The Huntsman

by Rafael

  Without warning his pants dropped to the ground. A firm, round rump emerged. Gluteal muscles that powered his stride bulged and flexed as he stepped out then bent to lift them. Miranda tried to avert her eyes. Heat that had nothing to do with the sun surged through her groin and reddened her cheeks. The reaction surprised her. Lost for what else to do, she extended a hand toward a dog. A growl rumbled from its chest.

  “Careful. I can rely on their discipline. You should not.” Miranda kept her hand steady. The dog sniffed then took a tentative lick. It took another than leaned forward. Its partner, who had a scar that ran from its head to its nose, looked on with indifference. Miranda scratched its ears. Janesh stopped long enough to turn his head. “Impressive. They’re good judges of character. I commend you.”

  The breeze shifted wafting an overpowering stench that wrinkled her nose. “Where is that smell coming from?” Janesh pointed toward the vehicle’s front. An audible gasp escaped her throat loud enough to carry toward the rangers who turned their heads. Both hands rushed to her mouth. A young girl, perhaps twenty or twenty-two lay on the ground, ripped and torn clothing scattered about. Ravenous flies swarmed her eyes. A leg, less its thigh, sprawled two feet away. She had no midsection. An exposed spine connected her to the other leg. A churning stomach threatened to empty its contents before she rushed away.

  Miranda struggled to breathe. “You could have warned me.” she shouted. Janesh stepped away from the vehicle. Naked except for a loincloth, a foot-long blade hung from his waist. He’d slung a small pouch’s thin leather strap across his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Logan. I thought, given your background, you knew that smell. Especially when you asked me where it was not what it was. Are you alright?” Bent over, Miranda waved away his apology and nodded. Her breathing regained some normalcy.

  “What, what happened?”

  “Their trail indicated a tiger ambushed five people just within the tree line. Poachers most likely. Four fled for their lives. The girl didn’t make it. You’d be wise to return to your vehicle. Tigers don’t stray far from their kills and she is not his first. I’ve been tracking its spoor for some time now.”

  Miranda straightened and fixed incredulous eyes on Janesh’s appearance. “What are you doing, where are you going?”

  “I must stop this tiger before it kills again.” Miranda searched for a weapon, looked about for a gun or rifle. Her gaze fell on the well-worn spear shaft. Her voice rose two octaves.

  “You’re going to hunt a tiger with a spear? Are you insane? A tiger weighs upwards of six hundred pounds. A one-ton bovid is fair game. It can crush your skull with a swipe of its paw.” She gave a short laugh and derisive snort. “You look pretty strong but I assure you you’re not in a tiger’s league. Not even close.”

  “This is not the West, Dr. Logan. Here things are…different.” She gave another short laugh.

  “Yeah, but not the tiger.”

  With a shrug Janesh turned again to the ATV, retrieved a bottle, opened its top, placed a rag against its mouth and overturned it twice. He wrapped the rag around one dog’s collar then repeated the process for the other. The dogs grew visibly excited. A strong scent filled the air.

  “What is that?”

  “Sambar deer musk. Bengal tigers can imitate the rutting call of a male. This one does a good impersonation but I can tell the difference.” Miranda’s shocked voice almost squeaked.

  “You’re going to expose the dogs to a tiger? These are Rhodesian Ridgebacks. I’m sure you know they hunt lions not tigers.” Janesh straightened from his task. Feigned annoyance peeked through an impassive face.

  “Thanks a lot, Dr. Logan. I had them convinced we were in Africa.” Miranda made to respond but stopped. Understanding dawned. The dead woman had caused an emotional spike that clouded her reasoning. The claw marks. Of course. Her eyes narrowed. She tried to imagine the unimaginable.

  “How many tigers have you killed?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. The tiger acted out of instinct not malice. I am sympathetic to that poor woman but the tiger should not pay the price for their actions. They were poachers. They shouldn’t have been here. Had those rangers caught them, they would have shot them on sight. Besides, you’re Hindu. Aren’t you supposed to respect all life?”

  Janesh stopped and for the first time focused his full attention on Miranda. For an instant she felt like a cobra’s cornered prey. With a gentle sigh, he assumed the role of patient instructor. “Examining a single letter, Dr. Logan, grants no knowledge of its alphabet. And an alphabet has no meaning even when they form words. Not until one steps back to read sentences and paragraphs can understanding begin.

