John Gordon Davis

Fear No Evil

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1982

Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1982

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007574445

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008119270

Version: 2014-12-18

Dedication

To my lovely wife Rosemary

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part Two

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Part Three

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Part Four

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Part Five

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Part Six

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Part Seven

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Part Eight

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Part Nine

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Part Ten

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Part Eleven

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Part Twelve

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Part Thirteen

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Part Fourteen

Sixty-Seven

Sixty-Eight

Sixty-Nine

Seventy

Part Fifteen

Seventy-One

Seventy-Two

Seventy-Three

Seventy-Four

Seventy-Five

Seventy-Six

Part Sixteen

Seventy-Seven

Seventy-Eight

Seventy-Nine

Eighty

Eighty-One

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Map

part one

one

Just over there, through the trees, was Fifth Avenue: cars and buses roaring, people hurrying, apartments, shops; the trees were budding, everything turning green, and there was a feeling of life in the sharp air around Central Park Zoo. It is a pretty little zoo, red brick covered with ivy, and at the entrance is a charming rotating clock tower: our childhood animals, cast in bronze, each are playing a different musical instrument, and as the clock turns it chimes a tune: the hippo is playing the violin, the kangaroo the trumpet, the goat the pipes, the penguin the drum, the jolly elephant the concertina.

This Saturday afternoon a young man was standing in Central Park, just outside the zoo gates, listening to the musical clock. He was twenty-eight years old, average height, lean, his thatch of hair jet-black, his skin clear and unlined; he was wearing a tracksuit and sneakers and his face was flushed from running. It was a strong, nice-looking face, but what struck you most were his eyes: they were beautiful—bright, deep blue, almost mauve, in certain light nearly black, and penetrating, and very warm, with thick lashes and dark eyebrows. Now his eyes were on the musical clock as it chimed five, and they were sad.

For down below in the zoo is very different from the musical clock. Over in the corner the great, solitary polar bear paced up and down in his cage, pad pad pad to the corner, blink, turn, pad pad pad back, blink, turn, pad back to the corner again; over and over, and over and over. His feet covered exactly the same spots, and his body went through exactly the same turning movement every time. All day, every day, for the rest of his life. In the Elephant House the great mammals shuffled back and forth, back and forth, their great trunks curling and slopping, curling and slopping, nothing to do, enormous feet shuffling over the same few yards of concrete, big eyes blinking. Sometimes they trumpet, an old primitive scream out of the great forests that crashes back off the Victorian walls. In the Big Cat House, the lions and the tiger and the jaguar and the snow leopard and the panther are prowling back and forth, back and forth, powerful hunting animals pacing four paces to the corner, blink, turn, four paces back, blink, turn; over and over. The lions are fortunate, for there are two in one cage, but in their pacing they get in each other’s way and have to make an identical movement to avoid each other, a terrible ritual, over and over. The other big cats are alone in their cages, and they cannot see each other. The puma is always trying to paw down the steel partition to get in with the jaguar. For the rest of their lives, four paces up, four paces down. It would make a difference to the big cats if they could just see each other, for solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments. But opposite their row are the cages of the gorillas, big hairy animals each twice the weight and size of two very big men, with faces and eyes that are almost human, and the male gorilla can see the female gorilla in the next cage just fine, but they just sit there and stare and eat their own excrement.

As the clock chimed an old black man came down the path.

‘Hello man.’

The young man turned with relief. ‘Hello, Ambrose.’

Old Ambrose looked up at him worriedly, then nodded his silvery head at the gates. ‘You not goin’ to knock this place over too, are you?’

‘No.’

Ambrose took a deep, apprehensive breath, and glanced side-ways. He reached up to the young man’s top pocket and dropped a bunch of keys in it.

‘Thanks, Ambrose.’

Ambrose looked up at the young man anxiously.

‘You only got an hour. Midnight to one. While we’re all havin’ dinner.’

The young man nodded.

‘And,’ Ambrose said, ‘the east gate will be open.’

The young man nodded again. ‘Thanks, Ambrose.’ Then he pulled two letters out of his tracksuit pocket. They were both stamped, and had express delivery stickers. ‘Will you mail these? Tonight, as soon as it’s over?’

Ambrose took the letters without looking at them and stuffed them in his pocket. He looked up at the young man, and now he had tears in his old eyes.

‘For God’s sake, Davey, do you know what you doing?’

‘Yes.’

Ambrose stared at him, then blurted: ‘They’ll shoot you, Davey—like an animal yourself …’

Davey just shook his head slightly. Ambrose blinked, then grabbed his hand emotionally.

‘Lord bless you!’

He turned and hurried back down the path.

two

Down in the vast basements of Madison Square Garden, seven long-distance haulage trucks were lined up. One each was painted in big, old-fashioned Western lettering, The World’s Greatest Show. The crews were hurriedly loading circus gear. Four of the huge vehicles were for the animals, each divided into adjustable compartments, with sides that folded down to form ramps. But at this moment all the animals were upstairs in the circus ring, parading in the grand finale.

Applause roared above the oompah-oompah of the orchestra. At the front, two elephants pranced on their massive hindlegs. The big male held a top hat in his trunk tip which he waved to the crowd, while the female flounced in a massive polka-dot skirt and held a parasol in her trunk tip. Hanging onto her tail was a baby elephant called Dumbo, dressed in dungarees. Behind them came two huge grizzly bears, also on their shaggy hind legs, dressed as people, and behind them pranced a little bear dressed in a pinafore, waving to the crowds with his paw. Next came four chimpanzees—three big females and one small male—dressed as cowboys, brandishing sixguns, Stetsons jammed down over their ears, and chomping on cigars. Behind came the magnificent performing horses, prancing in time to the music. On their backs rode three African lions and a Siberian tiger, leaping from back to back in time to the orchestra’s beat; then came the sea lions, flapping along, balancing balls on their snouts, and the clowns clowing and the trapeze artists somersaulting and the leggy girls wearing sparkling tights, and the jugglers juggling.

And in front of the whole parade strode a tanned, handsome, middle-aged man in a scarlet coat and a white pith helmet, smiling and waving to the crowd. The name he went by was Frank I. Hunt, and he was the ringmaster.

A few minutes later it was all over. The animals hurried down the concrete ramp into the neon-lit basements, their keepers running alongside. They herded up the ramps into the trucks, and into their cages. All three elephants climbed into one truck, and their keeper chained them to their iron ringbolts. The lions and the tiger leaped up into another truck; the three bears scrambled after them into their compartment, then the chimpanzees. All their equipment was hefted in, blocks, barrels, seesaws, and hoops. It was quick and efficient.

The first truck rumbled up the exit ramp, out onto the streets of Manhattan. Then the next, and the next, at one-minute intervals. The convoy of the The World’s Greatest Show went rumbling uptown through the night, spread out on Amsterdam Avenue, heading for the George Washington Bridge.

The last two trucks to leave Madison Square Garden carried the elephants, the big cats, the bears and the chimpanzees. They drove slower than the others, trundling along with their extraordinary cargo. Finally they approached the cloverleaf system for traffic turning off onto the bridge. But they did not take the turnoff: as soon as they reached it they accelerated and kept going, hard.

Miles across town from the Washington Bridge is the Bronx Zoo: two hundred and fifty acres of rolling, rocky woodland in the heart of the city, with winding roads and paths for people to stroll along while they look at the animals.

It was just after midnight. The zoo grounds were dark, the trees silhouetted against the lights of New York. There was a faraway noise of traffic, and sometimes you heard an elephant trumpet, a wolf howl, a big cat roar.

Suddenly, through the trees, appeared a shadowy figure of a man. He stopped, listened. Then he disappeared in the darkness.

Five hundred yards away through the dark trees, past the reptiles and the elephants and the apes, was the Victorian big cat house.

Outside, the young man reappeared. He crouched, unlocked the door. He stepped into the dark smell of the cats. There was a shattering roar.

Ten pairs of feline eyes opened wide, ears pricked, bodies tensed. The young man went quickly to the snow leopard’s cage. The great cat was heaving herself against the bars, purring voluminously; the young man swung over the guard rail and leaned through the bars. He clasped the big head with both arms and hugged her and scratched her back as she writhed against the bars, trying to push herself against him.

‘Hello, Jezobel—yes, you’re beautiful …’

The big snow leopard could not get enough of him, pushing and rubbing, and all down the row of cages the other big cats were pacing excitedly in anticipation.

He pulled out a small flashlight and hurried down the row of cages, into the keeper’s office next to the Siberian tiger’s cage. He pulled out a bunch of keys, feverishly selected one, inserted it. He swung open the steel door and stepped inside. There was a sound of swiftness in the dark, and a mighty weight hit him on his chest with a snarl.

He crashed onto his back, half-stunned, with the huge tiger on top of him in a mass of jaws and claws going at his head, and he was laughing under the rough slurpings of her tongue, whispering ‘Velvet paws, Mama!—Velvet!—’

He hugged her great striped chest as she stood over him, licking his face, then he shoved her firmly over and scrambled up. He pulled off his leather belt and looped it around the excited cat’s neck, buckling it firmly as she writhed against him. Then he put his arm around her shoulders and began to stroke her neck hard, to soothe her.

‘Sh—sh, Mama, sh—sh, Mama …’

Then he stood up and led her out of her cage, through the keeper’s office and out into the hall. The Siberian tiger padded excitedly beside him. He swung open the big door, and the cold night air flooded in.

He paused on the threshold, peering into the darkness. Then, holding the tiger by the belt, he started to run.

The old cow elephant sensed who it was as soon as she heard him at the lock. She flapped out her great ears, and gave a squeak, lumbering up to the bars of her cage. She snaked her trunk through, urgently sniffing: the young man unlocked the door and stepped into the smell and gloom of the Elephant House.

The cages were divided with walls so the elephants could not see each other. The cow elephant was pressed against her bars, trying to see him, and the two adolescent elephants were reaching out with their trunks, snorting and snuffling. Across the hall the solitary hippopotamus was staring wide-eyed into the darkness, her nostrils dilated.

‘Hello, Jamba …’

The young man scrambled through the bars of the cow elephant’s cage. Her trunk curled around him; delighted, snorting, she lifted him off his feet. ‘Yes, Jamba, yes, my beauty …’ He lay against her face, hugging her and grinning, and the great animal shuffled and squeezed him. Then he whispered, she released him immediately, and he slid back down her trunk.

‘I’ll be back in a minute, my lovely …’

He hurried down the row of cages, touching the trunks that were groping for him, greeting the elephants by name. In the far corner the hippopotamus had her square snout jammed through the wide bars, shoving with her haunches. The young man climbed through the bars, and she reversed massively and lumbered against him. He put his arms around her big fat neck and hugged her. His eyes were moist, and the hippopotamus’s eyes were rolling with delight.

‘I’m sorry, Sally … I’m sorry, old lady … You’d be fine in the summer but not in the winter …’

Big fat Sally, the only hippopotamus in the zoo, was huffing and grunting, her huge mouth slopping as she shoved herself into his embrace.

He gave her one last hug, then turned and scrambled tearfully through the bars. Sally lumbered after him, and floundered into the bars, her flanks quivering; he strode across the hall and wiped his wrist roughly across his eyes. The old hippopotamus stood there, squeezed against the bars, and she gave a big heartbreaking snort. The young man did not look back.

He hurried back to Jamba’s cage, pulling out his flashlight and a wrench. He flicked the light on the locking mechanism, and set to work to open the elephant’s door. All the time the hippopotamus stood rammed against her bars, grunting at him, her intestines half-clogged with the coins, lipsticks, and marbles the public had tossed down her cavernous mouth over the years.

The young man was running out of time. He unlocked the door of the Ape House and ducked inside. In the keeper’s office he snapped on the switch for simulated jungle daylight.

The big silver-back male gorilla, the females and a baby blinked, scattered under their concrete tree. The male scrambled up onto all fours, staring intently; he bobbed excitedly and shook his head to show nonaggression, then came lumbering. He shoved his black hands against the glass panel, bobbing and shaking his head, and the young man grinned and bobbed and shook his head too.

He dashed back into the keeper’s office, inserted a key, swung open the cage door—and the gorillas crowded around.

‘Hello, King!’

He dropped to his haunches, his eyes moist. He could only take two. There was no more room in the trucks.

three

It was two o’clock in the morning.

The circus gear lay abandoned on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, a mess of barrels and seesaws and hoops and ladders.

Fifty miles away, on Highway 22, the two big circus trucks were hammering through New Jersey. The Western-style letters, The World’s Greatest Show, had been hastily spray-painted out.

In the back of the first truck the three elephants from the zoo were squeezed in with the three elephants from The World’s Greatest Show. The compartments of the other truck held all the lions and the tiger from the circus, the tiger from the zoo, the circus bears, the chimpanzees and the gorillas. Most of them were lying down to steady themselves, wide-eyed in the darkness, their adrenalin pumping.

In the cabs, the engines were loud, the radios playing. The driver of the second truck was a big strong man with a big gut, a wide face and straight black hair. Until an hour ago he had worked for The World’s Greatest Show as an animal keeper and driver. He was tense, but sometimes a little smile played on his wide mouth, sometimes he whistled distractedly along with the radio. His name was Charles Buffalohorn and he was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. On the sleeping bunk behind his seat was a knapsack, stuffed full, a sleeping bag strapped to it. These, plus maybe a few hundred dollars in the bank, were all he owned in the whole wide world.

Four hundred yards ahead were the taillights of the other truck. David Jordan’s face was gaunt, his eyes frequently darting to the wing mirror, watching the truck behind. Every time the music stopped on the radio he tensed for a newsflash. Now and again he changed stations, listening hard.

Up on his bunk there was also a knapsack and a plastic bag containing a pig’s carcass, bought that day from a wholesale butcher. On the seat beside him was Champ, the male circus chimpanzee, fast asleep. Champ was supposed to live with the other chimpanzees, but he liked to sleep in the cab with the young man, whenever he could get away with it.

On the floor of the cab slept a big furry dog. He looked like a husky, or maybe a German shepherd, but his face was almost pure wolf.

The elephants were crammed tight, great gray flanks pressing. Sometimes a trunk found its way out of the congestion and groped around, sniffing and feeling, and then it was a difficult business to recurl it, squeezing and shoving. The three circus elephants were dismayed by the strangers suddenly in their midst, for instead of the enormous territory an elephant needs, they had this piece of truck, their only permanent place on this earth.

But Jamba, the old cow elephant from the zoo, stood quietly, forehead jammed between two massive rumps, eyes blinking in the dark, but her heart thumping in excitement. Because the man she loved had come back, had taken her out of her cage amid the electric excitement of the Elephant House and out through the big double doors into the starry night. Suddenly she had been in the open, fresh night air and the smell of the earth all about her, and she was running beside him, his hand holding her trunk tip, running away from the Elephant House into the wide open world, and with each lumbering footfall her incredulous excitement had thumped harder and higher.

And squeezed into the back of the truck, squashed between elephants’ legs and bellies, wide-eyed and wheezing, was the big, fat, old hippopotamus called Sally.

For, back in the gloom of the Elephant House, with the sounds of the young man heaving open the cages and then leading the elephants out one by one—excited silhouettes lumbering into the wonderful starry night, all that animal eagerness in the air—in those long, tense minutes the old hippopotamus had sensed what was going to happen, that the man was taking them away with him forever. Each time old Sally had thought that her turn would be next, and she had stood there massively quivering, nostrils dilated, lumbering around her cage in agitation and anticipation. Then he had come up to her cage, and looked at her standing there huffing and trembling with excitement, and he had said hoarsely:

‘I’m sorry, Sally … I’m terribly sorry, my old hippo …’

Then he had turned and walked quickly back through the big double door, and he was gone.

And suddenly she had understood: that she was being left behind, he was not taking her with him after all; and up her old chest there swelled an incredulous rumble-cry of anguish, and her square mouth gaped and her eyes rolled and then out broke her hippopotamus bark of heartbreak and appeal, a croak that erupted in long staccato grunts from the bottom of her old belly, and David Jordan had stopped.

He had reopened the door, and the starlight had shone in again, and Sally had lunged against her bars in incredulous joy, snorting and blundering, her eyes rolling wide.

‘All right, Sally … we’ll do the best we can …’

four

Every time he saw headlights in the wing mirrors his heart thumped; he would give Big Charlie a warning flash of his taillights, and they would slow down to the speed limit, waiting for the police siren.

The two trucks drove on through the night. They were in Pennsylvania now, on Highway 81 south, two hundred miles from New York. The road signs flashed by, towns, gas stations, connecting routes. Homesteads, barns, silos, belts of trees, the distant glow of town lights. Five miles away, on their left, was the dark silhouette of the Appalachian Mountains, undulating almost the whole length of the United States, from Maine in the north down to the Great Smoky Mountains in the south, and beyond into Georgia.

He looked at his watch. Three A.M. Another four hours at the most before the zoo would discover the animals were missing and the alarm would sound.

He glanced at his fuel gauge. It was half full. Above the music he feverishly calculated they would have to refuel about sunrise—near Roanoke, Virginia. He wanted to stop only once to refuel, so he had to wait as long as possible.

The two great trucks of The World’s Greatest Show roared along, head lights beaming up the wide swath of highway, radios playing; and in the backs the animals were wide-eyed in the vibrating darkness, grunting, huffing, snorting.

Big Charlie Buffalohorn’s broad brow furrowed, and he muttered aloud: ‘Usin’ an awful lot of gas …’

Huge signboards flashed past, advertising motels, garages, tires, skating rinks, batteries, Exxon, Texaco, Shell, banks, Southern Fried Chicken, hamburgers with a college education. The Shenandoah Valley stretched ahead into the night, and just a few miles to the east was the black silhouette of the Shenandoah National Park.

David Jordan knew the number of year-rings on the giant stumps of ancient trees up there that had taken hundreds of years to grow and a few hours to hack down; he knew what the rocks were made of and that they had been there since the oceans covered the land. Through this wilderness swept the Skyline Drive, with its overlooks and picnic sites and campgrounds and comfort stations and grocery stores and gift shops and laundries and camping stores and ice sales and firewood sales and stables and gas stations, and signboards everywhere telling you to stay on the trails and make sure you have proper footwear and how dangerous the wilderness is. And down here the eight-laned Highway 81 swept through the Shenandoah Valley, and all the way the signboards signboards signboards for the people people people. And across the mighty land, the pollution hanging in the air in a haze, factory smoke and the exhaust fumes of automobiles and airplanes.

