Smoky was lumbering shaggily up the mountainside, his bee-swollen snout down, still sniffing all the earthy smells, honey still in his ears. Ahead, Daisy, Florrie and Candy loped ahead of the anxious gorillas. They had all had a lovely day. Kitty had thoroughly enjoyed herself too, despite everything. Winnie and Pooh had had an excellent day, although they were very wistful about the honey.
And Sam was loving all of it. He just loved herding: chasing, challenging and earning his master’s praise. In fact, as Sam trotted along beside Big Charlie, bushy tail high, tongue lolling, what Sam really wanted to happen was for somebody to put a foot out of line so he could go bounding off indignantly, and head it off valiantly—as long as it wasn’t one of the big cats.
Sam definitely did not want to have anything to do with those big cats. Little ones, certainly: he loved chasing little, reasonably-sized suburban cats to the point where they fled up a tree and were mercifully out of reach. Since time immemorial, that has always been the perfectly satisfactory cat-dog relationship, and in the circus, where the cats were well caged, Sam had done nothing to disturb history. Nothing, therefore, had prepared Sam for this potential holocaust of uncaged big cats. He was very pleased that they were way up front with his master, and that he was way back here with Sally.
Now Sally lumbered up the mountainside, her bruised hooves hurting and her big gut aching with Sam panting right behind her black backside. She ached and wheezed; all she wanted to do was turn around and go blundering back down that mountainside, Sam or no Sam, and plunge her massive body straight back into that pool, letting herself sink to the bottom. But she also did not want to be left behind, so she just had to keep on going. Nevertheless, Sally had had a lovely day too.
The sun had set when they reached the crest.
They were strung out in a long line along the narrow trail. Elizabeth could not see Davey ahead, nor Big Charlie behind; they all were jogging, and she had to cling to Dumbo. Her aches and weariness came back. The darkness did not seem to provide protection against the dreaded hunters of Erwin anymore. It was after midnight when they reached Devils Fork.
Davey left the animals five hundred yards into the forest and went to reconnoitre the highway. For ten minutes he lay on the edge of the treeline overlooking the sweep of road, waiting—for a match to flare, for a voice. But he saw and heard nothing. He crept back to the animals.
Elizabeth was propped against a tree. He crouched beside her and said apologetically, ‘We’re leaving you here, Dr. Johnson. When daylight comes, make for the highway. A car will soon stop for you.’
She looked at him. O God, to give up now, just to lie back and sleep sleep sleep and not have to get up and run again.
‘No,’ she said.
seventeen
Davey came down the steep embankment onto the road, the animals scrambling behind him. He started running up the highway to find where the trail resumed. He had covered fifty yards when the lights suddenly came on.
Suddenly the black highway was ablaze in the headlights of three cars parked on the crest. The animals were bathed in dazzling light: elephants, apes, lions, bears, Sally, all blinded, David Jordan waved and bellowed, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’
He gave a piercing whistle and lunged across the road, calling the animals, and then Big Charlie was running flat out up the road, waving and shouting. ‘Stop! Turn off the lights!’ David leaped up the steep bank, the animals blundering after him.
And then the firing started.
First one wild shot, then a ragged volley, shattering the night. Little squealed in the headlights, trunk upflung, and lurched around to run; another bullet smacked into his head, and he stumbled and fell. Daisy was screaming, blood on her neck. She tried to run and sprawled. And Smoky was staggering in the dazzling headlights, and Queenie was squealing, and Mama had sprawled, blood pumping from her back as she blindly tried to claw herself forward, and all the time the gleeful cacophony of rifles shattered the night. Then Big Charlie reached the first car, running furiously. He kicked in a headlight with all his might and spun around to kick out the other. Then Elizabeth came stumbling down the embankment.
