‘Please call a vet. We want to hand over three animals. In pain. We want to make a deal.’
There was an astonished silence. Then Frank called huskily, ‘Where’re the animals, Chief?’
‘I’ll show you … if it’s a deal …’
The patrolman recovered himself. ‘What’s the deal?’
Big Charlie panted, ‘Got your CO2 gun, Mr. Hunt?’
Frank nodded warily.
Big Charlie said, ‘You dart the three animals, for the vet to fix. The rest of the animals you leave alone. They stay free …’
‘You got to be joking …’
‘If you guarantee that … to leave the other animals free, me an’ Davey, we’ll give ourselves up.’
The patrolman was openmouthed.
‘You’re full of crap …’ Frank breathed.
Big Charlie said, ‘You got a radio. We want it guaranteed by the governor of Tennessee.’
‘Holy smoke …’ Frank Hunt whispered. ‘And if we say no, Chief?’
‘Then it’s no deal. We just stay in the forest.’
Frank could not believe the impertinence. ‘And what makes you think we won’t shoot you when you try to run back to the forest?’
‘Shut up!’ the patrolman bellowed. He glared around at them. ‘I’m the only law officer around here right this moment. And until a more senior one arrives, I’m in charge!’ He held a trembly finger up at Big Charlie. ‘And I’m telling you, Mr Buffalo, that it’s a deal.’
He turned shakily to Frank Hunt.
‘You going to dart these three animals, or am I?’
Frank stared at him.
‘Then gimme your special gun.’
‘For God’s sake, man! You can’t just go in there and face dozens of wild animals.’
The patrolman grabbed at Frank’s holster and yanked out the CO2 gun. ‘Okay, Mr. Buffalo—where’re they at?’ He turned and shouted hoarsely at the lieutenant in charge of the troopers. ‘Get all your men up here on the double.’ Then to his deputy: ‘Get onto the radio and tell the sheriff.’
He started running down the highway, following Big Charlie, followed by the troopers. Charles Worthy grabbed Frank by the sleeve of his safari suit, his face thick with anger.
‘You get your ass up there, Morris. Get your goddam gun back and get in there! This is our show, Morris!’
They crept through the forest, forty soldiers tiptoeing in a line, eyes wide, guns ready. Big Charlie was in front with the patrolman, Frank Hunt picked his way behind them with his six-gun, Chuck Worthy was at the rear. They were on the Tennessee side of the mountain, about a quarter of a mile down from the Appalachian Trail, about five hundred yards into the wilderness.
Big Charlie waved the soldiers to a stop. He beckoned to the patrolman, and whispered, ‘They’re over this rise, about another three hundred yards. Tell your men to stay here, you and me go on.’
The patrolman’s eyes were wide.
‘Why not the troops too?’
‘The noise. The animals’ll run. Maybe Mr. Hunt better come too.’
The patrolman beckoned nervously. Frank looked at him in alarm, then crept warily forward.
They moved on through the dense undergrowth for another two hundred yards, toward the crest of the rise. Charlie stopped and whispered. ‘Very carefully now …’
He turned and went on another ten yards. Then suddenly he froze, listening intently. All Frank could hear was the pounding of his heart.
Big Charlie signaled the patrolman to stay where he was. He crawled forward another ten paces, silently, peering ahead. He stopped again. He listened. Then he beckoned the patrolman to follow.
They were almost at the crest of the rise. Big Charlie stopped, listening. Then he motioned to the patrolman to wait.
He crept on again, into the undergrowth. Out of sight. The patrolman and Frank Hunt waited breathlessly.
And they waited.
And waited.
A mile away, on the other side of the Appalachian Trail, Davey Jordan came down the embankment onto the empty highway and ran across it and up into the forest on the other side, the animals scrambling behind him.
Back on the other side of the mountain, the patrolman and Frank Hunt waited. They waited almost an hour before they realized that Big Charlie was not coming back.
twenty-one
That night the pain in Queenie’s tusk was very bad. Where the bullet was lodged there was a lump the size of an orange.
She lay alone against a tree, trying to rest, blinking slowly in the dark, legs folded beneath her, trying to endure her toothache, taking deep groaning breaths.
