The broken elephant came to in the blasting heat, and in his terror he did not feel his shattered bones; he flung his head and staggered halfway up before his crushed body buckled under him. He collapsed with a wail of terror, and his eyes rolled wild. He thrashed his legs again, to try to get away from the dreadful beating of the flames, and the steel cable pulled him back, his shattered ribs jutting through his hide. And he screamed and tried to scramble up again, and the cable wrenched him back again, then a figure was running through the leaping firelight with an ax held high like a madman. It was Ambrose Jones. He bellowed and swiped at the steel cable, to release the elephant: But the ax skidded off it, and he swung again with all his old might. Then Elizabeth wrenched a rifle out of a trooper’s hands.
‘Shoot for pity’s sake!’
She floundered wildly through the undergrowth and raised the rifle as Clever tried to get up again, and she fired.
The rifle boomed, again and again, deafening the night. Splotches of blood burst out on the thrashing elephant’s head. He collapsed and at last was still. Elizabeth threw down the gun with all her hatred and flung herself against a treetrunk, and she wept.
twenty-nine
That night there was chaos. The burning mountains lit up the sky above Hot Springs, flames leaping and smoke barreling upward; cars and people descended on the town from all directions; the streets filled with the clanging of fire engines and the flashing lights of ambulances; and the forests resounded with the crackle of flames and shouts as hundreds and then thousands of people toiled to fight the fire.
The sun rose, gilding the massive pall of smoke that hung over the Appalachian Mountains.
Eric Bradman stood in front of his television camera. Behind him was the black, smoking forest. He was dishevelled and streaked with ash, weary from a night helping to fight the fire. His voice was hoarse, but he was doggedly doing his own commentary.
‘But with this latest catastrophe, which crowns a series of miscalculations, Professor Jonas Ford has officially conceded that he needs expert, outside help. And he is suspending the recapture operation until such assistance arrives. In a brief statement handed to the press a few minutes ago, he announced that the services are being sought of a professional animal catcher from Africa. Who this man is we don’t yet know. But, apparently, there are several such people available.’
He gave a sad, genuinely sad sigh.
‘But there is a sliver of good news. An hour ago I made contact with Davey Jordan, after a lucky helicopter search. He has agreed to let Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, who is the veterinary surgeon of the Bronx Zoo, join him, to look after the animals’ health. We also dropped a pig’s carcass for the lions and tigers, and some hard rations for human consumption. However, Jordan refused to answer any questions or send any message to the world, as this clip shows …’
Television screens across the world cut to the interior of Bradman’s helicopter, hovering above an open patch in the wilderness. The camera showed a large sack falling to the ground, then a medical bag lowered on a rope, then Elizabeth clawing her way down a rope ladder, a knapsack on her back.
Fifty yards away stood David Jordan; the camera zoomed in on his hair flying in the helicopter’s downblast, several days’ growth of beard on his haggard face.
Dr. Johnson swung off the ladder, and Jordan came toward her. She spoke, and he shook his head. He hefted the sack of meat onto his shoulder, turned hurriedly and led the way toward the trees. Then he stopped and raised his hand to Bradman and gave him a weary smile of gratitude.
The helicopter rose slowly, the camera panning the Appalachian Mountains and the vast forests, resting on the huge mass of smoke in the sky ten miles away.
part seven
thirty
In the vast bush of Kenya there is a lot of flat country; on the horizon the bush turns mauve under the mercilessly blue sky and the burning sun. It is beautiful, wild country, and it was very profitable for Stephen Leigh-Forsythe’s Animal Kingdom, Inc.
His was a simple, but organized, setup. Animal Kingdom, Inc., had no helicopters, no spotter airplanes, no elaborate long-distance haulage vehicles, no bulldozer. It only had two Land Rovers, a couple of big open-backed trucks, a few tents, a powerful radio-telephone, and a gang of strong, well-trained, lowly paid natives. Timber for his stockades and crates came from the trees, food for his men came from his gun, and if he needed a road they hacked a track with pangas and axes. Down at the Mombasa docks he had one big, hot, corrugated-iron shed where the wild animals were kept, awaiting shipment by sea or air. In New York he had one small office with a telex machine, the furniture covered in leopard skin, the floors in zebra and Hon, the walls festooned with photographs of animals he had captured and of his partner, a famous film star.