But roaring through the night in the stolen truck, his face tense, his heart jumping every time he saw headlights, his mind darting over and over the same things, he was feverishly grateful for all the roads turning off up to that long black ridge of mountains. Those mountains were what he had to get into if the police cars tried to force him off the road: he’d just keep going flat out to the next turnoff, with the police car bouncing off his side.

At four-thirty he saw Big Charlie’s headlights flashing him, and his heart tripped.

He slammed his foot on the power brakes and swung off onto the emergency lane. The other truck pulled in behind and Charlie jumped out of the high cab and worked himself under the engine. He reached up into the machinery. He brought down his hand, then showed it to Davey. It shone with diesel fuel.

‘How much you got left?’

‘Nearly empty.’

He ran back to his truck and leaped up into the cab. He revved the big engine and slammed off the brake. His heart was pounding and he felt sick.

He drove hard, willing the truck to go faster, racing the moment Charlie’s lights would flash at him again. That meant disaster: trying to fix it themselves, patching up the leak, and siphoning fuel from his truck to Charlie’s, parked wide out in the open highway.

At twenty minutes to five Big Charlie’s fuel gauge registered empty.

At quarter to five he saw a sign, GAS FOOD LODGING IO MILES, and he felt a surge of relief.

There was a long hill ahead, stretching away in his headlights. The accelerator was pressed to the floor, he was praying feverishly, Please God not this hill … Black yellow tarmac swept up and up endlessly, and all the time the diesel was squirting out of Big Charlie’s fuel pump. Then at last the headlights picked up the hilltop, and far away on the horizon he saw the signs, a hundred feet high: Shell, Texaco and, higher than them all, Exxon. Then his teeth clenched: there was another hill to climb.

His eyes darted to the mirror, willing Big Charlie to make it. He was halfway down the first hill now, and he still could not see the lights of Big Charlie’s truck. He wanted to bellow out, God, help us now!—and Big Charlie’s headlights came over the crest. He sighed and trod on the accelerator.

Davey roared up the new hill, his headlights searching for the top. Then, five miles ahead, he saw the signs gleaming like lighthouses, and he had never been so grateful to see American commercialism blighting the landscape. Then he gritted a curse as he saw one more long hill before those truckstop lights. Big Charlie’s headlights came into his wing mirror. Davey started up the last long hill, and the crest came into view. He roared to the top, and Big Charlie’s headlights were in his wing mirror all the way. Just three miles to go: he started downhill towards the lights, thanking God, and Big Charlie was still hammering up the other side of the hill, and his truck gave out.

Suddenly the engine coughed, and Big Charlie trod on the accelerator. The truck jerked, the animals lurched, and the huge machine started to shudder. It came to a grinding standstill in the emergency lane of Highway 81. David was pounding down on the other side of the hill, watching desperately for Big Charlie’s head-lights. He came to the bottom, with the hillcrest half a mile behind him; then he swung the truck into the emergency lane and slammed on his brakes.

He stared into the mirror for half a minute, praying, Please God … The eight-lane highway was divided by a wide ditch of no-man’s-land—it. was impossible to drive across. Then he clenched his teeth and rammed his truck into low gear. He roared the engine and heaved the wheel into a U-turn. He swung his huge truck right across the highway, then jammed his foot flat. He pulled back into the emergency lane, then roared the massive truck northward up the southbound lanes, his eyes bright with fury, praying Please God no traffic for just two minutes!

He drove flat out, hunched over the wheel, heart drumming. The long black hill stretched up ahead of him, on and on. He was almost crying. At last his headlights showed the top. He leaned on the horn, and came over the top of the hill.

There, halfway down, was Charlie’s truck. Davey tore down the hill, praying to God to keep the traffic away, then he drove out across the highway into another U-turn.

He swung his huge truck right across the four lanes, desperately checking the long hill for headlights. His wheel was hard over, the great truck was coming around, and he thought he was going to make it in one swing. His right fender was coming around, around, around—and then it was not going to make it. He slammed on his brakes and jerked his engine into reverse. Teeth clenched, he twisted the wheel and let out the clutch.

Big Charlie bellowed, ‘There’s a truck coming!’

Suddenly a big beam lit up the sky beyond the crest of the hill. The truck full of elephants was stretched across all four lanes. David kicked the accelerator flat and his truck screamed backward as the terrible headlights burst over the crest, blinding bright. Then Big Charlie was running at them, shouting and waving his arms. David rammed his gears, roared the engine, and let out the clutch; the truck leaped—and it stalled.

It jolted to a stop across all four lanes. The other truck was three hundred yards off, hurtling down on them at sixty miles an hour. David bellowed, wrenched out the decompressor and slammed his foot on the starter. The truck was two hundred and fifty yards away now, and the driver still had not seen him. David shoved back the decompressor, and the engine roared to life. He revved it for all its might, took his foot off the clutch, and the massive vehicle surged forward.

The truck was a hundred and fifty yards off when the driver saw the long side. At sixty miles an hour a vehicle travels a hundred and fifty yards in five seconds. The driver leaned on his horn and jammed his foot on the brakes. There was a screaming blast and a shattering hiss of brakes, the roaring of engines and the screaming of tires. The other truck came tearing down the highway toward his side, twenty yards, fifteen, ten, five—blasting and screeching—and the driver swung wildly to the left; David roared his truck full of animals across the road, and the truck hurtled past, missing Davey’s by a yard, blasting a wall of wind in front of it, the driver bellowing obscenities. Davey brought his vehicle to a stop in front of Big Charlie’s and slumped over his wheel, ashen-faced, eyes closed.

Fifteen minutes later the two trucks of The World’s Greatest Show crawled into the all-night truck stop, one towing the other.

It was a big complex, scores of massive vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder. Some of the trucks still had their engines running, exhausts spewing, while their drivers were in the cafeteria, and the cold night air was dense with diesel fumes. David towed Big Charlie’s truck into the farthest corner of the big parking lot. Then they set feverishly to work. Davey wriggled under the engine with the wrench while Big Charlie held the flashlight. He began to unbolt the fuel pump.

‘Where’s another Fargo?’

They found one, and Davey scrambled under the hood and stole its fuel pump.

five

The two trucks of The World’s Greatest Show hurtled down the eight-lane highway.

The first gray was slowly turning pink above the Appalachians; then came the golden red spreading across the starry sky; and now the trees on the Appalachian ridge were flaming silhouettes. Then the tip of the sun came up, setting the east on fire, beaming down into the Shenandoah Valley, casting long shadows through the trees and the farmlands and across the highway, shining golden into the cabs of the two trucks and into the tired faces of David Jordan and Big Charlie Buffalohorn as they hammered down Highway 81. And for those moments the world beyond this ugly highway was young and beautiful; those purple and gold early morning mountains stretched southward in the sunrise, and Davey knew every river, stream, glade and gulley, and he was glad with all his heart for what he was doing.

For once upon a time, and not so long ago, the great mauve forests stretched right across the mighty land, trees with trunks wider than a coach and four, and firs and spruce, elm and pine and chestnut, towering forest peaks and valleys and great plains rich in waving grass, like an ocean, as far as the eye could see. There were herds of bison, and deer and bears and game; and rushing rivers and tumbling brooks and waterfalls and rapids and canyons, all of the purest water. The air was clean: from the vast blue lakes of Canada in the north, to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, from the mighty Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachians here in the east. That was how God made it, and it had taken millions of years to do it; it was beautiful, and it would have gone on forever, for He made it to stand all the ravages of time; but He did not make it to withstand the gluttony of Man.

Davey Jordan drove the truck of animals down the highway in the sunrise, the towns and cloverleafs and signboards flashing by, and those mountains up there were all that was left of the wilderness. The only pioneering that was left for a man was to get to the next gas station, his only survival problem the price of a hamburger.

At seven o’clock they heard it on the radio. Suddenly the jolly wakee-wakee music was cut off. His heart crunched and the disc jockey said excitedly:

We interrupt your favorite program to bring you this amazing newsflash. Now you’ve heard it all, folks. You’ve heard of huge bank robberies, all kinds of hijacks and sky-jacks and kidnaps and stick-em-ups, but this has got to be the zaniest of them all! Now get this: the Bronx Zoo has been robbed!

Yes, you heard me right! The Bronx Zoo has been robbed, but not of its cash box!

Yes, sir, the elephants, lions, gorillas and that bi-i-i-g tiger have been stolen in the night, and right this red-hot moment all those dangerous animals are at large somewhere in the U-nited States! The mind-boggling theft was discovered at six-thirty this morning. Police all over the eastern part of the United States have been alerted—

It was a quarter to eight, and a beautiful Sunday morning.

Every fifteen minutes they heard the excited newsflash again, but there were no new details on any station.

Twenty miles ahead, at Troutville, the Appalachian Mountains curved to the west, and Highway 81 continued south through a wide treeless plain: if a police car chased them in that plain, there was nothing he could do. But a hundred miles farther the mountains curved back again, at Wytheville, and that was where he was going to swing onto Route 21, heading for the Iron Mountains, then drive like mad down toward the Smokies on the backcountry roads. Once they were oil those roads they would be only about a hundred miles from the Smokies; and right now they were only one hundred miles from Wytheville. In one and a half hours they would be off this highway and into the back country—please God just another hour and a half …

Then at eight o’clock came a different newsflash:

It has now been confirmed that two trucks belonging to The World’s Greatest Show, which left New York last night, have failed to arrive in Boston, and that circus equipment which came from these vehicles has been found abandoned in the Bronx Zoo! Police believe that the drivers of these two trucks will be able to assist them in their inquiries and have called for the public’s help in finding them. Here is a description of these two men. …

Davey’s heart was pounding; his foot was flat on the accelerator, and he tried to jam it flatter.

part two

six

The zoo was in an uproar, policemen everywhere. Outside the locked gates were reporters and television crews. The professional staff had gathered in the conference room adjoining the director’s office.

‘I’ve met him once,’ Dr. Elizabeth Johnson muttered, massaging her brow. Just to sit still, while the director kept interrupting the meeting to accept telephone calls, took a supreme effort. She had not even combed her hair, and her damn panties were on back to front—she had slammed down the telephone, scrambled into the nearest clothes, flung herself into her car and driven furiously down to the zoo. ‘And I found nothing remarkable in him,’ she added. Which wasn’t true—but she was not about to admit anything in the bastard’s favor. A raving lunatic.

‘Remarkable, I assure you,’ the curator of mammals muttered distractedly while the director barked into the telephone next door. ‘Quite fearless. Used to get into the big cats’ cages with them.’

That wasn’t news; it was one of the first things she’d heard when she came to work here. ‘That shows he is crazy.’

‘But, he didn’t seem crazy. Just … I don’t know, I liked him—everybody did. And obviously very intelligent.’

‘And rude.’ Her accent was English.

‘Was he? I’m surprised. Very gentle man, I always thought. No-nonsense and quick, but … never rude. Gentle. And, somehow, absolutely trustworthy. Now? … look what he’s done

The director waved at them to shut up. He was a tall, horsey man of about fifty, eyes large behind his glasses. He was saying, ‘Really, Mr. Worthy … Please, Worthy, it is highly likely that your stolen trucks will be stopped on some highway with the animals safely inside them—but if this man Jordan manages to release them somewhere, I assure you that the recapture operation will be methodically mounted under my personal supervision, with the assistance of the US Wildlife Department and other experts. All other civilians will be excluded … Mr. Worthy, there are numerous tried and proven methods of capturing wild specimens, and as a zoologist I assure you I am familiar …’ He took an impatient breath and shoved his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Mr. Worthy—you will be consulted when necessary, but I am unaware that circus personnel are experts in the capture of wild animals—now … yes, I will keep you informed, now good day, my other phone is ringing!’

He banged down the telephone and snatched at the next. ‘Professor Ford,’ he snapped.

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson could sit still no longer. She muttered impulsively to the curator: ‘Buzz me at the surgery when this meeting gets going.’ She got up and Walked out of the room, heading grimly for the Animal Hospital.

Professor Jonas Ford had banned the press, but outside the gates a group of reporters was speaking to one of the keepers.

‘Of course we all love the animals, but Davey was somethin’ else again. Man, he could almos’ talk to animals.’

‘What do you mean, “talk”?’

‘I mean talk, sir,’ Ambrose Jones said earnestly. ‘I don’t mean just makin’ their kinds of noises, though Davey could make any kind of animal noise you name—canary, hippopotamus, monkey, elephant, you name it.’ He shook his old head. ‘But what I mean is, Davey knew what was goin’ on in an animal’s head. … He knew, an’ he could go up to that animal an’ if you was listenin’ real close all you could hear was a kind o’ mixture of noises, know what I mean, like breathin’ through his nose, snortin’ soft, and whistlin’ and some of the noises the animal makes, like purrin’ if it was a cat or squeakin’ if it was the hippo, and then some English, real soft and friendly. And so confident, man … and I ask him once, Davey, I said, How you do it, ’cos I wanna be able to do it too; and he says, animals got more senses than we got, that’s obvious because they can do things we can’t, and one of those extra senses is feelin’, he says … feelin’. I mean telepathy, kind of.’

Ambrose shook his graying head. ‘I ask him to explain plenty of times, but he just came over all complicated. And then he used scientific words too, ’cos, man, that Davey reads books; he’s studied more books about animals than Professor Ford, even.’

‘But what unusual things have you seen him do with animals?’

Ambrose said: ‘I mean, he used to spend hours just sittin’ with his animals in their cages, playin’ with ’em and just watchin’ ’em and talkin’ to ’em and … just bein’ with ’em. That’s the only way to know an animal, he said, by studyin’ it, everythin’ it does. And be its friend. … He did that in the wilderness too, plenty of times.’

‘Did Jordan ever get into the big cats’ cages?’

‘Particularly the big cats,’ Ambrose said. ‘And the elephants and the apes and the rhinos—and those rhinos, sir, they don’t take to nobody, but they like lambs with Davey. But the big cats?—they went mad for him.’

‘And other keepers can’t do that?’

‘No, sir,’ Ambrose said. ‘Certainly not. When the keeper has to go into the cage to clean it, first he chases the cat into the other section and seals her up in there. He don’t go stickin’ his hands into her cage. One time’—old Ambrose said, warming to his theme—‘one time the big tiger’s got to go to the doctor, see, but in the surgery she escapes. And she’s runnin’ all over the compound, snarlin’ and roarin’ and we’re all runnin’ round hollerin’ and gettin’ the tranquilizer gun—an’ Davey comes in; and he jus’ walks up to that tiger and says one word and puts his arms around her and leads her back into the cage like a little lamb.’ He added: ‘He loved that tiger. Mama. And Professor Ford was always tearin’ a strip off him for gettin’ in the cages, sayin’ they were dangerous.’

‘But was he a troublemaker?’ the reporter asked.

‘No sir! No. Davey was a real quiet man, and he did his job better’n all of us.’

‘And the other man, Charles Buffalohorn, did you know him?’

‘Big Charlie?’ Ambrose said, ‘Sure. He and Davey been pardners a long time. But he didn’t work here. But he came to the zoo plenty, to see the animals.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Nice guy,’ Ambrose said. ‘Real nice. And real gentle. And big. He makes Davey look so small. But Davey’s … smart,I guess. And he’s so … sweet. Maybe that’s the word … but tough too.’

‘You mean sweet-looking?’

‘No. Well, yes, that too, but I mean … sweet-natured ... sweet-thinking, like … he’s got beautiful thoughts …’

‘And Big Charlie?’

Old Ambrose smiled. ‘He don’t talk much. But he ain’t stupid. You know what those two do? Go up to trappers’ country, up to Canada and right here in the States. And,’ Ambrose said proudly, ‘they’d steal the traps! And throw them in the rivers.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s no secret. Davey’s very hot against trappers, those animals takin’ days to die, and chewin’ their own legs off to get free, and the thirst and all that, it’s terrible, ain’ it? Why can’t an animal at least get a decent death in a civilized country?’ he says. And the whaling—and the seals, that’s another thing. Every year,’ Ambrose said, ‘Davey goes up to Canada, to the Saint Lawrence when they’re butcherin’ the seal pups, right? And he joins them Greenpeace guys and the Friends of the Earth on the ice. He been in plenty of fights up there with those Norwegian sealers—the Greenpeace guys don’t fight, you know, they just obstruct by standin’ in front of the little pup lyin’ there helpless, and Davey don’t like fightin’ either, but he says there’s a time when a man’s just got to stand up and fight when he sees somethin’ terrible happenin’—he’s got the duty, he says. Like when you see a mugger beatin’ up a little old lady. Well, it’s the same with the seals. And one time,’ Ambrose smiled, ‘he gets so mad he goes running out onto the ice with a big whip! And he cracks it over the heads of those butchers, like this, and he chases ’em back to their ship.’

‘Didn’t they retaliate?’ the reporter smiled.

‘Sure, and some come at him with their clubs, but Davey has ’em dancin’ all over the place with his whip, and he drives ’em off. Then,’ he said, ‘they reported him to the Mounties.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was in the papers,’ Ambrose said proudly. ‘The Mounties took him in front of the judge. And Davey says, “It’s amazin’ what a fuss big brave men make about a little bit of whip cracking when they busy butcherin’ defenseless little seals with clubs, an’ skinnin’ ’em alive …” It was all in the papers. And there’s such a fuss that the judge just warns Davey, and binds him over to keep the peace, ’cos he didn’t actually hit nobody with his whip, he just frightened ’em off. And you know what Davey says to the judge?’

‘What?’

‘“But I am keepin’ the peace, your Honor—God’s peace!”’

Suddenly, as he came over a long hilltop, there was the big flashing sign: POLICE CHECK—ALL TRUCKS PULL INTO EMERGENCY LANE.

Half a mile ahead of them was a wooden barrier across the highway, several police cars parked on the verges. A row of trucks was being inspected by policemen before being allowed to proceed under an elevating boom. Davey Jordan’s heart pounded, and he jerked his foot off the accelerator.

