Shark & The Wolf: Predators and Prey
Page 1
SHARK & THE WOLF:
PREDATORS AND PREY
DANIEL D. SHIELDS
Copyright © 2011 Daniel D. Shields
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1461092396
ISBN-13: 9781461092391
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61397-736-1
“A book fans of billiards and adventure will devour…”
“Jaws & Claws...a deadly and highly
entertaining combination!”
“Shark, the world’s only pool playing Great White shark,
is a new modern hero with a killer smile.”
“The billiards term Pool Shark comes to life in a richly imagined
adventure with Bite!...Sit back and enjoy the wild ride.”
“A Pool Shark, Ruthless Hyena, and a
Billionaire Casino Magnate... What’s
not to love... All the ingredients for
the ultimate adventure.”
“An Exotic Trek from Africa, to Key
West, Fiji, South America
and Las Vegas!…Pack your bags and enjoy the trip!”
Man and the higher animals, especially the primates, have some few instincts in common . . . similar passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones, such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude and magnanimity; they practice deceit and are revengeful; they are sometimes susceptible to ridicule, and even have a sense of humor . . .
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871 (2nd ed., 1874)
Contents
PROLOGUE: The Serengeti Plains – Tanzania, East Africa
CHAPTER 1: Florida Keys – Gill’s Bar and Grill
CHAPTER 2: The Journey Begins
CHAPTER 3: Mama’s Fangs
CHAPTER 4: Jungle Drums
CHAPTER 5: The Perfect Day at Tiki Wiki Billiards
CHAPTER 6: The Next Day
CHAPTER 7: The Ship
CHAPTER 8: White Fang Mountain
CHAPTER 9: The Auction
CHAPTER 10: The Big Tent Gladiators
CHAPTER 11: The Quacking Duck
CHAPTER 12: The Train
CHAPTER 13: Two Prizes for the Price of One
CHAPTER 14: Revenge
CHAPTER 15: Surveying the Damage
CHAPTER 16: Conquistadors Cantina
CHAPTER 17: The Beating
CHAPTER 18: The Mill
CHAPTER 19: The Serengeti Resort and Casino
CHAPTER 20: Blackbeard’s Bounty Bar & Grill
CHAPTER 21: Serengeti Executive Offices
CHAPTER 22: The Meeting at the Sky Tower Restaurant
CHAPTER 23: KANI Sky Chopper Five
CHAPTER 24: The Long Goodbye
CHAPTER 25: Preparing for the Show
CHAPTER 26: The Blood-Red Carpet
CHAPTER 27: Predators and Prey – The Show Begins
CHAPTER 28: Sunset over the gulf
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
The Serengeti Plains – Tanzania, East Africa
Bull, a large African elephant, spent midday with his family at the watering hole in the center of the sweltering Serengeti plains of East Africa. His son, a juvenile just two years old, splashed the water with his small trunk, then rolled his body in the mud to keep cool. Bull watched as his son played and his female dipped her torso into the cool water. He looked off into the distance, surveying his surroundings, acutely aware of the lion pride stalking the watering hole from the thicket of brush, just a quarter mile to the east.
Bull had no fear. His instincts told him that the lions were not a threat to him or his family, that their size offered protection from the stealthy predators, that the lions were more interested in the smaller prey such as zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle, which also used the watering hole as a life source for the precious liquid.
It was just before dusk when the elephants rested in the high grass near a grove of trees. Bull sat and focused his large black eyes on his son. The youngster approached and looked up. Bull shook his head, making his large ears slap against his body, which excited the boy, who followed Bull and made his own little ears do the same. The boy was full of energy and liked to play, but he soon grew tired and rested in the cool shadow of his father’s massive body.
As the sun set and another day turned to night on the open expanse of wilderness known as the African savanna, Bull caressed his son’s head with his large trunk and watched as the youngster fell into a much-needed deep sleep.