She could hear the other elephants feeding, wrenching at the leaves. She was hungry and exhausted, but the pain in her mouth was stronger. She had hardly eaten since the attack, and she needed to eat over three hundred pounds of vegetation daily. Lumbering along the Appalachian Trail, she had grabbed at leaves, but the agony had streaked through her jaw and tusk as she tried to chew, and she had squealed in agony.
When they had stopped, she had tried to drink. She had sucked up a trunkful of water and squirted it in, but the agony of the ice-cold water against the root of her tusk was excruciating, and she had shaken her head and that made the agony crash harder, and she squealed, and scrambled backward, and then just had stood there, waiting for the pain to subside. She had fearfully slurped up another trunkful, but the agony had stabbed again and she squealed and scrambled again, her heart pounding from the shock. Her body had cried out for water. At last she had got it right, pushing her trunk tip deep into her mouth before squirting, exhausted by the confusion of it.
She knew what had become of her, who had struck her this terrible blow: the same creatures who had come to watch her in the circus, the same that had kept her captive. She knew she had to flee and be cunning for her life; and she knew that her only hope lay with her keeper, that only he could be trusted, that he was trying to take her through these perils. But this she also knew, in her blood and bones: she was a mighty elephant, bigger and stronger than all other creatures; if any other creatures tried to hunt her she would charge them and smash them to the earth, and seize them in her trunk, and swing them on high; then club them down to the earth; and she would crash her great knees down upon them, and crush out their life.
Davey leaned against a tree, exhausted, his eyes glistening.
Ten yards away Big Charlie was deep asleep. Near Davey lay the big cats, the lions on one side, Sultan on the other: all sleeping except Tommy, who sat, head up, ears pricked, eyes wide in the darkness, listening. He was hungry. Sam was asleep at Davey’s side, legs twitching; he was probably dreaming of chasing something to eat. Champ lay on his side, his head in the crook of his arm, his back against Sam’s. Somewhere out there in the dark the two grizzly bears were foraging, and even Smoky was feeding somewhere. On the edge of the stream lay Sally, flat out on her side, snoring long-sufferingly. But Davey was thinking of none of them; he was watching Daisy.
She sat on the other side of the pool, in the moonlight filtering through the trees. The other chimpanzees slept, their heads resting on the crooks of their hairy arms. The gorillas had made makeshift nests of leaves and twigs scraped into a circle.
But Daisy sat alone, her back hunched, her right hand holding her chest, blood oozing between her fingers, her broken shoulder hanging. Her mouth grimaced, and her eyes were shocked as she stared across the pool at Davey. She could not sit, nor lie, nor stand without her shattered shoulder taking the weight of her whole arm.
Davey watched her, tears glistening. He had tried, again, to bind her arm to her chest, but she had cried out and jerked away, her bloody hand clutching her cowering face. He had tried to comfort her, had held her good hand and talked to her, making sympathetic noises, trying to lull her to sleep. His own body was crying for sleep, but he would not, could not, until she fell into merciful unconsciousness. The tears were running down his face as he waited for that, and his heart was breaking for what
he had to do.
Oh, Dr. Johnson, where are you now? …
And, O God in heaven, to sink into oblivion and not to have to do what I have to do. And when I wake up, maybe You will have done it for me.
But God did not.
Slowly, slowly, Davey pulled out his knife, and slowly, tremblingly, opened the blade. He took a deep trembling breath and looked at Daisy sitting in the moonlight; he whispered, ‘Oh, forgive me, Daisy …’
Then the cry broke in his throat, and he slumped forward and sobbed. He wanted to fill his lungs and bellow, Savages! You savages!
He tilted back his head again, tears running into his mouth.
Why didn’t they leave you in the jungle where you belonged, Daisy? Where you had every right to be, where God made you to be, why did they have to come to your piece of the world and catch you and put you in a cage so people could come and laugh at you? What right did they have to do that?
He wept at her across the pool in the moonlight, and Daisy sat hunched in the dappled darkness, silently crying at him, her eyes bright. He screwed his eyes up tight and forced his head against the tree, trying to feel pain himself. He thought of her racing through the glen, leapfrogging over King Kong, cartwheeling, somersaulting and cavorting for joy through the trees.
O, God, maybe I shouldn’t have done it … O God, what have I done to her? Please God, help me now …
He slowly got up.
