It appeared that I had underestimated just how far he would go to insure his reelection. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
I drove slowly down the main street on my way out of town, past the police station. The paddy wagon was in its usual place, covered with a shining new coat of fresh, green paint.
Within twenty minutes, I stood with Statler and stared at the fresh horse tracks that veered off from the road to the east, disappearing far in the distance at the edge of the forest.
“Hayes came through here about an hour and a half ago,” Statler said through clenched teeth. “Just as happy as you please. Wished me good hunting.”
“He had reason to; he figured I was sitting in whatever passes for a hospital around here.”
I sketched in some of the details of the incident in the parking lot while I made a final check of my gear.
“Damn, Mongo, I didn’t think Hayes would go that far,” Statler said quietly.
“He’s running a little scared,” I said hurriedly, before Statler could start worrying about me to the point where he’d take his horse back. “And he’s got good reason. He’s the boy who let your tiger loose. Or at least he’s responsible.”
“What …?”
Hayes had a head start on me of at least an hour and a half; I didn’t want to widen it by taking the time to explain everything to Statler. I tightened the cinch on the special saddle once more and swung up on the animal’s back.
“I think they used the county paddy wagon,” I said. “There just might be some paint scrapings on Sam’s cage. I suggest you make it your first order of business to find out. Then get the state bulls in here. Hayes had the wagon painted, but that won’t do him any good if he didn’t take the time to scrape off the first coat. And I don’t think he did.
“Now, I don’t know how long I’m going to be up there. You just make sure you’re looking for my signal. When you see it, I’ll be looking for the cavalry. With nets.”
Phil Statler grunted, stepped forward and grabbed the reins. He was chewing furiously on a dead cigar, and that was always a bad sign.
“You’re fired,” he said evenly. I pulled at the reins, but Statler held firm. “I don’t mind asking you to go up after Sam, but paying you to share the hills with that crazy goddamn sheriff is something else again. I’ve decided to save my money.”
“You paid for the horse and the supplies,” I said quietly, measuring each word. “The tranquilizer gun I got on my own. You take the horse, I’ll walk up there, Phil. I mean it.”
He grunted and tried to glare, but the feigned anger failed to get past the tears in his eyes. “You screw this up, Mongo, and you get no more of my business.”
“When you get my bill, you may not be able to afford any more business.” I grinned, but Statler had already turned and was heading back toward my car. I dug my heels into the horse’s side, pulling up my collar against the rising wind.
The air was clear and very cold, but it was a dry, sun-speckled cold, and the net result was that special kind of euphoria that comes when a man alone slips between Nature’s thighs. I moved easily with the horse beneath me, taking deep gulps of the frigid air, trying to flush the accumulated filth of city living out of my lungs.
In the distance, smoke from the loggers’ camp plumed, then drifted west with the wind currents. The hoofprints of Hayes’ horse veered sharply to the east, running a straight parallel to the tree line. It was reasonable for Hayes to assume that Sam would get as far away from the camp, and the people in it, as possible. He wouldn’t know any better.
I did. Sam was a circus animal, and had spent most of his life around people. He had come to depend upon them for food and shelter, and I was convinced he would be somewhere in the vicinity of the camp, waiting.
That was good, and that was bad. If worse came to worse, he would kill and eat a logger. If that happened, there was no way Sam was going to get out of this alive. And he would be getting close to the edge; bewildered, wounded, cold and hungry, Sam had spent more than three days in the forest.
Working in his favor was the fact that he had always been one of the best and most reliable cats in the show, a strong and stabilizing influence on the other animals. On the other hand, he was—above all else—a tiger, a killing machine in his prime.
The horse, with his collective, primeval memory, would know that, too, and there would be hell to pay if he got a whiff of Sam’s spoor. I thought I had that problem solved.
I headed the horse in a direct line toward the smoke, then opened one of the saddle bags that was draped over the saddle horn. I opened the plastic bag there, and immediately the air was filled with the strong, ripe odor of bloody meat. Mixed in with the meat was a large dose of red pepper.
