As Bronson exhaled the first plume of blue smoke, Frank saw the tiger. It had somehow materialized out of the bushes under the pine tree, up near the bank, and was now creeping down the rotting log towards Bronson; an undulating orange and black caterpillar, inching through the jutting, jagged branches with infinite patience.
Frank watched, frozen with fascination. Somewhere, way back in the dim shadows of his conscience, he knew he should shoot, shout, something. But he couldn’t bring himself to move, because that voice, the same voice that urged him to put the red-haired woman out of her grief and misery was now whispering, in biting, chopping words, that Bronson deserved whatever happened.
A half second later, it was too late for Frank to do anything anyway. The tiger, fifteen feet from Bronson, launched itself down the log and hit him like a locomotive going off a cliff. The force knocked Bronson flat, slamming him onto the smooth rocks; an instant later, the massive teeth crunched together at the back of Bronson’s neck. His limbs flopped and shuddered, then wilted and lay still in an awkward pose that could never be achieved in life.
The tiger lifted its head and stared through the underbrush, locking eyes with Frank. It knew he had been there the entire time. It bent back to Bronson’s body, clamped down on his left shoulder, and dragged him under the log, shaking the man’s body like a German Shepard breaking a rabbit’s neck.
* * * * *
Frank let the tiger eat for a while. He figured the tiger deserved a taste of its kill. But he knew that Sturm and the others would be wondering what the hell had happened, and he sure as shit didn’t want to be answering some tough questions. So he stood, taking his time, letting the tiger watch him, then fired, aiming at the rocks near Bronson’s feet. Like before, the blast sent stinging flecks of salt and rocks up towards the tiger. It wriggled backwards, leaped onto the log, and shot up it. When the tiger hit the top, it leaped, easily clearing the snarled mass of roots. It landed effortlessly in the dry grass at the top of the cliff and disappeared.
Frank pumped and fired again, this time at the cliff, just for the men listening. He ran across the gravel and climbed up the pine log, following the tiger as best as he could. He was halfway up when gunfire exploded into the pale sky. By the time he’d managed to work his way through the mess of roots, the Jeep was waiting for him.
“Where’s Bronson?” Sturm demanded from the passenger seat.
Frank shook his head.
“Shit. Shit!” Sturm slapped the dash. By now, the tiger was just a speck, moving fast in an easy, loping run through Sturm’s ranch. “C’mon!” he shouted at Frank. “Into the Jeep! Go! Go!” Frank scrambled up the loose sand and hopped in the Jeep with everyone else. Theo popped the clutch and roared off, following the edge of creek, mimicking the twisting and cutbacks of the gash in the land with uncanny skill. Everyone just tried to hang on.
Theo roared across the field, through the back yard, passing a sweating, trembling Fairfax. He stood in a hole up to his waist, watching the Jeep with an open mouth. They hit the front yard and the long driveway and kept going, but it was too late. The tiger had slipped away. Theo kept going, tearing down the road.
In the distance, Frank recognized the giant satellite dish of the Glouck’s and the little gas station where he had first stopped and realized they were almost in town.
“Shit!” Theo said and slapped the steering wheel, imitating his father.
“Watch your language,” Sturm said. “We’ll get it. Everyone keep their eyes peeled. Can’t be far.”
Frank was wondering, if you were mayor, how you would explain losing a goddamn tiger in the middle of town after you intentionally set it loose when he saw the big cat casually lope across the highway and slip into the Glouck’s back yard.
Pine saw it too. “There!” he shouted, pointing. Theo made the Jeep stand up and dance, shooting straight across the field, plowing straight through the tumbleweeds and starthistles. Frank had one moment take on a crystalline quality, frozen into eternity, as if he was outside himself, watching a still photograph as they burst through the aluminum gate. The metal popped with a surprised twang and the Jeep shot across the soft asphalt of the gas station. He caught a glimpse of the woman with the red hair behind the counter staring at the Jeep with an open mouth. Her expression was somewhere between terror and ecstasy.
Frank grinned as he realized that the hunters had just made the woman’s day. Hell, seeing the Jeep tear across the valley, chock full of men and guns, chasing after a genuine tiger, that probably gave her enough fodder for a entire month, maybe even a whole year worth of gossip.
