With the cat invisible, Corbett sat motionless in the wet, freezing wind, until the storm began to move on and gaps appeared between the rumbling, complaining clouds. Trying to keep his teeth from chattering, Corbett listened hard, staring as best he could through the remaining gloom. After a few minutes, his white marker rock disappeared as the leopard passed in front of it, and the awful sound of teeth crushing bone and ripping flesh was heard. Corbett had placed the rock on the wrong side of the corpse, as now that the rain had left puddles in the ravine, the leopard was feeding on the near side of the body. Ten very long minutes went by, until again the rock shone dully through the night. Corbett covered it with his foresight, only to hear a very strange rustling sound and to see the yellow form of the man-eater drifting like a patch of pale fog back under the hayrick. The cat’s unusually light color could be accounted for by age, but Corbett remarked that he had never heard anything like the soft, silklike sound of his movement. The leopard was dividing his time between eating the woman and resting for a breather under the rick; Corbett kept the rock covered and was ready to fire the instant the cat passed in front of it again.
The next two hours are properly a monument to Corbett’s skill at concealment and patience. Every time his muscles holding the heavy express rifle would give out and he’d be forced to rest for a moment, the rock would disappear. Three times this happened, the cat going back and forth between the body and the tree, until at last Corbett knew that, sooner or later, the leopard would detect him. How he managed to stay unnoticed at a range of a few feet for so long, considering the supersenses of a leopard, was miraculous enough. A chance would have to be taken. As the man-eater padded his rustling, unnerving way back for a fourth rest under the hayrick, Corbett leaned over and fired at a range of six feet.
At dawn, his bullet hole was found precisely in the center of the two-foot-wide terrace where the leopard was passing below, but there was no dead man-eater. Only a few clipped and scorched hairs marked the light bullet crease. Fate had decreed that fourteen more people must die before the great Rudraprayag Leopard met a reckoning, and, in a frightening number of incidents, Jim Corbett was very nearly added to the list.
Upon determining that the leopard had not crossed the suspension bridge as Corbett thought he might have, the hunter had them closed off at night, this being no inconvenience to anybody but the leopard, as nobody dared travel anyway. Those nights he was looking for the leopard elsewhere, the bridges were firmly plugged with wicked thorn bushes; the blockage to the bridge at Rudraprayag proper being left open when Corbett was free to keep a vigil. His perch was not one to inspire confidence to any other than a member of the Flying Wallenda family, being a slippery, flat rock atop a twenty-foot platform supporting the cables. With no handholds, merely reaching his hiding place was a venture of the first order, as the rickety bamboo ladder pressed into service was four feet short of the top. If getting there was all the fun, staying atop the rock in gale-force mountain night wind—the dadu—practically guaranteed to keep one in stitches. Several times, roaring gusts of glacier-frozen air almost blew Corbett from the platform onto the broken, jagged fangs of rock sixty feet below, from which his crushed body would neatly bounce into the wild torrent of the Alaknanda. For twenty nights, he sat alert and freezing on the platform above the river gorge, waiting for the leopard he had missed from six feet away. The only animal he ever saw was a lone jackal.
If one thing has struck me in researching and compiling the extraordinary events recorded in this book, it must be the truly strange quirks of fate that seem to surround the principal characters, both human and animal. The remarkable nature of close calls on both parts, largely due to the tiniest of factors, almost set one to wondering whether or not things really are “written” somewhere. Take the case, a few weeks later, when Corbett decided to reblock the Rudraprayag bridge and join forces with William Ibbotson and his men … .
As there wasn’t enough room for the whole party in the bungalow, Corbett and his men moved out in favor of Ibbotson and his wife Jean. Erecting his forty-pound canvas tent on a small hill overlooking the pilgrim road, for some unaccountable reason the shelter was pitched under a huge prickly-pear tree that overhung the thorn shelter or fence around the tent, meant to keep out the leopard. Corbett originally had had it cut halfway through but changed his mind in the middle of the operation, appreciating that the tree would provide shade during the hot part of the day when he was resting from his night hunts. He must have had a lot on his mind, because by the time he figured out that he had provided a perfect bridge for the cat to get into the enclosure, it was so late at night that he decided to let it go. With six Garhwalis from his staff and a local cook, Corbett went to bed with the top of the tent left open, the bright moonlight bathing the interior of the fence in a soft eerie light.