She leaped wildly onto the road screaming, ‘Stop!’ She ran frantically toward Mama, screaming ‘Stop it, you bastards!’ She fell onto her knees beside the tiger, and Mama twisted and snarled, trying to raise herself. Big Charlie kicked out the other headlight, and the firing suddenly stopped. He lunged at the nearest gunman, grabbed his rifle in one hand and his collar in the other, and furiously slung him across the highway. Then he lunged at the car behind, swinging the rifle with all his might, and the headlight smashed with a crash of glass. A figure leaped at him, and Charlie chopped him down; then he swung the rifle at the other headlight. The third car was roaring and reversing out of his way, and Big Charilie slung the rifle at it, smashing in one of the retreating headlights. Then he plunged off the highway, into the forest.
And in the retreating headlight was the carnage, the huge form of a spread-eagled elephant, and Mama trying to claw her way across the road. Elizabeth clambered up, gasping, her face creased in fury; she screamed, ‘You hillbilly barbarians!’ She cast about desperately for her doctor’s bag, saw where Big Charlie had dropped it, and ran for it, sobbing. Then she dashed back to the writhing tiger. She snatched out a syringe and a phial. Silhouettes were coming down the highway toward her. She looked up and shrieked, ‘Barbarians!’
‘Hey, she must be a vet.’
‘Hey—what you doing with my tiger, lady? Stand back!’
‘Get away!’ she screamed. She plunged the syringe into the phial.
‘You get away, lady. I shot that tiger, an’ you ain’t killin’ it.’
‘That’s my tiger,’ another voice shouted.
Mama rolled her striped head and tried to roar, wildly clawing herself forward, and Elizabeth scrambled after her, yelling, ‘Get away you savages!’ The man hollered, ‘Stand back, lady,’ the other voice shouted, ‘That’s my tiger,’ and the shots rang out again.
Elizabeth screamed, and there was nothing in the world but the frenzied crashing of the guns. But the hunters could not see in the half darkness, and the first bullet whacked into Mama’s neck. She lurched, roaring, pumping blood, and the second broke her jaw. Elizabeth threw herself hysterically at the nearest gunman, screaming, her fists like clubs, and his shot went wide, and she kicked out at his shins; then she flung herself wildly at the next man, kicking and flailing and screaming, and Mama was still trying to claw herself away through the cacophony with the bullets thudding into her. Then a voice hollered: ‘Got it between the eyes!’
The tiger lay sprawled in the car’s headlight. The men were clamoring around her, laughing and arguing about who had shot her, and Elizabeth sat slumped in the blood, sobbing hysterically.
Then Little began to get up.
For none of the bullets that had hammered his huge honeycomb skull had hit his brain; they had only stunned him. Suddenly he was scrambling to his great feet again with a groggy noise, lurching high and terrible. The hunters scattered, terrified, and Little lurched forward, his bloody trunk swinging and his ears flapping; then a hunter recovered and fired.
The bullets smashed into the base of Little’s trunk, and he lurched, eyes closed; then he tried to turn to run away from the terror, and he crashed onto his knees. His trunk outflung, his eyes wild, blood pumping out of him, the hunters whooping after him and Elizabeth screaming, ‘Leave him,’ Little scrambled up again.
He started to stagger frantically forward, and a bullet thudded into the side of his face. He lurched and tried to turn the other way, and another hunter fired. The bullet smashed into his jaw, Little staggered around to try to defend himself, and they all opened up on him.
From all sides, bullets thudding into the grunting elephant’s face and shoulders amid the stink of cordite and Elizabeth’s screams. Little’s trunk was flung up over his head to ward off the blows, and he flapped out his bloody ears to increase his siz
e to frighten his tormentors. He tried to trumpet, and the blood spewed out of his trunk in a spray. He stumbled forward into the bullets, his eyes full of blood and his face a pulp of holes, and the hunters scattered, whooping and hollering. Little tried to charge the nearest figure, to ram his down. He lurched three staggering paces; and a bullet smashed through his eye, and he fell again.