He looked desperately into his wing mirror for Big Charlie’s truck, and flashed his taillights in warning. His mind was racing. He was slowing to forty miles an hour, and the row of trucks was only five hundred yards away—now four hundred yards away, now three hundred … Now the last truck was only two hundred yards ahead, and the barrier one hundred yards ahead of that. And Davey trod on the accelerator and slammed his hand on the horn.

The blast of it split the morning like an express train, and his truck leaped forward, roaring down the highway again, blasting straight at the barrier.

Shocked policemen were scattering and waving and shouting, and Davey kept his foot down flat and his hand on the horn—roaring and blasting straight at the barrier, his headlights blazing, and Big Charlie roaring along behind him. Davey gripped his wheel, white-knuckled, his face ashen, his eyes wide and his teeth clenched. All he could see was that red and white barrier hurtling nearer and nearer, forty yards, then thirty, then twenty, filling his vision—and then he hit it.

With a crack like a cannon above the blasting of the horn, the barrier burst and flew like grapeshot, big shattered timbers flying high and wide into the Tennessee morning; Big Charlie’s truck hurtled through after him, leaving shocked policemen scrambling for their cars.

A quarter mile ahead was a turnoff to the town of Erwin and the Appalachian Mountains. Desperately Davey Jordan swung his truckload of elephants onto it.

seven

He kept his hand on the horn, tearing through the town like a locomotive—houses flashing by, people and dogs and cars scattering. Ahead was an intersection, the traffic light green. He heaved the wheel and swung into Main Street, the whole massive truck keeling over.

He roared up Main Street, leaning on his horn, storefronts flying past, cars screeching and dodging, people scrambling and staring and yelling, and Big Charlie right behind him. Two hundred yards behind came the first of the police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming.

The two trucks went hurtling through Erwin, heading flat out for the Appalachian Mountains, with the police cars wailing behind them. Ahead was another intersection, lights yellow. Davey roared across it. At the next one the light was red and he kept his foot flat, his hand on the horn. A car squealed to a wild halt halfway across; Davey swung his wheel desperately and the truck hurtled through, Big Charlie still behind him. The first police car was almost level with Charlie now, siren screaming and a cop yelling out the window brandishing his gun, and Charlie just kept going. The car overtook Charlie’s truck and went wailing on after Davey on the wrong side of the road, and now the second police car was screaming up on Charlie’s flank.

The first car was drawing wildly alongside Davey, the cop yelling, ‘Pull over or I shoot!’ Davey jerked down behind the wheel and kept on going. Two hundred yards ahead was the turnoff to the mountains, and he headed for it, hunched over his wheel. The police car swung howling in front of his fender; there was a deafening crash of metal, and sparks flew. The truck jolted, and the police car bounced off, tires screeching and cops yelling. Davey kept his foot flat and swung into the intersection. His huge truck swayed and the police car swerved out of his thundering way, going into a wild skid. Big Charlie thundered across the intersection also, and the second police car crashed into his side, banging and bouncing off, then the driver swerved to avoid the first police car skidding toward him, and they crashed into each other. Sideways on, with a wrench of metal and screaming sirens, the two massive trucks roared into the suburbs of Erwin.

They hurtled along, horns blasting, hedges and fences and gardens and churches flashing by, dogs and cats scattering and astonished housewives clutching laundry, groceries and children. Back at the intersection the two police cars disentangled themselves and went racing furiously after them again, battered and howling. The two massive trucks full of animals hurtled past drive-in banks, and supermarkets and restaurants, laundromats and gas stations, heading for the Appalachian Mountains. Then one of the police cars was drawing alongside Davey’s cab again, and he ducked, his foot flat, his horn still sounding. There was a jolt and a screech, and the police car bounced wildly off his fender. The driver bellowed and swung the screaming car back at the truck. There was another crash above the siren; in the second car the cop was shouting into his radio ‘Pete’s jus’ bouncin’ off—there he goes again—these bastards’re too big to head off—Now he’s goin’ to shoot—’ And there was the cracking of gunfire above the wailing, and the bullets went ricocheting off Davey’s heavy-duty tires; fifty yards back the second car’s windscreen suddenly shattered like a spider web, and the car skidded to a stop against the curb.

The front car swung back toward Davey’s truck. There was a wrenching crash, its front wheel wobbled, and the car went into another skid. It skewed wildly across the road; then it nose-dived into the picket fence of the No-tell Motel Drive-in ‘n’ Nite-Club.

Elizabeth Johnson slammed down the telephone in her office, grabbed her medical bag, and dashed out. She scrambled into her Volkswagon. She drove fast out of the zoo grounds, heading for the airport in New Jersey.

eight

Up in the Appalachians, a few miles from Erwin, there is a disused bridge across the Nolichucky River. It is one lane only, over the sheer cliffs of the gorge, which drops to the river below.

David Jordan roared his truck up the crest, then brought it to a hissing halt. He shoved her into reverse, and the huge truck swung backward off the highway, down onto the bridge. He leaped out of his cab, ran to the back, wrenched out the bolts and dropped the big tailboards. There stood the elephants and Sally, jam-packed, blinking at him.

He gave an imperative whistle. Rajah squeezed himself around and started uncertainly toward him, shoving past the hippopotamus.

It only took two minutes to get them all down the tailboards and onto the narrow, old bridge. Davey climbed back into his cab feverishly, and drove his vehicle out of the way, to allow Big Charlie to reverse his truck into the same position.

Five minutes later all the animals were on the bridge. The big bewildered elephants, the wide-eyed lions and tigers, the bears, the gorillas and Sally, blinking and frightened. Davey ran to the other end of the bridge and whistled, and Big Charlie began to shoo them from behind. The circus elephants began to lumber after Davey, then the bears and circus lions, then the others followed. Across the bridge they went, then they were scrambling up the steep dirt track into the Appalachian Mountains, Davey in front with Champ the Chimpanzee beside him, and Big Charlie and the wolf-dog, Sam, bringing up the rear.

For the first two miles they ran uphill, into forests of pine and laurel, the long line of animals huffing and panting, their nostrils dilated at all the smells, adrenalin pumping, flanks heaving. Davey ran, his knapsack bouncing, his heart pounding with exhaustion, his eyes bright with fury that this had happened, just one hundred miles from the Smokies—just two more hours in those trucks. He ran and ran, following the narrow dirt path that was the Appalachian Trail, looking over his shoulder, gasping at the animals to follow, but they were right behind him: the chimpanzee galloping hard on his heels; and Mama the zoo tiger; then Rajah and the circus elephants, trunks swinging; then the zoo elephants and the performing bears and, at the rear, Sally the hippopotamus, wheezing. Davey knew they would follow him, and anyway Big Charlie was herding them and Sam would bring back any that scattered off the trail. He kept glancing back only to urge them to hurry, desperately putting as much distance as possible between them and the abandoned trucks. He ran and he ran, then at last he slowed to a rasping jog.

He shuffled along the crest, his arms hanging loose, his heart thumping against his chest. He knew that a few miles ahead, near No Business Knob, there was a spring. About a mile beyond that, a creek. The animals needed water. But the spring was too small; it would take too long; they needed the creek … and he had not brought the pig’s carcass for the lions. Nor did he have a rifle.

‘But ole Professor Ford’s right,’ Frank I. Hunt drawled, eyes closed. ‘I’m not an expert.’ His makeup girl was putting the finishing touches to his tan.

‘But to them you are,’ Charles Worthy said. He jabbed his finger downstairs at the Hilton Hotel lobby. ‘You’re the big lion tamer to them, and don’t you forget it, Morris.’

‘And don’t call me Morris,’ Frank sighed.

‘And those grizzly bears, everybody’s scared of grizzly bears. Even those elephants are dangerous—that’s what you got to tell them. And you’re going to get them back.’

‘Sure,’ Frank said.

‘You know much more about those animals than that Professor Ford—’ He jerked his thumb at the television screen. He tossed his showman’s head: ‘“I am unaware that circus personnel are experts …” Well, I tell you something you’re going to make him aware of. He just keeps animals like museum pieces for people to ogle at. But we—we bring the animals to the people! We bring knowledge of animals. Entertainment. Happiness. Most kids in this world would never see an elephant or a lion unless we brought them to their town. And we’re proud of that! Zoo?—they just keep animals in cages. Us?—we go into the cages!’

‘Sure,’ Frank Hunt said wearily.

‘Are you listening, Frank? We’re not going to take that insult from Ford lying down!’

‘Certainly not.’

‘And something else Ford’s unaware of,’ the old man said vehemently. ‘He’s not going to steal the show, Morris! Hell, they’re mostly our animals that’s been stolen, our trucks, our gear thrown all over the zoo, our circus that can’t go on! What’s he lost? One tiger and a coupla gorillas and three or four elephants, and bet they’re all as miserable-looking as he is.’

‘Actually,’ the makeup girl said, ‘I thought he was kind of cute. All serious and cuddly.’

‘Whereas you?—you’re photogenic, Morris. You go into that ring, and you knock all the ladies dead. And the kids love you, you make everybody happy. And you’re the expert. I’m not saying you must go down there to those television cameras and cash in on what’s happened … That wouldn’t be … in keeping with our proud tradition. All I’m saying is … there’s going to be an awful lot of publicity—and if it rightfully belongs to anybody it belongs to us—not to Professor Ford, Morris … This is very important to put across Morris!’

‘Morris isn’t a very photogenic name. Try Frank I. Hunt.’

‘What’s the I supposed to stand for?’ the girl asked.

‘Ignatius,’ Frank said.

‘Ivan,’ Worthy said testily. ‘Can’t you take anything seriously? Listen, Frank—you don’t seem to realise what this means. The whole world’s watching, Frank! We’re going to hold their attention for weeks while those animals are recaptured. And you, sir, are going to be a national figure—the guy who goes into the cages, remember that!’

‘It’s getting the animals back into the cages that I’m not wild about.’ Frank looked at himself in the mirror. ‘Am I or am I not,’ he said, ‘a dead ringer for Tony Curtis?’ He blew himself a kiss. ‘Or Dean Martin?’ he added reasonably.

‘Be serious for once!’

‘Serious? …’ He reached for the bourbon and sloshed some into his glass. ‘I am deadly serious, Chuck. I an not a big white hunter. Never have been, you know. Ringmaster, that’s me.’

‘You’re not a comedian either!’

‘Comedian?’ Frank mused. ‘Maybe that’s what I should have been. Or an escape artist.’

‘You don’t even care that we’ve lost our animals! Even if they’re shot!’

Suddenly Frank Hunt looked serious. ‘Is that so?’ He took another big slug of his whiskey. ‘Well, I’m here to tell you’—he jabbed a finger—‘that I do care.’ He jabbed his finger again. ‘I want all those big cats safely back in their cages! And that tiger. Because I, Chuck,’ he tapped his chest, ‘trained the bastards. I, as you so correctly pointed out, go into the cages! Not you—me. And I don’t want to start all over again with new sonsabitches who want to eat me for breakfast every goddam morning!’

He shucked on the jacket of his white safari suit, then clapped on his leopard-skin-banded hat at a rakish angle.

‘You know why I’m so happy? Because I’m not going into the ring with those cats tomorrow.’ He turned to the girl and said pensively, ‘Maybe I should have been the Human Cannonball?’

Then he opened the door with a flourish and strode down the carpeted corridor to the elevator, Worthy hurrying behind him. He stabbed the elevator button and waited jauntily. The doors opened on an elevator full of people standing solemnly. Frank gave them a businesslike smile and intoned, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all together? …’

nine

‘Why not?’ Dr. Elizabeth Johnson demanded indignantly.

‘Because, ma’am,’ the air-hostess smiled, ‘we’re not allowed to serve alcohol over the Bible Belt.’

‘But we’re twenty thousand feet up!’

‘In the Bible Belt it’s dry all the way up to heaven, ma’am.’

‘Good God …’

Then that gave her something new to worry about: the Bible Belt. She had heard about this funny country down here in the South, its hillbilly brethren who thought the world was flat. Didn’t they have people up in these hills who still spoke Elizabethan English? Backwoods people like those in that movie Deliverance … God … What would people like that do to jungle animals let loose in their mountains? Not counting American hysteria, and the great American hunters she’d read about, who were going to descend with a whoop and a holler on the sudden bonanza of exotic targets to blood their mail-order guns on. Oh, God, the hue and cry that was coming, and the bloodbath … And a lot of policemen in this country were supposed to be trigger-happy. And who was going to be masterminding the recapture operation? Dear old Jonas Ford. …

She closed her eyes. That in itself was enough to make her need a drink.

That was unjust of her. Jonas was a fine zoologist, one of the world’s best. A good administrator, too. Maybe he could handle this crisis, maybe he was just the man. Maybe he’d get in there and mastermind the whole thing as magnificently as he performed post mortems.

She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out hard.

She wished she could believe it. Dear Jonas … fine Jonas … honorable Jonas … distinguished and successful Jonas. And even—for the right girl, one day—lovable Jonas. But, oh, dear me. …

She sighed out smoke. Heavens, he treated life—people—as he treated his animals. ‘Exhibits.’ That’s what he called the animals in his zoo. ‘This is a fine exhibit.’ ‘Is this exhibit sick?’ ‘What about the female adult exhibit?’ And that’s how he treated people in his earnest, uptight way. That’s how he had treated that press interview and put everybody’s back up—didn’t he realize that this was also an emotional crisis, that not everybody approved of zoos, that the cages were too small, that the zoo was going to come in for a lot of criticism? Didn’t he realize the crying need right this moment to appeal for calm and goodwill? To make the public feel love for the animals, so they’ll cry out for restraint … She felt the dread and impotence well up again, and closed her eyes. Keep thinking about fonas …

She had caught Jonas’s television interview in the transit lounge in Cook’s County airport (where she could have got a drink if only she’d known about the Bible Belt lurking ahead, zapping its deadly laws up into the stratosphere). And oh, dear, Jonas meeting the press on television about this terrible thing, this insanity committed against her poor animals … He had spoken as if the reporters’ questions were a personal affront.

She sighed. And, yes, she felt sorry for herself. Because until she saw him on television she had begun to think—hope?—that something could come of it between them. For an instant she had even felt proud when she saw him striding so authoritatively into the press conference—but as soon as he began to speak with his serious-scientist authority …

She exhaled smoke. No … Jonas and she just weren’t meant for each other by dear old Mother Nature. In that instant she had glimpsed all the things about him that gave her the willies. Jonas and his half bottle of California wine. His nervous expression when she consulted the menu, in case she chose anything too expensive. Jonas opening windows when she lit a cigarette. Jonas inspecting the cutlery for stains. Jonas and his sudden bumbling ardor every time he tried to make love to her. Jonas jumping up afterward to wash his hands. Jonas and his determined dignity. Jonas and his bloody tactlessness—‘You drink too much, my dear, that’s why you’re putting on weight.’ ‘You smoke too much, my dear, you’re losing your complexion.’ Just the thing a girl likes to hear.

She smiled wearily. Dear Jonas … Good man. Good scientist. Well-off, bachelor, social standing. But she had been a fool even to try to make a go of it. She should have kept the relationship on its original level—intellectual; just somebody nice to talk music and poetry and books and films with—somebody nice and safe. But no. She had been trying pathetically to put her life back together ever since the Big Heel suddenly had kicked her out. It had been very nice, after her dismal failures in the singles bars (Oh God how dismal), after her pathetic efforts at being with-it—a shrinking violet on the meat market—to be wooed by her new prestigious boss, very nice to write home to England, so that the Big Heel would hear about it, that she was having a ball in the Big Apple of New York and having a wild affair with one of the world’s leading professors of zoology—how would his blonde Singapore dumbbell look then?

Then she sighed at herself scornfully. But bitterly all the same. Because Bernard wouldn’t care. And the sad fact was that she shouldn’t care either! A whole bloody year—she should be over it by now!

Enough! She felt the tears burn, and she got up impulsively to stop herself thinking. She hurried down the aisle to the toilet, trying to compose herself. She locked the door and slumped against it.

She sighed deeply. There were a few other hard facts to face.

And one was that she dreaded ever having to show herself to him now—to have herself compared to the blonde from Singapore. Because she was too fat now, just as Jonas said. She was a godawful mess! Look at you! And even your panties back to front still!

She unzippered her jeans, kicked off her shoes. She pulled the jeans down over her hips, wrestled them down over her thighs. So tight! Two sizes bigger than last year! She sat down on the toilet and struggled out of them. She pulled off the offending panties, then made herself look in the mirror.

God, she looked dreadful. And she wasn’t talking about her distress, her red eyes and her hair all over the place. She stood there naked from the waist down, twenty thousand feet above the Bible Belt. Plump thighs—and she used to have good legs. Look at your hips. Dimpled bottom. Even her shoulders were chubby. She had put on so much weight that her bust looked smaller, though it wasn’t. She used to have almost classic high cheekbones. Now? A year ago she was positively thin after eating her heart out for two awful months in their heartbreakingly empty house in London hoping Bernard would return to his senses and come back to her. ‘I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love,’ he had announced on the telephone from the airport, ‘I’m not coming home.’ A few stop-overs in Singapore, and he’d fallen in love—prepared to kick over five years for some peroxide blonde he’d met in the Shangri-La Hotel. And now what she had done to herself—overweight and a smoker’s cough!

She closed her eyes. This was ridiculous …

She looked ridiculous, standing there. She pulled on her panties, then her jeans. Ridiculous, bare-assed over the Bible Belt feeling sorry for herself. She jammed on her shoes. She peered into the mirror to patch herself up, then sighed. She’d left her bag on her seat; she didn’t have her makeup.

Oh, what the hell! Why should she care what she looked like, nobody else did. Except dear old Jonas Ford. She didn’t care if she was too fat, if she ate too much, and if a few whiskys and a bottle of wine every evening were making her fat, to hell with it—what else was there to look forward to in her crummy apartment at the end of a day? She did not care any more.

Then she looked at herself grimly.

Well—that was wrong. She was going to start caring again, from now on. She was going to stop feeling sorry for herself. So, her husband had jilted her. Big deal—it had happened to millions of other people. Think positively ...

She ran her fingers through her hair, bit her lips to get some color into them, then opened the door. She returned to her seat, collected her handbag and walked back to the toilet.

