Lonnogan’s smile creased into a puzzled frown. ‘Come again?’
‘If you don’t let me go this instant, I’ll sue you to the highest court in the land!’
Courts were something Lonnogan knew all about. ‘Now I’m here to tell you, ma’am, that I can see you goin’ to obstruct a duly-sworn sheriff in the execution of his duty. Gag her,’ he said to his son.
She started to holler, and Kid Lonnogan clamped her mouth. She wrestled her shoulders and sank her teeth into his finger with all her might. Kid Lonnogan hollered and let go, and she yelled ‘Help!’ Kid Lonnogan hopped around nursing his finger, and Jeb Wiggins and Fred and the sheriff lunged at her.
Lonnogan pulled out a handkerchief. She clamped her jaws shut and ducked and twisted, and Jeb grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back; she screamed, and Lonnogan jammed the handkerchief into her mouth. He tied a knot at the back of her neck. Then they let her go. Lonnogan stood over her.
‘Now listen here, ma’am! You just committed your first offense!’ He glared at her. ‘How’s your hand, son?’
Kid pulled his finger out of his mouth. ‘Sore, Pah.’
‘She done drawn blood?’
‘Sure has, Pah.’
Lonnogan cocked his fleshy scowl, and his big finger trembled at Elizabeth.
‘Nobody—but nobody bites an officer of the law around here and gets away with it, d’you hear?’ His voice shook. ‘But I don’t want to make no trouble for you, ma’am. So I give you one more chance. Behave yourself, and we’ll forget about that bite. But make one false move … and I’ll tie you up like a hog and drag you in front of the judge.’
He gave her a bulging-eyed stare, then he barked his orders. He sent Fred Wiggins and Freddie Bushel into the trees at the back and side of the cabin. Lonnogan himself and Jeb stayed inside the cabin. He sent Kid Lonnogan down to the trees along the river that divided the pasture. He reckoned that would be the safest place for the boy.
They settled down to wait; guns ready.
sixty-five
The honeymoon was not quite over.
Jamba’s great womb had ceased to ovulate, and now she no longer wanted Rajah’s loving bulk scrambling up her rump all day, crashing joyfully down on her and his huge hooves splayed amorously around her gut. But Rajah was still very much in love, and still optimistic. He hung about, plucking tidbits and stuffing them into her mouth, even when her mouth was full, and trying to intertwine trunks in passing. He squeezed and fondled her and though Jamba’s belly already was working on her first-ever calf, she was affectionate and she went along with most of it.
And Dumbo, who had felt rather neglected the last few days, began to claim her attention again. They were all happy, even if Rajah was feeling restlessly wistful for the glories of the past few days; now there was an elephantine togetherness, a family feeling. That is how the elephants were that afternoon when the sharp crack of Forsythe’s dart gun shattered the forest.
The elephants stampeded down the mountain, horrified, thundering through the trees, trunks swinging, tails curled up; Dumbo galloped between Rajah and Jamba with the silver dart flashing on his rump.
Dumbo ran for his life, desperate to keep up with the big elephants who would protect him; he ran and he ran, his hindquarters trying to tuck themselves in from his pursuers. Then suddenly the drug hit him; he lurched, and his legs buckled. He crashed onto his chest, his rump in the air, his trunk outflung. The air was knocked out of him; he tried to get up, and he squealed to the other elephants, and he collapsed onto his side.
Jamba and Rajah came thundering back, great ears out. Dumbo’s hooves beat the air, and Jamba grabbed his trunk with hers, and heaved. He groaned, and made it halfway up; Jamba squealed at him and wrenched, and Dumbo staggered to his feet, groaning, wheezing. He started forward; then he thumped onto his haunches in a heap. He got up again, and Jamba grunted furiously and lumbered her flank against his to support him, and she threw her trunk tight round his neck. Rajah heaved his flank against Dumbo’s other side. They started to run again, stumbling and lurching. For two hundred yards they blundered downhill through the undergrowth; then Dumbo lurched headfirst into another tree. His head reeled, and his forelegs crumpled; he toppled over onto his side. And Jamba squealed and swiped his rump with her trunk to wake him, but he just lay there, groaning. Then she got her trunk around his foreleg and heaved backward, with all her desperate weight, and Rajah grabbed his trunk and heaved also, and Dumbo began to plow through the undergrowth.
