Kitabı oxu: «Fear No Evil»

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. …