From his driver’s seat in the first of two all terrain safari jeeps, Shaw felt the thrill of excitement run up and down his spine. The light of a full moon, obscured by scattered clouds, cast an eerie glow across the Serengeti. A light wind howled through the air, camouflaging the high-pitched hum of the electric motors as the jeeps moved swiftly through the tall grass in search of prey. Infrared sensors, attached to the vehicles’ roofs, sent out a three-mile-wide scan that identified animals and relayed their position directly to the jeeps’ computer screens.
Shaw, billionaire casino magnate, self-proclaimed world’s greatest showman, big-game hunter, and owner of the expedition, had over a hundred vehicles taking part in the largest animal capture ever allowed by the Tanzanian government. The trucks were hunting on protected game reserve, a rare privilege that had cost Serengeti Ventures Las Vegas, Inc., Shaw’s company, a small fortune in government bribes.
The ride was rough. Shaw had both hands firmly on the steering wheel, steadying the jeep on the uneven terrain as it sped through the darkness.
“Is anything visible yet?” he asked his man viewing the monitor.
Jones worked his fingers on the touch screen. “Something is coming into view.”
Shaw shifted his focus from the dark plains to the computer screen. He watched as the monitor lit up with the word Pachyderm, then watched as a three- dimensional rotating image of an elephant appeared.
“We’ve got elephants,” Jones said, excited. “It looks like a small family, one adult male, one adult female, and one juvenile male.” He looked up and pointed. “They’re about two miles to the southwest.”
Shaw refocused on the dark plains ahead. “What are the quota and capture totals?”
Jones again worked the screen. “Quota is one hundred. Capture list is ninety-eight.”
“All we need is two,” Shaw remarked. “With three out there, it’s time we finish this job.”
A voice crackled from the radio. It was the driver of the second vehicle. “Savanna One? Have you registered the target?”
Shaw felt a rush of adrenaline surge through his body, knowing the hunt was about to begin. “Affirmative, Savanna Two. We show three elephants two miles to the southwest. Out.”
“We also have animal positions locked and loaded, sir. We will follow your lead. Out.”
Shaw gave the steering wheel a slight turn to the left and guided the tandem pair of killing machines in the direction of the unsuspecting prey.
Shaw’s heart pounded as the vehicles rode hard and fast. The tall grass of the plains slapped and bent beneath the metal torso of the jeep. As he closed in on his targets, the screen showed movement by the large mammals. The elephants got to their feet and started to move. Shaw glanced at the screen as the infrared image showed the elephants walking, then surging into a full gallop, obviously spooked by the two large predators they sensed coming.
The jeeps’ large roof lights lit up the savanna for a quarter mile in a forward direction. As the vehicles approached the large mammals, Shaw could see the immense rear of the big bull running behind his family.
Shaw slowed the jeep as he closed in on the big bull, making sure to keep a safe distance between himself and the la
rge, unpredictable animal.
The elephant slowed, then came to a complete stop. It slowly turned its immense body and defiantly faced its pursuers. Shaw stopped his jeep fifty feet from the angry beast.
Shaw exited the jeep first. He held a rifle in his hand and kept his eyes on his prey. He looked over and noticed the awestruck expression on Jones’s face.
“He must have at least five tons on him,” Jones said.
Shaw eyed the bull. “More like eight tons. He’s got at least sixteen thousand pounds on him and he’s standing at least sixteen feet tall, one of the biggest bulls I’ve ever seen. And those eyes, boys, look at those eyes as black as night—see the way they stare right at you, as if looking directly into your soul?”
The bull raised his front legs into the air and let out a large trumpeting roar from his massive trunk, a sound so loud it made Shaw cover his ears. The large feet fell to the ground and violently shook the earth beneath.
“He don’t like us, he don’t like us one bit,” Shaw said to his men without taking his eyes off the beast. “Give this one the opportunity, and he’d impale you on those long, curved tusks, then drop you to the ground and crush you to death. Sixteen thousands pounds of elephant coming down on a man with a foot that size doesn’t leave much to recognize him by.”
