“So plane number two and hunter number three arrive later that day,” Jericho said, taking over the story again. “He dropped his kit at the tent and headed for the bush. The cat nailed him from behind, carving enough meat off him for a decent BBQ, and was so pissed off by then that he decided to savage two other crew members for good measure before anyone could get a shot off.”
“That’s five-nil to the leopard,” shrugged Thomas. “Then Jericho and I were called in.”
“So in we go,” Jericho laughed, shaking his head, “and you can imagine we were erring on the side of caution by this point. I’m tracking, Tommy is on point. Bang, out of nowhere comes Spots, rising up into the air like Mother Mary herself. Your man here gets a shot off but that doesn’t stop the old flying fur coat either. Next thing, I’m prizing a dead leopard off the great white hunter, and he’s got a broken thumb and two busted ribs as a thank you.”
“Was that actually meant to reassure me?” Catherine said, a little shocked at Jericho’s flippancy.
“No, but this might,” Thomas replied, placing a strange looking gun on the table.
Catherine glanced at it. It looked like a shotgun, but had three barrels, one on top of the bottom two. They were shorter in length than usual, as was the stock.
“It’s a Chiappa,” Thomas explained. “It’s a Turkish gun, made for the American home defence market. But I thought it would make an ideal leopard gun. I can shoot it from the hip, and it’s short enough to manoeuvre in heavy scrub. A leopard isn’t going to give me the time to raise my rifle to my shoulder. But with three barrels, I can empty two slugs and a backup of buckshot into him before I’m out of options.”
“And we’re burning moonlight,” added Jericho, grabbing his own bag. As they passed by the gun rack, he also picked up his shotgun, as Thomas slipped on the holster containing the Colt Anaconda.
Thomas, Jericho, Catherine and the boy climbed into the Big Cat, just as Keelson, Mason and Karni drove up the track from the staff camp in the hired Toyota pick-up.
“What’s your name?” Thomas asked, turning round from the driver’s seat to the boy.
“Musa,” he replied sullenly.
“Where’s your village Musa?” Thomas asked.
“Not far, twenty minutes running,” Musa replied, his eyes wide as he took in the cabin of the car.
Musa directed them back along the track they had taken the night before. They passed the deep patch of scrub where the hippo had attacked, and then rumbled into a thicket of interlocked acacias. The Big Cat pulled and ploughed through the ruts and bumps of the track with ease. They eventually left the thicket behind them, pulling out into a stretch of open savannah.
Catherine took the Thermoteknix thermal imaging binoculars from the bag Thomas had hastily put together. She brought them up to her eyes, switching them on as she began to scan the darkness beyond the car. Her world suddenly became illuminated in washes of grey, white and black. Off in the distance, she could just make out a lone elephant, tearing strips from a baobab tree. Closer, a warthog dashed off into the grass as they passed by. She slowly panned forwards, catching the bright, hot-white flares of lights in the distance.
Thomas brought the Big Cat to a halt on the outskirts of the village. Men were walking the streets with flaming torches. There seemed to be a great deal of activity, and people were soon flanking all sides of the cars. Musa jumped out almost as soon as they stopped, with Thomas, Jericho and Catherine following.
An elderly man came forward and the crowd parted for him as he approached. His eyes glistened with tears and he began to speak. His dialect seemed to be a mixture of Swahili and a more primitive bushman language, interspersed with clicks and whistles that Thomas was not familiar with. Musa quickly began to translate.
“The girl was taken at the other end of the village,” he said. “This is Whistle, her father and the head man of the village.”
Thomas and Jericho bowed their heads as a sign of respect.
“She went to wash the dinner pot after supper, but the leopard was waiting and took her as soon as she opened the door. They know it was a leopard, as they heard nothing.”
“Take me there,” Thomas demanded.
They walked through the small collection of huts that made up the village. Catherine noticed that most had wooden-framed, woven doors and thatched roofs. Some had mere blankets thrown over the entrances. She doubted any of the simple dwellings afforded much protection from a determined leopard.
