Fear No Evil

by John Gordon Davis

  She shook her head. She was put out a bit by his change of tone, but she was not going to argue.

  ‘Go up to Copper Arbor in Michigan, and you’ll see the hunters at the rubbish dumps every year. Men enjoy killing … Bullfights. Cockfights. The Bunny Hop, in Harmony, North Carolina—have you heard of that? Every year the whole town turns out to club a dozen rabbits to death in a field. And all these American ranches where hunters hide behind a blind with their whisky bottles and kill a lion or a buck that was sold by zoos as “surplus stock.” And it’s legal. Haven’t you heard of “coon-on-a-log”? That’s a famous American sport. A poor little raccoon is chained to a log and set out into a pond? Then hunting dogs are sent after it, to see how many dogs the raccoon can beat off before the dogs kill it?’

  He sat back and stared into the fire. Then he spread his hands. ‘If a friendly little thing like a raccoon can expect no mercy, what chance has the wolf got?’ He sighed sadly. ‘As a result there are only about five hundred wolves left in the whole of America.’ He added bitterly, ‘But the agriculture department will tell you they’re a threat to the whole sheep industry and should be destroyed too.’

  Yes … she felt the same impotent anger at the selfishness and cruelty of her fellow man. But she wanted to get the happy mood back.

  ‘Please don’t think I approve, Davey.’ She added, ‘Please carry on. About talking to animals.’

  But the mood was broken. He seemed to have retreated into his private self. He muttered. ‘I’m the only friend those animals had in that circus. And in the zoo.’

  She had to argue that one. ‘In the zoo they had plenty of friendly treatment, Davey. Especially from the keepers.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘I am not.’

  He shook his head. That’s not what I mean, Dr. Johnson. The keepers didn’t maltreat them. Sure. But the keepers weren’t friendly in the way the animals want a friend. They didn’t go into the cages and play with them and pet them; the keepers weren’t … fellow creatures. Just jail guards.’

  She took a breath. Then she decided to let the remark go. ‘And the circus animals? Was Frank Hunt cruel?’

  ‘You know how they train animals. That’s why he’s afraid of them. He doesn’t dare go into that ring without somebody riding shotgun for him.’

  ‘Would the lions attack, him?’

  ‘What would you do if you were one of those lions, Dr. Johnson? Kept in a cage all your life. Only let out to do your tricks. By a man who cracks the whip at you. And you’re frightened of him all the time. And you know he’s terrified of you. And that’s the way you live. For the rest of your life.’

  He looked at her for a long moment. Then he frowned. ‘And it’s just as bad for your zoo animals, Dr. Johnson. I know you disagree, but …’ He gave up and sat back, and stirred the fire. ‘I’m sorry, Dr. Johnson, but … that’s why I can’t understand you. You’re a real animal lover, I can tell. So how can you want these animals to be put back in their cages?’

  Elizabeth suddenly felt completely sober. She was also seething with indignation because he equated her animals’ conditions to a circus. But, this was good—he had opened up the subject he had declared closed. She lit a cigarette.

  ‘Davey,’ she said, ‘I won’t debate the obvious merits of zoos. Except to say that they’re vital … to educate the public. And to conserve endangered species. Though I agree there is a great deal of room for improvement in most. But’—she looked at him earnestly, her eyes imploring—’to release these animals in the Great Smoky Mountains of the United States of America is wrong. For three basic reasons … One’—she held up a finger—’because they won’t be able to fend for themselves. And second, because they’ll be hunted. And thirdly because these are dangerous animals, Davey … They are! The Smokies have ten million tourists every year. There’re a dozen towns sprinkled all around it.’ She clenched her fist. ‘The Great Smoky Mountains, in the heart of America, is simply not a suitable place for lions, tigers, grizzly bears, and elephants!’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Davey, there’re better ways of getting the animals’ conditions improved. Legal ways …’ She ended ardently. ‘I beg you to use your wonderful talents legally. Correctly …’

  He had listened to her, patiently staring at the fire.

