“Find out what happened to him. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me. I just need to know what happened. Could a rogue tiger or something have done this?”
“Possibly. When an animal sees how easy prey human beings are, it will only hunt human beings. These are very dangerous animals. The only way to stop them is to kill them. But I’ve never heard of a case like this. It may have been bandits or militia and the prints are distortions due to the weather.”
“Will you help me?”
Namdi saw tears in her eyes and watched as she tore the tissue to shreds in her hands, the pieces flaking down across her lap and onto the floor. He remembered a similar reaction in his mother when the army had informed them that his father would not be coming home.
“All right, Mrs. Larson. I will look into it.”
As the sun set and baked the sky a soft orange and pink, Namdi Said sat at his desk and reviewed all the photos Mrs. Davis Larson had taken the day her husband went missing. The paw prints were the most interesting of course, but there was something else. On the side of the passenger seat, indented into the fabric, were punctures arched in a semi-circle. There was little fabric torn away. Namdi thought that whatever punctured them would have to be as sharp as razors to not tear anything away.
He pressed a button on his phone. “Ms. Thorpe?”
“Yes, doctor?”
“Call the police and the Department of Wildlife please. Get me the files for every missing person and potential animal attack on the plains for the last six months. Start with around Hyderabad and work your way out. Nothing in the cities, just the plains.”
“Yes, sir. It may take me some time, sir.”
“That is fine. Thank you.”
Namdi threw the photos down and leaned back in his seat. He didn’t like this case. If Nancy was telling an accurate account, her husband was taken in total silence in broad daylight with another person nearby. Tigers and panthers had killed and kidnapped before, but never so brazenly. Something was different.
He noticed for the first time that the hair on his neck was standing up.
CHAPTER
4
Blood coated Thomas’s hands.
He sat near the fire, watching the flames flicker in darkness; whiskey from a flask kept in his breast pocket. This far inland from the coast Andhra Pradesh had little light pollution; the sky blanketed in the sparkle of stars; moon a bright slit in the blackness over lush plains.
Thomas glanced at the other men around the fire; faces worn and tired, small droplets of black darkening their clothes as if it had rained blood. Robert Mason. Not a hunter. Scared and maybe a little dangerous because of his fear. James Holden sat poking a stick into the fire, watching the crimson embers dance in the flames.
The hunt had gone well. They’d followed a herd of elephants for more than four days before the bull separated himself from the rest and they could begin taking shots. The Andhra Pradeshn Park Authorities kept close tabs on all hunters, especially those with British and American passports. Not unwarranted considering the history of colonialism and abuse suffered at the hands of the crown. Rape and genocide and slavery. The people here had no trust for white men; even those that paid handsomely.
If they had killed a cow, or worse, a calf, they would have had to spend the rest of their funds bribing their way out of a prison sentence.
Mason spit in the fire and said, “I’m going to miss these nights. The grass has a sweet smell to it here I haven’t found anywhere else.”
“Like cow shit with sugar on it,” James Holden said. He looked out over a herd of Sambar deer, a dark roving mass in the pale light of the moon. “Good hunt though. Thought Thomas’d drop the rifle and run when that bull charged.”
“That’s the best time to shoot,” Thomas said. “Granted they’re more impervious to pain, but they face you squarely and you can have an excellent target if you know what to look for. Asian elephants here hold their necks at a forty five degree angle so it makes it harder. But an African elephant keeps it horizontal so when they charge, you have a direct shot into the brain. I remember-”
A noise echoed through the night. It seemed to come from the east and they turned toward it. Nothing they could see except tall grass and weeds.
Thomas was the expert of the group but also happened to be the drunkest right now and didn’t feel like chasing sounds in the dark. “There are tigers,” Thomas said, a hint of pleasure in his voice as he saw the looks of his companions. “I wouldn’t worry though; I’ve led tours through this region for thirty years and they haven’t killed a tourist in, oh, a good ten.”
More noises in the dark, closer this time. They seemingly came from the darkness itself as there was little else to hide behind.
“Sounds like laughing,” James said.
“There’s no people here,” Thomas said, putting down his flask and gulping coffee out of a tin cup before picking up his rifle. He slung it over his shoulder and began walking toward the noise, leaving his boots behind and opting to go barefoot.
The dirt and grass was warm under his feet; fire a warm glow in the distance behind him. Their kill lay like a boulder up ahead; the blood congealed in a thick gelatin around the carcass. Thomas kneeled and checked the rifle; chambered. He held it up in front of him, the shoulder rest tucked firmly against the crook between his chest and arm.
Except for the symphony of crickets that increased in volume as he came away from the fire, there was little noise. No laughing; hooves in the distance. Thomas strained to hear, exploring with his eyes like they could pick up subtle noises that his ears could not. As if his hearing needed to adjust to the darkness as much as his sight, he began to hear something. A slow, rhythmic breathing. Deep; a pant.
It was an animal.
From the depth of the breathing, large. Rifle up to firing position and looking down the sight, the barrel firmly aimed at the breathing. Coming from the carcass? Maybe the bull isn’t dead? But the moonlight illuminated the carcass enough that he could see the great belly of the elephant which would have been rising and falling if it were alive.
Light behind the carcass. Yellow orbs reflecting the moon with confident fierceness bred by constant struggle. Figure behind the orbs takes shape: thick head, robust body and short legs. A tigress.
Growling, preparing to defend her scavenged meal. Thomas takes aim, the barrel pointed squarely at her face, waiting for her to lunge. Wait until she moved; she might retreat. It’d be better if she retreated.
The beast turned its head west, toward the camp. Thomas could see the muscles bulge underneath her fur, even with the moon as his only candle. The tigress let out a soft whine and then turned away from the carcass, building to a slow gallop; disappearing into the night.
Thomas exhaled; he hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath but now his lungs ached. Would he have been able to hit his target, a moving target, at night?
Thomas stood and wiped at the dirt on his knee. Fingers tingled as blood returned to them; wave of calm washed over him as he looked up to the moon, as if the light could warm his face like sunshine.
A roar.
Bassed so heavily Thomas felt it in his feet, rising from the ground. It was like the plains themselves had roared; the sound coming from all directions. It filled the air and echoed across the valley.
As he tried to reign in his thoughts, he realized there was another sound. They were screams.