They raced down the alley behind the Glouck’s house, but couldn’t see anything. Behind them, the dead tree stood empty and abandoned, like a playground jungle gym after recess. The tiger must have been still running, still moving fast. Sturm sat rigid in the passenger seat, rifle upright at his left side. His right hand floated in the air, flicking in subtle, minute directions. Theo followed his father’s gestures, making the Jeep gallop down narrow alleyways, sliding through intersections, following a striped shadow that flitted through the empty yards and barren streets.
The chase was eerily quiet. No one in the Jeep actually heard the engine or the squealing tires. They focused only on the breathing of the animal, watching it as close as they could through binoculars or their scopes, those hypnotizing stripes pulsing in and out.
* * * * *
The tiger bounded out into the afternoon sunlight and wide pavement of First Street. It stuttered to a stop, as if confused by the vast open space. It turned south, loped down the sidewalk in the shade, and paused a moment, slinking into the recessed entrance to the First Bank of Whitewood.
Theo hit the brakes with both feet and the Jeep slid to a stop in a squeal of burning rubber in the middle of Main Street. Sturm hopped out, ran low, across the street and crouched between two parked cars. Sturm held the Ballard single-shot tight across his chest, ready to snap it into his shoulder, hunting a real goddamn tiger through his hometown.
He rose and scurried across the intersection, moving northeast, and crouched behind the yellow Sacramento Bee newspaper box and the northwestern light post.
When the tiger saw Sturm, it was already too late. The tiger hissed, a low, awful sound, and bolted out of the entrance, instantly going down on its chest and stomach, tail falling limp when it hit the sunlight, as if it had given up. But instead of freezing and surrendering, the cat collected itself, drawing the legs in, getting down, suddenly springing forward, not fleeing anymore, but attacking, launching itself straight at Sturm.
Sturm was ready. He pulled the rifle in snug, tracking the cat for a half second. The tiger crossed the street in an eye blink. Sturm exhaled, squeezed the trigger gently, and put a single bullet through the tiger’s chest.
It went down, rolling over itself and flopping to a stop in front of the post office. Sturm jacked the empty cartridge out into the gutter, slammed a new one into place. He watched the cat intently for nearly a full minute before he straightened, resting the rifle across the back of his shoulders. He turned back to the jeep, a huge grin splitting the dark shadows under his cowboy hat, not much taller than the newspaper box next to him. “You boys get that BBQ fired up soon as possible. We got a tiger to grill.”
And then it was all over, except for the picture taking.
* * * * *
They arranged the tiger in the middle of Main street, laid along the middle of the street, facing east as if following the double yellow lines, rifles crossed over the striped orange and black back in an X of firepower. Sturm kneeled on one side, hand on the tiger’s head between the ears, Theo on the other side. The clowns stood behind them, with more rifles resting on hips and shoulders, post office and bank off to the right, and the park off to the left.
Frank volunteered to take the picture, but Sturm insisted Frank needed to be right up front. “Hell, wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here.”
They got the taxidermist to take the pictur
e. He’d walked out of his storefront, arms already loaded with supplies. Apparently, he’d been watching the final moments of the hunt. He was an old guy, with long white hair, wearing clean overalls and a starched white shirt so stiff he probably just propped it in a corner at night. It was buttoned straight up to the top button at the neck, heat be damned. He had a beard and if anything, it was whiter than the shirt, just so wiry and twisted you’d think it was pubic hair.
First he propped a wedge of Styrofoam under the tiger’s chin, lifting the head so it looked as if the tiger was looking into the camera lens. Then he slid a few wooden matchsticks into the mouth, opening it slightly. A couple balls of sticky tar anchored the lips above the canines in a listless snarl.
“Say cheese,” he said, his voice high and quivering, like the sound a handsaw makes when you hit it with a hammer. Everybody put on their best hunting face, as if they wanted to smile, but the business at hand was just too goddamn serious. The taxidermist snapped off three quick pictures and said, “Congratulations.”
“Outstanding,” Sturm said.
Chuck and Pine went to fetch Chuck’s truck, parked at the fairgrounds.
