by Taylor Brown
* * *
Horn woke to the howling of his wolves. They stood together in the enclosure, their snouts pointed to the sky. Their cries so high and sharp, as if to wake the dead. Horn turned and crawled, dragging himself away from them, leaving a red trail of himself through the grass. His body shivered beneath their cries. The wrecked meat of his leg was nothing compared to his heart. He must cut himself free of them—the only way to live.
In an hour, he would lie heaving on the planks of the dock, his ferry barge gone. Taken, surely, by those who came for the lion. He would look west, seeing the green edge of the continent across the marsh. The same land that conquistadors and pirates must have seen, so lush and green, arrayed beneath the heavy guns of their ships. The same coast that rose before the eyes of the enchained, let topside to glimpse the nation that would be built upon the heavy burls of their backs. Horn would squint hard at this horizon, as if he might make out the distant mountains of the West. The snowy ranges of dream, risen high and ghostly against the sky, sharp as fangs. Then he would slip into the water, gnashing his teeth, and begin the long swim toward land, alone.
* * *
Mosi trots down a long path between palm trees, the pavement fractured with roots and furry clumps of weeds. The sharp fronds of the palms whisper overhead. Soon he’s walking through a white valley of dunes, the shrubs and grasses wind-bent on the sandy slopes. A marsh rabbit flees before him, a pale thumping of sand. He can taste the sea with every breath, salty and thick in his jaws.
Now he stands amid a dead forest of bleached and toppled trees, their skeletal forms flung along the shore like the bones of his ancestors or the prey they felled. The great ribs and tusks, salt-rimed, rise snarling on every side of him, lacing the sands in shadow. Mosi looks over his shoulder a moment, back the way he came. A single raptor hangs high over the dunes, circling in the dawn.
Hunting.
Mosi turns to descend the beach. He passes piles of sea wrack and driftwood, threading his way between translucent blisters of jellyfish and crabs the size of giant hooves. Shells crunch beneath his paws. He crosses the tide line, the darker sand cool beneath his toes. Soon he’s standing at water’s edge, letting the surf run foaming against his paws. He watches the white roll and spray of the outer breakers. A flight of brown pelicans skims low over the water, strung one after the next, their wing tips cutting across the swells.
Beyond them, a thunderstorm hangs over the ocean. A vast, dark range of power, throbbing in the dawn. Rain slants from the heavy bellies of cloud, forking with light. The air hums over the waves, electric. Mosi lifts his face to the wind, open-jawed, tasting the storm in his mouth.
He closes his eyes, opens them.
The raptor is there again, circling high overhead, and Mosi knows he’s been found. He hears the hiss of gas, feels the dart of pain in his haunches. He knows what will happen. His muscles will turn to jelly, his head heavy as stone. Sleep will wash over him, thick and dark, and his spirit will grow dim, hibernating deep inside him. Already his hindquarters are sinking, his forelegs swaying beneath his ribs. Then the storm pulses and quakes, sending a roar of thunder over the waves and against the shore. A challenge. Mosi lifts his maned head to the sky. His chest whelms with thunder.
He roars.
I am Mosi. This land is mine.
CHAPTER 29
ASWANG
Malaya stood on the bow of the old trawler, the deck rocking beneath her feet. The sun was high now, the day cool and bright. Lope was at the helm, his large hands resting on the wheel, making small corrections back and forth. He nodded to her through the windows of the bridge. Malaya looked out at the small ferry barge cruising alongside them. Anse stood at the controls, shirtless now, the scars glistening on his back. He was watching Tyler, who knelt before the transport cage on the front of the barge, monitoring the darted lion.
When Malaya regained consciousness at the foot of the arena, she’d found the pugmarks of the cats haloing her body and head. The lion and tiger had forked into the night, missing her by inches. The wolfman was gone, only the swirling of his wolves behind their fence, their breath winging in silver shreds through the night. The howdah pistol lay on her chest, the barrels still smoking.
