The Huntsman (5 page)

This
tiger seeks out humans though it is not old and infirm. It has killed seven,
three of whom you might consider innocent. Its next victim may be one of those
rangers trying to protect the tiger’s territory. It would be my great shame if
his wife or children asked me why I did not fulfill my duty, that is, act
appropriately.

Though
I am a hunter, I nonetheless honor the principle of ahimsa and treat all life
with great deference. I will hunt this tiger and it will have a fair chance to
hunt me. In doing so, we will both bow to Dharma.

I
will help you and Professor Akiyama. Go back to your hotel and await me there.
In a few days you can fill me in on this creature of yours.” His eyes twinkled
and a grin grew. “Unless of course, the tiger has other plans.”

Miranda
stood rooted, at a loss for what more to say. His right hand grasped the spear.
“Come.” Blade forward, he walked the dogs to the half-eaten girl. Tails wagging
furiously, the two sniffed torn clothing and surrounding prints. “Hunt.” The
dogs broke to his flanks and raced for the trees. Janesh strode toward the
forest’s edge. Miranda watched the modern-day primitive with a mixture of awe
and wonder. With no conscious forethought, she called out to him. “What are
you, some kind of Tarzan?”

Janesh
took two more steps then stopped, head turned over his shoulder. “Dr. Logan.
Apes did not raise me.” He continued forward. A few strides more and the woods
swallowed the Lord of Men.

CHAPTER
8  
Greystoke

A
half-mile into the dense forest, Janesh bent on one knee. He had to gather
himself. Miranda Logan had shaken him to the core. An ethereal beauty combined
with raw sensuality made her difficult to ignore—and he’d tried. From the
moment she’d entered the clearing he’d matched her red hair to the woman his
neighbors said searched for him. He’d busied himself in aimless shuffling to
forestall the emotional tsunami threatening to engulf his being.

Not
since Cambridge had a woman affected him so. That one had ignited an inferno
within a young man unprepared for her casual dismissal. Crushed and discarded,
he’d spent lonely years with a crippled heart he’d learned to ignore. And now
this one had reached into his soul. He had to enter it and cool the embers long
since doused. He needed to focus. Its absence might kill him.

Eyes
closed, his breathing slowed. He dived deep within, straight for his
ātman, his inner self. The air thickened and grew silent. His muffled
heart became a distant thump. He dove deeper, deeper. To a place where
stillness shrouded his essence. A gate closed on the young woman, the rangers,
Cambridge, and Miranda. Their presence faded within his soul’s impregnable
fortress. Of a moment his senses fled their bonds. Beneath him he heard a
tunneling worm, scented the mucus it trailed. Air swirls from a passing
butterfly caressed his back. Power surged from an indestructible core. His eyes
opened to a clarity and resolution that mocked distance. Duncan and Ronan sat
quietly, protective of their master’s vulnerable state. He became one with the
forest’s moods and rhythms. Where a man had knelt, a huntsman rose.  An
unspoken command sent the dogs dashing through the undergrowth.

Janesh
followed the dogs along a clear trail the tiger had left. Ahead a two-inch-deep
pug marred the damp earth. He closed a fist and placed it palm down within. It
did not touch any sides. Though the print matched ones he’d seen around the
kill, he crouched to sniff. It too matched. Farther along, a bamboo thicket
revealed several bent shoots. He leaned in to smell the near invisible fur
strands protruding from a crack. The stem still drained sap. At most four hours
had elapsed. He tracked a monster that stood four and a half feet at the
shoulder and weighed close to seven hundred pounds.

Janesh
rose to scan the area. Chattering monkeys and warbling birds confirmed no
immediate danger but the slightest mistake could be his last. He gathered
leaves from a nearby Behria plant to rub across his body. Its insect repellant
provided relief from the myriad pests mistaking him for food.

India’s
tigers had undergone a tremendous revival. Fifty years after jettisoning its
socialist underpinnings, the country’s booming economy had drained the rural
regions of peasants mired in abysmal poverty. Cities and urban centers offered
the Shudra caste a chance to escape the fate destined at birth and their
children a path to prosperity. National parks and tiger preserves had expanded
into the abandoned countryside. Tadoba Andhari, once 242 square miles, now
covered almost 700. The bill arrived as an emboldened tiger population who’d
lost their fear of rarely encountered humans. On average they’d grown bigger
too and the added strength provided an effortless twenty foot vertical leap.
The combination made for a formidable predator.

