‘When will you be back in business?’
‘As soon as spoor is found, gentlemen.’
‘But do you think you know where they are?’
Forsythe knew better than to answer that one directly.
‘A good hunter plays his hunches, but he also covers the field.’
On that note Stephen Leigh-Forsythe was faded out, to the music of the new smash-hit ballad, ‘The Great Free Smoky Mountains,’ and then Eric Bradman appeared on screen, a triumphant expression on his face.
‘But here are the hunted animals … alive and well …’
The music swelled; the sun was rising, and through the mist loomed the benign massiveness of Rajah, his wise eye contentedly blinking as his trunk curled up to his mouth with a clump of grass; then he faded, and there was King Kong stretching his shaggy arms and yawning cavernously right into the camera; the sun came through the trees, and there was the fat furry face of Pooh snuffling happily; as the ballad swelled there followed a series of montages: the chimpanzees romping, rolling and tumbling; Jamba rolling happily on her back, all four massive hooves waving in the air; Tommy lying on his back in the sun with his eyes closed; Davey Jordan playing in the grass with Kitty. Then Bradman’s story began.
It was a stunningly good program, and it certainly stunned Forsythe. The liaison officer had come running to his tent. ‘Eric Bradman has found the animals, sir!’ He could not believe his ears. His expanded tracker force had just returned from their first day with still nothing to report.
Forsythe stared at the television screen, his anger rising like gall. He stayed long enough to see Davey Jordan romping with Kitty, then he turned and limped away. He was so angry he did not hear the suppressed laughter from the reporters.
‘Call Professor Ford! I want Bradman found. If he’s not around, get the police. I don’t care a damn about journalists’ privilege of secrecy. He’s an accomplice.’
But Eric Bradman was nowhere to be found.
The president of the United States did not see the program, but the First Lady sure did, and he heard all about it for two solid hours when he got to bed; and he knew the White House was in for a new deluge of telegrams. In Gatlinburg everybody saw it, and whether they were for or against the animals they were delighted that the hired gun from South Africa had been made a fool of. Every person in Cherokee saw it, and there were roars of applause and singing until late, around the campfires.
One hell of a party sprang up at the press bar that night; the journalists had been bored stiff for days, and Eric Bradman’s scoop had given them plenty to write about, with many a horselaugh between the lines, and many a lofty phrase for the animals.
Close by, another party developed. Ambrose Jones presented two bottles of corn whiskey to Forsythe’s four African trackers, for all of whom alcohol ruthlessly had been banned by their boss. It contained a tasteless additive which induces a monumental hangover and acute nausea for several days.
In Hawkstown, another party developed in Fred Wiggins’s You Bust-’em-We-Buy-’em Scrapyard, as Lonnogan’s posse watched Bradman’s program and guffawed at the snotnose hired gun from Africa. Lonnogan watched with a grim, dangerous smile. He banged his fist into his palm.
‘Goddamit, now’s the time to go back in and get that Jordan, an’ really laugh that Englishman out of town.’ He looked around. ‘Anybody think they recognized any part of that forest on that film?’
In Sylva, the three men watched the television set in the den. Their rifles were cleaned and ready.
‘Well? Recognized anything?’
They all shook their heads.
‘He was careful not to film anything conspicuous.’
The first man went to the television, pushed a button, and the video cassette rewound. Eric Bradman’s face reappeared on the screen. ‘But here are the hunted animals. Alive and well …’
‘Watch carefully. For anything … and we’ll keep playing this video until we’re sure to recognize places when we come to them.’
‘Dogs,’ the second man said. ‘I still say we use the dogs.’
‘Perhaps,’ the first man said. ‘But those are good dogs; I don’t want mine being murdered by lions and tigers.’
‘There he is …’ the second man breathed, looking at Rajah. ‘Oh, boy, you’re mine …’ He raised his arms like a rifle and squinted down the imaginary sights. ‘Bang. Right between your eyes’ boy …’
fifty-seven
The next day two long caravans of Indians set out from Cherokee and Oklahoma, in rented trucks, buses, and old automobiles. They were carrying four thousand wooden crosses, one for each Indian who had died on the Trail of Tears, and they were headed for Washington to deliver a petition to the president.