Little collapsed onto his knees, one eye shot out and his other rolling; then he started to scramble up. Again and again the young elephant tried to get up from his knees, lurching and crazed, his trunk up and the crack-crack-cracking of the rifles and Elizabeth’s screams filled the night again. Then one wild bullet smashed into his skull in front of his brain, and Little crashed on his side for the last time.
But still he was not dead, for the bullet had only fractured his brainbox. He lay on his side in the headlight’s glow, his bloody flanks heaving and his trunk bubbling blood with each breath. The hunters scrambled around his head, firing at him. It took another six shots to kill him, because the hunters of Erwin did not know how to kill elephants.
Then they scrambled on top of him, laughing and joking, and took turns being photographed. Elizabeth was stumbling down the highway, and she filled her lungs and cried out ‘David Jordan—now will you believe me?’
The happy hunters were still photographing each other when three strangers appeared out of the darkness. They strode up to the carnage, and one shoved an Erwin hunter off Little’s head.
‘Get out.’
The Erwin hunter sprawled in the elephant’s blood, shocked. ‘What the hell?’
‘Get out of here,’ the second man rasped.
‘Now listen here …’
There was a slow, slick click from the third man’s rifle.
‘You heard,’ he said quietly. ‘This is man’s work.’
The men from Erwin all stared, then scattered. The sprawled hunter began to clamber up. Then his teeth suddenly clenched, and he hurled himself, one hand outstretched, the other drawn back in a fist. The newcomer jerked, his arm whirled, there was a flash of a blade, and the hunter sprawled again, gasping. He lay on the road, clutching his hand, his face contorted, staring at the stump of his knuckle.
‘You cut my finger off!’
The newcomer slowly bent and picked up the bloody finger. He held it up, dripping.
‘Next it’s your guts. Now get out of here, boy.’
The blood was pumping out of the stump. The young man stared at his hand, aghast. ‘I’m goin’ to the police …’
‘Yeah, and you tell them you shot the critters and go to jail … Go ahead, boy …’ His foot swung, and he kicked the hunter in the ribs. There was a thud and a gasp, but the hunter scrambled up. He started crouching away backward, holding his bloody wrist tight. The newcomer held up the finger.
‘I’ve got your fingerprints, boy …’ He shoved the severed digit into his pocket. ‘Only reason I’m not shootin’ your tires out is I want you out of here—but don’t push your luck …’
He turned and flicked a torch over the carcasses. ‘Find the tracks,’ he snapped. His two companions started searching the embankment with their flashlights.
The man went over to Mama, crouched down, and heaved her over. He put his razor-sharp knife to her chest and began to skin her.
part four
eighteen
Eric Bradman was a member of the Fund for Animals, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and he was once one of the most popular men in America. He was a television journalist, and in his day his encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs, his wit, sincerity, powers of debate, and the charm and merciless skill with which he had interviewed people were so admired that many people said he should be president. Politicians feared him, youth idolized him, housewives loved him. His energy had been boundless. Then he had been smitten with throat cancer.
Now he could speak no more than a few minutes without getting hoarse. He could not be the ubiquitous commentator anymore. Now, he made his own films about the environment, the energy crisis, endangered species and man’s gluttonous rape of the earth. Over sixty, he was still very popular. He occasionally appeared on panels when the subject was close to his heart, but he had to save his voice. Politicians now dreaded the moment when his voice turned hoarse, and the veins began to stand out on his neck, and the viewers’ hearts went out to him. Eric Bradman was the Grand Old Man of the public forum, and one of the letters which David Jordan had given to Ambrose had been addressed to him.
On Monday morning the story of the stolen animals was on the front page of almost every newspaper in the world, and a new word had been coined: Zoo-jack. The headlines were all sensational, some hysterical, inspiring dread of the scourge of beasts let loose upon the land. There was almost applause for the zoo-jackers, if one read between the lines of some, and a rash of editorials severely criticized zoos. To add insult to Ford’s injury, the New York Times had published in full their letter from David Jordan, condemning zoos in general and explaining why he had set the animals free. Jonas Ford had been appalled at the ‘vulgar’ sensationalism, indignant at the slur upon his administration, and outraged at David Jordan’s letter. To add further insult, the radio today was full of Elizabeth Johnson’s story, implying that if she could get herself down there and try to stop the massacre, why hadn’t he?