Along
the faint trail, Janesh became a silent whisper whose passage left no mark.
Still, a woodpecker ceased its rat-a-tat-tat at the sun-darkened wraith’s
approach. A startled peacock took furious flight, wings flapping like a
dealer’s deck shuffle. The forest’s denizens continued their babble. Janesh
quickened his pace. Several more pugs left no doubt the tiger headed for Tadoba
Lake.

Steps
became miles before he crept behind a tree where the forest had begun to thin.
Beyond, a large meadow expanded leftward to the horizon. Straight across and
rightward, a three-hundred yard expanse awaited before the forest resumed. Four
miles beyond, the lake’s languid waters lapped its southern shoreline. Groups
of Gaur bison, Nilgai and Chousingha antelopes, Sambar, Spotted, and Barking
deer grazed while their young pranced and chased one another. Birds flitted and
dove for insects amid others who squabbled for the right to do so.

A
breeze floated from the open expanse. Needless habit flared his nostrils,
sampled the incoming scents. Grass feeders did not remain calm with hungry
predators about. Still, tiger patience and camouflage made them notorious
ambushers. Janesh stepped into the open. Cautious heads rose to view the
newcomer. Sensing no danger, the adults resumed feeding. Cued off their mothers,
the young continued play. Spear at the ready, Janesh strode across the meadow,
a wary eye glued to the scattered patches of high grass and thickets.

Halfway
out, movement from the far right caught his eye. He turned his head and froze.
Duncan and Ronan, noses to the ground, loped in the opposite direction. Brain
gears whirled and locked. The tiger had circled behind him. Janesh broke for
the tree line still two hundred yards away. Spooked antelope hooves drummed for
the distant horizon. Superb conditioning injected oxygen-rich blood into legs
that blurred the distance. He spun behind a tree and looked back.

Tigers
reached speeds up to forty-five mph but their size limited the distance to
fifty, sixty yards. If its prey took off beyond that range, tigers didn’t
bother giving chase. Sure enough, Janesh glimpsed a flash of orange and black
just inside the opposite trees. It strode out from the shade. Foreboding,
malevolent eyes laser-locked on him. From the left, Duncan and Ronan sounded
the chase. The tiger snarled and bared its huge fangs before disappearing into
the forest’s gloom. Janesh raced back across the now empty meadow. They had
him. After nine fruitless days he would not lose the trail.

Four
hours later the three stood on the bank of a narrow tributary that fed the
lake. They’d lost the trail. Powerful swimmers, the tiger had sought refuge in
the water. Dusk wanted to descend. At sunrise they’d pick up the trail on the
other side. He did not relish tracking a tiger at night and stumbling into a
leopard.

Darkness
left him no longer able to distinguish between edible berries and the poisonous
ones. Before full night set in he returned to the river for a drink, wary of
any lurking marsh crocodiles. When his thirst slacked, he climbed into a tree
he’d spotted while foraging. Two massive branches grew at an angle that allowed
him to wedge in against the trunk. With falling out eliminated, only a hungry
python might pose a problem.

Janesh
slowed his breathing and once again entered a meditative state. While not
sleep, it allowed his ears to remain alert. Fed and content, Duncan and Ronan
returned from their hunt. Curled around the tree’s base, they too kept alert
ears.

*
* *

Orange
singed the eastern sky but the tributary’s dark waters remained murky. Janesh
scanned its placid surface. Behind him Duncan and Ronan paced, skittish over
his intention. All dogs could swim though his companions didn’t like it. A year
ago a crocodile waiting on a river bed, surfaced, grabbed Duncan by the head,
then submerged to drown its prey. Its refusal to let the dog go allowed Janesh
to plunge a knife into its soft underbelly and gut the reptile. While its
brethren tore the dead croc apart, Janesh swam Duncan back to shore, a
frightened Ronan close behind. Duncan’s struggle to escape had opened a
head-to-nose tear. Now only devotion and loyalty permitted the coming plunge.

Janesh
waited for their confidence to build. Though inner calm left no room for
impatience, he wanted to cross now. The cool morning air insured the coldblooded
marsh crocodiles inhabiting the river remained sluggish and less alert. Ronan,
ever first, approached the water’s edge. A futile sniff tried to detect
anything amiss. Spear strapped to his back, Janesh walked into the river. Ronan
followed. Duncan hesitated a moment longer before joining his pack. When the
water reached his chest, Janesh raised his eyes in prayer. “Protect me, Lord
Vishnu, that I may protect my friends. But if not take me not them.”

Strong,
silent strokes powered him toward the opposite bank a scant sixty yards away.
His feet paddled beneath the surface to avoid any splash. Duncan and Ronan made
no sound. Neither did the quiet morning.