The party came to a stop outside the last hut. A woman appeared in the open doorway, still wailing and clutching at her remaining children; another girl, and a boy much younger than Musa. He was no older than five, Catherine guessed.
Thomas’s eyes however, were drawn to the large, undisturbed pugmark left in the dust at the hut’s entrance. Guessing by its size, roughly five inches square, Thomas thought it was most likely a front paw print. And he knew by the position of the cat’s equivalent of the big toe that it was the left paw. Just to the side of the hut, he found where the little girl had been ambushed. The ground had been thrashed in the swipe, with only a large globule of dried blood giving away what had happened. Thomas took a few steps into the darkness, picking up the leopard’s trail with ease. The pugmarks were easy to follow and there was no hint of a drag. The leopard was carrying his meal.
“He’s a big fella,” remarked Jericho, reading the same signs as Thomas.
“Healthy too,” Thomas added. “No indication of a limp or other wounds that might hinder him.”
Thomas and Jericho walked slowly back to the car. Thomas took out the three-barrelled shotgun and broke open the breach. He popped two rifled slugs into the bottom barrels, adding a final shell containing 12-gauge buckshot into the top one. He then took out the Colt Anaconda and opened the cylinder, filling the six empty chambers with silver cased, brass topped 44. Magnum bullets. Finally, he put on the jacket and flipped the collar up. He gave a quick shrug as Jericho shot him a sarcastic smile.
“Well, you’ve gotten your armour on. Now you just need to slay the monster,” Jericho said with a smirk.
He stepped aside and Thomas caught a glimpse of Keelson and Mason filming them.
“Was that little quip for the benefit of the camera?” Thomas asked dryly.
“Nah, it was for the benefit of the woman behind it,” Jericho grinned.
Thomas walked back up through the village. The head man and his wife watched them pass, mumbling a blessing as they went by. Catherine touched the tips of Thomas’s fingers with her own. He glanced at her, catching her quiet and frightened gaze.
“They’re superstitious,” Thomas whispered. “They think the leopard is a demon, or something supernatural, especially as it has killed here before. That’s why they won’t try to kill it themselves.”
“But can’t we wait until daylight?” Catherine pleaded. “I’m worried you’re being pushed into going after it in the dark just for the cameras.”
“It’s extremely unlikely, but what if the little girl is still alive?” Thomas replied.
He caught Jericho’s knowing look. He didn’t think she was.
“Can’t Jericho go with you?” Catherine asked desperately.
“He’s not licensed to kill a protected animal like a leopard. Only I can do that,” Thomas replied. “But don’t think that’ll stop him if I get into trouble. He won’t be far behind,” he added as reassuringly as he could.
They came to a stop at the edge of a trail that led away into the scrub. Another pool of thickened blood marked it. It almost looked black in the moonlight. Jericho knelt beside it, illuminating it further with his torch. He looked up at Thomas, his expression serious and foreboding. Thomas knew it too. The girl was dead. The heavy splash of blood came from an artery, opened as the leopard had adjusted its bite for better purchase through the thick vegetation.
“Looks like this is where you leave us,” Jericho commented. “Hopefully only temporarily though,” he added.
&nbs
p; Thomas caught Catherine’s rigid, pale expression as she glowered at Jericho with disgust.
“I’m not going to take any chances,” he explained softly to her, recapturing her gaze and attention. “I’m just scouting things out. It could be long gone.”
Jericho fixed him with another knowing look.
“Keep quiet and listen out for my first shot. Then you can follow me in,” Thomas nodded to Jericho.
The Irishman nodded back, somewhat solemnly.
Thomas looked at Catherine, and just as he had her convinced they were in the middle of a silent exchange of deepest meant love, he smiled and winked. He laughed as he saw some colour return to her cheeks, and she shook her head, smiling back and rolling her eyes. He turned and stepped into the brush.
Within a few steps, he was wrapped in the embrace of night. He went a little way further, waiting until he was sure he was out of sight of the others before sinking down onto one knee. He stayed there for some time, keeping his gaze downward to avoid the glare of the moon. Slowly, his vision became used to the darkness. The inky black changed hue to navy and indigo and he stood up, beginning to creep forward.
