Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 46

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A great dark shape crouched at the edge of the ramp, watching him with eyes that glowed like opals even in the muted beam of the torch.

As the light struck it the creature seemed to dissolve like a puff of smoke, almost supernatural in its uncanny stealth.  Daniel recoiled instinctively against the side of the fork-lift, trying to probe the darkness with the torch.

Then suddenly there was a sound that ripped across his nerve ends like an emery wheel.  It echoed through the dark cavern of the warehouse and rang against the high roof.  It was a hacking cadence, like a wood-saw cutting metal, and it set his teeth on edge.  He knew what it was instantly, but he found it difficult to believe what he was hearing.

Leopard!  he breathed, and with a chill in his guts he realised his danger.

All the advantage was with the beast.  The night was its natural environment.  Darkness made it bold; darkness made it aggressive.

He pulled the red filter off the lens of the torch and now the bright white shaft of light sprang out across the warehouse.  He swept it back and around, and he glimpsed the cat again.  It had moved in behind him, circling in.  That was the most hostile manoeuvre.  The predator circles its prey before rushing in for the kill.

As the light hit it, the leopard flashed away.  With one lithe bound, it disappeared behind the wall of tea-chests, and its fierce chorus of hatred echoed through the darkness once again.  It's hunting me!

Whilst he was warden of Chiwewe one of his rangers had been mauled by a leopard, and Daniel had been first on the scene to rescue him.  Now he recalled vividly the terrible injuries the beast had inflicted.

The other dangerous cat of Africa, the lion, does not have the instinctive knowledge of how best to attack the upright two-legged figure of a man.  He will charge in and knock a victim down and then will bite and claw indiscriminately at whatever part of the man's body he can reach, often gnawing and crunching a single limb until the victim is rescued.

The leopard, on the other hand, understands the human anatomy.

Baboons form a large part of the leopard's prey, and it knows how to go directly for the head and the vulnerable guts of the primate.  Its usual attack is to leap on to its victim and hook into his shoulders with the front claws, while its back legs kick like those of a domestic cat playing with a ball of wool.

The long talons, unsheathed, will disembowel a man with half a dozen swift kicks, stripping his guts out.  At the same time the leopard sinks his teeth into the face or throat and with one front claw reaches over to hook the back of its victim's scalp and tear it off the skull.

Often the dome of the skull comes away with the scalp, like the top sheared off a softboiled egg, leaving the brain exposed.  All this flashed through Daniel's mind as the leopard circled him, its wild savage call echoing through the open bays of the warehouse.

Still crouched beside the fork-lift, Daniel zipped his leather jacket tightly up under the chin to protect his throat and slid the nylon bag around from the small of his back to cover his stomach.  Then he shifted the screwdriver to his right hand, and with his left swung the torch to cover the leopard's menacing cirCles.  My God, he's a huge brute! Daniel realised, as he saw the true size of the cat.  In the torchlight it was panther black.

Bushlore has it that the dark-coloured cats are the most ferocious of the breed.

It was impossible to hold the leopard in the beam of light.  It was as elusive as a shadow.  Daniel knew he would never make it back to where he had broken into the warehouse.  It was too far to go with his back unprotected.  The cat would be on him before he had covered half the distance.  He flicked the torch beam away for a second, seeking another avenue of escape.

The fish sacks.  He saw the pyramid piled against the near wall, reaching as high as the windows, thirty feet above the warehouse floor.

If I can just reach the skylight, he whispered.

There was a long drop down the outside wall, but he had the nylon rope to lower himself at least part of the way.  Move!  he told himself.

You're running out of time.  it's going to rush you any moment now.

He screwed up his nerve to leave the haven of the fork-lift.

The machine covering his back was a solid comfort, while in the open he was vulnerable and puny against the speed and strength of the leopard.

The moment he left the shelter of the fork-lift, the leopard sawed again, its savage cry more vicious and eager.  Get out of id Daniel yelled at it, hoping to disconcert it with the sound of a human voice.

The cat ducked sideways and disappeared behind a pile of packing cases, and Daniel made his mistake.

it was a stupid, unforgivable mistake.  He, of all people, knew that you must never run from a wild beast.  In particular you must never turn your back on one of the cats.  Their instinct is to pursue.  If you run, they must charge, just as a domestic cat cannot resist the flight of the mouse.

Daniel thought that he might just be able to reach the pyramid of fish sacks.  He turned and ran, and the leopard exploded in a silent rush out of the darkness behind him.  He never even heard it come.  It landed with all its weight and the full momentum of its charge in the middle of his back, between his shoulder-blades.

Daniel was hurled forward.  He felt its claws bite in and hold, and for a moment he thought they were hooked into his own flesh.  Instead of bearing him down to the concrete floor the leopard slammed him into the pile of sacks.  They cushioned the impact, but still it drove half the air from Daniel's lungs and he felt as though his ribs had collapsed.

The leopard was still mounted high on his shoulders, but as Daniel staggered under its weight he realized that its claws were hooked into the leather of his jacket and the thick woollen sweater beneath it.

Somehow Daniel managed to keep on his feet, supporting himself against the sloping wall of sacks.  He could feel the cat on his back gather itself, bringing up its back legs, coiling its body like a spring, ready to lash downwards across his buttocks and the back of his thighs.  It would open his flesh to the bone, slicing through blood vessels and arteries, a crippling injury from which he would probably bleed to death within minutes.

Daniel pushed off from the sacks with both arms, flipping backwards, rolling his body into a ball with his knees up under his chin.  The leopard's claws tugged at the nylon belt of the bag and then kicked on downwards, but Daniel had drawn his legs up and clear.  The cat's back paws with the curved claws outspread, struck at air, missing his flesh.

Now man and beast with their combined weight crashed to the concrete floor.  Daniel was a big man and the leopard was underneath him.  A single hissing snarl was forced from its lungs by the impact and Daniel felt its claws release their hold in the leather of his jacket.  He twisted violently and reached over his shoulder with one hand, the screwdriver still clutched in the other.  As he came to his knees, he seized a thick fold of skin at the scruff of the leopard's neck and, with the strength of his terror, tore the creature from his back and hurled it against the pile of packing-cases.

It rebounded at him like a rubber ball.

The torch had been knocked from his grip by the leopard's first charge.

It rolled across the concrete floor until it came up against one of the packing-cases.  Its beam was angled upwards now and reflected from the pale plywood case.  The reflection gave Daniel just enough light to anticipate the leopard's charge.

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