Anse and Tyler soon emerged from the woods, breathing hard, lifting her to her feet. They tracked the lion through the night, through heavy palmetto thickets and man-high weeds, down narrow trails cut by deer and wild hogs. Lope’s voice crackled in their radios, directing them. His drone orbiting high overhead, unseen, tracking the white-hot form of the escaped lion through the trees. Lope aimed them along broken golf-cart paths and maintenance roads, across fairways and down the long hall of oaks.
Near dawn, they reached the ruined hotel. The once-grand edifice sat double-winged beneath the mossy oaks, the wind groaning through the shattered windows. They crept up the drive, where ferns and weeds sprang from fissures in the concrete. The white porch columns showed dark cankers of rot, the paint peeling and flaking. One had fully disintegrated, revealing a steel support core. They passed a stone fountain at the foot of the place, littered with greening pennies and dead leaves, and walked into the heavy shadow of the portico. The entry doors hung wide, the innards dim. They looked at one another. The drone was high above, orbiting. Lope had lost track of the lion—he could not say if the animal was inside the building.
Together, they passed through the shattered entrance doors.
The air was damp and cool here, like the inside of a cave. The ceilings dripped tink-tink on the tile floors, making black puddles here or there. Their boots crunched across the broken glass of the lobby, beneath chandeliers swathed with cobwebs. Wind-piled leaves lay along the baseboards, and the walls had been axed open in ragged swathes, mined for their copper wire. Smashed furniture in one corner, piled like kindling. The front desk was scattered with papers and a single Gideon Bible, swollen, the pages freckled with mildew. A soft layer of dust, moon-gray, covered the floor, crisscrossed with the spoor of scavengers. Raccoons, opossums, mice. Their own bootsoles left distinct imprints, recording their every step. A history stamped in dust.
Soon they cut the trail of the lion in the murky light, his pugmarks wending crown-shaped through the vaulted chambers of the place. They followed, their eyes stabbing into every dark corner, passing down hallways scattered with curling papers and past a long wooden bar with bottles of spirits still lining the shelves.
They emerged into a vast ballroom devoid of furniture. On the far wall, a large stone fireplace where the lion must have paused to sniff the stale ashes clumped in the grate—so said his tracks. Then came the oceanfront dining room. On the hostess stand, a laminated menu from Easter Sunday brunch, ten years ago. A vast field of white-clothed tables, still set. The glassware filmy and overturned, the linen napkins spotted with mildew. As if the guests had simply vanished from their seats, vaporized. The windows were shattered here or there, sieving the wind, while storm-thrown branches lay on tables or serving carts, in clouds of broken glass.
They emerged onto the back porch, where brown fronds and wind-wrack had been blown inland by hurricane-force winds, piling against walls. Vines snaked around the rails and balusters and slithered across the floor, as if wresting the hotel back into the earth. The ceiling fans drooped like wilted flowers. They followed a tabby path across the wide, knee-high lawn, between rows of ragged palm trees. Soon they came upon the old swimming pool, set like a wild oasis amid the overgrown lawn. The shrubbery had overrun the place, exploding from pots and planters, while vines snarled through the legs of deck chairs and tables. The pool itself, once-blue, had grown into a primordial lagoon, bloomed green with algae and floating scum. Tiny fish darted through the roots of floating plants. An overturned rubber boot held an empty tallboy beer—some last worker’s goodbye.
Finally they walked a trail through the dunes and emerged among the skeletons of salt-killed trees, where they sighted their quarry. The lion stood open-jawed on the beach, as if feeding
on wind or light, watching the dark pulse of a passing storm. Anse slowly knelt, threading the barrel of the tranquilizer gun through the crook of his thumb. Malaya could hear the man’s breath, ragged through his nose. He blinked and blinked again, taking a long time to shoot. His finger lay on the trigger, motionless. Tyler knelt beside him. She reached out and touched his back, lightly, where his scars were.
“Only a dart,” she said.
Anse nodded, tears in his eyes.
He pulled the trigger.