The elephants went struggling down the mountain, great anguished animals reversing with all their might, trying to drag Dumbo to safety. Then a second shot rang out and Forsythe’s dart smacked into Jamba’s forehead.
She shied back, ears out, and Rajah saw the men. He gave a mighty trumpet and flapped out his ears, curled his trunk under, and he charged.
Rajah charged; enormous and furious. The earth shook, and the recapture party turned and ran—each man for himself, running and stumbling in all directions. Rajah charged for a hundred yards, scattering all before him, then he was about to give up and go running back to Jamba when Gasoline looked over his shoulder, and tripped, and sprawled, headlong into a laurel bush. He scrambled up wildly, and Rajah saw him and swerved.
He gave a furious scream and went thundering straight at Gasoline, his trunk curled under like a battering ram. Gasoline hollered to the sky and ran, as fast as his legs could carry him, terrified that this elephant was now concentrating his murderous attention exclusively on his backside. He looked wildly over his shoulder, and all he saw were terrible ears and. tusks as Rajah lowered his head in full thunderous charge to ram him down and pick him up and beat him back to the earth like a club and hurl him over the treetops—that is what Rajah was about to do to Gasoline, when another shot rang out.
It thudded into Rajah’s head exactly where Forsythe intended, to stun without killing. Rajah stumbled in mid-killer charge, and he almost fell; then he righted himself; he turned around blindly and ran back down the mountain, blundering, trying to shake the pain out of his head. He ran past Dumbo without even seeing him, and on down the mountain, making for the safety of the cabin.
Jamba was nowhere to be seen.
Dumbo lay all alone, wheezing, dizzily fighting the drug; he tried to lift his head, but he could not, because he was lying on his ear. He was pinned to the earth by his own ear, and he slumped back. Then, out of the corner of his groggy eye, he saw the men and he went berserk.
He squealed and scrambled his hooves, but his ear wrenched him down. He twisted, trying to see the terrifying men. His hooves ploughed up the earth, and now he was pushing his body around, thrashing and squealing around and around. Then the scream of a chainsaw filled the air, cutting down the trees to make space for the helicopter.
For another five minutes the little elephant thrashed and ploughed, his terror fighting the drug; but his struggling grew slower and weaker; then he just lay, groaning; suddenly his eyes glazed over.
They tied his hooves together, and the slings came down from the roaring helicopter to lift him out of the forest and fly him back over the beautiful mountains to his cage, where he belonged.
sixty-six
None of Lonnogan’s posse had heard Forsythe’s shots. They only heard the distant trumpet of an elephant, an ancient, terrifying scream rising up out of the forest.
Crouched in the riverine foliage in the pasture, Kid Lonnogan went pale and his sphincter muscles winced. Up in the cabin the sheriff and Jeb Wiggins both stiffened, and they paled also; Lonnogan stuck his head over the windown sill, and Jeb peeped around the door.
They waited, clutching their guns. Another furious scream rose up, louder. Then came the distant sound of crashing bushes, a smashing noise that got louder and louder; then, the sound of great hooves pounding the earth, and out of the forest came the beast.
Furious, in terrified stampede, his head covered in blood, his great ears out, and his trunk swinging, Rajah came thundering int
o the pasture; and in the forest, Fred Wiggins and Freddie Bushel broke cover and ran, flat out in the opposite direction, running for their lives; inside the cabin Lonnogan shouted, ‘Close the door!’
Two hundred yards away, Kid Lonnogan lay absolutely flat in the undergrowth, gripping his gun. His stomach turned liquid. Through the tips of the undergrowth he saw the terrible sight thundering across the pasture, huge face covered in blood, heading straight toward where he lay. Kid Lonnogan’s mind stuttered, and his sphincter muscles let go. Kid fouled his pants and scrambled up with a gargle of terror, his gun upflung; he fired one wild shot, turned blindly to run, and tripped. The bullet smacked into Rajah’s skull, and he staggered; Kid Lonnogan scrambled up, and Rajah saw him. He shook his great head and bellowed his fury, and he charged, trumpeting and pounding through the riverine trees. Kid Lonnogan came bursting out of the undergrowth into the pasture, arms swinging. He looked back and saw the terrible bloodied head thundering right down on top of him; he hollered and tried to swerve, and Rajah hit him at full killer-charge.