  The principle of ahimsa—non-violence—can be taken to extremes and prohibit killing a worm or an ant. Mahatma Gandhi, its most famous advocate, extended it even to plants. But ahimsa is folded within the greater principle of Dharma that guides the ethical and moral behavior of all. Dharma is all-encompassing to include the Earth, the ocean, the moon, the stars, and the sun. The only English word which can approximate it is righteousness. It is the essence of the universe and the spirit of the soul. To be righteous, Dharma demands that we act appropriately. But what is appropriate for a Brahmin, a priest, may not be appropriate for a Kshatriya, a warrior. What is appropriate for a zoologist may not be appropriate for a hunter. Dharma guides the general and flexes for the particular.

  This tiger seeks out humans though it is not old and infirm. It has killed seven, three of whom you might consider innocent. Its next victim may be one of those rangers trying to protect the tiger’s territory. It would be my great shame if his wife or children asked me why I did not fulfill my duty, that is, act appropriately.

  Though I am a hunter, I nonetheless honor the principle of ahimsa and treat all life with great deference. I will hunt this tiger and it will have a fair chance to hunt me. In doing so, we will both bow to Dharma.

  I will help you and Professor Akiyama. Go back to your hotel and await me there. In a few days you can fill me in on this creature of yours.” His eyes twinkled and a grin grew. “Unless of course, the tiger has other plans.”

  Miranda stood rooted, at a loss for what more to say. His right hand grasped the spear. “Come.” Blade forward, he walked the dogs to the half-eaten girl. Tails wagging furiously, the two sniffed torn clothing and surrounding prints. “Hunt.” The dogs broke to his flanks and raced for the trees. Janesh strode toward the forest’s edge. Miranda watched the modern-day primitive with a mixture of awe and wonder. With no conscious forethought, she called out to him. “What are you, some kind of Tarzan?”

  Janesh took two more steps then stopped, head turned over his shoulder. “Dr. Logan. Apes did not raise me.” He continued forward. A few strides more and the woods swallowed the Lord of Men.

  CHAPTER 8 Greystoke

  A half-mile into the dense forest, Janesh bent on one knee. He had to gather himself. Miranda Logan had shaken him to the core. An ethereal beauty combined with raw sensuality made her difficult to ignore—and he’d tried. From the moment she’d entered the clearing he’d matched her red hair to the woman his neighbors said searched for him. He’d busied himself in aimless shuffling to forestall the emotional tsunami threatening to engulf his being.

  Not since Cambridge had a woman affected him so. That one had ignited an inferno within a young man unprepared for her casual dismissal. Crushed and discarded, he’d spent lonely years with a crippled heart he’d learned to ignore. And now this one had reached into his soul. He had to enter it and cool the embers long since doused. He needed to focus. Its absence might kill him.

  Eyes closed, his breathing slowed. He dived deep within, straight for his ātman, his inner self. The air thickened and grew silent. His muffled heart became a distant thump. He dove deeper, deeper. To a place where stillness shrouded his essence. A gate closed on the young woman, the rangers, Cambridge, and Miranda. Their presence faded within his soul’s impregnable fortress.
Of a moment his senses fled their bonds. Beneath him he heard a tunneling worm, scented the mucus it trailed. Air swirls from a passing butterfly caressed his back. Power surged from an indestructible core. His eyes opened to a clarity and resolution that mocked distance. Duncan and Ronan sat quietly, protective of their master’s vulnerable state. He became one with the forest’s moods and rhythms. Where a man had knelt, a huntsman rose. An unspoken command sent the dogs dashing through the undergrowth.

  Janesh followed the dogs along a clear trail the tiger had left. Ahead a two-inch-deep pug marred the damp earth. He closed a fist and placed it palm down within. It did not touch any sides. Though the print matched ones he’d seen around the kill, he crouched to sniff. It too matched. Farther along, a bamboo thicket revealed several bent shoots. He leaned in to smell the near invisible fur strands protruding from a crack. The stem still drained sap. At most four hours had elapsed. He tracked a monster that stood four and a half feet at the shoulder and weighed close to seven hundred pounds.

