He took a deep breath, and walked on down Main Street.
‘But Ford has at least called off the troops. Only a few truckloads will be used for guarding remote homesteads, manning roadblocks, diverting traffic. What on earth did Ford or the President of the United States hope to achieve by mobilizing all those soldiers? To contain the animals? As for keeping the public out, quote unquote: it’s a massive area, and it’s so dense you’d need a soldier every five yards to stop a determined hunter slipping through.’
He was approaching the bridge now. He slipped his tape recorder into his pocket. Sheriff Lonnogan was staring at him in the lamplight.
‘Say, ain’t you Mr. Bradman—seen you on TV?’
‘Right,’ Bradman admitted reluctantly.
‘Hey fellas—Eric Bradman himself!’ Lonnogan straightened in case a cameraman should appear and stuck out his big hand politely: ‘Howdy, sir. Sheriff Lonnogan, Hawker County, Tennessee. And this here’s my son, the deputy sheriff. Say howdy to Mr. Bradman, son.’
‘Hi,’ said the boy. They shook hands. Kid was a big youngster, carrying too much fat and a pair of pearl-handled six-guns his father had had specially tooled for him. He too wore cowboy boots. He was maybe twenty, but he still had pimples, and Bradman guessed he got through a lot of Coca-Cola and candy.
‘What you think, Mr. Bradman?’ Lonnogan smiled.
Bradman shook his finger and pointed at his throat. ‘What do you think?’ he said softly, to save his voice.
From the look of the man, Bradman was expecting some broad southern-cop bombast. But when he spoke, although the words came up to expectation, the voice was impressively low-key. ‘Like I was sayin’, Hot Springs ain’t none of my territory. But if this was my town I’d sure have more deputized men out. I said to my friend the sheriff—more deputies, I said. An’ really wallop this wild man Jordan and his Indian friend. There’s duly-sworn-out warrants for his arrest, ain’t there? Why ain’t we in there executin’ them warrants? If we did, the animals’d stop runnin’ all over the country like hound dogs an’ we can apprehend them, or easily shoot ’em, as the case may be. And stop ’em terrorizin’ the country an’ disturbin’ the peace. I, for one, don’t want to see decent law-’bidin’ folk gettin’ et. What is this, the Wild West? But no. Professor Ford says nobody to execute those warrants without his say-so, an’ me, personally, I doubt the legality of such orders.’
‘Professor Ford is acting under powers conferred by the president of the United States,’ Bradman said quietly.
‘Sure, Mr. Bradman.’ Lonnogan was calm. ‘I understand that. But I’m a lawman myself, and I learned the constitution of the U-nited States on my pappy’s knee an’ I’m tellin’ you that I have my doubts. A man’s right to defend his hearth an’ home an’ to make a citizen’s arrest to prevent same is fundamentally enshrined in our Constitution. An’ I’m tellin’ you, not only as sheriff of Hawker County for many years, but as a woodsman who was born in these here hills, that the presence of these wild animals at large constitutes a violation of rights to peace an’ security of person an’ property. I’m here to telly’all—includin’ Mr. Ford an’ the president of the United States—-who I greatly respect an’ uphold—that grizzly bears, an’ lions an tigers, constitute a terrible threat inasmuch as they killers, Mr. Bradman … Not to mention elephants.’
Bradman nodded, encouragingly. Just then a pickup truck drove down Main Street. Three men sat abreast in the front seat. Lonnogan watched it wheel slowly toward the bridge.
‘An’ I’m here to tell y’all that if this Wild Man Jordan comes any closer to my terri-tory, if he brings his wild animals anywhere near the Great Smoky Mountains like folks’re saying he’s headin’ for … well, sir, I’m gettin’ me a posse of deputies an’ I’m goin’ in there after him, Mr. Ford or no Mr. Ford. Because what’s Mr. Ford done in the last three days except make a lot of noise an’ playin’ soldiers? Has he upheld the peace an’ security of person an’ property? … Well, sir—I’m duly sworn to do that duty. I’m not goin’ to see decent folk gettin’ et … Excuse me, Mr. Bradman …’
Lonnogan tilted his hat and strolled toward the pickup truck. The three men sat and watched him come. They were all between forty and fifty years old, rugged but prosperous-looking men, in superior woodman’s clothes.