The horse whinnied and shied, but steadied again under a tug at the reins. This particular bag of meat had a dual purpose; to overwhelm the horse’s sense of smell and, hopefully, also act as a powerful magnet to a very hungry tiger. In the second bag, among other things, was a second batch of meat, unadulterated, a suitable tiger snack. I hoped Sam would prefer it to me.
I was past the tree line, on the lip of the forest. It was immensely serene and peaceful. The vast canopy of brown and green overhead had cut down on the snowfall, and the floor of the forest was carpeted with a thick bed of pine needles.
In a few minutes we emerged into an open glen. To my left, high up on a mountain, I caught the glint of sunlight off metal. It could have been a rifle. Or binoculars. I hoped it was a rifle; if it was binoculars, it probably meant Hayes had already spotted me.
I veered back into the protective gloom of the forest, heading the horse on a path that would, if my sense of direction was correct, take us in ever-shrinking concentric circles around the camp’s perimeter.
I ran through an inventory of my equipment for what must have been the tenth time. But I felt it was justified; when something happened, it was likely to happen fast, and I didn’t want to be groping around for some needed piece of equipment.
I had the tranquilizer gun in a sheath on the right side of the saddle, just in front of my leg. I had a large supply of extra darts in one of the bags, but the gun would only take one dart at a time. I would have to make the first shot count. If it didn’t, there was the high-powered hunting rifle on my other side.
I broke the chamber and checked to make sure it was fully loaded, took off the safety and replaced it lightly in its oiled scabbard. I was as ready as I would ever be.
Finally, of course, there were the dog biscuits crammed into the pockets of my wool parka. The ultimate weapon.
That brought me a laugh, and I relaxed in the saddle, putting myself on automatic pilot and letting my senses guide me.
Curious: It had been years since I’d last seen Phil Statler, and yet all the old feelings had come back, a love-hate ambivalence that would live with me to the day I died, like an extra limb that could not be amputated.
The reaction was not to Phil himself, but to what he represented—the circus, where I’d constantly struggled to show the world that the performer with the stunted body was a man with unique skills and capabilities.
Phil Statler was the man who had given me his faith, his trust, the man who had spoken to my mind rather than my body.
And there had been Sam. Always I had loved the animals, and had used their company to while away the lonely hours between cities and performances. And Sam had been my favorite, my friend, and we had spent many hours together, staring at one another from behind the bars of our respective cages.
But that had been many years before, and I would have been a fool to suppose that our friendship represented anything more than a small paper boat adrift on the raging river of Sam’s natural savagery.
And now I was hunting him with a dart gun, a situation that suddenly seemed even more ludicrous when you considered the fact that Sam was hurt. I leaned forward and spurred the horse, trying to push the rising fear out of my mind.
I completed the firs
t circuit of the camp, then reined the horse in and began another, tighter circle. It was growing dark, and I knew that soon I would have to stop and camp.
I opened a quart container of chicken blood and began dripping it in the snow behind me. I didn’t like the idea of Sam coming up from behind, but it couldn’t be helped; I had to find a way to lure him to me before Hayes got him.
A half mile into the second circuit I found something that made the blood pound in my skull; two sets of prints, criss-crossing each other. One set belonged to Hayes’ horse, and the other belonged to Sam.
That told me two things, neither of which gave me any great measure of comfort; Hayes had spotted me and was staying close. And Sam was near, somewhere out in the darkening forest.
Sam’s tracks were heading northwest. I swung the horse in that direction and bent forward in the saddle, reaching down for the tranquilizer gun.
The boom of the gun’s report shattered the stillness, and a shower of splinters ripped at my face as the slug tore into the tree directly behind me. It was followed by a second shot, but I was already huddled down over the horse’s neck, urging him on at full speed through the brush. Suddenly the trees were gone and we were floundering in the deep snow at the edge of a clearing.