The leopard’s trail was easy to follow. The animal had been blatant, using a game trail that ran behind the village and away from it to the west. He couldn’t see the pugmarks here, but a path of flattened grass stretching across the meadow in front of him shone like a slick of oil as it glistened in the moonlight. Thomas waded in after the cat, the grass coming up to his waist. His senses became even more heightened and he crept forward cautiously, pausing every few moments to listen to his surroundings.
The silence told him what he already knew. The leopard was still close by. As he edged across the meadow, he began to see the border of a small thicket emerge out of the darkness. Instinct told him that this was where the leopard was. He paused again, checking the wind was still in his favour. He began to creep forward, ever hoping some animal or bird would spot the leopard for him and give him an idea of its position. It came just at the edge of the first thick clump of trees.
The squeal of the baboon floated up into the night air. Thomas froze as he realised the sound didn’t come from the thicket, but behind him. There was the softest grunt of displeasure, followed by another shrill squeal of the baboon that was cut off mid-cry. Thomas turned. A ghostly form shimmered along the trail behind him so silent and fast, his eyes didn’t register it at first. His instinct kicked in just in time and he threw himself onto his back, raising the shortened shotgun as he did so. There was a blur above him and Thomas squeezed the trigger. Not hesitating, he rolled and spun, coming up onto one knee as he raised the gun to his hip, firing again as the leopard disappeared into the thicket.
Thomas sat there for a moment, panting for breath and close to swearing at himself. The leopard had stuck around to see if anybody had followed him, possibly having learnt this from a previous man-eating attempt. He remembered reading about Jim Corbett and the legendary leopard of Panar. That man-eater had learnt to do the same thing, having realised that an obliging hunter would regularly sit up in a tree and wait for him above a previous kill. Corbett himself had nearly been killed doing just this. It was only the alarm of the straying baboon that had saved Thomas, alerting him to the leopard’s approach.
Thomas began to edge forward again, quickly finding a shiny, greasy looking blood trail. He knew that meant he had hit the leopard in the gut. He now had no choice but to follow it into the thicket. The leopard would lie up and exact its revenge on any human being it could find if he didn’t. At the same time, the animal would be in considerable pain and couldn’t be left to suffer. He felt the splash of blood and gore on his shins from the wet grass as he pushed through.
The blood trail was thick, and at first Thomas began to hope that he would find the leopard dead just up ahead. But as he parted some brush, he realised that would not be the case. The half-devoured remains of the head man’s daughter lay face down in the mud, in a mangled crumple. The leopard had killed her with a single bite to the back of the head, the two large dark voids still visible at the base of her skull. Her vertebrae would have been crushed instantly, and as he had discovered, she soon bled out from the mirrored lacerations to her throat. Her killer had eaten on the run, taking bites from her calves and buttocks. Beside the body was a fresh pool of blood, only a few minutes old, still sticky and wet. Behind her, a flattened trail through the bushes showed him where the leopard had gone.
He waited, hearing the shouts of the others as they approached.
“Careful, it’s not dead, just injured,” he called out.
Jericho appeared behind him moments later, panting hard from the brisk run across the meadow. His eyes fell to the corpse of the little girl, and he immediately turned.
“I’ll be right behind you once I’ve dealt with this, but you better get after it,” Jericho whispered.
Thomas crawled forward on his hands and knees, jumping up as soon as he was able. The blood trail was still fresh and easy to see in the moonlight. He kept the gun at his hip, swinging it slowly from side to side. The night was absolutely silent, probably due to the sounds of his own shots. But it could also easily be because of the presence of the leopard. Now though, there was absolutely no way of telling. The leopard would not give up its position again. Unlike a lion, which would give a sporting roar as it charged towards you, a leopard was always stone cold silent in its delivery of death. Just as it had tried before, it would launch at him from behind, or come from the front, ready to eviscerate with powerful scrabbling kicks from its hind legs, as it buried its fangs into his head for good measure.
