Читать книгу King of Claw and Fang - Bob Byrd - Страница 6

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It was exactly a week since the mighty Zar had watched the strange bird come swooping down to rest in the clearing. Now curiosity stirred again in his mind. For a long while he hesitated, remembering the alien emotion he had felt for the first time at the sight of the grotesque, two legged creature. Then impelled by a fascination he could not resist, he headed for the camp.

He had not travelled far when he came to an abrupt halt. His head came up and sniffed the air with flaring nostrils. The tip of his tail twitched when his nose told him that N'Jaga, the leopard, was already stalking in the same direction.

Zar's amber eyes gleamed with resentment. One peremptory roar to announce his coming--and N'Jaga would reluctantly relinquish the trail to his mighty overlord. A growl started deep in his throat, then died.

Zar's pride ruled the jungle but it did not rule his own cunning brain. Let N'Jaga stalk this strange prey. He would be content to wait--to watch--to learn.

His huge paws trod the jungle floor as silently as pads of velvet. His tawny body wove easily through the dense, tangled undergrowth, barely disturbing a leaf in his passing.

From the branches of a tall tree Nono, the monkey, saw him. Safe in the swaying tree top, he shrilled a warning to the jungle folk. Zar glanced up from slitted eyes, snarled and went on. A terrified bush rat scurried across his path and dived squeeling into the brush. Zar ignored the little creature with studied disdain.

The unfamiliar scent of man came first to warn him that he was nearing his destination. Treading yet more carefully, he wormed his way through a dense tangle and at last reached a point that gave him a broad view of the clearing.

The stricken bird still lay where it had fallen. From a queer shelter beneath its outspread wing a fascinating sound--Constance's voice--issued occasionally. Zar tilted his majestic head to one side and listened. Before the shelter the two-legged creature squatted on his haunches, busily engaged with something. And wonder of wonders, six feet away from him a smaller creature--undoubtedly the cub of the larger one--gamboled about.

Zar's keen eyes missed no detail of the scene. Thirty yards off to his left he made out the form of N'Jaga, lying crouched on his belly, his spotted shape barely distinguishable in the dense brush, his small eyes riveted on the group in the cleating. Zar was content to lie still and watch, only the very tip of his tail moving.

The strange cub continued to scurry about. His movements carried him farther and farther away from his busy father--closer and closer to the spot where N'Jaga lay like a motionless statue. Zar sensed what would happen, but he did not stir. The cub was not his. No such emotion as pity had ever stirred his stout heart. Life is cheap in the jungle and no vestige of regret marks a creature's passing.

So he watched N'Jaga tense his springy muscles, saw the stupid cub linger a fatal moment near the edge of the jungle. N'Jaga could wait no longer for the toothsome tid-bit to come even closer to his lair. With an ear-splitting scream he sprang, his sleek, spotted body hurtling out of the undergrowth.

Even as his first bound covered half the distance between him and the startled cub, a cry of terror rang out from the shelter under the wing.

"John--David! Quick!" It floated across the clearing on a quivering note.

Quicker than the lightning strikes the two-legged creature snatched up a long stick that lay near him, jumped up and pointed the stick at the bounding N'Jaga.

There was a roar and a pale flash, then a puff of smoke wafted from the end of the stick. N'Jaga halted in midstride, screamed. Zar saw a streak of bright crimson appear on his spotted hide as he whirled to face this new menace.

The two-legged creature did not run. The stick pointed at N'Jaga again. And for the first time, the leopard felt the strange fear that the wiser Zar had sensed a week before. Crouching, his tail lashing, he hesitated. And then, instead of charging in fury at the father of the cub, he suddenly wheeled around and vanished like a yellow streak.

The salty tang of blood came faintly to Zar's nostrils. Silent as a great shadow he bellied backwards. And while N'Jaga crept off to some quiet spot to nurse his wound, Zar glided back into the jungle fastness.

The scene that he had just witnessed was engraved indelibly on his memory. The stick had been pointed at N'Jaga. There had been a roar and a flash of fire. And N'Jaga had limped as he fled from the encounter. Zar had been wise, indeed, when he had been content to lie hidden and watch. His instinctive hatred for this two-legged creature was not lessened. But now it was tempered by a deep respect.

When the leopard had vanished, John Rand hurried to young David, snatched him up and carried him back to his anxious mother. To his amazement, his son looked at him from reproachful eyes.

"You hurt him," he accused. "You hurt him, daddy. Now he won't come back--never--never."

In silence, Rand looked at his child. When the huge leopard, with its jaws agape, had leaped at him, David had not shown even the slightest, instinctive fear.