Forsythe left camp at sunrise. He was even more furious than he had been the night before because the Cherokee trackers had not shown up and his African trackers were almost blind with hangovers. They sat in the helicopter, bloodshot eyes closed, suffering the din of the engine, stomachs heaving.
Frank Hunt did not look too well either. He too had a monumental hangover. He had had one hell of a night at the press bar, tickled pink that Horsemeat Ford’s protégé had been made a horse’s ass.
Sitting beside him, Professor Ford was still appalled at Bradman’s film. Its cheap, sentimental sensationalism would give the world quite the wrong impression! And the criticisms of his zoo had infuriated him. The sheer ignorance of it! Whipping up public emotion, absolute bias, total suppression of the simple truth that animals get used to captivity—even like it.
And as regards Elizabeth—well, he was absolutely appalled at her unprofessional conduct! She was in clear breach of her contract. Had she taken leave of her senses? Had she gone temporarily off her rocker? Lord—that was a beautiful Ape House! Almost brand new …
Forsythe ordered the pilot to hover near Clingmans Dome. They climbed down the ladders. Then Forsythe let rip at his woebegone Africans in Swahili.
‘Are you men? No—you are children! Are you worthy of my trust? No—you tsotsis! You are skellums! Today you will suffer, my tsotsi children! Today you will work until the blood comes out your pores! Today you will work until your excrement drops!’
For another two minutes he heaped traditional curses. His trackers stood stoically, eyes downcast. Then he turned and pointed angrily in the direction of Thunderhead Mountain.
‘They are somewhere over there—children! It is no good searching for spoor on the Appalachian Trail because the rain will have washed it out—children! So get down into those valleys and look! And may your heads throb right down to your toes!’
He assigned them their areas. Half on the North Carolina side, half on the Tennessee side.
Then it was discovered that the batteries in their radios had been stolen, and so had the flares for the flare guns.
The helicopter had gone, and there was no way of calling it back.
It took Frank Hunt the rest of that day to walk back to the camp, to tell the pilot to bring new batteries. Forsythe refused to release his trackers for the mission. But none of them did any tracking that day. Once out of his sight, each lay down and nursed his nausea. They were incapable of doing their job.
It was late afternoon when Frank Hunt reached the camp, sorely in need of a drink, his feet aching. He gave the pilot Forsythe’s orders, gave Chuck Worthy’s caravan a wide berth, and gratefully repaired to the press bar with another good story for his new buddies about what happened out there in the woods today.
The sun was setting when the helicopter touched down near Clingmans Dome, with the news that there were no batteries to be found at the camp; they had all been stolen. But the liaison officer was fetching more from Nashville.
That night, Forsythe summoned a meeting in the warden’s office at Oconaluftee. Only Jonas Ford and the warden were present, and Forsythe did all the talking. Sometimes his voice quivered, but he looked murderously calm.
‘We’re going to put an end to this Cherokee
sabotage, gentlemen. Complete secrecy. That’s what we’re going to have from now on. Nobody will speak to the press, except Professor Ford. And I will tell him what to say … There’re spies in this camp. And up in those mountains there are plenty more spies—waiting to jump on us, or to warn Jordan. Or to try to mislead us with more false spoor. But we’re going to play them at their own game, gentlemen.’
He looked at his small audience.
‘First, we’re going to move our tents from that pasture right into this visitors’ center. That includes the trackers and Hunt. Nobody else will be allowed in here. All they’ll know is when they see our helicopter come and go. Until we bring the first animal in. Understood?’
The warden nodded. Ford looked at him grimly. Forsythe turned to the warden.
‘Now, I want four trustworthy black men found immediately. They must be the same size as my trackers. Get them from the armed services, or the police. They must be absolutely trustworthy and sworn to secrecy.’
The warden and Jonas Ford were staring at him.