She brushed her hair vigorously. She powdered her nose and put on her lipstick.

There … she looked much better. Her hair was still good—wavy and shiny and a lovely chestnut. And her green eyes were still beautiful. And her mouth. In fact, she had a lovely face—you could still see that. She was going to get herself back into shape. Think positively. So she could stand comparison with the Singapore blonde.

She returned to her seat and stared out of the window.

And her heart sank again as she looked down at those mauve Appalachian Mountains. Oh, how vast. They just went on and on forever. How on earth were they going to get those animals out of there? It was going to take a massive military-style operation just to contain the animals in any given chunk of it, let alone get in there and find them, track them one by one. Then get them out … No roads and that massive, steep, rugged, timber country.

Then she thought of her dear animals loose, frightened, bewildered, lost, their beautiful eyes darting fearfully in all directions and their hearts hammering, crouched in hiding and slinking about, terrified of every rustle of leaves and snap of a twig, desperately looking for food and not finding any, getting hungrier and hungrier, not understanding what had happened to them, getting thinner and thinner and wild with fear—and not understanding. Defenseless. And her heart surged in impotent anger at David Jordan.

She did not know what good she was going to do, impulsively jumping on a plane like this and getting down here. Bernard had always accused her of impetuosity. Too easily steamed up. ‘Drama, Liz—you’re a sucker for drama.’ But she knew she just had to—she just had to try, somehow try, to get in there and do something. Be available, to help, to try to prevent. To … succor. …

part three

ten

A creek ran down a ravine, through thick hemlock and laurel, disappearing into tangled green and dappled shadows. The animals were invisible from the Appalachian Trail, fifty yards up on the crest. A man loses sight of another within twenty paces in those forests.

It was early afternoon. The animals clustered around the little creek, waiting for Jamba, the old zoo elephant, who was still drinking. David squatted on the bank, sweat shining on his forehead, eating a bar of chocolate, his eyes restlessly darting over the animals, constantly looking in the direction of the Appalachian Trail.

Champ sat on one side of him, Sam in front, ears cocked, tongue slopping, his wolf eyes riveted on every movement of the chocolate from hand to mouth. Davey’s face softened and he fondled the dog’s head. Sam thumped his tail once, then he was all eyes for the chocolate again. Davey broke off a piece and tossed it to him. Sam snapped it up in midair, gulped it down, then was all rapt attention again.

‘You didn’t even taste that.’

But Sam would have nothing to eat tonight, and nor would the big cats because he’d left the meat in the trucks. That whole business with the trucks was a crying-out shame. Just two more hours, and they would have made it. …

He breathed deep, to stop himself thinking like that. They’d made it this far, and they’d make it the rest of the way.

He looked at the big cats—they were expecting him to feed them about now. They were tired. But they were in good physical condition. They were all watching him intently, except Mama, the Bronx Zoo tiger. She sat beside him, flanks heaving, tail twitching as she watched the circus cats. He put his hand on her big head and stroked her; for a moment she put her ears back and shoved her head up into his hand, then she was glaring at the circus cats again.

‘Mama? It’s all right, Mama.’

She looked at him a moment distractedly, her eyes just twelve inches from his, and he felt the old thrill, the pure marveling at such beauty and animal perfection, her magnificent tigerness, her eyes piercing deep and dangerous, her face three times the size of his, every hair and line of it perfect, her black nose exquisitely shaped, her big jaws so magnificently and efficiently designed to kill. Then she turned back to the circus lions again.

They were crouched together, panting, eyes alert, ready to whirl around and run. Tommy, the big lion, was in the middle, the lionesses scattered about him, long tails flicking. Sultan, the tiger, sat slightly apart, only tolerated by the others because of the circumstances. They were not frightened of the other animals, they knew most of them: it was the forest, the unknown. Their eyes darted around, ears cocked, but mostly they were staring at Davey, big yellow eyes piercing into him, waiting to be fed.

‘I’m sorry, my friends. Just rest. Lie. Lie, Tommy.’

Tommy lay down reluctantly. The lionesses followed suit. Sam lay down too. Davey looked at him and then pointed across the creek.

‘Guard, Sam. Guard.’

Sam got up and jumped across the creek, and went a few yards into the forest, then sat down and looked about him at the animals. He knew what was expected of him and he tried to look business-like, but he was thinking about the chocolate. Davey smiled at him.

But he was worried about the big cats and he cursed himself again for not bringing a gun. There was a brand-new rifle waiting for him in the Smokies, buried months ago in preparation for this day, so he could feed the big cats until they could look after themselves—but, why, oh why, had he been so stupidly confident as to think he did not need another gun in the truck for this kind of emergency. How was he going to get them meat over the next few days?

He sighed tensely. Soon there were going to be plenty of guns in this forest, looking for them.

‘Come on, Jamba.’

He got up impatiently and plodded into the shallow stream. Jamba stood in the middle, laboriously sucking water up her trunk, blinking at him. ‘Come on, old girl!’ He crouched down and scooped out a little dam for her, and stuck her trunk tip in the muddy hole. Jamba sighed and sucked the little dam dry in one exhausted slurp. Davey looked up into her sad, affectionate eye, and he felt a rush of emotion for the dear, old, kind-hearted animal. ‘Oh Jamba,’ he whispered, ‘I love you.’ He put his arm around her trunk and squeezed. ‘You’re going to love it down there.’ Then he winked and cocked his head furtively at Rajah.

‘Hey—what do you think of him, then?’

Old Jamba just sighed and slurped.

‘All right, Jamba, hurry up.’

Sally stood in the stream behind Jamba, her head hanging, her fat flanks heaving. The young zoo elephants were clustered together uncertainly, waiting for Jamba. She was their natural leader still, and she wouldn’t reject them until she went into estrus and mated with Rajah.

Davey looked at the big circus elephant. Rajah stood massively, eyes closed, trunk hanging. He looked completely relaxed. The cow Queenie was swinging her trunk restlessly, waiting for orders in this strange terrain. Dumbo was edgy too, standing close to her. He had been hanging onto her tail as they lumbered along, as he had been taught to do. But good old Rajah looked unperturbed by all this, and Davey smiled with relief.

Good old Rajah. Maybe he thought this was something to do with his job. But no, he was so intelligent, he knew what was going on. He knew they were running away. And the feeling in the air—the electricity, the sense of urgency, the run run run and the necessity to obey.

He knew. But he was such a cooperative old war-horse, and so experienced, that he didn’t fluster easily. Davey had told him to rest, so now he was resting. He had been trained as a logging elephant in India before The World’s Greatest Show had acquired him; he was accustomed to working without supervision. He knew how to stack logs neatly on top of each other, when to swim out into a river without bidding and unblock logs, how to heave railway cars into position, haul trucks out of mud, heave on ropes. At the circus he would perform heavy-duty jobs if he was shown what was wanted. He even performed tricks willingly enough. All he wanted in exchange was a fair deal; what he hated was the crack of the ringmaster’s whip, the shock of the electric prodder; and his massive body yearned for space.

Well, Davey thought, he could ride on Rajah when he got exhausted.

‘How’re you, Charlie?’

The big Indian was lying on his back higher up the slope, eyes closed, chest heaving.

‘Okay … I saw the elephants along the trail snatching some branches and eating.’

‘Yes, no problem with their feeding.’

‘Nor the gorillas.’

King Kong, the silver-back male from the zoo, was on all fours, his big knuckles folded, intently watching, his brown, worried eyes alert. The chimpanzees were gathered together nervously. Davey glanced at King Kong; then smiled and averted his eyes and shook his head to show nonaggression. King Kong shook his head and glanced away, then looked back at him anxiously and waited again.

‘What about the bears?’

‘They’ll start eating soon—bears are always hungry.’

‘They don’t look like they want to start nothin’.’

The great performing bears were on all fours, heads up, dish faces immobile, suspiciously sniffing. They sensed his attention, and they looked at him expectantly. He knew what they were feeling, hanging on his word, waiting for him to tell them what to do: he was their keeper, their friend; they were devoted to him in their big, single-minded bear way. They were not frightened by the wilderness, Davey knew; they were just suspicious and bewildered. They were the natural monarchs of the wilderness, and he was not worried about them adapting back. Gradually, they would leave him, and even each other. And revert to the solitary monarchy that was their nature, wanting no one, steamrollering through the wilderness, huge thousand-pound beasts standing ten feet high on their hind legs, able to leap twenty feet and gallop faster than the best man can run, able to kill a charging bull with one swipe of their claws …

Just then he heard it. He stiffened. There it was, faraway but certain: the chopping drone of a helicopter.

Davey stood still, trying to locate it. It was coming from the south, from the Great Smoky Mountains. Both he and Big Charlie threw their heads back, searching the chinks of sky through the overhead boughs. The droning became louder. Then it was upon them: a terrible roaring monster suddenly blacking out the sky fifty feet above them, blasting the forest so that trees bent and dirt flew, and the animals scattered in all directions, bounding and blundering, terrified—then as quickly it was gone, roaring away over the treetops.

‘Come on!’ Davey gave a piercing whistle and shouted: ‘Sam—herd!’

He started running up the mountain, looking back over his shoulder, whistling to the animals. Big Charlie was rounding them up, Sam herding from behind. They started blundering through the undergrowth after Davey.

eleven

In the early afternoon Elizabeth drove up to the Nolichucky River bridge in her Hertz rented car. There had been efficient police barriers across the highway on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains, but they had let her pass when she had explained who she was. The deputy sheriff and two patrolmen were guarding the bridge with rifles. The two trucks of The World’s Greatest Show were still there.

‘You the vet they radioed us about?’ the patrolman said, chewing gum.

‘Yes. And please point that gun elsewhere.’

He lowered the gun and scratched his cheek. ‘Nobody don’ go through. Wal …’ he said, ‘there’s the trucks. Since eight o’clock this mornin’.’

‘But have you seen them?’

‘Nope. Only person seen ’em is Sergeant Hooks an’ his pardner an’ they both in bed, sore’n a gumboil.’

The deputy sheriff came over from his car. He raised his hat. ‘What can I do for you, ma’am?’

‘Has anybody tried to track these animals, officer?’ she demanded.

‘Sure have, ma’am. I was first on the scene after Bert Hooks got himself overturned. Tracked ’em for two miles, then the sheriff radioed me back, orders from the zoo.’

‘Where was the spoor heading?’

‘Straight down the Appalachian Trail, ma’am, far’s I seen.’

‘But you’re throwing a cordon round the area?’

‘Sure are, ma’am. Over forty men in there already, and the state troopers are arriving any time now, and the militia.’

She closed her eyes. ‘What are their orders?’

‘Stop the animals gettin’ out into civilized area, ma’am, till the experts arrive.’

‘How?’ she demanded. ‘By shooting them?’

‘Only as a last resort, ma’am. We can’t have lions and tigers coming into town.’

‘Noise!’ she cried. ‘You’ve got to shout and beat a can to chase them back—never shoot! Where’s the Sheriff?’

The lawman sighed. ‘He’s up there, ma’am. With some very good men, don’t doubt it.’

‘Up there? In a helicopter?’

‘No ma’am, not in a helicopter. Those woods are too dense for that.’

‘Well, I have to go in there, officer.’

The Deputy stared at her.

‘Ma’am,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re not going anywhere. Only authorized personnel.’

‘I am authorized! I’m the vet!’

‘Ma’am,’ he said firmly, ‘I’m not letting you go in there. You won’t get nowhere with those shoes anyhow. That’s tough wilderness in there. I’m not letting you go in without an armed escort—and I’m not supplying that, ma’am. We ain’t got enough men for this job as it is.’

‘I can look after myself!’

The officer sighed and put a weary hand on his hip.

‘Ma’am—you cannot look after yourself, vet or no vet. They’re wild animals at large in there! And two very wild men! In very wild country. With those shoes’—he pointed at her feet—‘and unless we’re very smart there’re goin’ to be a good few other wild folk in there with their guns—and they’re no better man animals, ma’am.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘I don’t know where you come from, but this here’s the United States of America—haven’t you heard what gun-mad SOBs we are!’ He glared at her. ‘And I’m not letting you loose amongst that lot!’

She felt her stomach go cold. She was not going to argue with him. Wherever they were, the animals weren’t near here. They’d be as far away as possible from the trucks. She turned and grabbed her roadmap out of the rented car.

‘What’s the next road to the south that crosses the Appalachians?’

The lawman sighed. ‘Highway Nineteen W, ma’am. At Spivey Gap.’

‘How far south?’

‘’Bout ten, twelve miles, ma’am. As the crow flies.’

‘Is that barricaded by police too?’

‘Sheriff’s workin’ on it, ma’am. You won’t get through that way either.’

‘How do I get there?’

‘Back through Erwin,’ the patrolman said resignedly.

On her way back to Erwin the cars had been lined up at the police roadblock, newspapermen and sightseers and at least a dozen cars full of men, armed with rifles, volunteering to help.

Elizabeth sped through the town onto the interstate highway, then took the turnoff to Spivey Gap. Her dread turned to anger. There were still no police barricades on this road! She wound up into the mountains. At the crest there were only two police cars, the patrolmen keeping the traffic moving. They waved her through.

A cordon around the area, my foot!

She drove past the police angrily, her eyes darting at the forest to left and right, looking for … for what? Signs, spoor, elephant droppings, broken bushes—my God! Like looking for a needle on the edge of a vast haystack.

She felt absolutely helpless. Hopeless … Looking for any indication of the animals’ having crossed the road. She drove slowly, peering at the road, at the edges of the forest. Nothing … If there were something, she’d miss it, like this. Hopeless … She’d have to get out and do it properly. Then, around a bend in the highway, she saw the small metal signpost of the Appalachian Trail.

She stopped her car on the verge. She hurried across the highway, to the point where the Appalachian Trail came out of the forest and crossed the road. She looked at it. It was just a tangled dirt path worn through the undergrowth, a foot wide. No spoor that she could see. Silence, everything motionless. She took a deep breath and started to climb the bank of the highway, onto the trail.

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson was no expert tracker, but she had been on two zoological expeditions to Africa, and one to the Rockies, and she knew what to look for. She kept her head down as she climbed the narrow, winding trail, searching the ground, eyes flicking sideways to the undergrowth. Within two minutes her legs were aching. She toiled up the slope through the forest, frequently stopping, her heart hammering from the unaccustomed exertion.

After half a mile she stopped, sweating, her breath coming in gasps.

She had not seen a single sign of animals. She crouched, panting, and examined the hard earth for her own footprints. My God—even they were hard to find. Just a tiny scrape here and there. The light was so difficult for tracking, the trail dappled with shadow, sunlight shifting through the boughs. She stared helplessly at the unyielding trail; but she did not believe that twenty-odd big animals, including elephants, could have passed without leaving some mark.

She straightened up, and listened. Just the rustle of leaves, the twitter of a bird. She could not even hear the vehicles on the highway, only half a mile back down the trail. She probably would not hear a man approaching until he was ten paces away. The silence was vast, the world muffled by the wilderness.

She could only see twenty paces into the forest. An elephant could be walking thirty yards away, and she could not see it.

She felt absolutely helpless. Vast … The forest stretched for at least five miles down the slopes of the Appalachians on either side of the trail. It was over ten miles from where she stood to the abandoned trucks. It could take an expert tracker days to make visual contact in this dense forest.

She stood there, sweating, getting her breath back.

Well, there was only one remote chance, apart from going back to the Nolichucky and starting from scratch: go into the forest in a straight line and look for the spoor. If the animals had headed this way, if David Jordan was trying to get them out of this area but was avoiding the trail, she might cross their spoor.

She plunged off the trail, into the undergrowth.

It was late afternoon when she found it, half a mile down the steep forested slope on the North Carolina side of the mountain.

She clung to a tree, elated, exhausted, her arms covered with scratches, muscles aching, hair sticking to her neck and forehead. She stared at the spoor.

She could hardly believe it. … That a caravan of big animals could have left so little sign of themselves! There was just one sign of elephant, and that was a conspicuous lump of dung. The undergrowth was so thick and flexible, the dark earth so hidden and spongy, the light and shadows so difficult.

She crouched and touched the dung with the back of her fingers. It was cool.

She looked feverishly about her in the shadows for more signs. None. She knew that a whole troupe of gorillas could pass without leaving obvious sign of themselves—even an elephant over certain terrain—and if she got to her knees now she would find more spoor—but this terrain was so difficult …

She leaned against the tree, getting her breath back; then she started plodding after the spoor. She crept along for five minutes, then she clenched her fist and started stumbling across the mountain slope in the direction she thought they had taken. Surely they were headed out of this area of the woods where the sheriff was after them.

Exhausted, the underbrush grabbing at her, her ankles buckling, Elizabeth was desperate. With her poor physical condition, with the incompetence of her fellows—where was Dr. Bigwheel Ford while she beat her brains out and broke her neck?

After a hundred and fifty yards she slumped to a stop, gasping, heart pounding.

She could see no more spoor.

She looked back; she could not see even her own tracks in this undergrowth and she could see no more than twenty paces in front of her.

An hour later she heard the muffled sound of a vehicle, and she realized that she was near the highway again. Suddenly, twenty yards in front, was the open sunshine.

She knew now. She had long since lost the spoor, but that was where they would have gone: across the highway, into the forest beyond. While that sheriff and his men bumbled around on this side.

She slid down the bank. She wasn’t going to waste any more time looking for tracks here.

She toiled up to her car.

The Appalachian Trail continued on the south side, directly opposite, leading steeply up into the forest again. She reached into her car for the road map.

The next road to the south that crossed the Appalachians was Highway 23, at Sams Gap about eleven miles away. She took a big breath.

She started plodding up the narrow dirt trail again, head lowered, looking for spoor. Within thirty paces she was hidden from the highway, ascending steeply into pine forest and hemlock.

Suddenly she stopped in a patch of sunlight, and her pulse tripped with excitement.

She was not looking at an animal’s footprint. But the hard ground had been scraped by something: by a bunch of leaves, used like a broom.

She crouched, heart pounding, examining the mark. Then she stood and jogged back down the steep trail. She scrambled into the car and did a hard U-turn, back toward Erwin.

She pulled up in front of a sporting goods store. There were several pickup trucks parked outside, gunracks on the back. She hurried inside.