Stephen Leigh-Forsythe went out and got you the animal you wanted; he put it in a crate, and put the crate on a ship or an airplane, the animal in certified good physical condition. What happened after that—how you collected your animal, what you did with it—was not his affair. His overhead was low, his prices high.
Stephen Leigh-Forsythe was an Englishman born in South Africa, with a good English accent. He was lean and muscled, with the stamina of a long-distance athlete; he had iron nerves, and an animal’s cunning and ability to sense and smell out another animal. He was one of the best hunters Africa has ever seen.
Forsythe’s Land Rover was racing across the veldt that bright Friday afternoon. Alongside raced a leopard, bounding through the yellow grass: it was a magnificent animal in superb physical condition, and the bouncing Land Rover was having difficulty keeping up. But a leopard’s stamina is low; it cannot race at top speed for long. Forsythe had been chasing it for over ten minutes now, and the terrified animal was beginning to slow. It was heading for the treeline across the plain, and in another few minutes it would be safe. Forsythe was at the back of the vehicle, his free hand clutching a long pole with a noose on the end attached to a coil of nylon rope: This is called a vangstok.
The Land Rover was almost level with the terrified leopard’s hindquarters. Forsythe was leaning out over the side, knees bent, taking the bouncing of the vehicle like an expert cowboy, the vangstok stretched out under perfect control. Now the noose was hovering above the animal’s ears, then over its forehead, and Forsythe was straining out of the leaping vehicle; in another second he would thrust the noose down over the snout. The leopard swerved.
At forty miles an hour, it streaked off at a tangent, but Animal Kingdom’s drivers were expert, and the driver swerved after him. Forsythe took the sudden lurching as easily as a rodeo rider, and within ten seconds the Land Rover was level with the animal again. The leopard swerved again, and now it was running away from the trees that had been its goal. It had slowed to thirty heart-bursting miles an hour, and Forsythe stretched out the vangstok again, another inch, and another, then the noose dropped over the animal’s nose.
The leopard was wrenched off its feet and rolled into a roaring mass of jaws and claws. The Land Rover bounced to a halt, and Forsythe leaped down with a net, like a Roman gladiator.
When he got back to his camp, fifteen miles away, his cookboy was speaking on the radio. Forsythe took over the machine.
His blue eyes showed surprise as he listened.
‘What kind of animals? Over.’
His voice was surprisingly gentle for a tough man in such an unsentimental business.
‘How many of each?’
‘What kind of terrain is it?’
Then: ‘My fee will be one thousand dollars a day, plus expenses and wages for my boys. I’ll be bringing four of my best.’
He looked at the date on his Rolex Oyster wristwatch.
‘In five days. Don’t try to stop him. Withdraw all troops and police from his path. Keep other people out of the area. If he wants to cross into the Smoky Mountains, let him. Don’t try to track him or follow him with helicopters, let him think he’s safe. I’ll find him.’
thirty-one
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br /> From a long way off Sam smelled the smoke.
He stopped, ears cocked, sniffing the shifting breeze. Sam knew about fire. Then he put down his head and continued urgently up the trail.
The scent of the animals on the ground was still clear that Friday morning, and the smell of smoke came and went. Every now and again Sam lost the scent, and he ferreted around frantically. But then the breeze would shift and he would pick it up again, and trot on.
An hour after sunrise he came over the brow of the slope, and suddenly he got the full sting of the smoke. The scent he was following was gone, and he could see people: dozens of them, standing on the edge of the smoke, beating the flames with sacks.
Sam stared. Then he turned and started creeping through the undergrowth, down the slope of the mountain.
