Читать книгу Fear No Evil - John Davis Gordon - Страница 19

A creek ran down a ravine, through thick hemlock and laurel, disappearing into tangled green and dappled shadows. The animals were invisible from the Appalachian Trail, fifty yards up on the crest. A man loses sight of another within twenty paces in those forests.

It was early afternoon. The animals clustered around the little creek, waiting for Jamba, the old zoo elephant, who was still drinking. David squatted on the bank, sweat shining on his forehead, eating a bar of chocolate, his eyes restlessly darting over the animals, constantly looking in the direction of the Appalachian Trail.

Champ sat on one side of him, Sam in front, ears cocked, tongue slopping, his wolf eyes riveted on every movement of the chocolate from hand to mouth. Davey’s face softened and he fondled the dog’s head. Sam thumped his tail once, then he was all eyes for the chocolate again. Davey broke off a piece and tossed it to him. Sam snapped it up in midair, gulped it down, then was all rapt attention again.

‘You didn’t even taste that.’

But Sam would have nothing to eat tonight, and nor would the big cats because he’d left the meat in the trucks. That whole business with the trucks was a crying-out shame. Just two more hours, and they would have made it. …

He breathed deep, to stop himself thinking like that. They’d made it this far, and they’d make it the rest of the way.

He looked at the big cats—they were expecting him to feed them about now. They were tired. But they were in good physical condition. They were all watching him intently, except Mama, the Bronx Zoo tiger. She sat beside him, flanks heaving, tail twitching as she watched the circus cats. He put his hand on her big head and stroked her; for a moment she put her ears back and shoved her head up into his hand, then she was glaring at the circus cats again.

‘Mama? It’s all right, Mama.’

She looked at him a moment distractedly, her eyes just twelve inches from his, and he felt the old thrill, the pure marveling at such beauty and animal perfection, her magnificent tigerness, her eyes piercing deep and dangerous, her face three times the size of his, every hair and line of it perfect, her black nose exquisitely shaped, her big jaws so magnificently and efficiently designed to kill. Then she turned back to the circus lions again.

They were crouched together, panting, eyes alert, ready to whirl around and run. Tommy, the big lion, was in the middle, the lionesses scattered about him, long tails flicking. Sultan, the tiger, sat slightly apart, only tolerated by the others because of the circumstances. They were not frightened of the other animals, they knew most of them: it was the forest, the unknown. Their eyes darted around, ears cocked, but mostly they were staring at Davey, big yellow eyes piercing into him, waiting to be fed.

‘I’m sorry, my friends. Just rest. Lie. Lie, Tommy.’

Tommy lay down reluctantly. The lionesses followed suit. Sam lay down too. Davey looked at him and then pointed across the creek.

‘Guard, Sam. Guard.’

Sam got up and jumped across the creek, and went a few yards into the forest, then sat down and looked about him at the animals. He knew what was expected of him and he tried to look business-like, but he was thinking about the chocolate. Davey smiled at him.

But he was worried about the big cats and he cursed himself again for not bringing a gun. There was a brand-new rifle waiting for him in the Smokies, buried months ago in preparation for this day, so he could feed the big cats until they could look after themselves—but, why, oh why, had he been so stupidly confident as to think he did not need another gun in the truck for this kind of emergency. How was he going to get them meat over the next few days?

He sighed tensely. Soon there were going to be plenty of guns in this forest, looking for them.

‘Come on, Jamba.’

He got up impatiently and plodded into the shallow stream. Jamba stood in the middle, laboriously sucking water up her trunk, blinking at him. ‘Come on, old girl!’ He crouched down and scooped out a little dam for her, and stuck her trunk tip in the muddy hole. Jamba sighed and sucked the little dam dry in one exhausted slurp. Davey looked up into her sad, affectionate eye, and he felt a rush of emotion for the dear, old, kind-hearted animal. ‘Oh Jamba,’ he whispered, ‘I love you.’ He put his arm around her trunk and squeezed. ‘You’re going to love it down there.’ Then he winked and cocked his head furtively at Rajah.

