Philip Kerr - Esau

‘I don’t think you’ll have to go outside,’ she hissed back at him. ‘Whatever it is is coming in.’

‘It’s coming in,’ Jack repeated. ‘Christ, she’s right.’

The ripping sound grew louder as the creature’s claws scored several wide tears in the orange material of the Stormhaven tent. Swift caught sight of something through a slash and, as coolly as she was able, said:

‘Better let it make a decent hole first. Miles. You wouldn’t want to shoot the tent.’

‘Get ready to turn on those flashlights,’ said Jameson.

Moonlight slashed into the tent, followed by a wave of cold air — and then something animal hit Swift’s nostrils, only more powerfully this time.

‘Hold it,’ she said through teeth that were chattering with fear and cold. Her heart felt as if it had stopped pumping blood to her head. She tensed herself, waiting for the inevitable moment when the creature would be inside.

A low growl rumbled through the tent, then followed another, more furious rip of claws, and a gaping hole appeared in the slashed-to-ribbons nylon wall, big enough to have allowed Swift to crawl out. Or something else to crawl in. For a moment she could see nothing but the snow on the ground outside the tent. In the moonlight something moved, slowly at first and then picking up speed. There was a louder growl and the shadowy form became something more substantial as what looked like a head pushed through the pennants of nylon that trailed across the hole in the tent. Suddenly, an almost luminous yellow eye met Swift’s own.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘now,’ and dropped her head flat against the groundsheet so as to avoid being shot herself.

Flashlight filled the tent a second before Jameson pulled the trigger. There was a short coughing noise, like the sound of a crossbow being fired, as the carbon dioxide cylinder in the pistol discharged its chemical restraint, then a loud, inhuman roar as the creature recoiled first from the light and then from the dull pain of the dart. Then they heard something running lightly over the frozen crust of the snow.

They all scrambled to find an exit.

‘Did you get it?’ said Jack.

‘I think so.’

‘I hope so,’ said Swift.

Mac was laughing almost hysterically.

‘Those teeth. The size of those bloody teeth. That was all I could see. Christ, I’m shaking. Where’s my bloody camera?’

‘It’s not as big as I thought,’ said Jameson.

‘That’s because you weren’t right beside it,’ said Swift.

Jack was out first, shining his own flashlight around the top of the Rognon, looking for some sign of the creature. Near the corridor something was still running, its breathing loud and laboured.

‘It’s heading back down the ice corridor,’ he shouted. ‘To the mountain.’

Swift felt a pang of regret. If it jumps in the crevasse when it’s still full of dope, she thought, it will be killed.

Mac, camera in hand, was at Jack’s side now. He fired off several shots and the Rognon was illuminated with flashgun light, as if by lightning. Swift and Jameson joined them on the Rognon, collecting equipment and preparing to give chase. Jameson brought the Zulu arms rifle in case he needed to make a second, more distant shot.

Forty-five metres away the creature roared again as the Ketamine Hydrochloride in the dart syringe began to take effect. It was a roar Jameson seemed to recognize, like the voice of an old friend.

‘That’s no anthropoid,’ he said, first to himself and then, more loudly, to the others. His keen eyes caught the tired flick of a long, well-muscled tail as the creature staggered down the corridor toward the rock face.

‘Stay back,’ he yelled. ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a cat. A big cat.’

Feet splayed, its head lower than its shoulders, the big cat faced its pursuers and growled indignantly. Almost two metres long, with a long thick tail that looked like a fur wrap, the cat had a coat of pale grey fur with dark rosette-like markings.

‘Be very careful,’ Jameson warned the others. ‘He still might have some fight left in him.’

‘What is it?’ asked Swift as the four of them walked slowly toward the cat, now rapidly succumbing to the analgesic. ‘Some kind of mountain lion?’

The cat sat down as if resigned to its fate.

‘That is one of the rarest animals in the world,’ said Jameson. ‘ Panthera uncia. A snow leopard. I never, ever thought I’d see one. Mostly they stay across the border in Tibet. There the people believe that some of the great Lamas turn themselves into snow leopards to get around the mountains or escape from their enemies.’

Grunting as if in assent to what Jameson had just said, the snow leopard lay down on its side. A slow flick of the tail and a profound sigh were enough to persuade Jameson that it was now safe to approach.

‘Maybe this is a Lama on the run from the Chinese commies,’ said Mac.

‘Look at the size of those pugs,’ said Jameson, the veterinarian in him smiling in admiration of the animal.

‘He’s a real beauty all right,’ agreed Mac, and took a photograph.

‘A male,’ said Jameson. ‘Must weigh well over forty-five kilogrammes.’

The syringe had lodged deep in the animal’s rich pale fur in the muscle mass just below the left shoulder. Jameson knelt down near the leopard and gently withdrew the dart. The animal’s eyes remained open and the vertical pupils fixed. Now there was hardly any breath at all.

‘Is he going to be all right?’ Swift asked anxiously. ‘The eyes — he looks like he’s dying.’

‘Ketamine does that,’ said Jameson. ‘The eyelids stay open.’

The leopard swallowed noisily.

‘I think he’ll be fine. In half an hour or so he’ll probably try to get up again. all the same, I think I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him, just in case. I wouldn’t care to have the death of the world’s rarest big cat on my conscience. The rest of you might as well go back to camp. Lucky we erected both tents, eh?’

‘Well, if it’s that rare a beast, I want to get some good pictures.’ Mac walked around the creature and then knelt down to get a good shot of the leopard’s handsome-looking head. ‘You just stay there. Miles. I’ll get you as well.’

Jack, turning on his heel, stopped as something else ran across the snow.

‘Did you hear that?’ he said.

Jameson stood up and looked around.

A dark shadow slipped behind a block of ice.

‘Another leopard?’

‘Could be.’

He and Jack waved their Maglites across the Rognon, and in the blink of an eye it was as if the snow-covered rocks had magically come to life. Startled by the sight, Mac uttered a short exclamation of fear and moved closer to the other three. Several pairs of eyes, each like two green moons in the darkness, stared unflinching into one Maglite’s powerful beam.

‘Timber wolves,’ said Jameson.

He counted as many as eight, each the size of a small pony and the colour of the sheerest granite underneath a light spray of powdered snow. The biggest and darkest of the pack, who was also the nearest, yawned hungrily, spread out his paws, and dropped a big black nose to the ice in search of scent. Jameson realized that he was sniffing for blood, asking himself if a kill had been made. At the same time, he guessed the probable chain of events that had led these animals to the top of the Rognon.

‘They must have been hunting the leopard,’ he said.

‘A wolf beating up a leopard?’ said Mac. ‘That doesn’t sound very likely.’

‘Don’t you believe it. I’ve seen a medium-sized wolf bite through the bars of a cage designed to house rabid domestic dogs. They’re extraordinarily powerful. And back in Zimbabwe, it’s common enough for a pack of hyenas to take on a lion and drive it off a kill.’