My head down, I had no warning save for an intense, electrical sensation along my spine a split second before the horse screamed and reared. The reins were jerked out of my hands and I made a grab at the horse’s mane, but it was useless; I flew off his back, landing on my side in the snow, half stunned.
I was still gripping the tranquilizer gun, and the bag of bloody meat had fallen off with me, but the rest of my supplies, including the rifle, were still on the horse that was galloping off through the snow.
I sat up and let loose a selected string of obscenities, vowing that I would never again go to see another Western.
I felt his presence before I actually saw him. That presence was very real, yet somehow out of place, like a half-remembered nightmare from childhood. I turned my head slowly, straining to pierce the gathering dusk. Finally I saw him, about thirty yards away, his tawny shape almost hidden by the shadow of the forest.
“Sam,” I whispered. “Easy, Sam.”
He seemed bigger than I remembered, magnified rather than diminished by the vastness of his surroundings. Thousands of miles away from his native India, crouched in alien snow, he was still, in a very real sense, home, freed from the smells of men and popcorn.
Sam flowed, rather than moved; his belly slid across the snow, and his eyes glittered. I was being stalked.
The snow around me was spattered red from the contents of the broken bag; I was the pièce de résistance, sitting in the middle of a pool of beef and chicken blood.
I began to giggle. Whether it was from the shock of the fall, or out of sheer terror, or an appreciation of the ultimate absurdity of my position, I wasn’t sure. It simply struck me as enormously funny that a dwarf should be sitting in the snow facing a hurt, hungry tiger, with nothing but a tranquilizer gun and pockets full of dog biscuits.
As a last line of defense, I had the flare gun and one flare in an inner pocket, but that would have to be removed and loaded. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to have time, even if I chose to use it.
Still giggling, my hair standing on end, I slowly crawled away from the patches of blood. Sam, seeing me move, stopped and crouched still lower, his ears pointed and his lips curled back in a snarl.
I slowly cocked the tranquilizer gun and brought it around to a firing position. The muscles on Sam’s flanks fluttered; the movement had made him nervous, and he was ready to charge.
Still I waited. There was only one cartridge in the gun. One shot. I would have to make it count, waiting until the last moment to make sure I didn’t miss.
The muscles bunched in Sam’s hind legs, and I brought my gun up to firing position. At the same time I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, to the left, behind Sam.
Hayes. Ignoring me, he had drawn a bead on Sam. My next action was pure reflex. It had nothing to do with conscious thought, but with some mad emotional need deep within my being. I wheeled on Hayes and pulled the trigger on my gun.
The dart caught him in the left side, slicing neatly through the layers of his clothing and piercing his flesh.
His gun discharged harmlessly in the air as he clawed at the dart in his side. But the effect of the drug was almost instantaneous; Hayes stiffened, then toppled over in the snow, out of my line of sight.
Now I was in a bit of a jam. Sam had already begun his charge, and about all I could do was throw my arms up in front of my face. But the report of the gun had startled Sam, frightened him and thrown him off his stride. By the time he reached me, he was already trying to brake his charge, looking back over his shoulder.
He veered to the side, ramming into me and knocking me over. I rolled, frantically clawing at the zipper on my parka. But rolling in the snow, fingers frozen with fear, is not the optimum condition under which to unzip a jacket. Besides, it was stuck.
I ended up on my knees, staring at Sam, who was squatting about fifteen yards away. I could see the wound on his leg now where Hayes or one of his men had jabbed him; it was raw and festering, enough to drive any animal wild with pain.
But Sam wasn’t moving, and he had his head cocked to one side. He seemed almost uncertain. I was past my giggling stage, and it occurred to me that there was just a chance he might have gotten a good whiff of me as he went past, and that it might have stirred memories.
A romantic thought, indeed. But it was the only hope I had.
“Sam.” My voice was so weak I could hardly hear myself. I cleared my throat. “Sam! Hey, Sam! Hey, Sam!”