Rand recalled the youngster's delight in the monkeys and birds and lizards with which the clearing abounded. And now a strange thought flitted through his mind. It was so elusive that he could not quite grasp it; but had he been able to do so, he would have realized that to young David the beasts of the jungle were companions and friends. Something within the child responded to them and he knew them, trusted and loved them.

Instead of trying to answer his son's accusation, he patted the youngster's head and for the rest of the day, he was a very thoughtful man.

And so, with death ever at their elbows, Rand and his family continued to survive in the heart of the African wilderness. Roots, berries, strange fruits and the game which was always plentiful fed them. Every day parts of the wrecked plane were added to the original lean-to, until they were housed in a safe and comfortable dwelling. Water and fuel were within easy reach. David's skin bronzed until in the tattered remnants of his clothing he resembled a sturdy young savage. And while his parents became merely reconciled to their strange environment, he fell more and more under its spell.

Boredom never exised there, for constant dangers kept them ever on the alert. There was the time when David's restless feet took him too close to a slender, emerald-green snake, sunning itself on a tangle of roots. The reptile hissed a sibilant warning and then uncoiled with the suddenness of a broken spring. Swift as it struck, John Rand was a fraction of a second faster. He knocked the youngster sprawling as be leaped forward and the snake buried its dripping fangs in the tough leather of his high boots. Snatching the automatic from his hip, he fired three times in rapid succession and the snake threshed wildly in its death throes.

Again David reproached his father and no graphic description of the reptile's deadliness could change the boy's attitude. He mourned the passing of a fellow denizen of the wild.

They heard the distant trumpeting of an elephant herd and one day Rand, hunting in the jungle depths for game, Was startled by a loud crashing through the lower branches of the trees. The sound was made by a tribe of great apes on their migration to new feeding grounds and twice he caught glimpses of dark, flat-nosed faces peering through the leafy boughs.

At night great cats prowled on padded feet around their dwelling. They could hear the sniffing of curious and hungry beasts and the loaded rifle was never far beyond Rand's reach.

Often they laid awake far into the night while in low voice Constance made plans for the day when she would be able to travel. To please her, Rand discussed in detail their possible routes, the equipment they would need and the minimum amount of provision they could carry. But he was grateful for the darkness that hid his face from hers, while she talked of Cairo, of friends in far-off London, and in Johannesburg.

For she was mending slowly--very slowly. And though the broken bones were knitting at last, she was growing wan and weak. Knowing the courage and the will within her slender body, he blamed it on the enervating climate. The damp, steaming miasma seemed to sap all strength from her. She grew thin and violet shadows made hollows under her eyes.

His fears for her were justified. The day came when she complained of a racking headache. And soon she was consumed by a raging fever.

Rand was dismayed. He had seen the ravages of mysterious tropical maladies before. He dosed her from the quinine supply of the medical kit that he had carefully guarded. But her weakened body did not respond. Shaken by alternate spells of burning fever and chills that made her tremble from head to foot, she grew steadily worse. Rand stayed constantly by her side and David listened wide-eyed when his mother began to ramble incoherently about the home that she had left.

Late one night, after a fitful, restless sleep, she woke to find her husband still keeping vigil beside her. She smiled up at him.

"Faithful John," she murmured.

Her voice was low and husky, but sane. Rand placed a cool hand on her fevered brow. "You're better," he said eagerly. "You know, I think you've passed the crisis."

Constance smiled again but shook her head. A strange soft light glowed in her deep-set eyes. "No, John. I---I'm going to die--very soon."

An expression of anguish crossed his face, then he forced a laugh from his lips. "Nonsense." He leaned over and pressed his face to hers. "You're not going to die. You can't leave me--I need you," he said huskily.

She stroked his bearded cheek with tender fingers. "I don't want to leave you. It's God's will. I'm not afraid--for myself." She slipped the wedding ring from her wasted finger on to his. "My dearest possession. I want you to wear it for me, John, always," she said softly.

Rand felt of the smooth, gold band. Though he could not read the inscription engraved on the inside of it, he knew it by heart: "From John Rand to Constance Dean."

Constance went on, her voice sinking to a whisper, so weak that it was barely audible. It seemed to Rand's straining eyes as though a shadow flitted across her face. "John," she managed feebly, "You'll take good care of David--won't you?"

"With my life," he answered.

She smiled weakly up at him. "I knew you'd say that." Her straying fingers sought and found his. With the contented sigh of a tired child going to sleep, she closed her eyes.