About midnight, Corbett woke suddenly to the sound of hooked claws digging into the bark of the tree. Grabbing the loaded rifle on the bed at his side, he swung his feet down and into his slippers just as the prickly-pear tree creaked and cracked. There was a howl from the cook who had been sleeping, snoring on his back, of “Sahib, bagh, bagh!” Corbett didn’t need to be told it was the leopard. Running out of the tent, he just missed getting off a shot as the man-eater scampered away up a hill. Corbett followed for a short distance, but it was clear that the leopard had kept going, out of range. The terrified cook, who had awakened at the cracking of the partially cut-through tree, had opened his eyes to stare smack into the leopard’s face as it was gathering itself to drop down on the sleeping men. What if Corbett hadn’t heard the claws? What if the tree hadn’t cracked and unnerved the leopard into running, instead of charging? What if? In any case, the tree was cut down at dawn, heat be damned.
The next kills of the Rudraprayag Leopard were cows, people tending to be very hard to procure. Corbett and Ibbotson sat up over the first ill without success, shifting to a very ingenious blind built inside a large hayrick, when the leopard struck again, clearly having abandoned the first cow. Again, the most fantastic luck pervaded the scene. All bad.
Corbett and Ibbotson had built a double-decked blind in the tall hayrick, using planks and wire mesh to create a hay-covered structure identical to the original but containing two platforms, one above the other, for the two hunters to sit upon. Corbett took the lower seat, with Ibbotson above him. About ten o’clock on a brilliantly moonlit night, Corbett heard the man-eater coming down a hill behind the blind and the now familiar rustle of hay as the leopard once more slipped under the blind to look over the kill. He was literally the thickness of one plank away from Corbett. A slow minute oozed by as the hunter waited, his breath held. Then the big, pale cat began to crawl out from under the rick, directly in front of Corbett’s gun port, offering a simple shot at about one yard’s distance. Just as the leopard’s moonlit form started to come into view, there was a squeak. Instantly, the cat ran off to the right and up a hill, past the angle where he offered a shot. Ibbotson, who was probably unaware of the cat’s presence, had gotten cramps in both legs and had shifted position at the critical second. Kismet? Makes one wonder.
Two more days passed before the leopard killed another cow, but not before scaring its owner nearly to death. The man lived alone in a small hut of one room, divided by a rather ramshackle partition of rough planks. One area was for sleeping, and the other contained a kitchen—which had been left open. The Garhwali was awakened by a sound across the divider and, sitting up, clearly saw the leopard in shafts of moonlight as it tried to find a way into the bedroom. Pacing the kitchen, for over an hour the man-eater tested each board, trying to tear it loose as the man cowered, soaked in cold sweat, watching helplessly from a few feet away. Unable at last to reach the juicy morsel blubbering in terror so near, the leopard walked out of the kitchen and killed the man’s cow, which was tethered against the side of the hut.
In an effort to assist the hunters, the government had sent a shooting lamp and a massive double-spring gin tra
p, the same sort of affair that would have been used for bears in America. A full five feet long, this brute weighed eighty pounds and had springs so powerful that two men were needed to set the jaws—studded with three-inch teeth—in position. Figuring this would be a very good chance to use it, Corbett and Ibbotson carefully set it on a natural approach to the dead cow, pegging down the chain. That night, the hunters, neither of whom apparently suffered from hay-fever, settled down in another rick, twenty yards from the cow, and began to wait as thick clouds slid in, covering the sky like a manhole cover closing above their heads.
An hour slipped by without event, when suddenly both men were startled by a terrific eruption of furious roars near the cow. Aha! At last! Corbett flicked on the shooting light, a heavy battery-operated rig, and saw the leopard jumping madly around, both forelegs caught in the trap. Firing the first barrel of his .450 Express, his bullet neatly cut the half-inch chain, freeing the leopard. As it ran off at phenomenal speed—considering that both front legs had been pinioned by the heavy trap—Corbett fired and missed; so did Ibbotson with both his barrels. As might have been expected, while reloading, Corbett managed to screw up the electric light so it would not work.