‘You accept these things?’ She held up her American Express card.

‘Sure do, ma’am.’

‘Where’re your knapsacks?’

There were a dozen men clustered at the gun counter. Some had their shirts off, showing tattoos; there was loud discussion and laughing. She selected the cheapest knapsack, and a sleeping bag, cursing herself under her breath—she had all these things at home. She found a cheap canteen kit, a pair of Pro-Ked basketball shoes and thick socks, a large-scale hiker’s map of the area. She hurried back to the counter and slapped down her credit card.

‘Hi, Sugar!’ a voice said. She ignored him. ‘Excuse me, ma’am?…’ She turned to the man disdainfully, then jerked wide-eyed as she looked straight into the muzzle of a rifle.

‘Bang!’ The young man grinned. ‘Right between the eyes!’

‘Put that thing down!’

‘Bang!’ the man repeated, sweeping the gun across the shop. ‘Bang!—bang!’ There was laughter.

‘Or like this,’ a youth snickered, holding an imaginary machine gun at his hip. ‘Er-er-er-er.’

Elizabeth stared, shocked. ‘What are you boys buying guns for!’

‘You the noo sheriff, ma’am?’

‘She’s from the Bleedin’ Hearts!’

‘Now listen here!’ She held out a trembling finger. ‘I know what you boys think you’re going to do—go and hunt those animals that were let loose today …’

‘Only in self-defense, Sugar.’ Hairy hand piously on hairy breast.

‘Now listen to me—’

‘She’s from the Bleedin’ Hearts,’ the youth said. ‘The No-Killum Club.’

‘You listen to me! I’m an officer of the Bronx Zoo and you’re not allowed into those mountains and by God if anybody shoots one of those animals they’re going to jail!’

‘Ooo-oh!’ the gunman said, then they all chorused, ‘Ooo-oh.’

She was shaking. ‘I’ve warned you,’ she whispered, ‘and I’ll give evidence against you. Not only do those magnificent animals belong to the Bronx Zoo, it would be a barbaric crime against nature!’

‘Aaaa-ah …’

She was aghast. Then she tried to look at them witheringly. ‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘Why this despicable human appetite to go out and kill your fellow creatures at every excuse?’

‘She’s from the No-Trapums, No-Killums, Poor Little Thingums.’

‘Good God …’ She turned and signed her name shakily on the credit card slip, and gathered up her things. Then she turned on them. They pretended to cringe back.

‘I’ve warned you …’ she said. She turned and started for the door, feeling sick.

‘Bang!’ the young man said, and they all pointed imaginary guns. ‘Bang! Bang!’

‘Got her right up her fat ass!’

Elizabeth hurried fearfully into the supermarket. She bought half a dozen cans of corned beef, some rice, two dozen bars of chocolate, some vitamin pills. On her way back to the car she passed a package store. She hesitated, then dashed inside.

To hell with you Jonas! Why aren’t you down here instead of shooting your mouth off on television?

She ordered a fifth of whiskey; then changed it to a pint.

‘Where’s the nearest butcher, please?’

‘Just down the road aways, ma’am.’

She got back in her car and drove to the butcher shop.

‘Can you sell me half a pig, please? Or a whole sheep, whichever is cheaper.’

‘You in the barbecue business, ma’am?’

Mystified, he hacked the pig’s carcass into chunks as she directed, then stuffed the pieces into a sack, and carried it out to the car for her.

She scrambled back into the driver’s seat, and began to study her new hiker’s map. It shook in her hand.

It was a huge area—about a hundred square miles of wilderness. But there were several dirt roads up into it, crossing the Appalachian Trail at several points. There was even a picnic area slap in the middle, and a road that led to a mountain called Big Bald.

She concentrated on the best way to get up there.

About fifteen miles away, on the other side of the Appalachians, the helicopter was parked behind an old barn on an abandoned farm.

Three men crouched on the grass, and they were also studying a large-scale surveyor’s map of the area.

They were wearing camouflage fatigues and hunting boots. Each man held a top-quality, big-caliber rifle. Inside their helicopter were more rifles of different calibers, all with telescopic sights and silencers.

twelve

An hour before sunset Davey reached Tumbling Creek.

He watched the animals drink. Big Charlie was spreading out a collection of edible roots and berries and fungi.

‘If I could light a fire,’ he rumbled, ‘I could make a good stew.’

‘No fire.’

He hated all the dirt roads through this part of the mountains. A posse could penetrate very deep, very quickly, by vehicle. He wanted to get out, across Sams Gap and into the mountains beyond. It was only seven miles away—three hours, if they stuck to the Appalachian Trail. There was no point in sidetracking—nobody could track them in the dark. By tomorrow morning somebody would have found some spoor, and realize where they were heading. By tomorrow morning the authorities would be organized. So the important thing tonight was speed. Get as far away as possible down the easiest trail

Davey pressed his fingers to his eyes.

Oh … if only they could have got to the Pigeon River in the trucks. Right on the edge of the Great Smokies …

He slowly dragged his hands down his face.

Well, they were only eighty, ninety miles from the Smokies. Less than five days, at twenty miles a day.

He could keep the animals together for five days. Fifty, if he had to. He was not worried about that; what he was worried about were all the highways he had to lead them across.

Sams Gap, seven miles ahead.

Then Devils Fork, fifteen miles.

Then Allen Gap.

Then Hot Springs, on the French Broad River.

Then the Interstate 40 and the Pigeon River. With the Great Smoky Mountains across it…

The important things were to keep going as hard and as long as possible.

And rest … just for an hour.

He was hungry, but his hunger did not matter. What mattered was that the animals rest and eat. He ferreted in his knapsack and pulled out a bar of chocolate. He began to eat it distractedly.

None of the animals was in condition for such hard work. Sam and Champ were both intent on the chocolate. He sighed and pulled out another bar and unwrapped it. Sam’s wolf eyes were agog with anticipation. Davey held the chocolate out to him.

‘Try,’ he said, ‘to at least taste it.’

Sam grabbed the chocolate and in two gulps it had vanished. He thumped his tail once and looked hopefully at his master.

Champ croaked and looked at him with big eyes, then held out both hands, cupped.

‘Chocolate,’ Davey advised him, ‘is not what chimpanzees like. Chimpanzees like grass, leaves, roots and similar.’

He should not have done it, but he felt sorry for Champ. The little animal did not know whether he was a human being or a chimpanzee. In the circus ring he thought he was a chimp; with Davey he thought he was a person. In both situations, Champ had an inferiority complex because he was so small. Davey scratched the animal’s small head as it chewed the chocolate with relish.

Sally was standing all by herself, in the mud, huffing. It only covered her big blunt toes. She had tried to lie down in it, and her flanks were black with mud.

Oh why, for God’s sake, had he weakened?

If he had known this was going to happen … He could not bear to think what was going to happen if she could not keep up. How could he leave her? It made him desperate just to think about it. …

He heaved himself up, plodded into the mud and crouched beside her. Sally opened her eyes, startled.

‘How’re you, old lady?’

Sally sighed.

‘I’m sorry, old Sally.’

Sally wheezed long-sufferingly. ‘Let’s look at your feet.’ He tapped the back of her knee, lifted her hoof and peered in the bad light. It felt rough. But he knew hippos grazed over many miles in Africa, and they could run fast and far, lungs as tough as saddlebags for all their underwater work. But Sally was an old hippopotamus.

‘But when we get there, you’ll love it, Sally,’ he whispered. ‘There’re beautiful clean rivers for you and even a big lake, and all kinds of things to eat.’

Old Sally groaned, listening to the soothing voice of the only friend she had ever had. Her eyes began to droop.

‘And it’s warm down there now. Sally. You’re going to have a lovely time this summer. It’s all going to be worth it.’

He hugged her big fat neck.

And when the winter came, and the rivers got freezing? He felt his throat thicken. Because when winter came, it would not matter. When winter came, old Sally would not be around anymore.

‘All right, Sally … Sleep, old lady.’

He stood up, stiffly, and looked through the dappled light at the big cats. Mama was waiting for him, next to his knapsack. The circus cats were together on the opposite bank, staring at him, still waiting to be fed.

‘I’m sorry.’ There was nothing he could do about their food tonight; he had to put it out of his mind.

But the elephants were all right, and the gorillas and the chimpanzees. The elephants were feeding now, huge gray shapes shuffling wearily, their trunks reaching up, curling round a bunch of leaves, then down to their cavernous mouths, then chomp, chomp, chomp. Old Jamba had assumed natural dominance over the young zoo bulls. When she moved on, they moved.

He sat down again, next to Mama. He just wanted to collapse onto his back, but he had not yet finished rounding up his worries.

Dear old Mama. He scratched the back of her head, and she arched her neck and back. Sometimes she gave an angry moan at the circus cats. ‘Come on, Mama, they’re all right.’ He nodded at Sultan, the circus tiger. ‘How do you like the look of him?’ he whispered. But Mama wasn’t having anything to do with Sultan.

Davey’s heart went out to Sultan. The lions did not want to have anything to do with him either, although they worked with him. They barely tolerated him. He had to be caged apart because the lions would bully him and wouldn’t let him get anything to eat. Even in the ring they snarled at him. Old Sultan wanted to be part of the lions; they were the only family he had ever known. He even thought he was a lion. In the ring he had a hard time from Frank Hunt, too, because he was not the brightest tiger. Sultan performed with bloody-minded reluctance and only because he was terrified of the whip and the electric prodder and because he knew that was the only way he was going to be fed.

He sat all by himself, with a nervous, long-suffering aloofness, watching Davey, waiting for his supper. He blinked and averted his head as Davey crouched in front of him, and took his big furry cheeks in both hands.

‘Never mind, Sultan. Tigers are smarter than lions really. And you’ve got another tiger to live with now.’

Sultan just sat there pessimistically, eyes averted, having his cheeks scratched, feeling sorry for himself. Davey stood up, wearily.

The lions were all watching him. Nervous of the darkening forest, waiting to be fed, waiting to be told what to do. Big Tommy sat in the middle, staring, as if ready to come padding straight at him to kill. But Davey knew that killing was the last thing on Tommy’s mind. Tommy wouldn’t know how to kill a chicken if it were thown at him squawking, except by playing with it. It was going to be difficult teaching them to hunt. Except maybe Kitty.

As if reading his mind, Big Charlie said, ‘Don’t worry. Kitty will catch on quick. And show the others.’

Davey nodded. Kitty’s eyes never left Davey, her thick tail poised.

‘But she’s the one I’m worried about,’ Big Charlie rumbled, watching her. ‘Got the devil in her heart.’ He added, ‘She’s the only one I won’t turn my back on.’

Davey shook his head and smiled. He did not believe for a moment Kitty would turn man-hunter. But he never turned his back on her either, in her cage. She would come creeping up on him. Not to attack, but to pounce and play, four hundred pounds of jaws and claws. One pat with those paws could tear off a man’s face. He was careful with her; Charlie didn’t mess with her; Frank Hunt was downright frightened of her. And Princess, the other lioness, hated her.

Tommy liked Kitty, but Princess picked on her. It happened now. Kitty started toward Davey, and, as she passed, Princess hissed, ears flat, fangs bared and a big paw ready to swipe. Kitty stopped, eyes half closed, ears back, head averted. Her paw was ready too, but she did not rise to the challenge, nor even hiss back. She just waited for Princess to subside. Charlie and Davey smiled. Kitty was not afraid of Princess; she was indifferent. Princess was the matron of the pride; Kitty accepted the fact and did not care.

‘Okay, you two,’ Davey said.

Princess turned and stalked away angrily, and Kitty padded menacingly over to Davey. He held out his hand, and she arched her back and wiped her big flank along his leg, tail up. He put his hand under her whiskery chin and scratched. ‘You’re not afraid, are you, Kitty? I’m relying on you.’

He straightened up and sighed.

‘You okay, Charlie?’

‘Sure.’ He lay on his back. ‘Stop worrying now, Davey. It’s happened.’

Davey shook his head. ‘A few more hours, and we would have made it in the trucks.’

‘It’s happened. Ain’t nothing we can do about that. But we’ll still make it. Now, get some rest.’

Davey smiled at the big Indian.

‘Come on.’

He gave a low whistle and started to lead the animals back up the steep mountain to the Appalachian Trail at the crest. Then he started to jog, his face tense, his arms hanging slack, but it was twice as fast as walking, and he could keep it up for hours.

The sun was setting. A minute later, as he came around a bend of laurel, he saw the man.

His heart lurched and he started to spin around to shout a warning, but he cut it off.

The hiker had his back to him, one hand on his hip, looking impatient. The next instant Davey saw a girl emerging from the bushes, head down, pulling her jeans over her thighs and muttering. Davey turned desperately, to lead the animals off the trail, and the same moment the man turned.

He could not believe his eyes. His jaw dropped, and he went ashen, speechless. He was a keen backpacker; he carried Ed Garvey’s famous book on the Appalachian Trail like a Bible; he had hiked other wilderness trails; but nothing had prepared him for what he saw: a wild-looking man with a huge elephant behind him. He started to scream, but it just gargled in his dry throat. At that moment his wife looked up, and she screamed for him.

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened to its fullest and the cords stood out on her neck and she clenched her fists to her bosom and her jeans dropped and she screamed. A wild female wail of paralyzed horror that galvanized her husband into action. He grabbed at her arm to plunge off the trail, and at the same moment she turned and fled in the opposite direction.

The man flung himself off the narrow trail into the steep undergrowth, stumbling, out of control, gasping for his wife—and she fled down the trail wild-eyed, her jeans below her buttocks, bellowing her terror to the sky, and Davey yelled, ‘It’s okay—get off the trail!’ But she could not hear him, and she could not run with her jeans bunched at her knees, and she stumbled and lurched, desperately trying to yank them up, looking wildly over her shoulder and the more she could not run the more terrified she got—then Davey plunged off the trail on the opposite side. With a piercing whistle to his animals, he ran down the steep mountain, leaping and bounding, the animals lumbering and blundering after him.

For a hundred yards he crashed down the mountainside, then he swung south again, parallel to the Appalachian Trail.

Until well after dark he kept them trekking doggedly across the wild mountainside. It was killingly slow going. His legs trembled, and his stomach was a knot of exhaustion. He bitterly regretted not having just blundered on down the Appalachian Trail after the screaming woman until she had thrown herself off it, out of the way. But he could not bear to see her so frightened, and she could have fallen and been trampled; as it was he was worried that she might have run so far that she could not find her husband afterward.

When it was properly dark they stopped and threw themselves down, to sleep for four hours.

King Kong was fully grown, and the hair on his back had turned to silver. He weighed six hundred pounds, and his shoulders were thick and powerful. He stood nearly six feet tall, and his shaggy arms reached below his knees; his knuckles were twice as broad as a man’s, and his jaws were big and strong. In the zoo, nobody had dared go into his cage without elaborate precautions, except David Jordan. When they asked him how he did it he had replied ‘because he knows I understand.’

A gorilla understands very well. King Kong did not remember much about his life in the Congo, but he remembered the green things and the space, the joy of climbing through the trees. For ten long years he had sat in his cage with the other gorillas, under a neon light, with a concrete tree and a concrete floor, and he looked at the people who came to stare, and grin, and make faces at him; he knew they were the same kind that had massacred his clan to capture him, but he also knew they could not get at him in here, and time had numbed his fear. But every day of his life his great body yearned for space, to stretch his limbs, to walk and run; for green things growing, and real earth, and trees to climb, and sun and wind and sky.

And that is what Davey Jordan understood, and most zoo men do not. Zoo people will sincerely say that their animals are happy, because they are fed and safe from predators; that they neither remember much nor instinctively yearn. But David Jordan had the gift, the heart and the compassion to be able to put himself into the big black breast of the gorilla, and feel what he was feeling, so that he felt like a gorilla himself. When he sat in their cage, and talked to them, and even made their sounds, King Kong knew that David knew what his gorillaness wanted and needed and yearned for. But even more: King Kong knew that Davey was not a gorilla but a creature superior to him. And to everyone in the animal kingdom, superiority is important.

Now King Kong understood what had happened, although it was very confused in its urgency. He knew he had been set free, and he sensed the fear and the excitement of the other animals, and he was frightened. There was not yet any joy of freedom, but he sensed that he was running for his life, and he would keep on running forever, following his leader in this desperate race.

Now his leader was asleep, and King Kong wanted to sleep also. But he was frightened of the dark forest about him. He wanted to be up above the ground. He did not yet remember how to build nests in trees, although he knew he wanted to.

He looked up at the trees uncertainly. He knew how to climb a tree. But he also knew, just by looking, that in these trees he could not lie down to sleep. The big gorilla looked around at the darkness apprehensively, then, uncertainly, he began to do the best he could: he began to scrape the leaves and twigs into a circle about him.

The other gorilla watched him. Then slowly, uncertainly, she began to do the same. King Kong lay down on his side in his nest, and tucked his shaggy legs up to his shaggy black stomach, and he crooked his arm under his big worried head as a pillow.

thirteen

A forest road crossed the crest of the Appalachians, through a treeless sag at the base of Big Bald Mountain.

It was after midnight. Dr. Elizabeth Johnson sat, locked in her rented car, on the dirt road, hidden in the trees on the edge of the sag. Trying vainly to sleep; waiting for first light. She had bumped her way over all the crisscrossing tracks, peering into the darkness for the shining of eyes, the flash of movement; she had even gotten out and tried to examine the road for spoor in the headlights: it had been hopeless. Scores of miles of winding tracks through a hundred square miles of wilderness. She had been frightened every time she got out of the car.

She was frightened now, locked inside it, sick with the fear the deputy Sheriff had instilled into her, the horror of the men in the Erwin gun shop. She had wrapped her new sleeping bag around her shoulders. She had eaten, and had had a good few nips of whisky. But she could not sleep. She had a lot of tramping around to do tomorrow if she hoped to find them before the gunmen of Erwin. But she was too desperate to sleep.

She sat in the dark, nerves screaming with exhaustion. Big Bald rose treeless to the south, ghostly silver in the moonlight. It was completely still. Spooky. O God, the wilderness was spooky. She had tried to dismiss her fear contemptuously, then to examine it logically. But it was man’s primitive fear of the wilderness itself, its wildness, that she was afraid of, just as much as a madman with an ax. Driving up here, she had been fearful that demons would leap out of the shadows. Demons—the same that had frightened cavemen and the Pilgrim Fathers and made them set out grimly to ‘conquer the wilderness,’ turn it into a garden, to take its primeval menace out of it. Childish … But no—it was the primitive man in her.