‘Howdy. Can I do anythin’ for you guys?’ Lonnogan smiled.
The biggest man shook his head. He had a scar on his cheek which gave him a dashing air. Lonnogan nodded. He had noted the number plates and the gun rack. No guns were visible, but he had noticed three knapsacks.
‘You gentlemen figuring on hikin’ some place?’
‘Nope.’
‘Huntin’ somethin’, maybe?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, now,’ Lonnogan said, ‘what would three men from Sylva, North Carolina, be doin’ round here at four o’clock in the mornin’? Just joyridin’, maybe?’
‘We breakin’ some law, Sheriff?’
‘Well,’ said Lonnogan, ‘that’s what I wouldn’t like to see from three respectable men who’re hidin’ their rifles under the front seat. How come, gentlemen?’
‘That’s a crime, to bear and carry arms, officer?’ This man had thick eyebrows and a square, purposeful jaw.
‘Nope. But right this red-hot moment huntin’ around here happens to be a crime. Unless,’ he said, ‘you just happen to have a permit from Mr. Jonas Ford himself?’
‘Why should we have?’
Lonnogan decided to cut through it all.
‘Now listen here, gentlemen. Just settin’ foot in these woods right now happens to be a crime around here. And as for ever thinkin’ of huntin’ any of those zoo animals—that’s a very serious offense … Now, I can see you’re all responsible, right-minded citizens who just want to do your natural duty protectin’ your hearth and home. But you guys better leave all that to the experts and the law … I know how you feel, but imagine if the woods were full of civic-minded hunters like you? Now—I got a long memory for faces and number plates. So will you gentlemen kindly go back to Sylva? Or do I book you on suspicion? Or do I impound this here pickup for a roadworthy test an’ let you walk home?’
The first man grimly started the engine. Lonnogan stepped back, touched his hat with exaggerated courtesy, and watched the truck U-turn and drive slowly back up Main Street.
twenty-three
At that moment, a mile away, Davey lay on the edge of the forest at Lovers Leap Ridge, overlooking the French Broad River. The railway bridge was below him.
He did not think there were troops on the other side of the river. He had been watching for half an hour, and there had been no trucks. There were definitely no troops along the riverbank immediately below him. If there were soldiers he would hear them, see their flashlights, their cigarettes—they had no reason to conceal themselves. The railway bridge was unguarded, at least on this side.
Davey closed his eyes and sighed, sick in his guts with fear. And exhaustion.
He had to cross this railway bridge before it got light.
He did not know how steep the embankment was above the railway tracks at the other end of the bridge, whether all the animals could climb it. He could not go east, away from Hot Springs; there was a virtual cliff. The other way, along the tracks toward Hot Springs, he seemed to remember, the tracks were hacked into sheer rock. But there must be somewhere, some break, some gully the animals could get up in the half mile before Hot Springs.
He breathed deep. It was a dark night; it would be hard to see a gully until he was right on top of it. But this much he did know; the railroad storage depot just before the highway bridge was built on a wide piece of bank: he could get into the forest behind there. But it was only a hundred and fifty yards before the highway bridge.
They all badly needed rest and a safe place deep in the forest where they could throw themselves down and sleep.
But they could not; today the trackers would be onto them. They must be organized by
now. In a few hours that railroad bridge would be cordoned off, if it wasn’t already. And then they would never get across, they would be trapped on this side.
Davey wished he could see the other end of the bridge. But he could see no lights.
There was nothing else for it. The last thing he wanted to do was to fight, to hurt anybody. But he had to go across that bridge and make sure it was clear.
He heaved himself up, and whistled for Big Charlie.
It was cloudy; there was no moon.
Big Charlie and Davey crept silently over the railroad bridge, one behind the other, crouching against the steel girders. Frequently Charlie stopped, peered, listened; they could hear nothing except the murmur of the river, see nothing but the big black shape of the mountain. They were halfway across when they saw the sudden flare of a cigarette lighter, a man’s face flickering.
They crouched, breathless; waiting for another flare, a voice, something to tell them how many there were. But nothing: just the pinprick glow of one cigarette.