This scenario was unfolding in what was practically downtown Rudraprayag. As the villagers heard the four shots, they assumed that the leopard had been killed and poured out of their houses shouting their joy, swarming toward the place where the trapped cat had disappeared. No good yelling at them; they were making too much noise to hear anything. Corbett scrambled down from his blind which, incidentally, was in a tree at the edge of a chasm hundreds of feet deep. Ibbotson got a second lamp—a gasoline type—working and lowered it to Corbett. When Ibbotson got down, they went after the man-eater, Corbett with his rifle to his shoulder and Ibbotson carrying a lamp above his head. A very superior way to get killed, if not especially imaginative. Cursing his luck for having shot away the restraining chain, Corbett tried to find some sign of the cat on the rocky, boulder-strewn terrace by the feeble glow of the lantern. A low growl drew his attention to an outcrop of rock and a small depression behind it. There, crouched and snarling, was the leopard. Corbett shot it instantly through the head. The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag was dead!
Wasn’t he?
The field went wild with exulting Garhwalis as Corbett examined the body. He didn’t know why, but something just wasn’t kosher here. It was a huge male leopard, presumably the one that had tried to break into the man’s bedroom the night before; it had been shot in the center of an area where scores of people had been killed and eaten. It had to be the Rudraprayag Leopard. The hill people said they clearly recognized it. Ibbotson was convinced that it could be no other. So why the feeling of doubt? Only that Corbett had seen the man-eater the night he creased its neck with a bullet, and, despite the poor light, he simply wasn’t convinced this was the same animal. Persuading Ibbotson not to notify the government for a few days, Corbett tried to get the Garhwalis to keep up their precautions in case he was right. The more people who came from distant villages to see the body, swearing they recognized it, the more positive Ibbotson was. But not Corbett.
That night, as Corbett lay doubting on his pillow, a pale yellow form slipped from shadow to shadow, icy amber eyes locked on the throat of a young mother squatting outside her hut. In a soft rush of motion without the slightest sound, four great fangs crunched home. Crossing the Chatwapipal bridge—which unaccountably had been left open—the Man-eater of Rudraprayag had hunted and killed at the first village he found.
When the girl’s husband called to her, the leopard displayed an almost unbelievable show of strength. Carrying the body of the 150-pound girl—she was unusually large for a Garhwali woman—the leopard took her across two fields and made a jump straight down a twelve-foot ledge to a path. From the clear spoor, despite the fact that the impact of the jump would have increased the gravity of the body by two or three times, he did not let one part of her body touch the ground!
Carrying her another half-mile, the leopard tore off her clothes and ate a few pounds of flesh from both her upper and lower body, leaving the corpse in a patch of brilliant green grass beneath a vine-covered jungle tree. It was here, guarded by twenty men beating drums, that Corbett and Ibbotson were shown her remains the next day. They began to wait for the man-eater to return late that afternoon, under the distinct impression that they were hunting him. Man-eaters have a most disconcerting way of turning this relationship around … .
It was not a setup as easily hunted as on the other side of the river. The heavy vegetation of the jungle ravines allowed too much cover for the leopard to approach, so the men elected to place Ibbotson—who had a telescopic sight on his rifle that not only improved accuracy but by magnification gathered twilight long after a rifleman with ordinary sights would have been unable to see—in a tree overlooking a distant patch of forest where the leopard was believed to be lying up. If the man-eater came this way, it would be an easy shot. Corbett would cover the rear in case of an approach from that side.
The darkness slipped in quietly, broken only by the alarm of a frightened barking deer. The leopard was moving. But where? Darkness yielded to night, with only a few minutes’ shooting light left, even for the ’scope sight. From his tree perch, Corbett started when a pinecone came rolling down the hill behind him from only thirty yards away. Instantly, he knew he was the hunted. As he listened to his heart pound, the light dropped away altogether, and he sat, helpless, listening to the leopard creeping closer. The fact that the heavy electric shooting lamp refused to work was not a source of great relief, so Corbett called to Ibbotson to cover him while he climbed down and lit the backup lamp, a gasoline mantle type called a “petromax.” Getting it lit, he felt a good deal better, although the brilliant light did not project well, tending to blind the carrier. But still, it was one hell of a lot better than trying to climb the jungled hill by braille.