She took a deep, tense breath, and reached for the whisky bottle.

If Bernard could see her now … Then she felt foolish for even thinking about him. She lit a cigarette with shaky fingers, and inhaled grimly.

She took another sip of whisky, and almost gagged. Then she could hear Jonas Ford saying, ‘Whisky isn’t a very feminine drink, my dear.’ Well to hell with you, Jonas, it tastes damn good, and it’s making me feel a whole lot better. Where the hell are you? While I sit here scared witless …

She sighed.

She was not being very reasonable. It had been her wild decision to hurl herself onto a plane and get down here. Jonas was doing the right thing, staying to organize things. And what good did she think she was going to do here, anyway? What was she going to do even if she found David Jordan and the animals?

She massaged her forehead with her fingertips.

She did not know.

Except somehow stand between the animals and a bloodbath, somehow shout the hillbilly gunmen out of shooting, somehow warn David Jordan about them, somehow shout some sense into him …

David Bloody Jordan … A fat chance she had of talking any sense into him. She remembered him clearly, and he was obviously very bright—even Jonas Ford had once described him as ‘very intelligent,’ and coming from Jonas that was quite something. The keepers had talked about him with such awe, and all the stories—like the time one of the grizzly bears had got his paw jammed in a tin can that some idiot had thrown into the pen. He was going berserk, and the staff was trying to lasso him to tie him down and there was a terrible hullabaloo, and apparently David Jordan had just walked into the den, cool as a cucumber, grabbed the enraged animal’s paw and wrestled the can off. ‘Quite fearless,’ the curator of mammals had described him. ‘Damn stupid,’ Jonas Ford had said. But even Jonas had described him as ‘quite a remarkable fellow,’ and the previous vet had said that he had ‘almost a Saint Franciscan ability with animals.’ She had heard a good deal about him before he had unexpectedly turned up at the zoo.

She’d heard the commotion in the Big Cat House, and gone over to investigate, and there was the great Davey Jordan going from cage to cage, and the cats were beside themselves with excitement, purring and rubbing themselves against the bars. She had watched, fascinated. She had read a good deal about people who can do wonderful things with animals. Quietly she had walked up to him. He paid no attention to her, just stood there, in his own private world of the animals, and he was smiling and talking to them softly; she could not catch the words but they were loving, and the look on his face was? … It was a beautiful private world she had glimpsed, of love and understanding between a man and animals, which she felt she had no right to enter, an inter-feeling she would never achieve with animals no matter how hard she tried. It had been an intrusion on her part when she finally tried to talk to him. He had been vaguely aloof, almost abrupt, as if he couldn’t waste his precious moments.

She could not remember now what she had said as openers—doubtless something corny—but she remembered he had said: ‘It’s not that animals are like us—it’s us who’re like them. If you put it the other way around you’re denying the theory of evolution. We’re all part of the same animal kingdom … every Behaviorist from Flaubert to Desmond Morris agrees there’s hardly an aspect of animal behavior that isn’t relevant to ours.’

And with that he had excused himself, leaving her feeling foolish. And she had been astonished at the articulate wisdom falling from the lips of a circus hand.

Which, afterward, she had resented. After all, she was the veterinary surgeon around here, it was her domain. But she had never forgotten the look on his face, the sweet vision she had glimpsed behind those eyes.

But, by God, she resented it now, with anger and fear in her heart, sitting like a fool again in her rented car in the middle of the wilderness in the middle of the night. Why was she always such a … sucker? For the … grand emotional gesture?

She lit another cigarette, and longed for daylight.

At three o’clock she was suddenly awake with a start, realizing she had been asleep. Her eyes darted about in the silent moonlight. Then they widened, and her stomach contracted.

A mass of moving blackness was coming out of the black forest onto the open grassy sag.

A man was jogging in the lead, and behind him were the big cats, ears back, tails low, then the elephants, then the gorillas, then the enormous bears, and behind them all was a huge man loping along with a dog. She gasped and wanted to run. All she knew was the raw human fright of wild animals coming at her. She cringed and stared. Then came the astonishment; such a disparate mixture of animals all following one man! She sat rigid at the spectacle of the magnetism some rare people have … then David Jordan glimpsed her car on the edge of the forest, and he stopped.

She collected her wits, and rolled down her window frantically. ‘Mr Jordan!’

He turned and started running for the forest, and the animals whirled around and followed him. She scrambled out of her car.

‘I’m the zoo vet—Dr. Johnson—I’m alone!’

He disappeared like a shadow into the forest, the animals crashing through the undergrowth after him. She yelled, ‘Wait—’ and stumbled into the open. ‘Mr Jordan! Look, I’m alone—I’m unarmed!’

She waited for his response, heart pounding, frightened. Then his hoarse voice came out of the black forest.

‘What do you want?’

She was so relieved she was almost crying. ‘Please—I’ve got to talk to you!’

‘What about?’

‘About the animals! This is a terrible thing you’re doing. You’ve got to give them back, for their own good!’

‘They’re not going back.’

She cried desperately across the moonlight: ‘You’ve got to listen to me! They’re going to be shot. I’ve seen the gun-crazy hillbillies in Erwin! I’ve seen them, I tell you—buying guns! And at the roadblocks. And the police are after you, and they’re not much better. You’re going to be surrounded!’

Davey crouched in the dark forest, his sweat glistening. ‘Where are they?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Last night they were at the last highway back there!’

‘They’re crazy if they shoot, that won’t get the animals back.’

‘Even the police will shoot! They’re frightened, don’t you understand? They aren’t used to wild animals here!’

‘Tell them they’re not wild animals—they won’t hurt anybody.’

Suddenly, a man called out behind her. ‘Okay, nobody else here.’

She spun around with a gasp, and stared up at the biggest man she had ever seen. ‘Who’re you?’

‘I won’t hurt you, ma’am.’

Davey stepped out of the forest, the big cats slinking behind him. She stepped back toward her car.

‘Please tell them everything will be all right if they don’t interfere,’ Davey called.

She cried, ‘What are you trying to prove?’

‘Just tell them to leave us alone.’

She cried, ‘This isn’t where these animals belong. They can’t fend for themselves!’

‘They’ll learn.’

‘The police art after you, I tell you. And the hunters—you know what they’re like. You’ll be shot to ribbons!’

He broke into a jog, and the animals started after him. She stared in amazement all over again, then shouted desperately, ‘Listen, I’m a vet; I know what I’m talking about. Don’t you remember me—Dr. Johnson?’

He did not answer.

She cried: ‘Where are you taking them?’

But he did not answer. He jogged across the sag, the animals lumbering behind him.

She yelled: ‘I’ve got meat for the cats.’

Davey ignored her. She turned desperately to me big Indian. ‘Where are you going with them?

Big Charlie’s eyes were on the column of animals. He turned to follow them, but she grabbed his arm. ‘Where? …’

He looked down at her. ‘To the Garden of Eden.’

Her fingernails dug into his arm. ‘There is no such place! They’re going to die!’

He looked at her, then gently pulled his arm away.

‘Wait!’ She turned, flung open the back door of the car and grabbed her doctor’s bag. ‘Carry that!’

‘You can’t come with us, ma’am.’

‘The hell I can’t! Those are my animals, and I’ve got to look after them.’

She seized her new knapsack and sleeping bag. Charlie was staring at her, clutching her doctor’s bag. She hauled the big bag of meat off the back seat.

‘You can’t come with us.’

‘It’s a free country. Can you carry this meat?’

The animals were fifty yards away now, lumbering up the grassy slope of Big Bald in the moonlight. All senses were alert, the cold night air was moving over their bodies and into their nostrils. Elizabeth could still hardly believe what she was witnessing even though, as a scientist, she knew there were such people as David Jordan. Before she could hesitate she started jogging desperately up the grassy slope after them. Charlie Buffalohorn stood, holding her doctor’s bag and the meat, staring after her.

Then he started up the slope.

fourteen

It was some time before dawn.

Davey lay in the undergrowth on the edge of the forest, peering down onto Highway 23 at Sams Gap. The road was a black blur, ten feet below the embankment. Beyond it, the forest rose again.

He could see no vehicles, no people. He lay, panting, sweating, trying to press his exhaustion into the earth, waiting. For a match to flare, for a voice, for a shadow, for a vehicle to come along the highway out of the forested night and light up the road. For five minutes he waited, then he stood up, quietly as an Indian, and retraced his steps.

The big cats were scattered about in the darkness devouring the meat.

Elizabeth sat well away, slumped against a tree to cover her rear, her legs shaking. Her exhaustion was nothing compared to her fear of the huge dark shapes of the animals in the moon-dappled forest. For one moment she had looked straight into the eyes of the Siberian tiger; those big, carnivorous eyes in that huge killer face with that menacing body behind it, staring straight at her without any bars between them, and she had felt a terror so pure that all she had known to do was throw her arm across her face and cringe. Then Davey had tossed the tiger a hunk of meat, and she had grabbed it and turned away. Then he had turned away himself and melted into the darkness, and she had wanted to run after him for protection, to beg him not to leave her alone. She waited desperately for him to return, her knapsack clutched in front of her as a shield, listening to the sounds of feeding. When she saw David Jordan come back she felt a wave of relief so enormous that it was almost sexual in quality—he was her protector.

She tiptoed nervously over to him. He was squatting, his face in shadow.

‘Mr. Jordan? Please listen to me … for the animals’ own good.’

‘I’m listening.’

She swallowed, feeling inarticulate.

‘How do you think you’re going to get away with this?’

He did not look at her. ‘I’m not trying to get away with anything, Dr. Johnson. I’m just doing what is right.’

She cried softly. ‘Right? How can it be right to throw defenseless animals back into the wild?’

‘You asked me a question,’ he said quietly, ‘so listen to the answer.’

She took a quivering breath to contain herself. His voice and manner were so quietly determined they were almost military. His whole presence inspired confidence. ‘You’re a vet, you should know. It’s not right to keep an animal in a cage. You’ve seen them at that zoo of yours—you must’ve seen them in plenty of zoos.’ He shook his head at her across the dappled darkness. ‘Pacing about, in those tiny cages. Why are they doing that, Dr. Johnson? Mama, here, the tiger. Up and down, up and down. Why? Is it natural for a tiger to do that? Or is she doing it because she wants out? Because she wants space? Because her nerves and body and soul are crying out for freedom?’

‘But Mama doesn’t know about freedom! Any more than a child who grows up in Manhattan knows about Africa! She was born in captivity.’

He said quietly. ‘Then why does she do it? For fun? Because she’s enjoying herself? No, Dr. Johnson. She’s doing it because she just naturally knows she wants out. She’s yearning. And the other big cats in your zoo—they weren’t all born in captivity. They remember, just as you and I remember, natural things like freedom. They long for it. And the elephants and the hippo. And the gorillas …’ He shook his head. ‘Jamba—she wasn’t born in captivity, was she? And look at her tiny cage. Nor the two youngsters …’

Big Charlie said out of the darkness. ‘Cats finished eating.’

‘Mr Jordan, please listen …’

‘We’re going now, Dr. Johnson,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you very much for the meat. You better go back to your car. I don’t think you’ll keep up with us; you’ll be left behind. It would be much better if you went back and told them to leave us alone.’

She cried. ‘Where are you going?’

But he turned away from her and made a low whistling sound. All about her in the dark the big animals turned and shuffled; then he was moving among them like a shadow, making soft muttering noises, touching them and calling them by name. She grabbed her knapsack, too desperate to marvel at what she was seeing.

They slithered down the embankment at Sams Gap, and scrambled onto the highway. Davey ran across the road and leaped up into the forest on the other side, and the animals loped and lumbered urgently after him, followed by Big Charlie and Sam. Last of all stumbled Dr. Elizabeth Johnson.

Davey slogged up through the black forest, across the mountain-side, the animals strung out behind him. Elizabeth gasped. ‘Mr Buffalohorn!’

Big Charlie hesitated, then stopped. She toiled up to him, and dropped her medical bag.

‘You better quit, ma’am.’

‘I’m coming, dammit!’

She was bent double, hands on knees, head hanging. He hesitated, then picked up her doctor’s bag. He turned and started after the animals.

She straightened, exhausted, then started stumbling doggedly after him.

Just before sunrise Davey stopped. They were in dense forest about a mile down-mountain from the Appalachian Trail. Somewhere, above the thudding of her heart, Elizabeth could hear a waterfall. He said, ahead in the dark, ‘We’re sleeping here.’

She looked exhaustedly about for a good spot. She badly wanted to sleep near him, or Big Charlie, or both.

But she was not going to ask. She wasn’t going to sleep surrounded by animals either. She went plodding back up the mountainside, struggling through the undergrowth, for about twenty paces. Then down she slumped.

She woke with sun on her eyelids. And the dread.

She blinked; all she could see was dense foliage. She struggled out of her sleeping bag, then her heart suddenly tripped as she heard a branch snap. She jerked around and stared, heart pounding; then closed her eyes. They were still here—that was the sound of an elephant feeding.

‘Mr. Jordan?’ she whispered.

The elephant jerked and blundered farther into the forest.

It was completely silent but for the hammering of her heart. She stood there, feeling helpless, afraid. She started rolling up her sleeping bag. Then out of the corner of her eyes she noticed a pair of black hairy legs. She jerked up, and looked straight into the blinking face of a chimpanzee, holding Big Charlie’s hand.

‘Oh, thank God …’ She closed her eyes. ‘Where’s Mr. Jordan?’

Charlie nodded downhill. ‘Asleep down there aways. Don’t do anything to wake him.’

‘And the animals?’

‘Down there too.’ He looked at her uncomfortably, eyes hooded in his brown face: ‘You’d better quit and go back today, Dr. Johnson. For your own sake.’

He had said it kindly. There was nothing she’d like better than to quit.

‘Well, I’m not going to … my own sake doesn’t matter. I’m staying for the animals’ sake.’

He built a tiny fire of dry twigs between two stones, balanced a little tin can of water and made coffee.

‘How long are you staying here?’

‘Until sunset. The animals need a good rest.’

‘And then?’

He did not answer. She wanted to cry out, For God’s sake tell me where you think you’re going.

‘The Garden of Eden, you said last night.’

Big Charlie fed twigs into the tiny fire. ‘Yes.’

She blurted, ‘There’s no such place.’

He did not answer. She closed her eyes in frustration. ‘Oh, for God’s sake give it up. They’re going to be shot to pieces. You know what a beast the American so-called hunter is! And I saw them, getting ready …’

He was staring into the little fire. Her hands were clenched; she stared at his big profile. He turned and looked at her, kindly.

‘It’s no good talking about it, Dr. Johnson.’

‘Where?’ she whispered fiercely. ‘And how the hell are you going to get there?’

‘It’s no use, Dr. Johnson. And it’s no good trying to talk to Davey about it, either. He’s got enough on his mind.’

She snorted. ‘Of course I’m going to talk to him; I don’t care how angry he gets.’

Big Charlie shook his head.

‘He won’t get mad. Takes an awful lot to make Davey mad. He just won’t argue with you, that’s all. He’ll just walk away.’

Big Charlie stood up and turned away himself.

‘Where are you going?’she appealed.

He stopped and looked back at her. Then she understood.

‘All right—I won’t talk about it anymore. Please don’t leave me here …’

‘Okay. Come with me.’

He started walking back up the mountain. She started hurrying painfully after him.

About half a mile up the mountain, on a rocky outcrop, sat Sam, on guard, thumping his tail in welcome.

She would remember it disjointedly: her body aching, her head light from not enough sleep; the unreality of the forest, the animals, the twittering of the birds through her harried thoughts; the whole extraordinary thing. The big Indian sat, waiting. The gentleness behind his bulk, the quiet strength that did not need to be leashed because it was so … confident? So gentle that she did not want to upset him by breaking her bargain. She would, she had to—but at the right moment.

And the strange, beautiful wolf-dog, Sam. He was so serious, ears cocked, staring fixedly up the mountainside. Suspicious of her, tolerating her only because of the Indian’s presence. She wanted him to accept her, she wanted to stretch out and fondle him, tell him he was a good dog. But she didn’t—it would almost have been a presumption, an intrusion into such professionalism. But all the while was the frustration of waiting.

‘Does Sam understand?’

The wolf laid his ears back, but did not turn.

‘Sure.’

‘That he’s on guard for pursuers?’

Big Charlie looked at her. ‘Of course. He’s trained.’

Of course. It seemed a silly question now. ‘What’ll he do if he sees anybody coming? Bark?’

‘Run and wake Davey. He knows he’s got to keep his mouth shut unless it’s a real emergency.’

Oh, lovely Sam …

‘Is he very fierce?’

A wisp of a smile crossed Charlie’s face.

‘He’s pretty friendly.’

‘But would he attack?’

‘Only if he had to. Then he’d be fierce. But usually his bark’s worse than his bite.’

She smiled. ‘How does he like the other animals?’

‘He likes them fine. He’s used to them.’

‘But he’s never had to herd them before.’

‘No. I guess he’s not too crazy about that. They’re all pretty big.’ He added. ‘The big cats, he’s not too keen on them.’

For the first time in a long time she smiled, and tears burned in her eyes. Oh, Sam …

‘I don’t blame him,’ she whispered. ‘Does he chase ordinary cats?’

‘If he gets the chance. But with these big ones? He’s not stupid, Sam.’

They both smiled. It was a little shared amusement at Sam’s expense. Then the moment passed. Charlie looked solemn again.

‘And the other animals? Do you think they understand what’s happening?’

Big Charlie looked surprised. ‘Sure.’

She felt almost foolish.

‘But how?’

He looked at her. ‘Because they know. That they’re out of their cages and running away: Davey’s telling them to run.’ He added, They can feel what each other’s feeling. They know. There’s a—sort of bond between them. To follow and run. Can’t you feel it?’

Yes, she could. But no, she did not believe it. Not a bond, a common purpose, to run away from their cages. Surely they wanted to be back in their cages, where it was safe; they were frightened, that’s why they were running. They were only keeping together because they were frightened, and because they were trained animals, and because Davey Jordan was the only security blanket they had.