‘Hey—what do you think of him, then?’

Old Jamba just sighed and slurped.

‘All right, Jamba, hurry up.’

Sally stood in the stream behind Jamba, her head hanging, her fat flanks heaving. The young zoo elephants were clustered together uncertainly, waiting for Jamba. She was their natural leader still, and she wouldn’t reject them until she went into estrus and mated with Rajah.

Davey looked at the big circus elephant. Rajah stood massively, eyes closed, trunk hanging. He looked completely relaxed. The cow Queenie was swinging her trunk restlessly, waiting for orders in this strange terrain. Dumbo was edgy too, standing close to her. He had been hanging onto her tail as they lumbered along, as he had been taught to do. But good old Rajah looked unperturbed by all this, and Davey smiled with relief.

Good old Rajah. Maybe he thought this was something to do with his job. But no, he was so intelligent, he knew what was going on. He knew they were running away. And the feeling in the air—the electricity, the sense of urgency, the run run run and the necessity to obey.

He knew. But he was such a cooperative old war-horse, and so experienced, that he didn’t fluster easily. Davey had told him to rest, so now he was resting. He had been trained as a logging elephant in India before The World’s Greatest Show had acquired him; he was accustomed to working without supervision. He knew how to stack logs neatly on top of each other, when to swim out into a river without bidding and unblock logs, how to heave railway cars into position, haul trucks out of mud, heave on ropes. At the circus he would perform heavy-duty jobs if he was shown what was wanted. He even performed tricks willingly enough. All he wanted in exchange was a fair deal; what he hated was the crack of the ringmaster’s whip, the shock of the electric prodder; and his massive body yearned for space.

Well, Davey thought, he could ride on Rajah when he got exhausted.

‘How’re you, Charlie?’

The big Indian was lying on his back higher up the slope, eyes closed, chest heaving.

‘Okay … I saw the elephants along the trail snatching some branches and eating.’

‘Yes, no problem with their feeding.’

‘Nor the gorillas.’

King Kong, the silver-back male from the zoo, was on all fours, his big knuckles folded, intently watching, his brown, worried eyes alert. The chimpanzees were gathered together nervously. Davey glanced at King Kong; then smiled and averted his eyes and shook his head to show nonaggression. King Kong shook his head and glanced away, then looked back at him anxiously and waited again.

‘What about the bears?’

‘They’ll start eating soon—bears are always hungry.’

‘They don’t look like they want to start nothin’.’

The great performing bears were on all fours, heads up, dish faces immobile, suspiciously sniffing. They sensed his attention, and they looked at him expectantly. He knew what they were feeling, hanging on his word, waiting for him to tell them what to do: he was their keeper, their friend; they were devoted to him in their big, single-minded bear way. They were not frightened by the wilderness, Davey knew; they were just suspicious and bewildered. They were the natural monarchs of the wilderness, and he was not worried about them adapting back. Gradually, they would leave him, and even each other. And revert to the solitary monarchy that was their nature, wanting no one, steamrollering through the wilderness, huge thousand-pound beasts standing ten feet high on their hind legs, able to leap twenty feet and gallop faster than the best man can run, able to kill a charging bull with one swipe of their claws …

Just then he heard it. He stiffened. There it was, faraway but certain: the chopping drone of a helicopter.

Davey stood still, trying to locate it. It was coming from the south, from the Great Smoky Mountains. Both he and Big Charlie threw their heads back, searching the chinks of sky through the overhead boughs. The droning became louder. Then it was upon them: a terrible roaring monster suddenly blacking out the sky fifty feet above them, blasting the forest so that trees bent and dirt flew, and the animals scattered in all directions, bounding and blundering, terrified—then as quickly it was gone, roaring away over the treetops.

‘Come on!’ Davey gave a piercing whistle and shouted: ‘Sam—herd!’

He started running up the mountain, looking back over his shoulder, whistling to the animals. Big Charlie was rounding them up, Sam herding from behind. They started blundering through the undergrowth after Davey.