Ibbotson carried the lamp, while Corbett walked “shotgun,” and the pair started up the rugged ridge, hearing the whisper from close behind. They had only covered fifty yards when it happened: Ibbotson slipped on a rock, smashing the base of the lantern, the ash mantle disintegrating with the impact. If the small blue flame pumped by pressure from the fuel reservoir was not extinguished in three minutes, the heat would cause the bloody thing to explode. A half-mile of impossible terrain to cover in three minutes, closely followed by a man-eating leopard in complete night blindness, was the prospect. Oh, for the outdoor life!
Corbett wrote that he had never experienced a more terrifying trip than the eternity, scrambling by feel alone, up that black ridge. By some small miracle, they made it to the footpath that ran along the ridge’s lip, but they were far from home free. The path, such as it was, ran through a series of buffalo wallows and patches of broken stone, at last reaching a series of rock steps. Climbing these, they found a small courtyard and a door. Fetching the door a hell of a kick, Corbett demanded that it be opened. No answer. Taking a box of matches from his pocket (one wonders why these were not judiciously used to get up the slope), Corbett swore to set the roof on fire. The door opened.
Inside were more than a dozen Garhwalis of various ages and both sexes, apologetic at having kept the sahibs waiting. Surely, though, they understood the people’s fear that it could have been the demon leopard speaking to them in a man’s voice. Corbett appreciated their terror very well. He hadn’t expected to be alive at this moment himself. Borrowing a broken-down old lamp from this house, Corbett and Ibbotson got directions to the place where their men were housed. It took no little nerve to go back out into the night, but with the dim light, they managed to find the courtyard and flanking two-story houses where they were told their men would be. When they called out, a door opened, and they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Just as they reached safety, a village pye-dog came over, wagging his tail in friendship. After sniffing the hunters, the dog trotted over to the head of the stairs they had just climbed. Lo
oking down them, he gave a panicked scream of fear and, barking insanely, backed away with his hair on end as if his tail had been plugged into an electrical outlet. The dog, with its better night vision, could clearly see the leopard in the courtyard below. Corbett lit another lamp and tried to shine it downward, but it just wasn’t strong enough. Although the leopard was no more than ten feet away, he remained invisible. Looking at the dog as it watched the leopard, it was simple to follow the cat’s movements as it circled about, finally moving off.
The next dawn—one Corbett had been convinced he would never see—the body proved to be untouched. Still, Corbett placed the gin trap and poisoned the corpse with arsenic, despite the fact that the leopard had already ingested large amounts of strychnine and cyanide with no apparent effects. But the leopard never did return to the dead girl.
When a cow was killed shortly thereafter, Corbett again placed the trap between the carcass’ feet. The leopard ate the cow with his forepaws resting on the trap’s springs the second night, then abandoned the body. To be doubly sure, the hunter poisoned the remains and was later surprised to find that they had been eaten by a leopard. But it was an ordinary leopard, not the man-eater, a wanderer who had happened on the cow by chance.
Ten weeks was enough. Frustrated, a nervous, thoroughly frightened wreck, the exhausted Corbett decided to quit, at least for a while. The press was hard on him, but the strain was just too much. If he kept at it without a rest, he’d be killed, and he knew it.
Jim Corbett abandoned the hunt in December of 1925 until March of the next year, during which time ten people were added as confirmed kills to the man-eater’s scorecard. The last victim before Corbett’s return was a small boy who was eaten completely, leaving nothing to draw the leopard for another meal. Back to square one. Ibbotson, who was not about to share Corbett’s rock platform at the Rudraprayag bridge, had a platform constructed in an archway of the suspension tower, where the two men sat for five nights with no result. Ibbotson, who had to attend to urgent government business, left Jim Corbett to hunt alone. Over the span of a week or so, the leopard killed four goats, two cows and a dog, one of the cow carcasses offering Corbett another missed chance. Just as the leopard was approaching, a woman in a nearby house made a loud noise and spooked the man-eater. Another woman and her child had a very lucky but painful escape during this same time. While they were asleep in their house, the leopard tore open the front door and gripped the woman’s arm in his jaws, dragging her across the floor to the opened exit. As the cat backed out the opening, the woman had the presence to slam the door on him—and her arm—enabling her to keep him out. Her arm was horribly mutilated and she had been clawed in the breast, but the child was unhurt, except for a head wound. They both recovered, charter members of the most exclusive of clubs—those who had escaped from the very jaws of the Rudraprayag Leopard. Corbett waited in this house for two nights, but there was no hint of the cat’s return.
Death in the Silent Places Page 24