He walked shakily toward her across the darkness, the knife concealed in his palm.
‘Hello, Daisy … Hello, girl …’
She watched him all the way. He crouched, shaking, his throat thick. He slowly put his left hand under her good armpit and gently, ever so gently, lifted. Daisy looked at him, begging not to move, but he lifted a little harder, and she got up, with a grunt, clutching her shoulder.
Silently, he led her, hobbling, through the dark undergrowth away from the others, down the slope.
‘Sit, Daisy.’
Daisy sat, holding her bloody shoulder, looking up at him beseechingly. He knelt in front of her, tears shining on his gaunt cheeks. Gently he scratched her head. Daisy sat there, hunched, suffering.
Please God help me to find the right place.
Daisy opened her eyes and saw the glinting knife in his hand, but she did not understand. All she knew was the agony, and the human she loved trying to comfort her. She looked at the knife dazedly, then raised her eyes and looked into his, pleadingly. The grief erupted in his throat.
Don’t just stand there, God …
He took a deep juddering breath, slipped his left hand over her eyes, and lifted the sharp point of the knife to her bloody breast. He felt her move her head, and look at him, and he hesitated—for grief, for the feel of life, his hand trembling in front of her breast. And then she understood. In that terrible moment she saw that death was about to strike, that this man she loved was about to kill her, and her eyes widened in incredulous horror and her mouth opened to scream, and he squeezed his eyes and plunged the knife.
In one horrified lunge he rammed it to the hilt in her heart. There was one huge killer jolt of agony, the incredulous shock in her eyes. She fell backward and he came down on top of her contorting body. He wrenched the knife out and rammed in into her again with all his horrified might, and pulled it out and plunged it in again. He pushed back her chin blindly and plunged the knife into her throat and slashed it open. Then he collapsed on top of her inert body, and buried his contorted face into her bloody chest, sobbing, gasping.
part five
twenty-two
Highway 25 sweeps through the Appalachian Mountains, down to the steep wooded banks of the French Broad River. It crosses the bridge into the village of Hot Springs, then sweeps back up into the forests of Tennessee and the Appalachians again.
Only a few hundred souls inhabit Hot Springs. The stores are well spaced, green vacant lots between, and lanes lead to a few houses. Half a mile or so downriver, there is a railway bridge. There is a railway shed, a post office, a general store, one cafeteria, and a liquor store. On the outskirts, up the mountain slopes, is a Jesuit mission, a brick building with two bunkhouses, where people who hike the Appalachian Trail are welcome to rest awhile. It is a pleasant little hamlet, nestling by the river, surrounded by steep forests, peaceful and sleepy.
It was four o’clock on Thursday morning, but at the Jesuit Mission all the lights were ablaze, and there were dozens of cars in the driveway. On the lawns stood three helicopters, and people slept in bedrolls on the grass. The liquor store had never done such business, and the cafeteria, which usually closed early, had been doing a roaring trade till well past midnight.
Professor Jonas Ford had made Hot Springs his base camp for Operation Noah, and the Jesuit Mission had opened its doors to him. On the riverbank beyond the sheriff’s office were parked four long-distance haulage trucks of The World’s Greatest Show and numerous wildlife department vehicles; in the campground, in the trees beyond, were great piles of iron scaffolding for the stockade to hold the animals.
Sheriff Ernest J. (Boots) Lonnogan was a big man with a big face, lined deeply from years of much heavy scowling and much wide smiling, and what he didn’t know he thought he knew. But, for all that, he was a good lawman. Lonnogan had known since he was a boy that one day he was going to be sheriff of Hawker County, just like his pappy. ‘LAW ENFORCEMENT HAS BEEN OUR FAMILY BUSINESS FOR TWO GENERATIONS,’ his election posters read, ‘AND THERE’VE NEVER BEEN ANY COMPLAINTS EXCEPT FROM THE CROOKS.’ It was true, and it was a family business. Every New Year the Sheriff sent out publicity calendars displaying four photographs of grimly smiling people: Sheriff Ernest J. (Boots) Lonnogan, Deputy Sheriff Ernest J. (Kid) Lonnogan, Patrol Officer Fred C. Bushel, and Priscilla Lonnogan, Secretary. The joke around Hawker County was: ‘How did this ringer Bushel get on the force?’