Shaw could sense the giant bull was agitated by the presence of him and his men. He had learned from studies he read that an elephant’s instincts to protect its family were some of the strongest in the animal kingdom. He watched as the big bull dragged his front feet through the dirt, stirring up dust. A pure sign of aggression, of protective instincts kicking in, Shaw thought. The bull bent his head and waved his massive tusks rapidly as he again roared, making Shaw cover his ears.
The bull fell silent and stared directly at Shaw as it continued to drag its front feet in the dirt. Shaw started to feel uneasy, something deep down in his own instincts alerting him that danger was near. He began to back up slowly. “Don’t look now, boys, but our big friend is about to charge.”
The bull moved forward, his giant tusks tucked low to the ground. He rammed his tusks into the front of the first jeep. His incredible strength lifted it up into the air and tossed the three-ton vehicle like a toy; it landed on its roof.
Shaw felt the power of the shockwave; it felt like the jeep had been hit by a runaway locomotive. Shaw took cover and huddled behind the second jeep as bits of glass and metal debris rained down from the violent attack.
Shaw thought the bull must have seen the jeep as a living predator, its headlights possibly appearing as eyes on the approach and its motor giving off a sound like a heartbeat. Shaw knew the elephant had no way of knowing that the jeep was just a machine made by man.
Shaw crawled on his knees and looked around the corner of the jeep; he watched the elephant pace back and forth, then stand defiantly still, ready to protect its family, Shaw was certain, until death.
The bull again lifted his massive legs into the air and roared. His feet came down hard on the front of the second jeep, crushing its hood and shattering its windshield.
“This bull is no normal bull,” Shaw whispered as he removed a tranquilizer dart from between his teeth and loaded it into his rifle. “This bull has a passion in him I’ve never seen. It’s going to be a pleasure taking this trophy down. He should prove to be quite the attraction.”
Jones looked at Shaw. “Wait a second. I thought we were going to take the female and the calf?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Jones.” Shaw moved up the back of the vehicle to view his prey. “The female, yes, we can breed her, but this bull is a prize far too valuable for any hunter to pass up.”
“But the weaning cycle of juvenile elephants is a full ten years,” Jones argued. “This juvenile only looks to be about two. If we separate him from his mother, he will starve to death.”
Shaw continued to make his way around the back of the jeep. “I am quite familiar with the developmental stages of the African elephant, Mr. Jones. But such is life on the Serengeti.”
Shaw walked slowly around the front of the jeep. He looked directly into the dark eyes of the bull. The two stood there for a moment and stared at each other, Shaw recognizing his full body reflection in the beast’s enormous eyes.
The bull, breathing heavily, readied himself for another attack. He lowered his head and mighty tusks, and charged.
Shaw stood firm, raised his rifle and fired. The dart hit the bull in the neck and in an instant his body crashed to the ground, his immense tusks sliding and stopping at Shaw’s feet. The large elephant lay still, paralyzed; his eyes remained open. Shaw could sense that, although the mighty bull could not move, he was watching and remembering everything that was happening.
The eight-thousand-pound female and her calf took cover in a grove of trees. Shaw approached slowly, knowing that females could be just as deadly as large bulls when protecting their young. Shaw struggled to see in the shadows of the trees but could hear the small bellows coming from the baby elephant. As he got closer, the female became uneasy; she roared and charged out of the tree line. Shaw fired the dart and watched the large body collapse onto the cold, dry dirt.
The youngster walked out of the trees and placed his small trunk on his mother’s motionless body, trying to get her attention. When she did not move he lay down next to her, looking at Shaw with his large, innocent eyes, oblivious to the horror of the death sentence he was about to be given.