* * *
They stood over the lion at dawn, his sleeping body curled in a swirling halo of surf. The red feather of the dart fluttered from his rump. Tyler knelt at the animal’s neck, threading the disc of her stethoscope through his mane. In the distance, the storm rumbled and hissed, passing offshore, as if cowed. Just before he collapsed, the black-maned lion had lifted his head and blasted his roar across the waves. He had, like a true lion of the savannah, answered the thunder.
Malaya looked at Anse.
“What about the tiger?”
Anse squinted out across the water, at the storm offshore. Then he looked down the beach, his eyes tracing the great boneyard of trees, the deep forest beyond. He set his fists on his hips and spat.
“What tiger?”
* * *
Malaya watched the shoreline of the island slip past the bow of the trawler. They had already passed the abandoned beach houses, stilted high over the receding sands, and the broken seawalls. The weedy links of the golf course. Now came the deep ranks of trees, acre on acre, heavy with moss, standing behind the dunes. Malaya leaned on the rail, squinting, as if she might glimpse a flash of fire through the trees.
Nothing.
Now came the point of the island. A long spear of sand, covered in a vast raft of shorebirds. Pelicans and gulls and skimmers. Some stood spread-winged, drying their feathers in the sun, while others strode back and forth, pecking the beach for food. A few sat like roosting hens, their legs tucked beneath them, the wind riffling their feathers.
Malaya thought of another shore, a world away. Africa. The skulk of poachers. The dead. Her hands tightened on the rail. The thoughts were descending on her, heavy and dark, ready to pick the black carrion of her mind.
Then—as by a shot—the great raft of shorebirds erupted to flight. A vast cloud of them, arch-winged, rising like a single nation from the beach, thumping into the sky. They hung in fluttering suspension, like the feathers of an exploded pillow, their shadows crisscrossing the sand. Malaya’s heart lunged. There, beneath their wings, sat an old man in green sunglasses.
He sat cross-legged, smoking, his hands full of bread.
Malaya blinked.
Gone.
The gray bones of a lone tree, grown wild from the beach.
CHAPTER 30
GHOST LION
The shrimpers and oystermen of the coast tell stories of the creatures that haunt their waters, the black jags of river and long beaches of sea wrack. These men stand in their white rubber boots, the toes flecked with bycatch, and speak through curling wraiths of cigarette smoke. Their fingers are square, bullet-hard, and they have voices of gravel. The amber lights of the docks hover above them, haloed with sea-mist, while ancient tires squeak against the iron sides of trawler hulls.
They will tell you of the Altamaha-ha, the sea monster that prowls the black water of the Little Amazon, sweeping like a living fossil among the knuckled roots of the cypress trees. They will tell you of century-old sturgeon the size of ship cannon, which lift from the water, smashing boats and killing men. They will speak of the skunk ape, which stomps through the mossy fens of the Okefenokee Swamp, glimpsed from the boats of paddlers and fishermen, and the feral cattle of Sapelo, long-horned and wild as the prehistoric aurochs. They may even whisper of the tribe who drowned in the waters of a nearby river, their chains heard rattling across the marshes on moonless nights, their spirits wheeling under the stars.
They will hitch their pants and speak of yard-built arks, inspired by the sermons of old-time prophets, who say that flood time is near. That the shape of the continent will be redrawn, this world vanishing beneath the melted ice of the poles. They will tell you these waters are prowled by the greatest killer whales of all—Ohio-class nuclear submarines, each bellied with sufficient firepower to wipe whole nations from the earth—while the wreckages of German U-boats and World War II freighters sleep in the muddy night of the seabed, filled with the bones of their dead. Some will speak of square grouper—the bales of Colombian crop that once fell from the heavens on moonless nights, keeping them fed.
These latter days, they will tell you of the wind that rose howling across the sands of the barrier islands, like a cry of wolves, and the beast that rose in their wake. Beneath the fat spotlamp of the moon, they say, you might see a giant cat striding the beach, ghostly in the night, flanked by the bones of toppled trees. Some say it is a lion, maneless, or a white tiger without stripes. Some say the ghost of a saber-tooth cat.