With a swipe of his trunk, and Kid Lonnogan was hurled sideways, crashing head over heels. He hit the earth and rolled, and Rajah thundered down on him. Kid Lonnogan tried to scramble, and Rajah lashed his trunk around him and wrenched him up. He heaved him high over his head, and all Kid Lonnogan knew was the terrible trunk around him, the forest whirling about upside down. Then Rajah smashed him down like a club, and gunfire cracked out.
Sheriff Lonnogan was running down from the cabin, blasting above Rajah’s screams. The bullets smashed into the elephant’s back and ribs, but Rajah just kep on clubbing Kid Lonnogan up and down. Then Davey burst out of the forest with Sam.
Davey came running out of the trees screaming, ‘No, Rajah!’ and brandishing a branch. He ran through the gunfire at the screaming elephant, and Sam went for the sheriff, bounding furiously, hair standing up, his jaws agape arid his eyes flashing. Lonnogan scattered backward and opened up on him with both six-guns. The bullets shot up the earth, but Sam kept coming, and Lonnogan began to run. Davey bellowed, ‘No, Sam!’ and Sam turned. Davey charged at Rajah arid swiped him across his bloody face, bellowing, ‘No,Rajah!No!’
And Sheriff Lonnogan recovered. He opened up wildly on the elephant again, and Davey’s blows suddenly penetrated Rajah’s crazed brain. He scrambled backward under the barrage, dropped Kid Lonnogan’s body, and turned and ran, shocked, the bullets thudding into his bloodied body.
Davey was yelling, ‘Stop shooting—stop shooting!’
He ran to Kid Lonnogan. A bullet whined past his ear, and he threw himself flat. The bullets tore all about him, and the sheriff was charging at him with both six-guns. Davey scrambled up and dived headlong into the undergrowth, bullets crashing all around him. He scrambled up again and hurled himself into the river, up the opposite bank, and he ran.
Lonnogan and Jeb were blasting across the river, and the sheriff bellowed, ‘Shoot to kill!’
Jeb splashed across the river as Davey raced across the open pasture beyond, the bullets whamming into the earth, then he threw himself into the forest.
Back on the other side of the river, the sheriff crouched over the dead body of Kid Lonnogan, weeping, Then he threw back his head and howled above the cacophony of the gunfire, ‘You’ll all hang for this! If I don’t shoot you full of lead first!’
Big Charlie burst into the cabin. He whipped out his knife, slashed the ropes around Elizabeth’s ankles and wrists, and pulled off her gag. He snatched up her medical bag and her knapsack, grabbed her wrist, and plunged out of the cabin. They stumbled up the mountain for half a mile. Then Charlie stopped, chest heaving.
‘Go the mineshaft … Davey’ll find you there…’
‘Supposing he’s been hit?…’
‘I’m going to look for his spoor now … Go to the mine and wait for him … Up the stream, so you leave no spoor … Are you afraid of the lions?’
She shook her panting head. ‘Are you going to come … afterward?’
‘If he’s been hit, I’ll bring him to you … Otherwise I got work to do … Tomorrow the trouble starts …’
Twenty miles away, the helicopter was roaring over the mountains, carrying Dumbo. The freezing wind brought him back to consciousness, to the terrifying sights and sensations of flying, and the terrifying noise. He kicked and screamed, three thousand pounds of terrified young elephant bucking in the sky, and the sling swung; the helicopter lurched and keeled. As they began their descent, Dumbo began to wail from the bottom of his lungs, as he felt himself falling through the icy blast and saw the forest rushing up. He wailed all the way to the ground inside the stockade, as the television men filmed him. Outside the camp the mob of young people chanted, ‘Shame! … Shame! … Shame!…’
Dumbo kicked, and wailed, and tried to get up, and crashed over, again and again, until Forsythe decided he had to dart him again, to knock him unconscious so he could be disentangled.
When Dumbo awoke it was the middle of the night. He was all alone. He lumbered around and around, trying to find a way out of the stockade, his trunk groping. He trumpeted for the other elephants, and for Davey Jordan, and he listened desperately for their answer, flanks trembling, his big ears out.