‘And,’ Forsythe continued, ‘I want one white man. Also from the services. He must be my size…’
part twelve
fifty-eight
But in the Garden of Eden, there was peace. With each day, Elizabeth’s hopes rose higher.
Maybe it was an unreal peace, but she fiercely closed her mind and trusted—in the God in whom she ardently believed, in Eric Bradman’s powers of persuasion, in Davey Jordan, in Big Charlie and his Cherokees. Is this not how You intended it, God? Then stand by us now!
When she prayed, she almost believed that this was part of His Grand Design, to restore the world. Had not the world gone mad? Was not Man overrunning it—such an evolutionary success that he was destroying it as if he were a plague? How much longer could the earth’s resources last? And now we even had acid rain—acidified by industrial pollution of faraway countries and blown across oceans to fall on lakes and rivers, killing the fish. How much longer before the whole system broke down? How much longer could wild animals survive with the jungles being cut back every year? How long before all animals were kept in skyscraper batteries just for men to eat?
Is that how You intended it all to end, God?
When she thought of it like this, she was almost positive that Davey Jordan was part of a Grand Design. And Eric Bradman—one of the most powerful voices in America! Wasn’t it succeeding? Hadn’t Bradman said that the world was up in arms? O God, did You not also send Eric Bradman?
But from time to time the dread returned, the feeling of unreality: that soon the terror and stampeding, the blood and thunder would come back and break this happiness wide open—that they were going to be hunted down one by one, taken back to their cages … Then she prayed fiercely all over again.
Every morning she was gone with the sunrise to do her medical rounds, making notes for the scientific paper she was going to write, determined to wring every moment out of the day. Every morning was like the first day God made, the mist rising from tumbling streams, the eastern sky flaming red, the whole world young and beautiful. And she felt young and almost beautiful too.
She was not even worried about the lions any more. Davey was teaching them to hunt. Davey could do anything: make fire, find food and shelter, hunt, fix, fight, find his way, lead them to safety. Davey could run from Athens to Sparta.
The lions stayed around the mineshaft, waiting for him to return.
Davey slept there as little as possible, to break their dependence on him. Every day he took them out hunting; every time they failed. At the end of every second day he shot a boar. He fed it to them back at the mine, and disappeared. When the meat was finished, when even Sultan had been allowed his share, they would venture forth to try to follow him. They followed the stream, hesitantly, slinking, sniffing, but after half a mile they would turn back. They went back to the familiar mineshaft, where they knew he would return.
For the first few days there had been a complete breakdown in law and order, squabbles between Princess and Kitty about who should lie where, who could come back into the mineshaft, and when. But now order was returning. Tommy had put a stop to their quarrels with a snarl and a swat of his big paw. Old Tommy didn’t know what was happening either, but he was biggest and he wasn’t going to put up with too much nonsense. Mostly he dominated the mouth of the mine, watching the wilderness, waiting for Davey to come back and feed them.
But Kitty was starting to learn something about the wilderness, now. For the first few days she had not dared go far out of sight. But then, one day, she got bolder—cautiously, slinking through the undergrowth, ready to whirl and run back to the protection of the mine. But she only saw things to interest her: the scuttling of insects, the fluttering of birds. She froze when she saw them, crouched, gathered for the spring, and pounced: but it was all in play. Then one day she scented a black bear cub.
Kitty froze. Her blood quickened. She stood absolutely still, cat’s eyes wide, scenting his position; then her lithe body lowered a fraction. She started, soundlessly following its scent, as faultlessly as if she had been born in these mountains.
The cub was one-third grown. He was glossy and black and fat, and it was a beautiful morning for a bear cub to be out, rooting around by himself. His black nose was buried in a hole, his shaggy backside stuck up happily to the sunny morning, completely oblivious.
Kitty crouched, watching him, fifteen yards away, every nerve tuned, hunting instinct pumping through her. Then she did something she just naturally knew: she tested the shifting breeze, and began to creep downwind of the cub.