Then Big Charlie squeezed his bulk between the girders, and disappeared. Davey followed.
Soundlessly, they began to claw along the outer side of the bridge, their fingers clutching the girders, their feet clinging to the lip of steel.
The deputy sat in the middle of the tracks, staring moodily, thinking of his nice warm bed back home in Hot Springs. Behind him, on a narrow verge of gravel, lay his two fellow deputies, in sleeping bags, fidgeting in uncomfortable sleep.
Forty yards away, four sets of fingertips groped their way along the bridge.
When they were thirty yards from the end of the bridge, Big Charlie stopped and tried to peer between the girders. Davey clung behind him, knuckles white, his legs almost jerking with the muscular tension, feet wedged painfully on the narrow lip of steel. They heard the deputy cough. A voice said, ‘What’s the time, Dick?’
‘Four-twenty.’
There were the muffled sounds of a man getting out of his bedroll.
Big Charlie turned, and nodded down at the river. He began to lower himself from the bridge.
Below him a steel pylon dropped straight to a big concrete base just above the water. Big Charlie clung from the girder, legs dangling, feet groping. They found the pylon and wrapped fiercely around it. One hand let go of the girder and searched under the bridge for the pylon. He clung to it, his other arm upstretched; then he let go of the girder and his body lurched. He skidded down the pylon for ten feet, hands and feet scraping; then he stopped. He clung to the steel, then slowly slid down to the concrete base.
Davey started to follow, and the voice said sharply in the darkness, ‘Hear that?’
‘What?’
Davey clung, his heart pounding. He heard somebody slowly, hesitantly, walking out onto the bridge. Then, ‘Halt! Who goes there?’
A flashlight beamed on.
Davey hung on in the shadows of the girders, white fingertips clutching the bridge.
‘Jus’ J.J. snorin’, Dick …’ Then a snicker. ‘You seen that in the movies, huh? ‘Halt, who goes there”?’
‘Heard somethin’, I tell you.’
At last the flashlight went out.
Davey closed his eyes in relief. He began to clamber down from the bridge. He clung with both hands, face screwed up in effort. His legs dangled, and his feet groped desperately for the pylon. He wrapped his legs around it. Then the flashlight blazed again. He hung by one hand, his other groping for the pylon. Then he lost his grip, and he fell.
Suddenly there was nothing but the terrible clutching at air and the strangled gasp in his throat. Davey fell through the blackness, spread-eagled, and his last horrified thought was that Big Charlie couldn’t handle the animals alone if he was killed on the rocks; he twisted in midair, hit the icy black water with a splash, and disappeared.
Up on the bridge lights flashed everywhere—over both sides of the bridge, down into the black rushing river. They flicked up, down, and all over.
Directly below, Davey clutched the concrete base of the pylon, only his plastered head above the water.
For almost ten minutes he clung in the rushing water while the flashlights flashed, and Big Charlie pressed himself against the pylon, while up on the bridge it was opined that there weren’t no fish in the whole world as big as that.
Finally the lights went out, reluctantly.
Then Big Charlie lowered himself gingerly into the water. He faced up into the current and kicked himself away.
The deputies sat in a line across the tracks, just waiting for dawn when they would be relieved. J.J. had his legs inside his sleeping-bag because he had the most doggone arthritis. One moment they were just amuttering and complaining and aminding their lawful business when out of nowhere came these hands. Their mouths were clamped shut, and they were held in the most doggone headlock. Through their bulging-eyed, muffled struggles Big Charlie’s message rasped in their ears: ‘One holler an’ I’ll set my lions onto you.’
They were bound and gagged with their own shirts, belts, and suspenders, dragged off the track, and propped against the rock face of the embankment. Big Charlie rammed one of their pistols into his pocket and hurled their other weapons into the water.
The first gray light was coming into the east over the black mountains as they came scrambling down the steep banks out of the forest, hooves and paws slipping and sliding, down onto the railway tracks. Then they were running for the bridge, Davey in front, the animals lumbering after him, followed by Smoky, Sam, and Big Charlie.