As dawn appeared on the horizon of the Serengeti, the pair of Sikorsky Sky Crane choppers hovered in the air. They both climbed, lifting the harnesses that carried their enormous payloads. Shaw watched as the first chopper lifted the female quickly, banked in a large U-turn, and headed toward the African coast. The second chopper struggled a bit with the immense weight of the male but eventually lifted him off the ground.
Bull looked down from the net at his small, innocent son. The boy looked back and cried loudly. Bull knew the youngster would have no idea where they were going, that he would not understand why his parents would leave him. His heart ached as a powerful wave of painful sadness surged through his body.
As the chopper began its slow ascent, Bull regained a little strength and let his long trunk dangle from the net. He felt his baby’s small trunk curl around his, felt the strength the boy exerted as he tried to hang on, then felt the trunk slip away as the chopper rose, forcing the boy to lose his tiny grip. His baby let out another loud cry.
As the chopper lifted him into the air, tears formed in Bull’s large black eyes. He felt helpless as the chopper lifted him away from his small, defenseless, innocent son.
As the two choppers disappeared into the distance, Shaw walked back to the computer screen on the back of the second jeep to check his totals. They had captured over nine hundred gazelle, six hundred wildebeest, seven hundred zebra, and one hundred elephants.
A fine start to my empire, he thought. The only thing missing now were the predators.
Jones approached. “Mr. Shaw, we’ve heard from vector seven. They have a read on five lion prides and are in the process of capturing them as we speak.”
Shaw smiled and looked at his man. “Thank you, Mr. Jones. Thank you, indeed.”
The second jeep was battered but mobile. Shaw stood on the outside rail of the jeep to let the rising sun shine on his face and the cool morning air move past his body. As the jeep moved, Shaw looked back at the baby elephant; he watched as the small mammal chased after the jeep, became tired, and sat down alone in the high grass. Shaw listened as it cried, cried at being left alone, cried for its parents—cries that would go unanswered.
CHAPTER 1
Florida Keys – Gill’s Bar and Grill
As everyone in the bar waited in tense silence, Shark positioned the cue stick between his fingers and concentrated on his last shot. Suddenly, the white cue ball blurred as it streaked across the table toward its target. The impact sent the eight-ball screaming at a perfect angle toward the far corne
r pocket. The ball smacked the center of the black leather pouch and fell downward. The crowd cheered.
Shark was victorious for the seventh game in a row. High fives were everywhere. This was his place, his bar, his table. He was the world’s only Great White pool-playing shark, and the pool table at Gill’s Bar and Grill was his small sea.
Shark watched his opponent slowly circle the table. He noticed how the hyena eyed it carefully, how he took note of the number of balls left and the exact position of each one. The hyena was dressed in a fancy suit that covered his rail-like, wily frame. He wore a fedora hat that sat atop a weathered face accentuated by a long, thin snout, the tip of which had a small, coal-black nose. His entire appearance put Shark on edge. Although the hyena was much smaller, Shark knew the species were some of the most dangerous, ferocious predators in the world. Hyenas were famous for the strength of their jaws and the ferocity with which they carried out their kills. On top of all that, there was something about this hyena in particular that Shark did not trust.
The hyena reached down in his pocket with his long, bony fingers, retrieved a crisp hundred-dollar bill and put it down face up on the table. He looked directly at Shark. His eyes were yellow except for the center, where small, deep black pupils stared. “Care to go again?”
Shark retrieved his latest winnings from the table. He whipped out a roll of cash and inserted the new bill. “You’re down seven hundred,” he said as he snapped a rubber band around the cash and placed it back in his pocket. “If you’re giving away money, I’m just the guy to take it.”
Shark felt cocky tonight. He could afford to be. The seven hundred in his pocket burned a hole. It would go a long way buying rounds for the bar, something he always offered his friends after a big win. If the hyena wanted to keep playing, Shark figured it just tendered more free booze for him and the boys.
Shark grinned and exposed the whites of his sharp, triangular teeth. “Rack ’em.”