The crewmen of the transoceanic freighters line the rails on moony nights, lifting binoculars to their eyes, hoping to catch sight of the beast striding high-chinned and enormous among the glowing boneyard of trees. Some say exotic beasts were once caged on the island and one of them escaped, birthing this giant. Some say a prehistoric spirit stalks the coast, searching for a mate long extinct.
Many have sought the prints of the creature, but tide and moon are in conspiracy with the beast. Twice per day, they wash clean the slate of the beach. The island is under private ownership. No one is allowed above the tide line. There are signs that warn strongly of trespassing, though some have strode past them, into the trees, vanishing into the deep heart of the island. They return with faces paled, like ghosts themselves.
The shrimpers say, on the loneliest of nights, a roar of thunder can be heard along the shore, loud enough to rattle bones, even though the horizon is clear of cloud. They say that roar will stand your hairs on end, like a promise of the storm yet to come.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a work of imagination. While I have endeavored to stay in proximity to the historical, geographical, and scientific record when possible, I have left the door open to mystery, instinct, dream—the essentials of fiction. I am greatly indebted to Stephanie Rutan of White Oak Conservation and to the people of Carolina Tiger Rescue, Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary, and Thula Thula Game Reserve, who answered my many questions during my visits. For further reading, I would like to recommend the following authors and their work: Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer, The Last Rhinos, and Babylon’s Ark (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007–2012); Francoise Malby-Anthony, An Elephant in My Kitchen (Pan Macmillan, 2018); Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture (Simon & Schuster, 1994); John Valliant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival (Vintage, 2011); Dane Huckelbridge, No Beast So Fierce (William Morrow, 2019); Alan Green, Animal Underworld: Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species (PublicAffairs, 1999); Jessica Adams and Andrew Miller, Between Dog and Wolf (Direct Book Service, 2011); Carson Vaughn, Zoo Nebraska (Little A, 2019).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my father, Rick Brown, whose well of faith in me never ran dry, no matter the odds. Rest in power, old man.
To my mother, Janet Brown, who has nerves of steel and a mother-bear’s heart. I am so lucky you are my mom.
To my agent, Christopher Rhodes, who brings immeasurable love and taste to his work. Thank you for believing in me, early and always.
To my first reader and editor, Jason Frye, whose mentorship continues to steer me true. I am so damn thankful for you.
To AJ, who makes my heart go boom. I am so damn lucky for you. May the wolf pack keep us laughing and the paint fall true.
To my friend Francoise Malby-Anthony, who runs Thula Thula Game Reserve in the heart of Zululand. You and Nana are heroes.
To my friend Stephanie Rutan of White Oak Conservation, who has been so generou
s with her time. May your nights be full of chess and good bourbon.
To my friend Allen Taylor, firefighter and hunter, whose story laid the seed for this entire book. You have my highest respect. Thank you for what you do.
To my friend Brian Darrith, who was gracious and crazy enough to let me road-trip across South Africa with him. Thank God for that mallet and bicycle pump.
To my friends Ben Galland, Robert Darrith, and Harley Krinsky, who led me to mysterious islands off the coast. Thank You.
To the people of Carolina Tiger Rescue, Tiger World, Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary, and exotic wildlife sanctuaries across the world. Thank you for what you do. You inspired this book.
To my team at St. Martin’s Press, who have transformed my wildest dreams into a reality. You are a dream team for a writer, truly, and I am so wildly thankful for your work, your brilliance, and your faith.
To booksellers across the country and world, who read and recommend my work. Your friendship, near and far, has been the unexpected boon of this whole endeavor. Much love to all of you.
ALSO BY TAYLOR BROWN
Gods of Howl Mountain
The River of Kings
Fallen Land
In the Season of Blood and Gold
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Taylor Brown grew up on the Georgia coast. He has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and the mountains of western North Carolina. He is the recipient of the Montana Prize in Fiction, and he was a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. His novels include Fallen Land, The River of Kings, and Gods of Howl Mountain. He lives in Savannah, Georgia. You can sign up for email updates here.