She moved through the undergrowth without a sound, every muscle taut, her killer heart pounding, never taking her murderous eyes off the bustling black backside.
Kitty stalked five crouched steps, then she stopped. Her sharp claws dug into the earth; for a long blood-thrilled moment she gathered herself; then her muscles unleashed and she sprang.
One moment the little bear cub had his snout happily full of roots, the next he was hit by a roaring monster. Kitty hit him a full charge, jaws agape, claws outstretched. He was knocked flat into the grub hole, the air knocked out of him, then the terrible creature’s jaws were fast around his gullet, shaking him, strangling him, and the little bear twisted and kicked and screamed; his sharp claws slashed into Kitty’s hide. She crouched furiously over him, joyfully killing him, shaking and snarling. Now she could taste blood, and suddenly Kitty knew why she was killing this bear. The lust to kill and eat was suddenly a frenzy, and she shook and shook her head so the bear was wrenched back and forth.
Then something hit her senseless. Like a ton of bricks, as big mommy black bear came thundering onto the scene. One moment Kitty was minding her own business killing a bear; the next it seemed her head was knocked off. She reeled, stunned, astonished, and all she saw were these huge black jaws and outraged eyes and giant paws swinging. Kitty dodged, shocked, almost falling over herself, and then tried to go bounding after the scampering cub again, but Big Mommy was after her like an avalanche with murder in her heart. Her great clawed paw swiped Kitty on her rump so her whole backside swung around in mid-bound, and Kitty decided to quit.
She turned and fled three hundred panicked yards, with a still-stunned head, then she slowed. She stopped, flanks heaving, and looked back, her tail swishing. Her chest was stinging from the scratches. She glared, smarting with the injustice of it all. For a long, mean moment she considered going back; then she decided she had had enough, and started back toward the mineshaft.
After five hundred yards she sat down on a warm rock and began to lick her wounds. Her cuts were hurting, but Kitty had had a good morning. She had learned something more about the wilderness, how to stalk and hunt, and best of all she had discovered the thrill of it all—and that all animals are made of meat.
fifty-nine
When the sun went down, the elephants reappeared out of the forest, but they did not hang around close to the cabin any more; they
just liked to know she was not too far.
Elizabeth slept outside now. During the night, she could glimpse them through the trees, great, silver-dappled wraiths; it was lovely to know that they were there. Sometimes one would come toward her and stand right next to her, feeding and sighing, huge bodies looming over her; but she was not afraid. They knew she was there, and they stepped carefully around her.
But with the dawn they did not go back into the wilderness; they stayed near the cabin, in case Davey came back. Every morning Elizabeth spoke to Rajah, as the leader, telling him to take them away.
‘Go, Rajah. Go!’
But Rajah, though he understood perfectly, just stood there, blinking at her soulfully and curling his trunk apologetically.
So finally she had to take them into the forest. They followed her solemnly, in a slow, lumbering line, wondering where Davey was. The bears followed too. She took them way over the ridge into the valleys beyond; then she ordered them to stay.
Rajah looked at her mournfully. He understood. Their trunks hung dejectedly; they were hurt by her tone. She had to suppress a smile. She gave them each a no-nonsense, reassuring pat and walked away. They watched her go. They knew better than to try to follow her, but at sunset they came home.
Finally, one morning, Elizabeth refused to lead them out. She ordered them away with a theatrical show of anger, hands on hips, and they understood her tone.
‘Now look, Rajah! You too, Jamba. And you, too, pay attention, Dumbo! And stop looking at me like that. I’ve had enough of wet-nursing you lot! The boss isn’t here any more. You’re your own bosses now. Now, get out there and behave like it. We’ve gone to a great deal of trouble and enormous expense to get you here. Now push off! Go on—push off, Rajah. Go!’ She pointed dramatically.
Slowly, Rajah turned, with a sigh. He walked slowly toward the pasture, his ears sadly flapping; Jamba and Dumbo followed, looking rebuked.
Elizabeth felt so sorry she wanted to run after them to apologize.
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