The television men came back when they heard him, and he backed away and curled his trunk over his head in supplication, as Frank Hunt had taught him. He cried all night.
part fourteen
sixty-seven
The sunlight was going when Elizabeth came toiling up to the mine, splashing and clambering, her heart thudding and her legs trembling. Before she could see it she caught the sharp musty smell of lions. Fear and death were in the air, and all animals sense it and trust nothing, and she was but an animal. For a moment she hesitated, feeling fear in her bowels and down to the roots of her hair; then she took a breath and clambered on. Then she heard a snarl.
Her heart stabbed, and she froze. ‘Kitty? …’
Silence.
Then four heads appeared above the embankment, four pairs of eyes staring down, and she looked up with a frozen, white-faced smile. Suddenly, slowly Tommy stood up; then the others. She smiled up at them, her heart pounding and her guts watery; then Kitty suddenly took a slow step forward, head low, shoulders bulging. One after another the lions started down, staring fixedly, one muscle-bound step at a time, killer paws stalking. Elizabeth stood petrified, and every fiber cried out: Davey!
Kitty stopped, staring hungrily; suddenly she crouched six inches lower, poised. Elizabeth felt the scream of pure terror well up from her loins; then Kitty came padding up to her, arched her back and rubbed her head against Elizabeth’s leg. Elizabeth closed her eyes.
‘Hello, Kitty … Hello, everybody …’
She sat outside the mineshaft, her back to the cliff, her knapsack on her knees as a shield, and she tried not to give off fear waves, to stop her heart hammering. She prayed for Davey to come—that he had not been hit.
Darkness came.
An hour passed. Two.
Then, suddenly, she heard a stone knock, and her heart leapt. She got to her knees and peered. She was about to cry, ‘Davey!’—then she saw the other human shapes.
She strangled a cry and dashed for the mine’s mouth, fleeing from Lonnogan and his posse, and a voice called out, ‘Dr. Johnson?’
She stopped in mid-turn, and her heart soared. ‘Davey!’
She went stumbling over the platform. There he was, with the gorillas, the chimpanzees, Winnie and Pooh, and Sam, and she flung her arms around him.
‘Oh, thank God! Are you all right?’
Davey ordered the lions to stay at the mouth, and left Sam on guard outside. The gorillas and chimpanzees huddled together away from the fire he built, their brown eyes staring anxiously. Winnie and Pooh sat, enormous, furry, watching Davey. King Kong’s eyes shifted between him and the dark tunnel.
They knew that the terror had returned, that they were on the run again, and they were waiting for him to tell th
em what to do. Elizabeth sat with her eyes closed, in a turmoil of shock at what he had told her about Kid Lonnogan and of dread for tomorrow. She tried to pray, for the Lonnogan boy, for the animals, and to thank God that Davey was unhurt and back to lead them.
But a man’s life had been taken, an animal of hers had done it, and she was horrified and grief stricken. Through her shock surged the dread: no matter whose fault it was, Rajah would not be allowed to five; no animal that has killed a man is allowed to live. Particularly in a national park. On top of that, Sheriff Lonnogan would pursue them with all his hatred, especially Davey. And she wanted to cry out at him, Oh, run now, Davey—before they gun you down! Run for your life and let Forsythe get the animals back where at least they’re safe from mindless savagery …
Davey was shocked too. His eyes were narrowed, staring at the fire. She had seen the suffering when he had told her about the Lonnogan boy. But she could also tell that, in his way, he had put his suffering to one side. He would come back to it later. Now he had put it aside grimly, and his mind was feverishly dealing with the living.
‘How did you find the gorillas?’
‘They were running from the gunfire. When they saw me they followed. The same with the bears.’
She kept her eyes closed. ‘How come you were so close when the shooting started?’
‘Charlie and I were having a meeting up the mountain.’
Through her distraction she thought: A meeting? A mile or so from where she was, and they hadn’t been to see her?
‘And Dumbo, and Jamba? Do you think Forsythe got them both?’
‘He got one of them, I heard the helicopter come. But it couldn’t have taken both of them. One’s loose.’ He added with a quiet tension, ‘Stop worrying about it. Charlie’s gone to find the spoor and figure out what’s happened. He’ll know what to do.’
‘How badly is Rajah hit?’
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