Robert Adams - The Clan of the Cats

Taylor Bedford shrugged. “Settle out of court—that’s the best way, I’ve found, in damage cases.”

His nephew made a rude noise. “Tried. The bastard wants a truly stupendous sum, more than I think his entire hashup up there is worth, seems to be under the impression that we’re a lavishly funded or endowed government project or, at least, a tax writeoff for some gigantic corporation or conglomerate. Gouging bastard!

“Even so, were that the only cost, I just might be able to do it, much as bowing to his demands would grate. But it’s not. No, far from it. When the rangers found the wisents and the yak cow, they notified the project, of course, announcing that if we wanted any of them back alive, we had better get up there and get them out, pronto. Seems the wisent bull had taken the whole of his new-won herd up into an area that was almost inaccessible to even a horse. The big fucker had already injured one saddle horse and treed its rider for some hours, and the rangers were seemingly anticipating shooting him with some relish.”

“So what did you do, James?” asked the senator. His nephew sighed and cracked a knuckle, “Zeppy … Dr. Baronian and I jeeped up there, borrowed a brace of horses and rode up fairly close to the herd, then went in—very cautiously, mind you—afoot to find that the rangers were right about that big wisent bull being as mean as a Kodiak bear with a toothache, as murderous as a great white shark. He came close to getting us, too, he and the wisent cow with the calf. It was on our ride back to the jeep track that we two decided the only feasible way of getting the brutes out alive was by drug gun, cargo net and copter, and that’s what we promised the rangers we’d do.

“Back at the project center, I phoned the outfit that had been providing us with copter services and explained the problem, and the next day, the president of the firm arrived aboard one of his smaller helicopters. He had been all smiles and cheery words when he first arrived—for after all, the group has been a really good, cash-on-the-barrelhead customer during our time up there—but after he had heard the details and had carefully studied the maps, seen exactly where he or one of his other pilots was going to have to take a copter large enough for the job—furthermore, take it up there and back for each of the animals—he became much cooler of manner and far more serious. After he had done some calculations, he came up with a figure that jarred me, nor would he budge from it, wouldn’t come down one red cent, telling me in effect to take it or leave it, though offering the names of a few other copter services that might be willing to undertake the work.

“As I continued to try to haggle him down, he finally took my arm, walked me out to his copter, strapped me into it and then flew us both up to the area in question. Uncle Taylor, I’ve heard you and others—racing yachtsmen—speak in the past of ‘living, prescient gales and storms,’ but I never then knew, could not really picture, just what any of you meant by the phrase; well, I do now, please believe me, I do.

“That man is an exceedingly skillful copter pilot of many years experience, and I thank God for the fact, else I’d likely not be here talking to you now. The winds up in those mountains, in and over the small, deep canyons we had to fly into, then lift out of, seemed to know just the best ways in which to see us crash into a wall of rock and seemed to do their utter damnedest to see us dead somewhere up them. I can’t recall ever being so damned scared in my life, I mean it, every word of it.

“After that, after we’d gotten back safely to the project and I was outside a very stiff drink, I left the pilot nursing one of his own, met with the others in private and explained just how much the man was demanding for the services of his men and his copters, how hazardous was the area in which they would have to operate. I said that having flown in and out of there, I felt the astronomically steep price to be cheap, all things considered, did we feel it necessary to get those bovids out alive at all.

“Drs. Baronian and Marburg were of the opinion that we should just cut our losses there and then, and allow the rangers to put all the exotic strays down and, if nothing else, have a barbecue of wisent and yak up them. But, of course, Drs. Stekowski and Singh felt that as we had been responsible, at least in part, for having the animals imported to this area, we owed them all possible protection. whereupon Dr. Marburg took Dr. Stekowski’s side and Dr. Baronian and I were outvoted.

“So I went out and signed a contract and gave over a check for a healthy deposit, then contacted the rangers—who, of course, would’ve been happiest had everything been done yesterday if not before—and we all went about setting up schedules, tentative ones, naturally, tricky as the weather can be that high up.

“The copter people got out the heavy-duty cargo nets they had used to transport some of the animals up to us with, before we’d acquired the big truck. Dr. Baronian and I tested the two carbon-dioxide-powered anesthetic rifles, and she carefully measured the doses for each syringe of dope. Then, on the appointed day, we jeeped back up there, rode and walked in, and put that damned killer of a wisent bull out first, then had to do the same for the nursing cow before we could even get close enough to wave in the copter and the men who’d help us get him in the net.

“To make a longish story a bit shorter, we did get all the big beasts out of that high canyon and back down to our plateau, though it ended up taking us two days and therefore costing us a good bit more, but that was the fault of the devilish weather and couldn’t have been avoided. The only one we lost was that biggest wisent cow. Being sedated twice in two days was apparently more than her constitution could take, and she never woke up after she was back on the plateau, so I just had her skinned, dressed, butchered and hung … waste not, want not, you know. Besides, it was that much less flesh I had to buy for the cats, not to mention far fresher and far less likely to be full of chemicals and hormones.”

“The native buffalo … ahh, bison, gave you no trouble, then?” asked the senator.

The younger man grinned. “Not really, no, though they did get into the way a lot, whenever the copter came in low and hovered. But, as the rangers explained, in really bad weather up there, the mountain bison herd is dropped bales of hay from choppers, so they’ve learned to associate the sounds of a low-flying or a hovering copter with food drops; they just thought it was chow time and were jockeying to be first in line. But compared to the damned wisents, the bison are almost tame as milk cows.”

The senator nodded, smiling. Then, suddenly, he raised his eyebrows and snapped his fingers. “By the way, James, something you’d better know early on about that piece I gave you is this: the second, third and fourth round in each of those magazines is loaded with a very special bullet, a purple load.”

“Purple load?” queried the younger.

“Explosive,” replied his uncle. “Explosive on impact against anything hard, explosive very shortly after penetration of flesh or muscle. They’re supposedly safe until fired and thereby armed—at least, so the manufacturer avers. Nonetheless, be very careful about dropping them or the magazine in which they’re loaded, eh?”

James Bedford hissed between his teeth. “And this weapon came out of your private arsenal, Uncle? By God, you play hardball … and for keeps, don’t you?”

A grim look came over the senator’s patrician face. “James, you have spent precious little time in cities of past years. or you’d know whereof I speak. The entire megalopolis here, from Boston to Norfolk, is become a jungle. Even with police and security people thick as flies hereabouts, still there exists all too often a real need for self-protection if one appears at all afluent, and that is not even to mention the plots of one or another sort always bubbling somewhere in some embassy or terrorist group. Yes, I do have personal bodyguards, quite a few of them, but sometimes they might not be sufficient. Therefore I go armed, well armed, at all times and in almost all places, day and night. And now that it is made clear that some one has targeted you, you must quickly learn to emulate me in regard to self-protection.