Thai Horse (54 page)

Hatcher looked to his left at Wonderboy, a small figure moving cautiously parallel to the bamboo thicket. The noise got louder as he approached the bamboo stand. He looked back at W
o
nderboy. The kid was standing in front of the towering stalks of bamboo, looking up at them in obvious wonderment.

Not paying attention, thought Hatcher, and subconsciously he began to walk toward Wonderboy.

Old Scar was hungry, but he followed his usual course, ambling down through the trees to the elephant grass. He was at the far end of the stand when he caught the scent of the men. They were between him and the lake. He lurked in the tall, reed
-
like grass. Then the clamor behind him got louder. Through the earth he could feel the heavy-footed elephants getting closer.

If he left the grass he would be in the open, which meant running through the rice fields.

Old Scar’s tail switched angrily, lie hissed, turned and skulked through the grass toward the lake, keeping his belly close to the ground so he wouldn’t give away his position. He found a dead tree and crawled behind it, peering out with his good eye through the naked branches, waiting. This was his territory. He had walked it out and sprayed it. He had nowhere else to go.

Wonderboy stood at the edge of the tall bamboo, marveling at how high and straight they grew. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it thumping in his ears. He remembered Max telling them to be extra careful in the bamboo thickets and the tall grass. The bamboo grew close together, so he could barely see between the stalks. Fearfully he entered the thicket, shouldering his way through it. He started singing to himself. Then he began singing aloud, but very low, scat-singing the chorus from ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’:

‘Da da da da do.
. .
dat dat de da da do.
.

The singing calmed his nerves. He decided to go through the bamboo to the edge of the short grass and wait. He could see only a few feet in front of him. Wonderboy had thought he was finished with taking risks, yet here he was, testing himself, stalking an angry, half-blind, man-eating five-hundred-pound cat that could jump out of nowhere at any moment. The sporting aspect of the hunt suddenly seemed stupid to him. It would be so much easier, he thought, to spot the tiger from the elephants and kill it.

Hatcher, too, moved cautiously through the bamboo. The noise boys and elephants
w
ere much closer now. It was pure cacophony. If the old cat was in there, he would soon make his move.

Hatcher was thinking about Wonderboy, wondering whether the kid was thinking smart. Scared as he was, he might just stumble in the grass. Grass could be deceiving. The kid could walk right up and step on the cat’s tail before he saw him. H
a
tcher broke through the bamboo stand to the short buffalo grass. Fifty yards on the other side was the tall grass, moving slightly with the light breeze.

Hatcher walked along the e
d
ge of the bamboo thicket toward Wonderboy with the waist-high grass swishing past him and insects swarming in his wake. He walked, stopped and listened, then went on.

He began to tense up. The noise boys and elephants were nearing the far side of the tall grass.

Through the twigs of the dead tree, Old Scar could see one of the elephants looming above the tall reeds and hear the thrashers beating on the pots and yelling although he could not see them. The old tiger was thirsty. He was hungry. He had lost his patience.

One of the big elephants started into the tall grass. Old Scar’s keen ears heard sounds other than the beating of pots and yelling, lie moved away from the tree stump, crawling on his belly, soundlessly moving through the grass toward the lake.

From atop his elephant, Max Early scanned the sea of tall elephant grass, a wide strip three hundred yards deep that stretched almost half a mile from the lake to the cassava fields. Beyond it was the strip of short grass and the tall bamboo. Below him on the ground, Quat was checking the ground, looking for the pugs of the rogue cat. He found the tracks leading into the grass and pointed toward the lake.

‘Anta rai,’
Quat said softy.
‘Seua, t
h
aleh saap.’

‘He says it’s heading toward the lake and that’s dangerous,’ said Early. ‘I was hoping he’d break out of this grass into the open and run for it.’

Early blew a single sharp blast on a chrome whistle. It pierced the air, a sound higher than the clatter the noise boys were making. Everything stopped.

The elephants, spaced about a hundred yards apart, stopped and began pulling up tufts
of
grass with their trunks and eating them. Nobody moved. There wasn’t a sound. Then Early thought he heard something. He leaned forward, his sharp ears listening.

‘What the hell’s that?’ he said, half aloud.

‘You see something?’ Earp asked.

‘I
hear
something. Listen.’

They listened. Earp cocked his head to one side.

‘Is that somebody
singing?’
Early asked.

‘Singing?’

‘I swear to God I hear somebody singing. Sounds like it’s coming from over there in the bamboo.’

‘Got to be Wonderboy,’ said Earp.

‘Is he nuts?’

‘He’s scared. Yell over there and tell him to shut up.’

‘Uh-uh. If the kid answers, he’ll pinpoint himself.’

‘The tiger isn’t after him.’

‘We don’t know what that tiger’s thinking.’

‘Something wrong?’ Riker called out.

Early held his hand up and put his fingers to his lips. He pointed to Riker and then swept his hand across the elephant grass and the low reeds toward the wide strip of bamboo. He urged his own beast straight ahead, peering through his glasses in the general direction of the sound he had heard.

‘Get ready,’ he said softly to Earp.
We may have a situation on our hands.’

Hatcher was moving quickly down the edge of the bamboo strip toward Wonderboy when he heard the whistle. The noise men stopped beating their pans. He stopped and waited for a moment. It got deathly still.

Then he, too, heard the singing. Wonderboy was closer than he thought. And lie was somewhere in the bamboo thicket, a dangerous place to be. Hatcher doubled his pace, moving down the outer edge of the bamboo thicket until he could hear Wonderboy’s soft song somewhere nearby. He e:ntered the thicket, moving as quietly as he could to
w
ard the voice. The tall stalks of stiff bamboo clattered as he made his way through them toward Wonderboy.