Lonnogan’s other election poster showed him delivering a straight left punch, with an explosion around the fist: ‘SHERIFF LONNOGAN KEEPS YOUR COUNTY PEACEFUL!’ And in his no-nonsense way he sure did keep the peace, and there were no real complaints. Lonnogan may have had a big mouth and looked one hell of a dude in them cowboy boots without a horse, but he knew his business, his heart was in the right place, and he didn’t hassle you none if you didn’t bend the law too hard. The only complaints came from his fellow lawmen in neighboring counties who said that Boots Lonnogan kept Hawker so clean he was a pain-in-the-ass busybody in other folks’ counties, trying to help. Lonnogan loved being a sheriff.
Hawker County is about a hundred miles away from Hot Springs, on the other side of the Great Smoky Mountains, beyond Cades Cove. Lonnogan had no official business in Hot Springs this night, but he was there, just visiting his colleague, the sheriff of Hot Springs, and in case he needed any extra help, he brought along Kid Lonnogan and two other men he often deputized—Jeb Wiggins of the You-Wreck-’em-We-Fetch-’em Garage of Hawkstown, and his brother Fred Wiggins, who had the You-Bust-’em-We-Buy-’em Scrapyard just opposite.
The local sheriff of Hot Springs had deputized a number of his own townsmen, and had posted three at the highway bridge, with rifles and sandbags, and three more at the railway bridge half a mile downriver. Lonnogan had inspected these defenses and found them insufficient. He had gone to advise the local sheriff, but the sheriff was in bed, so he had driven up to the Mission to advise Jonas Ford, but he too was in bed. Lonnogan was now urging the local deputies to beef up their defenses when a solitary figure appeared on Main Street from the direction of the Mission.
It was Eric Bradman. He was whispering his notes into his pocket tape recorder. Later his wife would edit and narrate them into the filmtrack.
‘Confusion. And red faces.
‘Professor Ford refuses to give press conferences anymore. Just terse releases.
‘But … he has arrived, with his entourage of experts, consisting of wildlife department personnel and Frank I. Hunt and … wait for it: ranking members of the Boone and Crockett Club, a
nd the Coin Club!
‘Who’re they? Well, ask my reader of those macho magazines about rifles and hunting. Named after those famous American hunters, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, the first club was founded by Theodore Roosevelt to, quote, “Promote Manly Sport with the Rifle,” unquote. That very same Theodore Roosevelt who wrote in his memoirs about the sporting pleasures of shooting African ostriches sitting on their nests. And the Coin Club is that American big-game-hunters’ club for whom the jungles are, quote, “the cathedrals where we worship,” unquote. Indeed, Professor Ford has been inundated with offers from hunting organizations all over America, such as the Rod and Gun Club—which, in Ohio, volunteered to a man to form Gary Gilmore’s firing squad. They offer to solve his problems …’
Bradman paused, thinking.
‘Anyway, Ford first flew to Allen Gap, only to learn that Jordan had tricked them all there, including intrepid Frank I. Hunt, by using accomplice Charlie Buffalohorn as a decoy. The impertinent rascals.
‘Seething with righteous frustration, Ford flies on to the next gap in the mountains, namely the French Broad River and Hot Springs. Here he will draw his line of defense …
‘And a good choice, too. Because the wide river draws the line for him.’
He stopped in the middle of deserted Main Street, and confided, ‘Barbie, take lots of local shots. The width of river. Steep mountains. Sleepy hollow suddenly all ajitter. Windows boarded. Sheriff coping with first-ever traffic jam. Liquor store almost cleaned out. Bible Belt country. Townsfolk agog. Et cetera … Cut to the Mission. Emphasize the good Catholic fathers. Prayers for the animals last night in the chapel. God’s beautiful creations. Then add a few quotes from Jordan’s letter along the same lines. Horror of solitary confinement. Etc., etc.’ He paused, then added: ‘Emphasize the tranquillity of these mountains, and of the Catholic fathers for that matter. Then cut to your footage of all the police armed to the teeth. Then to the map table in the bunkhouse, the helicopters, circus trucks, the stockade being built …’
Fear No Evil Page 13