Fear No Evil. John Davis Gordon

could not get enough of him, pushing and rubbing, and all down the row of cages the other big cats were pacing excitedly in anticipation.

      He pulled out a small flashlight and hurried down the row of cages, into the keeper’s office next to the Siberian tiger’s cage. He pulled out a bunch of keys, feverishly selected one, inserted it. He swung open the steel door and stepped inside. There was a sound of swiftness in the dark, and a mighty weight hit him on his chest with a snarl.

      He crashed onto his back, half-stunned, with the huge tiger on top of him in a mass of jaws and claws going at his head, and he was laughing under the rough slurpings of her tongue, whispering ‘Velvet paws, Mama!—Velvet!—’

      He hugged her great striped chest as she stood over him, licking his face, then he shoved her firmly over and scrambled up. He pulled off his leather belt and looped it around the excited cat’s neck, buckling it firmly as she writhed against him. Then he put his arm around her shoulders and began to stroke her neck hard, to soothe her.

      ‘Sh—sh, Mama, sh—sh, Mama …’

      Then he stood up and led her out of her cage, through the keeper’s office and out into the hall. The Siberian tiger padded excitedly beside him. He swung open the big door, and the cold night air flooded in.

      He paused on the threshold, peering into the darkness. Then, holding the tiger by the belt, he started to run.

      The old cow elephant sensed who it was as soon as she heard him at the lock. She flapped out her great ears, and gave a squeak, lumbering up to the bars of her cage. She snaked her trunk through, urgently sniffing: the young man unlocked the door and stepped into the smell and gloom of the Elephant House.

      The cages were divided with walls so the elephants could not see each other. The cow elephant was pressed against her bars, trying to see him, and the two adolescent elephants were reaching out with their trunks, snorting and snuffling. Across the hall the solitary hippopotamus was staring wide-eyed into the darkness, her nostrils dilated.

      ‘Hello, Jamba …’

      The young man scrambled through the bars of the cow elephant’s cage. Her trunk curled around him; delighted, snorting, she lifted him off his feet. ‘Yes, Jamba, yes, my beauty …’ He lay against her face, hugging her and grinning, and the great animal shuffled and squeezed him. Then he whispered, she released him immediately, and he slid back down her trunk.

      ‘I’ll be back in a minute, my lovely …’

      He hurried down the row of cages, touching the trunks that were groping for him, greeting the elephants by name. In the far corner the hippopotamus had her square snout jammed through the wide bars, shoving with her haunches. The young man climbed through the bars, and she reversed massively and lumbered against him. He put his arms around her big fat neck and hugged her. His eyes were moist, and the hippopotamus’s eyes were rolling with delight.

      ‘I’m sorry, Sally … I’m sorry, old lady … You’d be fine in the summer but not in the winter …’

      Big fat Sally, the only hippopotamus in the zoo, was huffing and grunting, her huge mouth slopping as she shoved herself into his embrace.

      He gave her one last hug, then turned and scrambled tearfully through the bars. Sally lumbered after him, and floundered into the bars, her flanks quivering; he strode across the hall and wiped his wrist roughly across his eyes. The old hippopotamus stood there, squeezed against the bars, and she gave a big heartbreaking snort. The young man did not look back.

      He hurried back to Jamba’s cage, pulling out his flashlight and a wrench. He flicked the light on the locking mechanism, and set to work to open the elephant’s door. All the time the hippopotamus stood rammed against her bars, grunting at him, her intestines half-clogged with the coins, lipsticks, and marbles the public had tossed down her cavernous mouth over the years.

      The young man was running out of time. He unlocked the door of the Ape House and ducked inside. In the keeper’s office he snapped on the switch for simulated jungle daylight.

      The big silver-back male gorilla, the females and a baby blinked, scattered under their concrete tree. The male scrambled up onto all fours, staring intently; he bobbed excitedly and shook his head to show nonaggression, then came lumbering. He shoved his black hands against the glass panel, bobbing and shaking his head, and the young man grinned and bobbed and shook his head too.

      He dashed back into the keeper’s office, inserted a key, swung open the cage door—and the gorillas crowded around.

      ‘Hello, King!’

      He dropped to his haunches, his eyes moist. He could only take two. There was no more room in the trucks.

three

      It was two o’clock in the morning.

      The circus gear lay abandoned on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, a mess of barrels and seesaws and hoops and ladders.

      Fifty miles away, on Highway 22, the two big circus trucks were hammering through New Jersey. The Western-style letters, The World’s Greatest Show, had been hastily spray-painted out.

      In the back of the first truck the three elephants from the zoo were squeezed in with the three elephants from The World’s Greatest Show. The compartments of the other truck held all the lions and the tiger from the circus, the tiger from the zoo, the circus bears, the chimpanzees and the gorillas. Most of them were lying down to steady themselves, wide-eyed in the darkness, their adrenalin pumping.

      In the cabs, the engines were loud, the radios playing. The driver of the second truck was a big strong man with a big gut, a wide face and straight black hair. Until an hour ago he had worked for The World’s Greatest Show as an animal keeper and driver. He was tense, but sometimes a little smile played on his wide mouth, sometimes he whistled distractedly along with the radio. His name was Charles Buffalohorn and he was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. On the sleeping bunk behind his seat was a knapsack, stuffed full, a sleeping bag strapped to it. These, plus maybe a few hundred dollars in the bank, were all he owned in the whole wide world.

      Four hundred yards ahead were the taillights of the other truck. David Jordan’s face was gaunt, his eyes frequently darting to the wing mirror, watching the truck behind. Every time the music stopped on the radio he tensed for a newsflash. Now and again he changed stations, listening hard.

      Up on his bunk there was also a knapsack and a plastic bag containing a pig’s carcass, bought that day from a wholesale butcher. On the seat beside him was Champ, the male circus chimpanzee, fast asleep. Champ was supposed to live with the other chimpanzees, but he liked to sleep in the cab with the young man, whenever he could get away with it.

      On the floor of the cab slept a big furry dog. He looked like a husky, or maybe a German shepherd, but his face was almost pure wolf.

      The elephants were crammed tight, great gray flanks pressing. Sometimes a trunk found its way out of the congestion and groped around, sniffing and feeling, and then it was a difficult business to recurl it, squeezing and shoving. The three circus elephants were dismayed by the strangers suddenly in their midst, for instead of the enormous territory an elephant needs, they had this piece of truck, their only permanent place on this earth.

      But Jamba, the old cow elephant from the zoo, stood quietly, forehead jammed between two massive rumps, eyes blinking in the dark, but her heart thumping in excitement. Because the man she loved had come back, had taken her out of her cage amid the electric excitement of the Elephant House and out through the big double doors into the starry night. Suddenly she had been in the open, fresh night air and the smell of the earth all about her, and she was running beside him, his hand holding her trunk tip, running away from the Elephant House into the wide open world, and with each lumbering footfall her incredulous excitement had thumped harder and higher.

      And squeezed into the back of the truck, squashed between elephants’ legs and bellies, wide-eyed and wheezing, was the big, fat, old hippopotamus