The silence returned. Just the occasional cheeping of a bird. The vast, eerie wilderness. Her nerves were tight with the waiting—waiting for David Jordan to wake up so she could try to talk him out of this madness.

Then, completely silently, he was there. Sam’s tail thumped in greeting; she looked around, and he was standing behind her: a lean young man, with the most penetratingly gentle eyes she had ever seen.

Afterward, when she tried to remember what she said, how she said it, whether she had spoken too forcefully or not, she was unable to reconstruct it fully. She was articulate; she had been on her university debating team; she knew what she was talking about; she could be forceful when she wanted to be—overly emotional perhaps, but she defended herself and what was right. What she would remember was feeling blustery and impotent against this quiet, gentle man, who refused to argue with her, who listened to her politely enough but who did not want to talk to her at all, who did so only as an act of hospitality. He was a private man who seemed to know what she was going to say, who had heard it all before; a man who had made all his decisions, and no matter what she said and pleaded and preached, would remain unmoved.

But she remembered him saying, almost reluctantly, ‘I was there the day those baby elephants arrived from India. At Kennedy airport, in the middle of the night. They were reaching out for each other with their trunks, for comfort. Pushing their trunks into each other’s mouths, and everybody was saying. ‘Ah, aren’t they cute!’ But nobody felt bad for taking those poor animals away from their natural home.’ He’d looked at her, and she would remember his quiet intensity. ‘Because people are strange, Dr. Johnson. Somehow they think it’s all right to make animals unhappy, and treat them as curiosities. I remember the vet saying, “I got a real live baby elephant.”’ He’d looked at her, puzzled. ‘In prison, Dr. Johnson. For life. And yet that vet was a kind man.’ He shook his head. ‘Every day you see those animals in their cages—pacing up and down, up and down. For the rest of their lives … You’ve seen it in your zoo, seen it in the Central Park Zoo.’

She would remember protesting, ‘Kindly don’t compare us with Central Park. That zoo’s a disgrace.’

He said quietly: ‘All zoos are, Doctor. Your Bronx Zoo is worse. Because you’re the famous New York Zoological Society, with all the money and all the university degrees. But you’ve got all those tiny cages. Outside in the grounds there are hundreds of acres for people to walk around enjoying themselves looking at the unhappy animals … innocent animals, who’ve committed no crime.’

She had started to interrupt, but he went on quietly.

‘And we look at that miserable animal in its cage and say, ‘Isn’t that interesting—look at the elephant.’ What kind of creature are we, that takes pleasure in another creature’s misery? Even though we like that animal …’

‘That’s not all there is to it. Mr. Jordan. Zoos do a great deal toward conserving animal life—and educating the public.’

For a moment he had looked as if he were going to argue with her, then he just said, kindly, ‘I can’t understand you, Dr. Johnson. You’re a vet. All the good things you can do. Heal animals …’ He looked at her in real puzzlement. ‘You’re a kind person. But you’re really a prison doctor. You’re a doctor who wants to keep his prisoners forever, Dr. Johnson. Not send them home when they’re better—just keep them in prison forever so you can admire them.’

She had been absolutely indignant. ‘Rubbish!’

‘It’s as if you went to Africa and captured all kinds of black people, brought them back here, and stuck them in cages as Montezuma did, so people could go and look at them on Sundays with their children.’

‘Rubbish! There’s no comparison. Animals aren’t people.’

But he’d withdrawn, as if he regretted having let himself be drawn out at all, sorry for having hurt her feelings unnecessarily, because she would never understand.

Later, cooled down, she tried again.

‘But what are you trying to do, Mr. Jordan? I mean—please believe me, I love these animals as much as you do, and I deeply resent your calling me a prison doctor. But what are you trying to achieve? Are you hoping to make such an impression with this extraordinary feat that the whole world is going to be up in arms against zoos and somehow just turn their animals loose in the forests around London and Los Angeles and Tokyo? If so you’re wrong.’

But he was not going to argue about it, because she would never understand. When he spoke it was not in reply, but rather an articulation of a private thought.

‘There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of … behaving toward other men and your fellow creatures … toward all living things … toward the whole earth, and the sky, and the sun … that is based on love. On compassion. On respect. On cherishing everything there is around you, because it’s wonderful. Unique. It’s natural and … good, and it evolved that way all by itself. It’s got to be cherished. And if we think like that, and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness. … We can all feel the sun, and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with … appreciation …’

“That’s the Garden of Eden. It doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe in parts of Africa. But you can’t try to re-create it in the United States of America.’

For the first time he almost argued with her. ‘Not in the richest, the cleverest, the most … inventive … the biggest, the most successful country in the world? Or can man only be successful when he hogs the whole world for himself?’

‘Are you suggesting we revert to a state of nature?’

He said quietly, ‘It’s a state of mind, Dr. Johnson. A state of heart. A state of soul. A state of God, maybe.’

He stood up. The discussion was over.

She would remember that day as a kind of dream.

There was a little grassy glen below the waterfall she had heard last night. Sam was left on guard up on the mountain, while Big Charlie slept beneath a tree, the chimpanzee called Daisy sitting nearby. Most of the other animals were in the forest. Elizabeth glimpsed them through the trees from where she sat, near the waterfall, her body stiff and aching, her nerves tight with frustration and anxiety about the gunmen that must be closing in on them now. Only the big cats were in the open glen, except Mama, the zoo tiger, who crouched near Davey and balefully watched the other big cats. Mama wasn’t going to have anything to do with them. On Davey’s side sat the little chimpanzee. Elizabeth thought it was a pathetic, colorless little animal.

The waterfall cascaded into pools; the sun dappled gold through the treetops, sparkling on the cold clear water, warming the rich earth; and the spring air was crisp and soft and clean.

And Sally wallowed in the gurgling pools.

Wallowed and huffed and sighed, big fat old Sally who had exhausted herself stumbling along at the rear of the troupe of animals, her old heart pounding and her hooves sore and scored. Now she had slept off her exhaustion, lying flat out like a felled ox, and when she woke up she had heaved herself up and waddled down to the stream, and stood there in the misty sunlight, staring at the first running water she had seen in her whole life: real sparkling water, tumbling and swirling through real pools, with real weeds and reeds and mosses. Sally had never seen, nor smelled, all these wonderful, almost frightening things, and she stood on the bank and sniffed and hesitated, showing the whites of her eyes. She knew this place was good, but still she was nervous. Then, finally, she tentatively put one sore hoof into the water. She flinched at the cold, but she wanted the water, cold or not; wanted to plunge her great weary body into the buoyant balm of it, wanted it to soothe and support her. For a long quivering moment old Sally hesitated, then she sort of bunched up her big haunches, and she plunged.

With a resounding splash, and a snort, she thrust her head down, and then she was gone in a flurry of hooves, her fat old body suddenly streamlined, surging like a submarine. Sally swam, the water churning about her, and she no longer felt the cold—just joy, of her body working naturally as a hippopotamus’s body is meant to do; she no longer felt her aches, and her hooves did not hurt anymore. Sally swam underwater, her eyes wide at the rocks about her, her ears filled with the crashing of the waterfall; then she came up to breathe, surging and huffing. The water cascaded down on her black shiny head, and rainbows sparkled about her in the morning sun.

She sank back under the stony bottom of the swirling pool, and pushed by the current, she walked, bumping against the smooth boulders, peering all around, nosing and nudging around the rocks, into dark places, all for the sheer pleasure of it. Then she broke surface with a gush; her ears pricked, her eyes widened and her nostrils dilated; then she turned, and plunged back under and swam into the current again, churning back to the waterfall.

Sitting on the bank, Elizabeth could almost feel, through her frustration and fear, the old hippo’s happiness, almost feel the pleasure of the water surging about her body, the joy of doing what she was meant to do—and in all the beautiful space, with the sunshine and the rainbows and all the green things growing.

And Elizabeth’s face softened, and she smiled.

Davey would not talk about it any more.

He had not said so, but she sensed and saw it: in his apartness; although he sat only a few paces from her; in his privacy; in his absorption in the animals. It was like an unspoken agreement between them that she could stay a while and rest, and even, he hoped, enjoy, provided she did not try to argue with him. He was in his own world.

She wanted to cry out, What about these men following you?—but she just sat, stiffly, trying to bide her time.

She worried for them all, but, after Sally, she worried most about the big cats: the bears could feed themselves, so could the elephants, the gorillas too—but the lions and the tigers could not.

They were grouped together uneasily in the middle of the glen, Sultan sitting disconsolately apart. They were all scared to venture closer to the trees—if there were a cave they would be huddled into it; the only reason they weren’t huddled around Davey was because Mama was glaring them off. Mama was tense, aggressive, clinging catlike to her only security, the man she knew.

While he sat, immobile, watching with patient silence, Elizabeth worried herself sick. How did he do it, just sitting there?—didn’t he know all hell was about to break loose? He was almost … military, in his self-control. While Big Charlie slept, and the birds twittered, and the waterfall cascaded and Sally huffed and surged.

But then, as Elizabeth stiffly watched, Kitty, the lioness, began to play.

Suddenly she rolled onto her back and presented her belly to the sunshine, paws in the air; then her eyes rolled wickedly, and, with a sudden twist, she was on her feet: crouched, poised, tail flicking, looking for something to pounce on; and suddenly she pounced.

Onto nothing. She was springing up and crashing down on her forepaws, rump up in the air. She swatted her imaginary quarry with her big paws. Then she whirled around and went racing up the glen in furious mock flight, skillfully dodging invisible assailants. Then she whirled and raced back to Tommy and Princess, She skidded to a halt in front of Tommy, her tail held high. Princess sprang up and hissed and raised her paw, ears back dangerously, but big Tommy just looked at her. Kitty ignored Princess and jerked provocatively to galvanize Tommy into action, and she growled deep in her throat; Tommy just turned his head and looked disdainfully away.

So Kitty whirled around, and fled up the glen again, and swung around and stopped. Crouching low, head just poking up above the grass, waiting for Tommy to pursue her. But Tommy lay down elaborately and sighed. Then Kitty’s gaze fixed on Sultan, and every muscle tensed; she began to stalk him. Treacherously, head low, killer paws padding, eyes boring. Sultan sat alone, and miser-ably watched her out of the corner of his eye. He knew what was going to happen. Closer and slowly closer Kitty stalked, her killer gaze fixed murderously on the unhappy tiger. All eyes were watching her. Sultan sat there on his haunches, rigid, head up, tail wrapped protectively around his front paws, his nose pointed fixedly across the glen, but gloomily watching Kitty.

For Sultan knew that she was going to bully him, challenge him, humiliate him, and finally pounce on him and make him run away, stripping him of such dignity as he had. This is how it had been in the circus all his life. He watched Kitty stalk him, and he pretended to ignore her with the last of his dignity, his heart sinking. Closer and closer Kitty crept, her heart pounding joyfully; then, when she was three paces from him, she froze and stared at him.

Her eyes didn’t waver; every muscle was tuning itself up for her sport, and Sultan sat, agonized, tensed for humiliating flight, but postponing it until he absolutely had to. Kitty jerked, and Sultan suddenly jerked too. Then Sultan, to his own and Kitty’s astonishment, did something he had never done before: he made a pre-emptive strike.

Suddenly Sultan was unable to bear the suspense any longer, and in one terrified spasm he threw himself at Kitty with a roar, all jaws and paws. Kitty scrambled up in disarray, and Sultan hit her full on the chest. He bowled her over in a snarling crash before she knew what had hit her, and in a flash he was at her throat. Kitty kicked, roared and twisted, and scrambled up to flee; then Sultan, who had been doing so well, who should now have persevered and put Kitty in her place, spoiled it all and fled himself .

He turned and ran, in horror at his own audacity, and Kitty collected her scattered wits and whirled around in hot pursuit. Sultan fled up the glen, making for Davey as fast as his legs would carry him, with Kitty bounding furiously after him. Elizabeth cringed in terror, and Sally, who had temporarily vacated the pool for a breather, blundered back into it with a mighty splash and disappeared gratefully to the bottom. Sultan came racing flat out to Davey. Then Mama entered this fast-moving scene.

Suddenly Mama reacted to the invasion of her territory, and she sprang from Davey’s side and bounded at the offending Sultan, who found himself running from one terrible tiger slap-bang into the awful wrath of yet another one; and he swerved at full tilt and went racing at a tree.

Now, Sultan knew nothing about trees, but he instinctively threw himself at the nearest one and clawed his way up it. Which, unfortunately, of all the trees in the forest he might have chosen, was built as unhelpfully as a telephone pole. But Sultan hurled himself up this tree with the professionalism born of terror, and Mama bounded at Kitty instead.

All Kitty knew was that she was joyfully putting one impertinent tiger to flight, when suddenly, out of nowhere, she was attacked by an entirely different one. She skidded to an astonished stop, whirled around and fled back across the glen toward the rest of her pride, Mama galloping furiously after her. After ten yards Mama stopped and glowered at Kitty, tail swishing, and Kitty stopped at a safe distance and glared back. Then Mama turned, satisfied that she had made an impression.

Meanwhile, back up his telephone-pole tree, there was Sultan, stuck—clinging with all his might, ears back, tail trembling with the effort. He gave a deep-throated moan, looking down at the unyielding earth and Mama, who was looking malevolently up at him. For a long moment Mama stared; then, ominously, she lay down, in a dangerous-looking crouch, never taking her eyes off him. Sultan gave another moan of despair.

Davey had not moved, but a smile played on his mouth. Big Charlie had awakened, and he was watching the little drama. Elizabeth, still flinching inwardly at Mama’s proximity, could not believe their quiet amusement.

‘Do something, Mr. Jordan!’ she whispered.

Davey just shook his head.

‘Call her off,’ Elizabeth whispered.

Davey did not look at her. ‘He’s got to learn.’

‘All he’s going to learn is about crashing out of a tree! And being set upon at the bottom!’

Davey suppressed a wider smile. ‘He’ll learn about choosing better trees, Dr. Johnson. It’s all the law of nature.’

She hissed at him, ‘To hell with Nature! He’s going to get slashed to pieces.’

But Davey only said, ‘Let them sort it out, Dr. Johnson.’

Elizabeth’s heart reached out to the desperate tiger, and she was angry with the man who could have put a stop to it but who refused to interfere. She wanted to command Mama off, as she would her dog, but she dared not. Not only because Mama terrified her, but because she simply dared not countermand the great Davey Jordan’s orders.

That was his effect. Despite her degrees, despite all her expertise, she felt under his authority; she was a woman in the wilderness surrounded by dangerous animals and not only was he a man—a physically stronger human being—she was also out of her league scientifically. In short, he was the authority, the only person who could control what was going on. She did not know what she despised most in herself: her fear of Mama or her fear of annoying David Jordan. She was transfixed by the plight of poor Sultan, marooned up his tree.

Then suddenly he came sliding down—not voluntarily, but induced by gravity. Sultan’s aching claws could cling no longer; the bark of his unhappily chosen tree began to give way; there was a loud rending of wood above the new moan of anguish from his throat, and Sultan slowly descended, tearing great strips out of the tree trunk. Mama eased herself up to a menacing crouch, and a moan of bright outrage came from her.

Elizabeth started to yell at Mama, then Sultan’s screeching claws could stand the strain no longer, and he let go with a yowl of terror, twisting in midair in a desperate bid to face his awful adversary. Mama scattered backward under the spreadeagled jaws and claws, shocked, and Sultan flattened her. Again involuntarily, but effectively nonetheless. There was an outburst of roars and flying paws as Sultan disengaged himself; then he turned and fled.

Davey had been right: Sultan had not squandered his time while up his tree; he had looked around for a better one, and he staked it out. Now he bounded up it. He scrambled onto a stout, solitary branch halfway up and turned around and snarled.

Nobody could get him now. From his branch he dominated the tree.

fifteen

The afternoon was warm and golden green. Butterflies were fluttering, birds chirping. Sally emerged from the pool and moved cautiously down the glen to graze, her big square mouth chomping like a lawnmower. The lions were all luxuriating in the sun, on their backs, paws in the air, and every now and again Kitty tried to box the butterflies.

The gorillas and chimpanzees had retreated into the trees when Elizabeth came to sit beside the waterfall. Now, first the chimpanzee called Daisy came back, cautiously bobbing behind bushes and peeping at her. Then one by one the others began to appear, brown eyes anxiously peering and ducking in inexpert counterintelligence. But then they began to relax.

Daisy was plucking at the greenery, holding it up in her thumb and forefinger and examining it quizzically, then popping it into her mouth and munching experimentally while she kept an eye on Elizabeth. One by one, the others followed. Only the zoo gorillas remained tense, standing on the fringes of the trees, staring at her suspiciously: they remembered her. She wanted to give them her most winning smile and call out, ‘Come on, King, don’t be frightened.’ But she just wagged her head to show nonaggression and ostentatiously averted her eyes.

Then Daisy began to play the fool. Suddenly she threw her handful of leaves into the air with gay abandon and gave a short bark, slapping her hand on the ground with all fangs barea; then she threw herself into a cartwheel. Whirling in the sunlight, head over heels, crashing through the undergrowth; around and around Daisy went, hands and feet flying. Suddenly the other chimpanzees were copying her, throwing themselves into their circus cartwheels out of the infectious joy of the forest. For the moment Elizabeth forgot her fears of the hunters, and she wanted to clap her hands. The gorillas stared, astonished. Then Daisy spun into a somersault, landed smartly on her feet and galloped straight at King Kong; she leapfrogged over him, slapping her hands on his shoulders, flying over him before he could dodge indignantly. Then Florrie was racing at him.

King Kong jumped aside, and Florrie swerved after him, waving her arms; Daisy cavorted twenty yards up the glen, pretending to run in terror of big King, looking back over her shoulder. King Kong stood uncertainly, flustered and staring. Daisy’s challenge had been cheeky, and he did the only thing he knew to impress her; he rose up onto his hind legs with some misgivings and beat his hairy chest. But Daisy just cavorted more provocatively and came scampering straight back. King Kong blinked in mid-thump, gave a disconcerted grunt, and charged.