Davey ran head down, trying desperately to see the tracks, gasping Please God … He ran and he ran, the animals strung out along the bridge. At the other end of the bridge the three trussed deputies struggled wildly. J.J. was bound half in his sleeping bag, like the bottom end of a resuscitated mummy, staring boggle-eyed in the direction of the terrible rumbling. Then out of the blackness they came.
First the massive shapes of the elephants pounding out of the darkness, the Wild Man running in front; then the terrible monsters were almost on top of them. Thundering off the bridge and around the corner of the tracks in a terrible mass of heads and bodies and legs and tusks and fur, and J.J. kicked in such terror that his hands wrenched out of the suspenders binding his wrist, arthritis or no arthritis and then Smoky saw him and stopped.
The bear’s heart lurched and he blundered to a stop, and Sam almost went into him; Big Charlie just managed to swerve around them. Then Smoky whirled and fled. The other animals went thundering off the bridge down the tracks into the blackness, and Smoky made off in the opposite direction before Sam collected his wits and turned and chased after him.
Smoky galloped blindly back across the bridge, and he did not feel his pain in his panic. Sam raced to catch up with him, snarling, the hair erect on his back. Smoky was snapping at him wildly; Sam swerved and raced ahead of the panic-stricken bear to cut him off, but Smoky just charged straight at him, wild-eyed. He bowled him right over and fled on. Sam scrambled up and chased him again, but Smoky was almost at the beginning of the bridge now. Sam raced alongside, and Smoky lunged at him and burst off the bridge.
He scrambled frantically up the embankment with Sam frantically at his heels and plunged into the deep undergrowth. He whirled around and swiped at Sam furiously with his clawed paw.
Davey slowed to a jog, his heart hammering, looking desperately for a gap in the dark rock embankment. He could not see the lights of Hot Springs from here; he jogged on, gasping, looking. Then the tracks curved with the river, and the town’s lights came into view again, five hundred yards ahead. He could make out a car parked at the highway bridge, and the silhouette of the storage depot a hundred yards in front. He stopped, chest heaving, trying to count the people. But he was too low to see. He turned back to Rajah.
‘Lift!’
Rajah sighed, curled his gnarled trunk under Davey’s buttocks. He heaved him over his head and deposited him astride his great neck.
‘Walk, Rajah.’
The elephant started shuffling down the tracks, the other animals following, panting.
Four hundred yards back, J.J. was hopping around in his sleeping bag, trying to untie his gag. At last he spat it out. He filled his lungs and hollered the first word which came into his head:
‘ALERT!’
Then he grasped his pistol which Charlie had not found and hollered, ‘They’s comin!’
He fired blindly into the darkness down the tracks, again and again. Queenie squealed as a bullet smacked into her rump, and the animals stampeded.
Davey clung to Rajah’s neck and bellowed ‘Whoa,’ but his shout was drowned in the wild cracking of the pistol and the animals stampeding past him, Queenie in the lead. He struck Rajah’s neck, and the elephant broke into a run, thundering toward Hot Springs.
At the highway bridge all hell was about to break loose. They had not heard J.J.’s shout, but they sure had heard his gunfire; then the pounding of feet. Coming out of the blackness, getting louder and louder. Lonnogan and the deputies stared, listening, incredulous. Then everybody scrambled for cover behind the sandbags and behind Lonnogan’s car, hearts hammering, guns ready. The noise grew louder and louder. Then into the lamplight at the storage depot they burst, a great mass of thundering animals with the Wild Man on top of an elephant in their midst, shouting and waving. The lawmen could not believe their eyes, the most terrible sight they had ever seen.
They came thundering down the tracks, Queenie in front, her great ears outflung, her trunk swinging, her eyes wild, the other animals galloping behind her with David Jordan bellowing ‘Whoa Queenie!’ But Queenie did not hear him. She was only aware of the terror, the agony in her jaw, the stampeding panic, and that Davey was no longer leading her. She had to run for her life away from this terrible danger, and she only knew that she had to charge the lights, use her massive strength any way she could. Then she saw the human beings, and her heart lurched in renewed terror and outrage, at more men blocking her path and threatening her, the same who had thrown blinding lights on her and struck terrible pain to her jaw. All Queenie knew was that she had to charge and kill them before they killed her.
Fear No Evil Page 14