Animals occasionally grunt. Sam grunted.
“Hi! Sam!” It was time to assert myself. Gripping the tranquilizer gun by the barrel, I rose and slowly began to walk forward. “Okay, Sam. Easy Sam. It’s all right. I’m not going to—”
I’d made a mistake, gone too far too fast. Sam was going to charge; I could see that now. He reared back, the muscles in his hind legs forming great knots. His ears lay flat against his head, and his lips curled back in a snarl. Suddenly he let out a thunderous roar.
And rolled over.
Sam was somewhat hampered by the wound on his leg, but he still managed a pretty fine roll. He came up and squatted, tongue out, staring at me. Not getting any reaction from me save a frozen, open-mouthed mumble, Sam decided to try it again. He rolled back the other way, sat up and whined. One paw was raised a few inches off the snow.
It took me almost a full minute to realize that I was crying. Sam waited patiently.
“Sam,” I murmured. “Oh damn, Sam. You damn animal.”
From that point on, I never hesitated. I threw the gun into the snow, walked forward and wrapped my arms around Sam’s neck. Sam purred contentedly while I groped in the snow for some of the meat, stuffing it into his mouth.
I was laughing again, loud and long.
I gathered the meat together in a pile and left Sam long enough to check out Hayes. The sheriff was breathing fairly regularly. As far as I could tell, his only lingering problem from the drug would be a pronounced desire to want to sleep for the next few weeks. But he’d make it.
If I made it. There was still the problem of Sam, and the meat was gone. Sam was looking around for more. I walked slowly forward, holding a dog biscuit. Sam’s tongue flicked out and it disappeared.
At that rate, they wouldn’t last long. I gave him a handful, then sat down in the snow. I managed to loose the zipper and reach the flares. Still muttering words of encouragement that I hoped a tiger would find soothing, I fired one off into the sky.
The flare burst in the night with an eye-piercing flash of blues and yellows, and then it was once again dark. Sam started, but settled down when I gave him another biscuit.
I vaguely wondered what the reaction of Phil and the state troopers would be when they arrived and dis
covered one very wide awake tiger waiting for them.
“Roll over, Sam.”
Sam rolled over. I figured the biscuits would last longer if I made Sam work for them.
Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard the sound of snowmobiles. Sam heard them too, and his ears snapped back.
“Roll over, Sam. Play it again, Sam.” Sam rolled over, but this time I withheld the biscuit for just a moment. “Now, Sam, you must be a very good tiger or you are going to be shot. Boom. Do you understand?”
Sam rolled over.
I was hungry. I took one of the biscuits out of my pocket and stared at it. It had a greenish tint. I took a small bite out of it, then gave the rest to the waiting tiger. It tasted terrible.
Speaking of the cost of membership in some belief systems …
Of all my “older children,” this is the one I found the most difficult thematically, the most difficult to write, the story that until recently nobody wanted, and it is the short story I am most proud of.
Candala
1
Indiri Tamidian wafted into my downtown office like a gossamer breath of incense from some Hindu temple in her native India. Her young, lithe body rippled beneath the rustling silk folds of her sari; her coal black eyes, sheened by that enormous zest for life that was Indiri’s very quintessence, smoldered in their sockets. Blue-black hair tumbled to her shoulders, perfectly complementing the translucent, light chocolate-colored flesh of her face. Indiri was stunningly beautiful. And troubled; the light from her eyes could not disguise the fact that she had been crying.
Self-pity, unexpected and unbidden, welled up within me like a poisonous cloud, a hated stench from a dark, secret place deep inside my soul. Some thoughts have teeth; just as it is dangerous for an artist to search too hard for the murky headwaters of his power, it is folly for a dwarf to entertain romantic thoughts of beautiful women. I fall into the second category.
I pushed the cloud back to its wet place and clamped the lid on. I stood and smiled as Indiri glanced around her.
In the House of Secret Enemies Page 24