Old Scar, too, was startled by the whistle. Then the noi
s
e stopped and the silence confused him. He stopped and listened, heard the elephants pulling up grass.

He heard the sound in front of him:
‘Do do do do da.
. .
dat dat do da da do.
.

And he heard someone co
m
ing through the grass behind him. He waited, his muscles tightening. The elephants started moving again; he increased his pace.

Old Scar was spooked. He d
e
cided to go through the bamboo to the open field beyond and make a dash for it. His instincts told him to mo
v
e as quietly as possible until he was in the open. There was activity all around now. Enemies were closing in on him.

He crept forward again, out
o
f the tall elephant grass into the short stuff. Now he really hugged the ground, moving one paw in front
of
the other, stealthily, cautiously, slowly crawling toward the bamboo, moving away from whoever was coming up in the rear, moving away from the elephants, his good eye jumping nervously, checking the route as he crept toward the strange sound.

Early stopped his elephant again and scanned the grass with his binoculars. He stopped, freezing the glasses on one spot.

‘Something?’ Earp whispered.

‘Not sure
.

Early watched the tall grass swaying in the wind. Then he saw one short stretch moving against the wind, almost imperceptibly, like a ripple in the ocean. The movement stopped. Then it moved again. Another four or five feet and stopped again.

‘Jesus,’ Early breathed, ‘there it is.’

‘Where?’ Earp asked.

‘There, moving toward the bamboo in the short grass. Once it gets near the bamboo, if it sees anything it’ll probably charge.’

Early handed the binoculars to Earp and directed the elephant toward the movement. The big animal lumbered forward as Earp peered nervously through the glasses.

‘I don’t see it,’ Earp said.

‘Right in front of us, about a hundred yards. Watch the buffalo grass,’ Earp said.

Then Earp saw the ripple, the slight movement through the short reed
-
like grass, then it stopped again.

‘Jesus, you’re right,’ Earp said.

‘Where the
hell
is Wonderboy?’ Early asked.

The elephant moved quickly toward the thicket.

‘Can’t we start the racket again, scare it off?’ asked Earp.

‘No, none of that,’ Early snapped. ‘That cat’s crazy. That cat’s a Mexican jumping bean. We shake him up now, he might just charge out of pure cussedness.’

Early’s voice was clear and clean: ‘Wonderboy, stop singing. Back out of that bamboo strip real slow. Don’t answer me, just do it. Now!’

‘Shit,’ Hatcher said, hearing Early’s caution. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t have time to stop. He kept moving ahead.

Old Scar, too, heard the man yell and stopped. Then he saw movement a few yards away. His lips peeled back from his fangs and his nostrils sniffed the air. The noise stopped. He kept moving forward.

Through his good eye he saw movement in the bamboo. It was moving away from him and he followed

it. Behind him the elephants were picking up their pace. The ground trembled as they stomped through the tall grass. Old Scar moved faster, creeping toward the tall, hard shafts and the o
p
en fields on the other side.

Then he saw the two-legged creature, a strange- looking animal with a face that was half black and half white. It was frightened. Old Scar could smell his fear. The creature was backing into the bamboo that stood between Old Scar and freedom. He was ca
r
rying a stick. The tiger’s claws extended, the muscles in his shoulders rippled as he got ready to charge.

He crept out of the grass and into the bamboo.

‘Christ, the cat’s in the bamboo,’ Early said, still watching the movement through the binoculars.

‘Where the
hell
is Wonderboy?’ Earp said.

‘He’s in there, too, I can see the stuff moving. The cat’s on to him.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Earp said.

‘What the fuck,’ Early said, refocusing the glasses. ‘Is Hatch in there too?’

‘Who the hells knows?’

Riker and Gallagher were veering toward them, and so was the elephant Melinda and Prophett were riding closing in on the bamboo thicket.

Hatcher started to run toward Wonderboy, who had stopped singing. He plunged through the bamboo, which clattered after him as he charged through it, breaking off stalks, stumbling, keeping his rifle pointed up so he wouldn’t accidentally get .off a shot and hit Wonderboy.

Old Scar, too, was moving faster, creeping through the stalks of bamboo, trying to move without revealing his position. He could see the strange creature ahead of him, backing up, looking around w
il
dly. The creature with the black-and-white face was t
w
enty yards away. Old Scar was accustomed to hunting in the bamboo thickets. He could see the creature, but it could not see Scar.

The strange creature stumbled, lost his balance, turned away from him, thrashing about, trying to stay on his feet.

The big cat charged.

Hatcher saw Wonderboy falter and fall. He heard the bamboo stalks cracking off before he saw the cat. He ran toward Wonderboy, who was floundering around, trying to get in a sitting position.

‘Stay down,’ Hatcher barked in
h
is shattered voice. ‘He’s charging.’

‘Oh God no!’ Wonderboy screamed.

Hatcher was ten feet away from the kid when the tiger broke loose of the bamboo stalks. He threw the 375 H&H up to his shoulder, aimed for the chest of the powerful beast as it charged closer and squeezed off a shot.

Ping!

The rifle misfired.

Hatcher didn’t lose a beat. He th
r
ew the rifle at the rogue and dived on top of Wonderboy, grabbing his gun and rolling on his side. Nearby he heard an elephant trumpet, felt the ground shake as the big creature charged toward them. But he did not let that distract him. He was on his side and the big tiger leaped from ten feet away, its open mouth showing dripping fangs, its one eye gleaming ferociously.