Erwin.
They listened, hardly breathing. For a long minute the sound seemed to stay at the same level, and her heart hammered as it occurred to her that it was hovering to lower men; then the noise began to diminish. She closed her eyes and exhaled. Davey and Big Charlie relaxed visibly.
Davey checked the position of the sun, nodded, and Charlie disappeared into the forest, heading up-mountain.
‘Where’s he going?’
‘Just to have a look.’
She clenched her fist and massaged her brow.
‘O God … How much longer are you staying here?’
‘Until the sun starts going down. They won’t find us with helicopters.’
‘Mr Jordan,’ she quavered, ‘that helicopter was not police. The Sheriff told me; it belongs to hunters … and it can lower men all over the place.’
‘They’d have to be very lucky to find us that way, Dr. Johnson.’
She wanted to cling to that assurance. ‘But aren’t you worried?’
It was a silly question. He lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Of course. Please relax, Dr. Johnson. The animals will pick up your vibrations, and they’ll get nervous too.’
She could hardly believe this. Here they all were, at large in America, romping in the forests—even she had been carried away with the magic of it—while the net was closing in on them, hunters drawing closer and closer: yet there lay David Jordan, eyes closed, relaxed. Like Sir Francis Drake finishing his game of bowls while the Spanish Armada hove to on the horizon.
But no, he was not crazy. That was the extraordinary thing. He just has this … she was going to say ‘crazy idea,’ but that wasn’t right either, because even she, for a while, watching the animals, had been caught up in it, the beauty of it—she had glimpsed the world he wanted, and it was not only possible, it was happening.
But no—it was not possible. She had to talk him out of it.
Then she realized the bad logic: she had concluded his venture was crazy because Man would come down like the wrath of God— Man deemed it crazy and would not permit it. But who was Man? The circus owners. The Sheriff of Erwin. Even Jonas Ford—who called his animals ‘exhibits.’ Who were they, to make the rules?
She stopped herself and took a deep breath. Her nerves were stretched so tight she felt like screaming. What was she talking about? Of course it was crazy. She had to make him see it.
But there was his exasperating refusal to talk about it! He almost turned the other cheek. She longed for the protection of darkness. For five minutes she sat in silent turmoil.
She carefully tried another approach. ‘Mr. Jordan? Do you believe in God?’
He lay still, eyes closed. Just when she began to think he was going to ignore her, he opened his eyes and looked at the sky.
‘There’s a poem I read once. About the man who was sent up to God to complain, because the people on earth were suffering.’ He hesitated, then, almost shyly, he began to recite.
I travelled far and, lo, I stood
In the presence of the Lord Most High
Sent thither by the sons of Earth
To earn some answer to their cry
And the Lord listens, puzzled, then He says:
The Earth, sayest thou? … A race of men?…
By Me created? … Sad its lot? …
No—I have no recollection of such place
Such thing I fashioned not!
But the man cries:
But Lord, forgive me if I say
You spake the word and made it all!…
So God thinks a bit; then He says:
Let me think …
Ah … dimly do I recall
A tiny shape I built longst back
—It perished surely? …
Davey turned and looked at her, then he ended:
And the man cries out:
Lord, it existeth still!
She was staring at him. She remembered the poem, from Professor Joad’s book, God and Evil
‘So God’s forgotten about us, has He? And you’re going to recreate the Garden of Eden? You’re His instrument?’
He looked away, embarrassed.
‘I’m not God’s instrument, Dr. Johnson. I’m just doing what is right. Setting free the animals. Where they’ll be happy at last.’
Then he got up quietly and started walking down the glen, with Mama padding behind him in the dappled sunshine.
Sultan took the opportunity to come scrambling down out of his tree.
Little Smoky was only little in comparison to the great grizzly bears he performed with in the circus, and when he wore his dungarees and scout hat and danced behind them with his fire extinguisher, and held paws, he did look little and awfully cute. When he squirted his fire extinguisher on cue, messed up Winnie’s pinafore and knocked off Pooh’s hat, and they whacked him, he did look just like their baby grizzly bear. But he was really a fully grown black bear, and he weighed nearly five hundred pounds; he stood five feet tall on his hindlegs; he could swipe eight feet high with his clawed paws, and he could run faster than the best man can sprint.
Smoky did not remember the forests of his cubhood, nor his mother, with her big, furry, grunting, dangerous protection; all he remembered about those days was the sudden deafening bang, the terror of being suddenly alone and running for his life, then the terror of being caught. They had put him in a cage and fed him milk from a bottle. The cage had become smaller and smaller until he could hardly turn around in it; then one day they’d sold him to the circus. He had not seen another black bear since the day of the terrifying bang.
Now, indeed, Smoky thought he was a grizzly bear, just as the public did. But he thought he was a puny grizzly, and he had an inferiority complex. But he did his job well enough in the circus because bears like to show off once they understand how. The trouble for Smoky had been in understanding how. It had taken a long time to understand what the man wanted him to do, and he’d suffered lots of electric prods and was terrified of the cracking whip. When he’d finally understood what he had to do to earn the reward, the fearsome man started teaching him something new and incomprehensible. It was very confusing and frightening, and he did not know, each time he was taken out of his cage, what was going to be expected of him. Only when he saw the crowds around the ring did he know that it was an old