  Janesh rose to scan the area. Chattering monkeys and warbling birds confirmed no immediate danger but the slightest mistake could be his last. He gathered leaves from a nearby Behria plant to rub across his body. Its insect repellant provided relief from the myriad pests mistaking him for food.

  India’s tigers had undergone a tremendous revival. Fifty years after jettisoning its socialist underpinnings, the country’s booming economy had drained the rural regions of peasants mired in abysmal poverty. Cities and urban centers offered the Shudra caste a chance to escape the fate destined at birth and their children a path to prosperity. National parks and tiger preserves had expanded into the abandoned countryside. Tadoba Andhari, once 242 square miles, now covered almost 700. The bill arrived as an emboldened tiger population who’d lost their fear of rarely encountered humans. On average they’d grown bigger too and the added strength provided an effortless twenty foot vertical leap. The combination made for a formidable predator.

  Along the faint trail, Janesh became a silent whisper whose passage left no mark. Still, a woodpecker ceased its rat-a-tat-tat at the sun-darkened wraith’s approach. A startled peacock took furious flight, wings flapping like a dealer’s deck shuffle. The forest’s denizens continued their babble. Janesh quickened his pace. Several more pugs left no doubt the tiger headed for Tadoba Lake.

  Steps became miles before he crept behind a tree where the forest had begun to thin. Beyond, a large meadow expanded leftward to the horizon. Straight across and rightward, a three-hundred yard expanse awaited before the forest resumed. Four miles beyond, the lake’s languid waters lapped its southern shoreline. Groups of Gaur bison, Nilgai and Chousingha antelopes, Sambar, Spotted, and Barking deer grazed while their young pranced and chased one another. Birds flitted and dove for insects amid others who squabbled for the right to do so.

  A breeze floated from the open expanse. Needless habit flared his nostrils, sampled the incoming scents. Grass feeders did not remain calm with hungry predators about. Still, tiger patience and camouflage made them notorious ambushers. Janesh stepped into the open. Cautious heads rose to view the newcomer. Sensing no danger, the adults resumed feeding. Cued off their mothers, the young continued play. Spear at the ready, Janesh strode across the meadow, a wary eye glued to the scattered patches of high grass and thickets.

  Halfway out, movement from the far right caught his eye. He turned his head and froze. Duncan and Ronan, noses to the ground, loped in the opposite direction. Brain gears whirled and locked. The tiger had circled behind him. Janesh broke for the tree line still two hundred yards away. Spooked antelope hooves drummed for the distant horizon. Superb conditioning injected oxygen-rich blood into legs that blurred the distance. He spun behind a tree and looked back.

  Tigers reached speeds up to forty-five mph but their size limited the distance to fifty, sixty yards. If its prey took off beyond that range, tigers didn’t bother giving chase. Sure enough, Janesh glimpsed a flash of orange and black just inside the opposite trees. It strode out from the shade. Foreboding, malevolent eyes laser-locked on him. From the left, Duncan and Ronan sounded the chase. The tiger snarled and bared its huge fangs before disappearing into the forest’s gloom. Janesh raced back across the now empty meadow. They had him. After nine fruitless days he would not lose the trail.

  Four hours later the three stood on the bank of a narrow tributary that fed the lake. They’d lost the trail. Powerful swimmers, the tiger had sought refuge in the water. Dusk wanted to descend. At sunrise they’d pick up the trail on the other side. He did not relish tracking a tiger at night and stumbling into a leopard.

  Darkness left him no longer able to distinguish between edible berries and the poisonous ones. Before full night set in he returned to the river for a drink, wary of any lurking marsh crocodiles. When his thirst slacked, he climbed into a tree he’d spotted while foraging. Two massive branches grew at an angle that allowed him to wedge in against the trunk. With falling out eliminated, only a hungry python might pose a problem.

  Janesh slowed his breathing and once again entered a meditative state. While not sleep, it allowed his ears to remain alert. Fed and content, Duncan and Ronan returned from their hunt. Curled around the tree’s base, they too kept alert ears.