Daisy fled gleefully across the glen, and King Kong pounded after her, disconcerted because he was not gaining on her. Now Florrie was joyfully beside her, and then Candy. Nervous little Champ scrambled up from Davey’s side and went galloping off to join them. Daisy, Florrie, Candy, and Champ raced down the glen, then into the trees beyond, with King Kong pounding breathlessly after them, scattering the lions in all directions.

Kitty had flung herself flat as the hairy humanoids thundered past her, but now she sprang over the undergrowth after them. King Kong went thundering through the trees in hot pursuit of the chimpanzees, with Kitty bounding after him.

Then something began to happen in King Kong’s big, serious, sooty breast. Suddenly it felt like fun to be crashing through the trees; it felt wonderful for his great body to be running and chasing. The forest felt like his territory.

Just then Kitty bounded at him with a shattering roar right in his earhole. King Kong flung his shaggy arms over his head and spun around, shocked at the sight of the huge lioness flying at him. He reeled backward wildly and collected his wits, and he reared up onto his hindlegs.

Kitty skidded to a stop and froze, backside up, head down, ears back uncertainly, and suddenly this had become serious. Even the chimpanzees stopped their cavorting, eyes wide.

King Kong and Kitty faced each other in the sudden silence, both hearts thumping. King Kong wanted to have nothing to do with lions, and Kitty didn’t want to have anything to do with bad-tempered gorillas twice her size. For a long, shocked moment King Kong and Kitty stared each other down, one poised at full height, the other crouched low, mutually alarmed at what they’d got themselves into.

Then Kitty’s nerve broke.

Slowly, her back arched, and she hissed; then she began to creep backward, never taking her eyes off King Kong’s. King Kong glared at her all the way with intense relief. Then she turned and took to her heels. She burst into the open glen, and stopped. She looked back at him, tail swishing, then she sat down and proceeded to wash her face.

King Kong glared at her balefully, turned and headed purposefully back into the forest, satisfaction in his heart.

Then they heard the helicopter.

Davey and Big Charlie tensed; it was a faint, faraway throbbing. Elizabeth’s heart was thumping.

Davey and Charlie were looking at each other, twelve paces apart, listening intently, assessing. The sound was getting louder, but it was muffled by the forest.

‘There.’ Big Charlie jerked his head down the mountain.

Davey nodded. ‘Going that way.’ He pointed north, toward Erwin.

They listened, hardly breathing. For a long minute the sound seemed to stay at the same level, and her heart hammered as it occurred to her that it was hovering to lower men; then the noise began to diminish. She closed her eyes and exhaled. Davey and Big Charlie relaxed visibly.

Davey checked the position of the sun, nodded, and Charlie disappeared into the forest, heading up-mountain.

‘Where’s he going?’

‘Just to have a look.’

She clenched her fist and massaged her brow.

‘O God … How much longer are you staying here?’

‘Until the sun starts going down. They won’t find us with helicopters.’

‘Mr Jordan,’ she quavered, ‘that helicopter was not police. The Sheriff told me; it belongs to hunters … and it can lower men all over the place.’

‘They’d have to be very lucky to find us that way, Dr. Johnson.’

She wanted to cling to that assurance. ‘But aren’t you worried?’

It was a silly question. He lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Of course. Please relax, Dr. Johnson. The animals will pick up your vibrations, and they’ll get nervous too.’

She could hardly believe this. Here they all were, at large in America, romping in the forests—even she had been carried away with the magic of it—while the net was closing in on them, hunters drawing closer and closer: yet there lay David Jordan, eyes closed, relaxed. Like Sir Francis Drake finishing his game of bowls while the Spanish Armada hove to on the horizon.

But no, he was not crazy. That was the extraordinary thing. He just has this … she was going to say ‘crazy idea,’ but that wasn’t right either, because even she, for a while, watching the animals, had been caught up in it, the beauty of it—she had glimpsed the world he wanted, and it was not only possible, it was happening.

But no—it was not possible. She had to talk him out of it.

Then she realized the bad logic: she had concluded his venture was crazy because Man would come down like the wrath of God— Man deemed it crazy and would not permit it. But who was Man? The circus owners. The Sheriff of Erwin. Even Jonas Ford—who called his animals ‘exhibits.’ Who were they, to make the rules?

She stopped herself and took a deep breath. Her nerves were stretched so tight she felt like screaming. What was she talking about? Of course it was crazy. She had to make him see it.

But there was his exasperating refusal to talk about it! He almost turned the other cheek. She longed for the protection of darkness. For five minutes she sat in silent turmoil.

She carefully tried another approach. ‘Mr. Jordan? Do you believe in God?’

He lay still, eyes closed. Just when she began to think he was going to ignore her, he opened his eyes and looked at the sky.

‘There’s a poem I read once. About the man who was sent up to God to complain, because the people on earth were suffering.’ He hesitated, then, almost shyly, he began to recite.

I travelled far and, lo, I stood

In the presence of the Lord Most High

Sent thither by the sons of Earth

To earn some answer to their cry

And the Lord listens, puzzled, then He says:

The Earth, sayest thou? … A race of men?…

By Me created? … Sad its lot? …

No—I have no recollection of such place

Such thing I fashioned not!

But the man cries:

But Lord, forgive me if I say

You spake the word and made it all!…

So God thinks a bit; then He says:

Let me think …

Ah … dimly do I recall

A tiny shape I built longst back

—It perished surely? …

Davey turned and looked at her, then he ended:

And the man cries out:

Lord, it existeth still!

She was staring at him. She remembered the poem, from Professor Joad’s book, God and Evil

‘So God’s forgotten about us, has He? And you’re going to recreate the Garden of Eden? You’re His instrument?’

He looked away, embarrassed.

‘I’m not God’s instrument, Dr. Johnson. I’m just doing what is right. Setting free the animals. Where they’ll be happy at last.’

Then he got up quietly and started walking down the glen, with Mama padding behind him in the dappled sunshine.

Sultan took the opportunity to come scrambling down out of his tree.

Little Smoky was only little in comparison to the great grizzly bears he performed with in the circus, and when he wore his dungarees and scout hat and danced behind them with his fire extinguisher, and held paws, he did look little and awfully cute. When he squirted his fire extinguisher on cue, messed up Winnie’s pinafore and knocked off Pooh’s hat, and they whacked him, he did look just like their baby grizzly bear. But he was really a fully grown black bear, and he weighed nearly five hundred pounds; he stood five feet tall on his hindlegs; he could swipe eight feet high with his clawed paws, and he could run faster than the best man can sprint.

Smoky did not remember the forests of his cubhood, nor his mother, with her big, furry, grunting, dangerous protection; all he remembered about those days was the sudden deafening bang, the terror of being suddenly alone and running for his life, then the terror of being caught. They had put him in a cage and fed him milk from a bottle. The cage had become smaller and smaller until he could hardly turn around in it; then one day they’d sold him to the circus. He had not seen another black bear since the day of the terrifying bang.

Now, indeed, Smoky thought he was a grizzly bear, just as the public did. But he thought he was a puny grizzly, and he had an inferiority complex. But he did his job well enough in the circus because bears like to show off once they understand how. The trouble for Smoky had been in understanding how. It had taken a long time to understand what the man wanted him to do, and he’d suffered lots of electric prods and was terrified of the cracking whip. When he’d finally understood what he had to do to earn the reward, the fearsome man started teaching him something new and incomprehensible. It was very confusing and frightening, and he did not know, each time he was taken out of his cage, what was going to be expected of him. Only when he saw the crowds around the ring did he know that it was an old trick he had to do, one he understood. He dreaded the man with the whip, and he was nervous of Winnie and Pooh because of the authority their great size bestowed. The only friend he had was his keeper, and he was devoted to him. His keeper fed and groomed him; he sat in his cage with him and played with him. Smoky would have done anything for him, as long as he understood how.

Elizabeth, watching Smoky, was frightened of him—and terrified of Winnie and Pooh with their huge, expressionless, powerful presences. But her harried heart went out to them all.

From her readings she knew of the Americans’ mentality about the wilderness and their natural heritage, and that no other animal so filled the American mind with dread as did the legendary grizzly bear, even though, once tamed, grizzlies become absolutely devoted to their keepers. Almost certainly the bears would come down out of the forests wherever Davey abandoned them, in search of familiar human protection and food; they would set the fear of God into Americans and have the whole town out to blast them off the face of the earth.

Watching them, her fears were confirmed. They were rooting around, but they were staying within sight of Davey. Every few minutes one of them would look back at him to make sure he was still there.

But, as the afternoon went on, little by little they ventured farther; and finally they were out of sight, grubbing and grunting through the undergrowth, snuffling under fallen logs, nudging over stones. There were lots of things that bears like to eat—roots, berries, fungi, sprouts and grasses—and there were many exciting smells.

For the first time in his life, Smoky found that he was not trundling after Winnie and Pooh. They were not shoving him aside and nudging him away from the food; there was enough to share, with so much space to lumber and huff and bustle through. Slowly, Smoky began to feel like a real bear.

It was a wonderful feeling, of being strong, of bulldozing importantly, shoving aside bushes, flattening shrubs, rolling over logs and burrowing into the rich earth, with no Winnie or Pooh to boss him around. Then Smoky discovered something else: that black bears can climb trees, and grizzlies cannot. And something else: that bears like honey, that he was just naturally good at getting it, and that grizzlies are not.

Suddenly, as he was rooting around, his snout full of earth, he smelled something delicious. He eagerly followed his nose, and saw Winnie and Pooh standing on their hindlegs, swiping up into a tree with their forepaws. Bees buzzed angrily about their heads; in a fork in the tree was a hive.

But the hive was well out of the big bears’ reach. Pooh was trying to climb the tree. He lunged at it, chest first, and flung his forelegs around it. He jumped, and for an agonizing instant he clung there, hairy and bulbous, his hind claws frantically trying to find purchase. Then he slid down with a thump. Winnie tried, taking a lumbering run at the tree trunk, hind paws massively scrabbling. Then, crash, down she came too. Smoky looked at all this hirsute activity, and he just knew what to do.

He knew nothing about trees and nothing about honey; but he knew that he could climb a tree to get it. Smoky lumbered around Winnie and Pooh, giving them a wide berth, looking up into the tree, sizing it up; then he bounded.

His claws sank into the bark, and up he went, effortlessly. He was halfway up before Winnie and Pooh realized it, and was into the beehive snout-first, long tongue licking, claws clinging tight. The bees went berserk, swarming about his furry head in a cloud. The smell of honey flooded down to Pooh and Winnie, and they were beside themselves. Smoky was getting stuck into what they couldn’t reach, and Pooh hurled himself at the tree trunk with anguish and came crashing down again, grunting and thumping. Pooh tried to paw Smoky down out of the tree by jumping and swiping. Winnie joined in, and they bumped into each other in their agitation, but their paws whistled harmlessly beneath Smoky’s rump. The bees were zapping furiously into his nose, his ears and his deep shaggy fur, but it would have taken strong machinery to pry Smoky out of that tree.

He clung tight, his heart thumping joyfully, his eyes screwed up and his snout stretched out, his pink tongue slurping in and out of the beehive. There was honey all over his chops and face and drooling down his neck, and it was absolutely delicious. His nose was a big black sticky swollen mass of stings, he had swallowed scores of bees, but Smoky did not care. Now honey was running down the tree in thick long drools, and Winnie and Pooh were pawing at the trunk, their long pink tongues gratefully licking the bark.

None of them had ever been happier.

sixteen

Elizabeth jerked, eyes wide, hand to her throat.

‘Oh! Hello …’

‘Hi.’ Big Charlie squatted self-consciously five paces away. ‘Sorry.’

‘How do you move so quietly?’

‘Sorry. Where’s Davey?’

She pointed down the glen, her heart still palpitating. ‘He went down there about an hour ago. I think I offended him.’

Big Charlie shook his head slightly. She did not know whether it was in denial, in regret, or even perhaps in sympathy. But right now, the less said the better. She had shot her mouth off with that impetuous remark about God’s instrument—she’d had him talking, and she had blown it. She found herself nursing the hope that if she shut up and stuck with them long enough they would simply not have the heart to reject her. Then she could do some good, when she had won their confidence. O God, she wished it would get dark quickly.

‘Did you find anything up there?

Big Charlie shook his head. ‘No, Dr. Johnson.’

‘Please call me Elizabeth.’ Big Charlie looked embarrassed. She added, ‘We’re all in this together.’

Charlie looked uneasy. He picked up a twig and fiddled with it; then said, ‘We’re going soon, Dr. Johnson. You won’t be able to keep up with us.’

She took a big breath and closed her eyes.

‘Let me worry about that. I’m a big strong girl, haven’t you noticed?’ She tried to make a brittle joke: ‘Maybe too big, you think, hmm?’

Big Charlie smiled, and blushed. ‘I didn’t mean you’re too big.’

She had him talking.

‘Yes, you did—too fat.’

‘You’re not too fat, Dr. Johnson.’

‘Just fat, huh?’

Big Charlie squirmed in smiling embarrassment. ‘You’re just right for me.’ Then he looked horrified, as if he wanted to slap his hand over his mouth. ‘I mean—for my liking.’ He floundered. ‘I mean … I think you’re great like you are,’ he ended, covered in confusion.

She smiled and felt tears burn for a moment.

‘Thank you, Charlie.’

Big Charlie looked desperately down the glen for Davey. But there was no rescue in sight; he pulled himself together and crumbled the twig.

‘But we will worry about you, Dr. Johnson. And … we’ve got enough to worry about right now.’

‘Charlie—don’t let’s talk about it. Let’s wait for David. Let’s just talk …’

A glint came into his hooded eyes.

‘It’s not just for Davey to decide, Dr. Johnson.’

She could have bitten off her tongue for the tactless way she had put that.

‘I know … I’m sorry … but please—can we just talk?’ She shook her head. ‘Tell me about yourself. Or I’ll talk about myself. Are you married, Charlie? Have you got a girl friend? Where is she? Or let’s … tell me about the animals.’

Big Charlie looked at her with disappointment. That she thought she was fooling him. But he was too polite to say so.

‘I’m not married,’ he mumbled reluctantly.

‘Is Davey?’ she said brightly.

‘No.’

‘Have you got a girl?’

Big Charlie looked at the ground, and then a rueful smile twinkled across his face. ‘Sometimes …’ Then a smothered laugh rose from his chest: ‘When I get lucky.’

She was smiling again. Oh, poor Charlie! ‘And Davey?’

Charlie shifted and looked at her apologetically. ‘Can we talk about the animals?’

She clutched at this change of subject. She cast about for something not provocative.

‘The elephants …’

Big Charlie waited. ‘What about them?’

She marshalled her thoughts urgently. ‘I watched that lion play today. And then the chimps. And … it was truly wonderful.’ She shook her head sincerely. ‘It’s been a wonderful day, really. I’ve learned a great deal. But about the elephants … I mean the zoo ones. Your circus elephants. They’re accustomed to traveling, to new places and all that. And to teamwork. So maybe all this isn’t such a shock for them. But you saw how nervous the zoo tiger is, for example—she doesn’t want to mix. So what I’m saying is, I’m sure that the zoo elephants are feeling the same way. I know those elephants—as individuals. I know they must be very frightened. Of —she waved at the forest—‘the vastness … the lack of security.’

Big Charlie stared at the ground, self-conscious at being asked advice by a fully fledged veterinary surgeon. He found it difficult to say, you’re mostly all wrong.

So he said, ‘You’re partly right, Doctor.’

In his cage in the zoo, Little had learned almost nothing about being an elephant. He had learned what time of day he was going to be fed, when he was going to be chained up again by his foot, that in daylight people came to stare at him. He was not allowed to play with Clever: sometimes their chains were just long enough to be able to reach each other with their trunks, but mostly they were chained too far apart, facing opposite directions. For the rest of the time they just rocked on their great feet. When the people came to look at them, they reached out their trunks through the bars, groping for some friendly contact. There was nothing else to do.

He could not see Jamba behind the next gray wall. But he could smell her, and hear her. Sometimes, he could stretch his trunk out through the bars, reach around the dividing walls, and maybe touch trunks with her. Then they sniffed and groped at each other. He yearned to be with her, for her company, her comfort, and her natural authority. Jamba yearned with all her elephantine instinct to mother him and yearned for his fellow elephantness. But they could not see each other. The only way to express themselves was to trumpet, a frustrated, old sound of the jungles that fell back on the Victorian hall.

Now Little had been released from his cage, and he was with old Jamba, in her important elephant company. Although he felt the urgency in the air, he was not really very afraid. He was only very anxious to do the right thing, to keep up with the running, close to Jamba and Clever, so as not to be left behind. After the first long, confused burst of running on the first day, what he mostly felt was a nervous exhilaration—for the sun, the sky and all the green, for all the space and the glorious sense of using his body.

But Jamba was afraid. Not so much of the wilderness itself, but because she knew they were running away from a wrong that had been committed, and that they would be pursued and punished if caught. For an old elephant understands very well what it is and is not allowed to do; she had learned very well from twenty-five years in a cage that she was not allowed outside; she knew that they were being chased. Only for this reason was she afraid of the wilderness, for the perils it had of her terrible pursuers.

Jamba was just naturally responsible for the young elephants now, for Little and Clever. All her life she had yearned for a calf to mother; for years she had bothered and fretted, and had called out to them in the next cage. Now she had them with her, and along the Appalachian Trail she kept them in front of her where she could discipline them, making sure that they kept running from the dangers behind: for that is an old elephant’s natural duty with inexperienced and foolish young elephants. And when they had arrived at this place and all the animals had thrown themselves down, Jamba had not gone to sleep. Not until the first birds began to twitter and she could see again had she fallen asleep, exhausted, but still on her feet, her big ears listening.

Nor had she relaxed her vigilance when they all woke. She had started feeding, urgently, stuffing her belly while she had the chance, before she had to run for her life again. She made sure Clever and Little were in front of her all the time. If one of them went too far ahead she called him back with an imperative squeak: if one dropped back, she curled her trunk around his rump and shoved him forward. She wouldn’t let them get too close to the circus elephants. She did not want to have too much to do with them yet, especially Queenie. Queenie was big, she had tusks, which gave her authority, for might is right in the kingdom of elephants. Queenie watched Jamba balefully.

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