

  “I was also told,” continued Kalim forcefully, “that on admission to the hospital, you were extremely…” His face assumed an expression of revulsion as he searched for a suitable expression. “Extremely inebriated,” he concluded.

  “Well, I’d had a few over the eight,” agreed Harry.

  “A few over the eight?” Kalim was clearly not familiar with the expression. “Mr. Sullivan, it’s of no interest to me how many drinks you had; the point is, a man of your age and precarious health should not be drinking in the first place. I am told that you were also horsing around in a manner not becoming to somebody of your supposed maturity…”

  “Yes, well you see, I was trying to show Trimani how I shot this tiger … actually, I really don’t remember very much about it, but I know I had a hell of a hangover when I woke up.”

  “Mr. Sullivan! Could you be explaining to me please, why it is I am unable to get through to you? How can I make you understand that you are a sick man? Now with care and rest, the correct diet and so forth, there is being absolutely no reason why you should not go on living for many more years to come. But … when I hear of such goings-on … and when I see, with my own eyes, a man of sixty-five…”

  “Sixty-seven.”

  “… a man of sixty-seven, pedalling a damned trishaw down the road with a coolie sitting in the back…”

  “Ah yes, you see, but that man was ill too and he was older than I was! Well, somebody had to get him home, didn’t they? He’s dead now, poor old fellow…”

  Kalim smiled drily.

  “A classic case of what is happening to an old man who will not take rest.” He leaned forward and fixed Harry with a piercing glance. “Do you want to die, too, Mr. Sullivan? Is that why you insist on carrying on this way?”