When
a stroke touched bottom, Janesh stood and thanked the Preserver. Duncan and
Ronan rushed ahead to shake their coats dry. He knelt to pat and scratch while
they pressed against him and licked his face. Bonds reaffirmed, the two
answered a question nagging him. They trotted off downstream before pausing to
look back and wonder what he waited for. Janesh smiled and relented. Unlikely
the tiger would have swum upstream. He unstrapped the spear and let them take
point. Four miles later, with the sun above the trees, Duncan and Ronan sniffed
around a pug.

Janesh
rose from his examination to gaze into the forest. The tiger still headed for
Tadoba Lake six miles beyond this last tree stand. He concluded the rangers’
arrival must have forced it to abandon the half-eaten woman. Its hunger
unsatisfied, the abundant wildlife around the lake made for easy hunting.

If
the tiger prowled between them and Tadoba, confronting it in the woods had pros
and cons. Behind him the calm river gurgled and lapped. Something splashed. Too
many variables, he thought. Plans did not survive encounters with unpredictable
tigers. He had to trust he could think faster than it could act. Best just to
keep the dogs close. Janesh stepped toward the tree line. “Come.”

Despite
the thick woods and rising heat, the three made good time. Less than two hours
later, their passage unchallenged, the trees began to thin. Slouched and bent
he crept toward one and took a knee. Duncan and Ronan laid down on either side.
Before them open space bordered a lake that stretched for miles in all
directions. Antelope and deer grazed on the succulent grasses along the shore.
Eagles and hawks circled the waters. Some dove when fish ventured too near the
surface. Fewer still rose with one hooked in their talons. As one they stood to
step from the tree.

Nearby
grazers did not flee at their approach but maintained a wary eye and constant
distance. At the lake’s edge Janesh swirled the water before cupping his hands
to drink. When the dogs took their fill, the three resumed the hunt. Janesh
grew uneasy. The lake’s water table extended beneath them making the ground damp
and soft. Traction might prove treacherous if they had to run at speed.

Around
them animals began to trot away, some in open gallop. The dogs slowed, eyes
fixed on a thicket sixty yards away. Low growls rasped from their throats.
Janesh gripped the spear with both hands. A giant tiger emerged from the
underbrush, its twelve-foot length at once magnificent and terrifying. The
forest’s monarch, full in its prime, master of its realm, fixed them with a
savage glare. With horrifying intent it slinked to a position that placed them
within its chase range.

Janesh
descended into a meditative trance from which his senses permitted only
instinct and reflex. Duncan and Ronan trembled for release. He granted it.
“Hunt.”

 They
raced for the beast that did not hold its ground or retreat. The tiger charged.
Janesh’s unease grew to alarm. The ground betrayed the dogs’ superior speed and
agility. Their smaller paws sank into the soft earth creating a suction effect.
The tiger’s huge paddle-like paws distributed its weight. It singled out Ronan.
Massive jaws opened. Saber-like fangs gleamed. Ronan swerved fast enough to
avoid death but a claw laid open an eleven-inch gash along its hindquarter.

Duncan
bit deep into the tiger’s rump before dashing away. Distracted from pursuing
the injured dog, the tiger roared its fury. At the sight of a limping Ronan,
Janesh bellowed his own. The tiger whirled. Cold, murderous eyes lasered the
distance to the near-naked human. It crouched.

Janesh
had a chance to make the trees but the beast would leap on his back before he
climbed up. He hurled his spear and broke for the water. The unfamiliar object
hurtling toward the tiger caused it to hesitate, bought Janesh precious
seconds. Dim awareness showed the lake’s denizens had paused to watch the unfolding
drama. Behind him the thump of footfalls confirmed he’d missed. He splashed
into the water. In leaps and bounds the tiger powered closer. Janesh filled his
lungs and dove. Strong, efficient leg kicks thrust him deeper. Above him the
tiger swam in fruitless search. Below him three crocodiles rose from the
lakebed.

At
this depth, only the lake’s colder water saved him from certain death. Torpid
lethargy slowed the reptiles’ rise. The warm-blooded mammal they chased
somersaulted and swam for the paddling tiger. Blade in hand, Janesh twisted
sideways and sliced the tiger open along its length. Lungs afire, he continued
for the shore, bursting through the surface when his feet touched ground.
Gasping for breath, he turned to look back. A crocodile tail flashed from
below. The tiger jerked once, twice. Without a sound, its head sank below the
water.

At
the shore an anxious Duncan barked and paced. Urged him to come out. Ronan held
his hind leg rigid, limped along on three. He hurried to join them. Janesh dropped
down to wrap an arm around each. He scratched and patted. They licked and
crooned. Once more the three had cheated death to reaffirm their bonds. None
gave a thought to what the future might hold.