  * * *

  Orange singed the eastern sky but the tributary’s dark waters remained murky. Janesh scanned its placid surface. Behind him Duncan and Ronan paced, skittish over his intention. All dogs could swim though his companions didn’t like it. A year ago a crocodile waiting on a river bed, surfaced, grabbed Duncan by the head, then submerged to drown its prey. Its refusal to let the dog go allowed Janesh to plunge a knife into its soft underbelly and gut the reptile. While its brethren tore the dead croc apart, Janesh swam Duncan back to shore, a frightened Ronan close behind. Duncan’s struggle to escape had opened a head-to-nose tear. Now only devotion and loyalty permitted the coming plunge.

  Janesh waited for their confidence to build. Though inner calm left no room for impatience, he wanted to cross now. The cool morning air insured the coldblooded marsh crocodiles inhabiting the river remained sluggish and less alert. Ronan, ever first, approached the water’s edge. A futile sniff tried to detect anything amiss. Spear strapped to his back, Janesh walked into the river. Ronan followed. Duncan hesitated a moment longer before joining his pack. When the water reached his chest, Janesh raised his eyes in prayer. “Protect me, Lord Vishnu, that I may protect my friends. But if not take me not them.”

  Strong, silent strokes powered him toward the opposite bank a scant sixty yards away. His feet paddled beneath the surface to avoid any splash. Duncan and Ronan made no sound. Neither did the quiet morning.

  When a stroke touched bottom, Janesh stood and thanked the Preserver. Duncan and Ronan rushed ahead to shake their coats dry. He knelt to pat and scratch while they pressed against him and licked his face. Bonds reaffirmed, the two answered a question nagging him. They trotted off downstream before pausing to look back and wonder what he waited for. Janesh smiled and relented. Unlikely the tiger would have swum upstream. He unstrapped the spear and let them take point. Four miles later, with the sun above the trees, Duncan and Ronan sniffed around a pug.

  Janesh rose from his examination to gaze into the forest. The tiger still headed for Tadoba Lake six miles beyond this last tree stand. He concluded the rangers’ arrival must have forced it to abandon the half-eaten woman. Its hunger unsatisfied, the abundant wildlife around the lake made for easy hunting.

  If the tiger prowled between them and Tadoba, confronting it in the woods had pros and cons. Behind him the calm river gurgled and lapped. Something splashed. Too many variables, he thought. Plans did not survive encounters with unpredictable tigers. He had to trust he could think faster than it could act. Best just to keep the dogs close. Janesh stepped toward the tree line. “Come.”

  Despite the thick woods and rising heat, the three made good time. Less than two hours later, their passage unchallenged, the trees bega
n to thin. Slouched and bent he crept toward one and took a knee. Duncan and Ronan laid down on either side. Before them open space bordered a lake that stretched for miles in all directions. Antelope and deer grazed on the succulent grasses along the shore. Eagles and hawks circled the waters. Some dove when fish ventured too near the surface. Fewer still rose with one hooked in their talons. As one they stood to step from the tree.

  Nearby grazers did not flee at their approach but maintained a wary eye and constant distance. At the lake’s edge Janesh swirled the water before cupping his hands to drink. When the dogs took their fill, the three resumed the hunt. Janesh grew uneasy. The lake’s water table extended beneath them making the ground damp and soft. Traction might prove treacherous if they had to run at speed.

  Around them animals began to trot away, some in open gallop. The dogs slowed, eyes fixed on a thicket sixty yards away. Low growls rasped from their throats. Janesh gripped the spear with both hands. A giant tiger emerged from the underbrush, its twelve-foot length at once magnificent and terrifying. The forest’s monarch, full in its prime, master of its realm, fixed them with a savage glare. With horrifying intent it slinked to a position that placed them within its chase range.

  Janesh descended into a meditative trance from which his senses permitted only instinct and reflex. Duncan and Ronan trembled for release. He granted it. “Hunt.”

  They raced for the beast that did not hold its ground or retreat. The tiger charged. Janesh’s unease grew to alarm. The ground betrayed the dogs’ superior speed and agility. Their smaller paws sank into the soft earth creating a suction effect. The tiger’s huge paddle-like paws distributed its weight. It singled out Ronan. Massive jaws opened. Saber-like fangs gleamed. Ronan swerved fast enough to avoid death but a claw laid open an eleven-inch gash along its hindquarter.