With his gaze still fixed to the trail, Thomas froze as he passed under a flat-topped acacia tree. The splatter of blood hit his shoulder and he picked up its lingering taint as he realised what was about to happen. The leopard had doubled back again. It had relied on him following its own gore trail past the tree, where it now waited for him. A second drip hit his shoulder, shaking him from his dread. He spun on his heels, lifting the gun and letting off the final blast of shot. As he did so, he was engulfed in a blur of amber. His world went black.
Moments later, he came round to the sound of Jericho’s belly laughs and raucous applause. A few feet from him sat the dead leopard. As Thomas rolled over, suddenly aware of a shooting pain to the side of his head, he saw that both rifled slugs had hit their target. One bloody wound showed where the gut shot had done its damage. The second had hit a little way back from the shoulder, possibly smashing bones and organs in its path. He realised that if the second slug hadn’t hit its mark, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there. The leopard had indeed waited for him in the tree, but had succumbed to its wounds and blood loss before it could reap its revenge.
“You took a beating from being hit by 150lbs of falling pussy cat,” Jericho chortled, “and a fang gave you a glancing blow to the head on the way down, but you’re okay.”
“I don’t feel it,” Thomas exclaimed.
Catherine joined them, kneeling beside him with the open medi-pack from the leopard bag. Thomas winced as she pressed a peroxide-laced cotton wad against the cut on his head.
“You’ll have some lovely bruises,” she remarked, still examining him.
Thomas watched as Jericho led the head-man over to the dead leopard. Wiping fresh tears from his eyes, the old man gave the animal a kick as he drew a knife and cut off one of its ears. This was the tradition of the tribe, to trade blood for blood, flesh for flesh. Thomas felt his stomach turn a little. The conflict he felt was always the same. The leopard was guilty of one thing; being a leopard. The male animal before him was beautiful, in its prime. Jericho had closed its eyes and shut its mouth to cover the lolling tongue, so now it looked like it was sleeping peacefully. It didn’t deserve mutilation and humiliation in death for simply being true to its nature. But he knew that couldn’t justify the taking of the headman’s daughter. He took a sharp intake of breath as the image of her torn remains flooded into his
head again. He knew killing the leopard was warranted, but that didn’t make it easy or ease his conscience.
Thomas sighed as Jericho and Catherine lifted him onto his feet, and he hobbled with their support back along the trail towards the village. Soon, the villagers were singing victoriously as they made their way through the brush, and Thomas couldn’t help but feel that some good had come of it. They felt safe and protected, something that had been missing from their lives for some time.
~
Musa shivered as he sat in the back of Kanu Sultan’s car. He couldn’t help compare it to the one the white man had driven, although it seemed even more luxurious and larger. The cold crisp air of the interior seemed strange to him.
Kanu Sultan stood close by, watching the procession through the village with a handheld night-vision camera. He smiled at Musa as he climbed back into the car and put it down.
“It looks like Mr. Walker passed his first test Musa my friend,” Kanu grinned. “I expect you to look after him now you have been reacquainted. Africa is such a dangerous place, and it would be unfortunate for him to leave here unharmed.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She watched the glow in the sky to the east gradually brighten, as she lay in the cool shade of the thicket. Although she felt the scampering of the agama lizard on her hind quarters, as it boldly foraged for flies, she stayed completely still. Only when it jumped up onto her flank did she flick it away with a swipe of her tail. She yawned and stood up, shaking her head groggily as she did so. She stretched, dipping her hips and arching her back with her front legs taut and rooted to the ground. She marked the dry, dusty earth liberally with urine before moving off. As she did, she caught the male’s scent from close by. He had been following her for some time now.
She had known the male since he’d been a cub. She had a bond with him like the rest of the pride, but his attentions made her skittish. She emitted a low, rumbling growl to let him know not to come any closer for the time being. Her head turned sharply as she heard him pad off through the scrub to her left. A far more aggressive, barking growl lingered in her throat this time. She walked slowly, her tail swishing back and forth and occasionally bumping along the ground. She was aware of his presence almost instantly. The rich, intoxicating perfume of her urine and scent marking was too much for him to resist. She was in heat, and the male knew it.
The Daughters of the Darkness Page 11