Sturm stood over the tiger, cowboy hat throwing his face into shadow. He said to the taxidermist, “Let’s butcher this old boy, I’m looking forward to tiger steaks, all right. But let’s save the hide, them teeth too. Hell, I want the whole skull intact, if possible.”
“Would you like the head preserved, so it can be hung upon a wall?” The taxidermist inquired politely, as if he was asking how Sturm wanted his shirts ironed. “Or I can leave the head connected…make a mighty fine rug.”
Sturm shook his head. “No. I want the hide preserved, yes. But what I really want is just the skull, with the teeth intact, mind you, so I can keep it on my desk. No hide, no nothing. Just teeth and bone.”
The taxidermist nodded and Frank was afraid that the beard might create sparks when it hit the starched shirt. The man said, “Of course. The teeth shall remain within the skull. I’ll wire the jaw shut, and yes, you will have a very nice desk ornament.”
Frank and Sturm dragged the tiger over to the Jeep. It took all four of them, Frank, Sturm, Theo, and the taxidermist to manage to lift the cat up onto the back of the Jeep. They tied a rope to the back legs and anchored them to the roll bar, so the animal was nearly upside down, with the head and neck draped over the side. Sturm let Theo slit the animal’s throat. Frank was glad they were taking care of the tiger right away; he didn’t want Theo getting at this one out back behind the barn.
The blood was collected in a five-gallon bucket. When the blood slowed to a couple of drips a minute, Sturm lifted the nearly full bucket with difficulty, and spilled some over the side as he dragged it back from under the tiger’s head. Using a rubber mallet, he pounded a plastic lid onto the bucket, and lifted it into the Jeep.
The taxidermist went to work. He pulled out a two-inch folding knife and slit the tiger’s skin, from the direct center of the gaping throat wound down between the back legs to the anus without spilling any of the intestines. Some blood got into the fur, but not much, Frank noted with professional interest. Everything was still held inside, inside a wet sack wrapped in white webbing. The taxidermist gracefully sliced around the tiger’s penis and lifted the bottom half of the entire sagging sack out of the animal. After another couple of drags of the knife up inside, he eased the whole sack out and dumped it into another bucket. Sturm knocked a lid on that one too.
Frank couldn’t get used to the fact that here they were, butchering an actual tiger in the middle of Main Street, in the center of town, and they hadn’t seen anyone else. Just the taxidermist. No one driving through town. No one pushing a stroller along the sidewalk. Nobody even poking their head out to see what the shooting was about. The town must have been emptier than he had first thought, and suddenly realized that he could be standing in the middle of a genuine western ghost town.
But then Pine and Chuck came back with an ice chest full of beer and Frank stopped worrying about the rest of the town. Beer was passed out and the hunt was retold, over and over. Whenever Sturm tilted his head back to laugh, Frank couldn’t help but notice how his open, curling mouth matched the scar on the back of his skull.
“Christ,” Sturm snapped his fingers. “Damn near forgot. “Chuck, you and Frank better go collect Bob. Won’t be long before the buzzards and coyotes are all over him. Think you can find him again?”
* * * * *
Chuck followed the tiger’s trail, back through town, past the Glouck’s and the gas station, back through the ranch. From there, he kept the tires in the two parallel lines mashed down through the field where the Jeep had come before. Chuck drove easily, left elbow cocked on the open window frame, steering with his fingertips, beer bottle in his right fist. He’d wedge the bottle in his crotch whenever he had to shift; this was a smooth, effortless motion, as if he’d practiced it a thousand times.
“Where you from again? Thought I heard Pine say Chicago,” Chuck said.
“Not exactly Chicago. Born in Texas, then moved up to just south of the city.”
“And now you’re in California. Hell, you been all over. Me? I been out of the county once,” Chuck said. He sounded proud, like he was thirteen and champion of the fights. Frank thought he had said country, until Chuck explained, “Went down to San Francisco once, on a field trip. What a goddamn shithole. Never had any urge to go back.”
When they passed through Sturm’s back yard, Fairfax was sitting on a pile of dirt, dangling his feet in the hole, staring at the corpse of the dog in the lawn. His face and bald spot was the color of a ripe tomato. He didn’t look up or wave as they passed.
They came upon Pine’s truck and the reinforced horse trailer. “Can we make it all the way back there through the creek?”