  ‘You’re wrong about those three things, Dr. Johnson. The Great Smoky Mountains is a beautiful place for all these animals. There’s plenty of food. The climate is fine for all of them. There’re different climates here, from subtropical to Canadian. There used to be all kinds of animals in the Smokies a hundred years ago—including the mountain lion and the grizzly bear. There used to be lions in Europe—and elephants. The climate’s fine. And they will not be dangerous to people, unless people interfere with them.’ He spread his hands. ‘The game parks aren’t fenced in Africa, Dr. Johnson. Millions of tourists go through them every year. …. People aren’t allowed to hunt in the Smokies anyway; so why should they be allowed to now?’ He held up his hand to silence her. ‘The rangers will stop them, once the Government has to accept that the animals are here to stay and that they can’t get them put without killing them. There will be a public outcry against that.’ She opened her mouth again to argue, but he went on resolutely. ‘All these animals will survive perfectly well, Dr. Johnson. The lions will learn to hunt when they’re hungry.’

  She said fervently, ‘I wish I believed all that, Davey Jordan … I could forgive you everything if I believed all that.’

  ‘I’m not asking anybody’s forgiveness, Dr. Johnson.’

  She cried, ‘But how the hell do you think you’re going to get away with it? That’s what I’m begging you to consider. The government just won’t stand for it. Let alone the American public. They’ll be terrified to think of lions and tigers in their midst. Let alone Jonas Ford wanting his animals back—and the bloody circus. Let alone the gleeful American hunters dying to blood their guns.’

  ‘Dr. Johnson, there’ll be a public outcry for the animals staying here, I’m convinced of that. That’s why I wrote to Eric Bradman and The New York Times. It’s started working already, you’ve told me. And I can outwit the government for weeks … By the time Jonas Ford gets organized, the public’s going to be rooting for us. Writing to their newspapers and congressmen.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But we won’t be alone in the Smokies, Dr. Johnson. We’ll have help.’

  She stared at him. ‘Who?’

  ‘This is my home territory.’

  There was a pause. Then she lowered her head. She could feel her dread-filled frustration mounting. She wanted to raise her voice and use her hands.

  ‘I want to say something else, Dr. Johnson. Before we finish … This is the only way to do it, Dr. Johnson, I promise you.You tell me to use my talents legally. How? Write more letters? …’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘The only way to end the suffering, to … do what is right, is to act. … Get into those cages and do what I did. Because all the letters to the newspapers, all the books, all the questions asked in Congress—won’t even get those poor animals bigger cages, let alone their freedom. Why? Because Man is lazy, Dr. Johnson. We’re so … self-centred that even if we care about animals we forget about them.’ He waved his hand. ‘Because animals are remote. We’ve cut ourselves off from them, with our civilization. We’ll forget about them after we’ve read the letter in the paper because we’ll be too busy making money, catching subways, and going to the supermarket and the movies.’

  She started to speak but he went on. ‘So the only thing to do to stop the cruelty is to act, Dr. Johnson. Do it, and face the world. Face the consequences. Because otherwise there’ll be all talk and no do. And those animals will live on in their terrible cages forever.’ He clenched his fist in frustration. ‘Like the only way to stop those Norwegians and Canadians killing the seal pups on the Saint Lawrence every year is to drive them off the ice with a whip. Because talking and pleading has achieved nothing to stop the killing, has it? The only way to stop those
Russian and Japanese from killing the last of the whales is to sink their factory ships. Because all the United Nations resolutions and boycotts won’t stop them. Because they’re heartless. The rest of the world won’t force them to stop. Man will forget about the whales, because he’ll be thinking about himself again. He won’t care long enough to do anything.’

  He sat back with a frustrated sigh. He went on quietly, bitterly. ‘We put up with Idi Amin. Didn’t we? Did we act to get rid of him? No … we just shook our heads, let his people die. As we tolerated Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti. We just shook our heads and let him get on with his terrorizing. As the German people tolerated Hitler. As we tolerate the Russians with their … Gulag Archipelago it’s called, isn’t it? We just say isn’t it awful, and forget about those people.’