He did not know how far he would have to go, but he knew he had to try to make his way around the fire.
There was nothing else he could do. He knew he could not go back, toward Hot Springs.
All night Smoky had sat on the top of the steep embankment peering into the darkness, waiting, sniffing, hoping for Sam to come back; all night his heart had been breaking for Davey Jordan and the other animals. Several times he had screwed up his courage and clamboured nervously down the embankment, but each time he had turned back.
But with the coming of dawn his fear and anguish had turned to panic; he knew Sam was not coming back, and he knew he could wait no longer. The scent of Sam was still upon the ground, but it was fading.
Smoky came down the embankment, the infection in his flank thudding with each footfall. He started along the railroad tracks, nose down, snuffling like a dog, his heart hammering in fear.
Smoky had a nose as good as a dog’s, but he did not know about fire and how it destroys scent.
He began to cross the railroad bridge.
The sun was rising as Smoky came around the bed in the tracks and saw the highway bridge of Hot Springs.
He stopped, his heart quaking. He looked at the embankment, but it was sheer; he looked the other way, at the rocks leading straight down to the river. There was no way to go, except forward. Or backward, the way he had come.
Smoky hesitated. With all his heart he wanted to go forward, following Sam’s scent. But he could not bring himself to face the terror of that bridge ahead, and he turned around as if he were chased again, lumbering down the tracks. Then he heard the train.
He did not know what it was. He only heard a distant rumble, then felt the earth vibrating; he ran harder, galloping down the tracks. The rumbling was getting louder and louder. He looked over his shoulder and saw nothing. Then he saw the train coming toward him around the bend from the railway bridge.
A terrible monster was hurtling towards him, three hundred yards away, and Smoky blundered to a terrified halt and he turned around again, and he fled—flat out, fleeing for his life back up the railway tracks toward Hot Springs, the monster thundering after him. The highway bridge was three hundred yards ahead of him now and the train a hundred yards behind. Smoky ran and ran, terrified witless, his heart and his shaggy legs pounding. Now the train was only seventy yards behind him, now sixty, and Smoky ran and ran, then it was only fifty yards behind. Then the engine driver saw him and blew his whistle. The blast of it rent the morning and Smoky’s heart leaped in absolute terror, and he tripped and fell.
He crashed onto his chest, and his snout bashed a tie, stunning him right in the middle of the railway tracks. The locomotive blasted down on him with a screeching of brakes and flying sparks. It was only forty yards from him—then thirty—then twenty … When the train was five yards away from him Smoky scrambled up wildly and ran from the towering mass of screaming steel. Without looking back, running for his life, he hurled himself off the railway tracks into Main Street.
There was only one way for him to go: straight up the street toward the Jesuit Mission and the Appalachian Trail beyond. Smoky was hot thinking of Sam’s scent, he was not thinking of Davey Jordan; all he was thinking about was fleeing from the monster that was trying to kill him. He fled up Main Street as fast as his shaggy legs would carry him, past the cafeteria, past the package store, past the houses. The street was deserted at that early hour—except for Mrs. Donnybrook.
Mrs. Donnybrook was emerging from her garden, armed against the wolf with her family shotgun, preparing to look for her Mitzi who had not come home. She had had a sleepless night, and she was in her dressing gown and curlers. Mrs. Donnybrook tiptoed down the dirt road toward Main Street, calling ‘Mitzi? Mitzi? …’ Mrs. Donnybrook peeped around the corner of Main Street, shotgun at the ready, and she screamed.
She screamed at the top of her lungs at the terrible beast thundering toward her; the next moment she was knocked flying by five hundred pounds of galloping bear, and she flew, spread-eagled, over Smoky’s back. Her shotgun boomed.
She was still screaming as she scrambled up, and her shotgun pellets rained down on top of the Jesuit Mission like hailstones. She screamed all the way, as she ran to telephone the sheriff.