Professor Ford had no intention of letting his press conference last more than ten minutes. He had imagined a dozen or two people at the most, but the hall was packed with journalists from around the world. He strode to the lectern, cleared his throat and without more ado read his prepared text in his no-nonsense style. After condemning the reaction of the media and deploring the massacre at Devils Fork earlier that morning, he continued:
‘The government, while placing at our disposal all the help by way of personnel and equipment we need, is leaving the recapture operation entirely in my hands, in collaboration with the chief wildlife officer of the United States. We have been in consultation the whole of yesterday, working out the details of the operation, which is to be called Operation Noah. Briefly, they include the following:
‘One: The entire perimeter of the wilderness area where the animals are will be cordoned off by troopers by the end of today. This involves several thousand men. This cordon will contain the animals while Operation Noah commences. People living nearby, therefore, have no cause for alarm.
‘Two: Recapture will be effected by firing tranquilizer darts into the animals, containing a drug known as M99. Within a short time this drug will cause the animal to drop into unconsciousness for several hours, when it will be recovered, bound, taken to a holding stockade, and as soon as possible returned to its proper place.
‘This whole process is likely to take several weeks. The animals have to be individually tracked and recovered. There are over twenty involved, all different in the amount of drug and handling required.
‘Three: The public will be prohibited from entering the cordoned area. This is not only to protect people from their own folly, but ensure there is no recurrence of the tragedy, nay the atrocity, which has occurred. Not only are these specimens private property, they are priceless national, indeed international, assets. To hunt them is not only a barbarity but highly dangerous. It must be realized that these are highly dangerous animals, of which the American hunter has no experience.’
Professor Ford looked up from his text, then said abruptly: ‘Any questions?’
A reporter said, ‘Professor, what are you qualifications for being in charge of this Operation Noah?’
‘I was on Operation Rhino in Zimbabwe some years ago, translocating black rhinos to game reserves, and on a similar operation in Zululand in South Africa …’
‘Were you in charge, or? …’
‘I was an observer, but I participated in every stage and wrote a scientific paper about it. I have also been in the Congo studying the lowland gorilla. I have also been on numerous zoological expeditions, assisting in the capture of
specimens, in South America, Asia and in Alaska and Canada.’
Another voice said, ‘Frank Hunt of The World’s Greatest Show gave us the impression that he would be—or should be—in charge. Have you any comment?’
Jonas Ford shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
‘Mr. Hunt is under no such impression now. We have been in consultation with him and the owner of the circus, Mr. Worthy. They are making a number of vehicles available for transporting back specimens, which is a convenience, but Mr. Hunt trains animals which is a far cry from capturing specimens. However, his personal knowledge of his individual animals may prove useful. He will be accompanying us.’
Another reporter said, ‘Professor, you say your troops will have cordoned off the area by tonight. Why not earlier? Why not last night?’
‘Because,’ Ford said impatiently, ‘it is a huge undertaking to mobilize the local troops. They have to be called in from all over the countryside. It takes a lot of organizations. Maps have to be studied, supplies arranged. Transport, Tents. Fuel. But I authorized the local sheriff to raise as many local men as he could to contain the situation—we did the best that could be done at such short notice.’ He glared at his audience. ‘Large numbers of troops are en route to the scene right now. And members of the Wildlife Department.’
‘But the sheriff did not contain the situation at all. Why is it that David Jordan managed to cross twenty miles of wilderness—and two highways—without your men even spotting him, let alone containing him?’
‘You should ask the sheriff. But in his defense may I say he did the right thing. He set out to locate the animals by tracking them, which is the only reliable way. But it is dense wilderness, and he was hours behind them. He did his best. And nobody can track in the dark.’
Fear No Evil Page 11