  He looked at her, and his eyes narrowed a moment. ‘We forget about the horrors of the fur trade—even though we see the fur coats in the store windows every day. Don’t we, Dr. Johnson? We know about the agony the animal suffers in the trap … taking days to die, wrenching and wrenching at its broken leg. Sometimes even chewing their own legs off, to try to escape. Their hunger and their thirst. Their terror. We know, and some people have campaigns to raise public awareness, as you said. “Real People Wear Fake Furs,” et cetera. The government bans the import of the skins of certain animals in danger of extinction. But do we do anything to stop the cruelty of the fur trade?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No. We still put on our backs the sufferings of little creatures, that took so long to die.’

  He shook his head in wonder.

  ‘Why are we so cruel? We claim to be Christians … “And the Lord gave Man dominion over the whole earth.” Maybe we’d have been better off as Muslims. If it hadn’t been that the Romans were ruling Judea at the time of Christ, maybe we would be. Maybe guys like Marco Polo would have brought back some of the reverence for life of the eastern religions. But the Lord gave us dominion, so we have the right to put every other creature on earth to our use.’ His eyes were bright with contempt. ‘Women even wear their fur coats to church on Sundays. Do you ever hear a priest preaching about the sin of that?’

  Then he astonished her by beginning to recite softly:

  ‘Tis strange how women kneel in Church and pray to God above,

  Confess small sins and chant in praise and sing that He is love,

  While coats of softly furred things upon their shoulders lie

  Of timid things, of tortured things that take so long to die.

  She stared, moved.

  ‘Do you hear our churches speaking out against the fur trade? The most sinful trade of all? And you tell me to do my work legally? The law protects the trappers. Have you seen their traps?’

  She nodded.

  ‘But can you imagine what it feels like? Those steel teeth suddenly cracking through your leg and holding you by your muscles? Can you imagine the agony? And you know what happens after that?’

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  ‘No, you don’t, Dr. Johnson. You’ve never seen the animals in those traps. The bears, the lynx, the foxes, racoons, and otters, with their legs broken through, tugging and wrenching and twisting, have you? Trying to gnaw their legs off to get free … for days, until they die of exhaustion and agony and thirst. Can you imagine that kind of death?’

  She closed her eyes. He continued remorselessly.

  ‘Every year over twenty-five million animals die like that in the United States. And the government encourages it, Dr. Johnson. Publishes a book on trapping hints for youngsters! What chance have animals got when even our wildlife department doesn’t see anything wrong with trapping and furs? But you tell me to do things legally, Dr. Johnson?’

  There was nothing in this that Elizabeth could deny. Then he began to recite again:

  The steel jaws clamped and held him fast,

  None marked his fright, none heard his cries,

  His struggles ceased; he lay at last

  With wide, uncomprehending eyes;

  And saw the sky grow dark above,

  And saw the sunset turn to gray,

  And quailed in anguish while he strove

  To gnaw his prisoned leg away.

  Then at last day came from the east.

  But still the steel jaws kept their hold,

  And no one watched the prisoned beast

  But Fear, and Hunger, Thirst and Cold …

  Then through the gloom that night came One

  Who set the timid spirit free;

  I know thine anguish, little son;

  So once men held and tortured Me.

  He turned to her in the firelight. ‘Do we ever hear priests telling us that?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Some people try, and they campaign. Like Eric Bradman. Guys like Cleveland Amory start the Fund for Animals, and even film stars like Doris Day stand up and say that wearing fur coats is awful, and people write to their congressmen. But what happens? Does the government ban furs? No. Because the fur trade is big—a lot of voters. It’s much better for twenty-five million animals to be put to a long, slow death every year than for congressmen to lose votes. But do they even ban the leg-hold trap, the cruelest trap ever made? No. Over half of the states in America don’t even have laws that say the trapper must visit his traps every forty-eight hours, to put the animal out of its agony. Do you know that, Dr. Johnson? They don’t even say that much for the animals. And this is America!’

  His eyes were bright. He sighed, then went on simply.