Smoky was gone, up the footpath into the forest.
thirty-two
Davey was at the edge of the treeline, looking down into the valley. Down there, close enough to hurl a stone, was six-laned Highway 40. Beyond the highway, down steep rocky banks, was the wide Pigeon River; beyond that, the Great Smoky Mountains rose up, steep and jumbled and fluted, streaked in the long shadows of the setting sun.
This was it: this very road beside this very river was the place they had been making for last Sunday morning in the circus trucks, a hundred years ago.
He closed his eyes.
If they had made it then … O God, if only … Queenie would be alive, Clever, Mama. Daisy, Little. And Sam and Smoky would not be lost.
But they had made it … A hundred terrible miles, in six terrible days. And, now, there it was; sanctuary, across that river: the Great Smoky Mountains.
Davey had been watching the highway from various vantage points for over an hour. There was no traffic; the road must have been sealed off.
Directly below him was the bridge across the wide river. That was where any ambush would be, if there was to be one: on the other side, in the trees.
A quarter of a mile upriver was shallow drift, stretching across in a curve, the water only a foot or so deep, rushing over smooth stones, swirling away into deep, swift water.
For another half hour he lay there, watching for a sign of life. The Great Smoky Mountains went dark in the flaming sunset.
Smoky smelled the forest fire.
All day the wind had been driving the smoke away from him. Now he stood, shaggy head up, feeling new fear in his painful chest.
Smoky had never seen fire. But he knew instinctively it was dangerous. He could not feel the heat, but there was a sense of destruction and death in the forest, violence in the sting of that smoke. And now he had lost Sam’s scent.
Smoky’s instinct was to turn and run away from the smoke, but he stopped: he remembered the monster that had chased him the last time he had turned back. For a long fearful minute he hesitated; then he started slowly forward.
Twenty minutes later he saw the first flames, flickering in the darkness. Smoky stared at them, his heart pounding in new fright. There were flames and embers glowing as far as he could see.
Smoky did not know which way to go. He only knew that he had to find a way around this terrifying thing, because Sam and his keeper were on the other side.
At three o’clock the next morning, Elizabeth lay in her sleeping bag, staring at the stars through the treetops.
Her body was aching from yesterday’s march, her muscles were stiff and her feet still sore; she had slept deeply, but not enough. It was worry that had awakened her.
Clever’s awful death, coming within days of the slaughter at Devils Fork, was a double nightmare. She blamed Jonas Ford for the horror of it all. She blamed the whole American people. She was certain the British would not have m
ade the botch-up that these bloody Americans had made with their thousands of troops and helicopters and their hordes of bloody journalists, their gum-chewing, gun-slinging sheriffs and ‘dooly-sworn’ deputies who killed Queenie. As for the helicopter episode and the fire … well, it did not help her mood that she could not blame that on America, that even a British pilot might also have crashed. She just thanked God that a Britisher was coming to take over the operation. And she blamed everything, everything on David Jordan …
She lay there, her mind a turmoil of recrimination and dread of what might be coming. Please God don’t let them kill any more of these animals. Please God no gun-crazy hillbillies. Please God we get safely into the Smokies, and let the Englishman get them out without any more blood …
And please please please God talk to David Jordan.
Yes, and she was afraid of the animals.
She closed her eyes.
For a while she had still been under the spell of that beautiful day in the glen, despite the horror of Devils Gap afterward. The spell of seeing the animals begin to relax, of seeing their dawning joy of space, green things, and sunshine—of them beginning to play. Kitty, the chimpanzees, and King Kong, poor old Sultan up his tree; Sally wallowing in the pool; and the elephants spraying water over themselves; all of them gathering around him. And then the birds … It had all been so beautiful that for a while she had been unable to shake off its spell, and she had even begun to think it was all going to be possible. Then had come Hot Springs and Queenie’s death. Then Clever’s, and the fire. Violence and terror were in the air, and the animals knew it; they were hardly the same animals she had last seen in the glen; she was afraid of them.
Fear No Evil Page 18