“I don’t think so. Gets pretty tight in spots.”
“Then we’ll have to pull him out the hard way.” Chuck steered out of the creek bed and kept following the Jeep tracks. “So. You never said. What did you think of Annie?” He grinned, but the muscles behind the smile didn’t have much of a handle on all that slack skin, so it was like two midgets trying to pull back a heavy felt theater curtain.
Frank shrugged, managed a small “Yeah,” trying to make it sound casual. His jaw was clenched and his neck felt tight. “It was nothing,” he added, letting his eyes go blank and dead.
“Nah. That girl ain’t nothing,” Chuck insisted. “She’s something, all right. I spent more than I care to remember on that mouth. Boy oh boy. She’ll—“
“There.” Frank pointed, and down below was the dead pine.
* * * * *
Vultures were already circling overhead. Bronson’s body looked like someone had gone after him for a long time with a dull axe. “Least he’s in one piece,” Chuck said. First, they tried to drag him back up the tree, but the sagging, heavy body, already slick with blood, kept rolling off the log whenever they had to go around a branch. Next, they tried dragging him up the sandy cliff, but the corpse was simply too heavy and the soil too loose.
“Fuck this,” Chuck said, panting and blinking sweat from his eyes. “Wait here.” He climbed back up the tree and a minute later, a rope came tumbling over the edge of the cliff. Chuck’s wide face appeared at the top. “Tie that around his ankles or something. Something that won’t come off. Not that I give a fuck, but I suppose it would be better if we didn’t have to drag him up twice.”
Frank knotted the rope around Bronson’s expensive boots, then climbed back up to Chuck. The other end of the rope had been tied the other end to the trailer hitch. They opened a fresh beer, and Chuck simply put the truck in first gear and drove slowly straight out into the field. Frank kept an eye on the side mirror, and when he saw Bronson’s flopping, rolling body, Chuck circled back around.
* * * * *
When they got back to the ranch, Sturm had just finished wrapping the dead Lab in a white sheet. Theo, Jack, and Pine stood back at a res
pectful distance, heads down, giving the man some time to say goodbye to his dog. Fairfax was on his knees, streaks of dried tears slashing through the dirt on his cheeks. Every once in a while, his back would hitch and shudder, but he’d force the sob back down. The man was probably counting the seconds until he could get the hell back to Sacramento.
But when Chuck dropped the tailgate and Fairfax got a look at Bronson’s body, Fairfax’s face looked like he’d just jumped in a tub of ice water. He popped up, jowls quivering, eyes blinking furiously.
Sturm stood as well, wiping his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh my god. What happened to him?” Fairfax pointed at Bronson, in case anyone was confused. “Do you stupid fucking hicks have any idea who this man is?”
“Watch your mouth,” Sturm warned in a low voice. “That man was a friend of mine, that’s who he is. Me and Bob been drinking and shooting since before you sucked on your mommy’s teat.”
But Fairfax wasn’t listening. “You ignorant goddamn hillbillies. I cannot believe you let this happen.”
“His own goddamn fault,” Jack pointed out. “Should’ve paid more attention. He had a rifle. Wasn’t like he was hunting ducks or something.” Pine and Chuck nodded.
Fairfax blinked even harder, as if Jack had just unzipped his jeans and pissed all over Bronson’s corpse. “You…You have no idea how much trouble you are in. All of you.”
And then, faster than Fairfax could blink, Sturm snatched the shovel off the ground and in one savage jab, thrust its blade into Fairfax’s throat. Everyone flinched. The pitted blade sliced cleanly through Fairfax’s heavy jowls and scraped along his jawbone with a sound like a claw hammer striking ice. Sturm didn’t stop until the shovel hit the artery; bright, thick blood squirted out, coating the blade, the handle, and the lawn. Fairfax’s knees wobbled and he waved his arms around like a toddler learning to walk. Sturm guided Fairfax sideways about five feet, until Fairfax fell into the dog’s grave. The blade came free with a wet, squelching sound and Fairfax hit the dirt at the bottom with a solid thud. He feebly waved his hands around like a potato bug on its back for a few more seconds, but the movement gradually subsided as more blood soaked into the black dirt under his head.
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