  ‘It’s the same with zoos, Dr. Johnson. Lord—why is it that human beings take pleasure in imprisoning animals? Pleasure! …’ he looked at her in wonder … ‘in catching a wild animal, taking it away from its home where it was happy, and shutting it up in a small iron cage where it’s miserable. So that other human beings can come to look at it in its awful prison. Why?’ He appealed to her, hands spread. ‘We’re supposed to have laws against cruelty to animals. What could be more cruel? In solitary confinement! We know that one of the worst punishments for a prisoner is solitary confinement—because after a few days it drives him up the wall. He goes crazy.’ He dropped his hands. ‘Why do we do it, Dr. Johnson? It’s like the olden days, when people could pay to go into the lunatic asylums to have fun watching the inmates.’

  She started to say something, but he went on.

  ‘The Bronx Zoo … the famous New York Zoological Society. Two hundred and fifty acres, Dr. Johnson—and the elephants’ cage is the size of your bedroom! Because it would cost the Bronx Zoo money to be kind to their prisoners. They spend a fortune building a skyway cable car so people can ride through the air over the zoo, but it’s cheaper to let the animals suffer. And besides,’ he ended bitterly, ‘it’s easier for the people if the cages are small, so they haven’t got too far to walk to the next one.

  ‘What chance have the animals got legally, Dr. Johnson?’ He paused, then leaned forward. ‘How long will the animals have to wait for us to change the laws?’ He shook his head in despair. ‘It’s taken us two thousand years to work out a … half-decent Man-to-Man system. How long will it take us to work out a decent Man-to-Animal system?’

  He sat back and took a big, weary breath.

  ‘It’s got to be done, Dr. Johnson,’ he said quietly.

  She stared at him and felt her eyes begin to fill. She looked over at the animals, gathered in a big scattered circle about the fire. They were all staring at her, the firelight flickering on their faces, as if they were waiting for her to reply, as if their fate lay in her hands, as if they knew Davey had spoken on behalf of all of them. She felt her heart swell, and she wanted to drop her head and sob, for all the terribly true things that he had said, for all the misery and heart-break of these beautiful animals in their cages: how they were going to feel when they were put back in there after their short, glorious burst of freedom; and the terror of the recapture, the running and the crashing and the dust, the screams, and the
blood, and the heartbreak. She saw those beautiful animals clustered anxiously around, and she dreaded what was going to happen. She clenched her fist and cried, ‘But Davey—what’s going to happen?’

  Davey’s weary face was calm and gentle again, and it seemed that the whole forest was waiting, the animals attentive. When he spoke it was with a soothing firmness that seemed to hang softly in the air, a sweet vision.

  ‘We are going to a valley I know. It’s a lovely place, not far from here, in the Smokies, maybe sixty or seventy miles. It’s completely remote and self-contained; there’re not even any foot trails. The sides are steep, with the most beautiful trees, vines, and ferns, and there’re glades and glens. A beautiful little river tumbles down, and there are waterfalls, rapids, pools; the water is crystal clear, and it’s full of trout. But at the bottom of the valley is a big lake, and it spreads for miles. The mountains rise up, up … And the flowers, and all the time there’s the song of birds. Nobody ever goes there, not even the rangers. There’s absolutely everything there for the animals to eat. It’s a Garden of Eden.’

  The tears were running down her face. She wanted to throw her arms wide and take each animal in her arms and tell it that it was beautiful and that she loved it; and that she was sorry. O God, so sorry that they would not have the life in the valley that he was promising them, in the sunshine and the flowers by the rumbling river, but that they had to go back to their cages again, never to smell and feel and see the beautiful wilderness, never to romp and play and rejoice again, and never to see their beloved Davey Jordan again. That men could not allow them to live free, that they were so terrified of them they would not let them live uncaged, that these mountains were set aside by men for people to enjoy, not for elephants, lions, tigers, chimps, and gorillas, and grizzly bears, not even one old hippopotamus; and besides they had no right to be free because they were all the property of other people. O God, God, she was so sorry, and so ashamed, and her heart was breaking and her mind was torn with confusion.