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 were 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. Hatcher 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 edge 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, thaleh 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 toward 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 noise 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 coming through the grass behind him. He waited, his muscles tightening. The elephants started moving again; he increased his pace.
Old Scar was spooked. He decided to go through the bamboo to the open field beyond and make a dash for it. His instincts told him to move 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 of 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.