Fear No Evil

‘I can look after myself!’

The officer sighed and put a weary hand on his hip.

‘Ma’am—you cannot look after yourself, vet or no vet. They’re wild animals at large in there! And two very wild men! In very wild country. With those shoes’—he pointed at her feet—‘and unless we’re very smart there’re goin’ to be a good few other wild folk in there with their guns—and they’re no better man animals, ma’am.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘I don’t know where you come from, but this here’s the United States of America—haven’t you heard what gun-mad SOBs we are!’ He glared at her. ‘And I’m not letting you loose amongst that lot!’

She felt her stomach go cold. She was not going to argue with him. Wherever they were, the animals weren’t near here. They’d be as far away as possible from the trucks. She turned and grabbed her roadmap out of the rented car.

‘What’s the next road to the south that crosses the Appalachians?’

The lawman sighed. ‘Highway Nineteen W, ma’am. At Spivey Gap.’

‘How far south?’

‘’Bout ten, twelve miles, ma’am. As the crow flies.’

‘Is that barricaded by police too?’

‘Sheriff’s workin’ on it, ma’am. You won’t get through that way either.’

‘How do I get there?’

‘Back through Erwin,’ the patrolman said resignedly.

On her way back to Erwin the cars had been lined up at the police roadblock, newspapermen and sightseers and at least a dozen cars full of men, armed with rifles, volunteering to help.

Elizabeth sped through the town onto the interstate highway, then took the turnoff to Spivey Gap. Her dread turned to anger. There were still no police barricades on this road! She wound up into the mountains. At the crest there were only two police cars, the patrolmen keeping the traffic moving. They waved her through.

A cordon around the area, my foot!

She drove past the police angrily, her eyes darting at the forest to left and right, looking for … for what? Signs, spoor, elephant droppings, broken bushes—my God! Like looking for a needle on the edge of a vast haystack.

She felt absolutely helpless. Hopeless … Looking for any indication of the animals’ having crossed the road. She drove slowly, peering at the road, at the edges of the forest. Nothing … If there were something, she’d miss it, like this. Hopeless … She’d have to get out and do it properly. Then, around a bend in the highway, she saw the small metal signpost of the Appalachian Trail.

She stopped her car on the verge. She hurried across the highway, to the point where the Appalachian Trail came out of the forest and crossed the road. She looked at it. It was just a tangled dirt path worn through the undergrowth, a foot wide. No spoor that she could see. Silence, everything motionless. She took a deep breath and started to climb the bank of the highway, onto the trail.

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson was no expert tracker, but she had been on two zoological expeditions to Africa, and one to the Rockies, and she knew what to look for. She kept her head down as she climbed the narrow, winding trail, searching the ground, eyes flicking sideways to the undergrowth. Within two minutes her legs were aching. She toiled up the slope through the forest, frequently stopping, her heart hammering from the unaccustomed exertion.

After half a mile she stopped, sweating, her breath coming in gasps.

She had not seen a single sign of animals. She crouched, panting, and examined the hard earth for her own footprints. My God—even they were hard to find. Just a tiny scrape here and there. The light was so difficult for tracking, the trail dappled with shadow, sunlight shifting through the boughs. She stared helplessly at the unyielding trail; but she did not believe that twenty-odd big animals, including elephants, could have passed without leaving some mark.

She straightened up, and listened. Just the rustle of leaves, the twitter of a bird. She could not even hear the vehicles on the highway, only half a mile back down the trail. She probably would not hear a man approaching until he was ten paces away. The silence was vast, the world muffled by the wilderness.

She could only see twenty paces into the forest. An elephant could be walking thirty yards away, and she could not see it.

She felt absolutely helpless. Vast … The forest stretched for at least five miles down the slopes of the Appalachians on either side of the trail. It was over ten miles from where she stood to the abandoned trucks. It could take an expert tracker days to make visual contact in this dense forest.

She stood there, sweating, getting her breath back.

Well, there was only one remote chance, apart from going back to the Nolichucky and starting from scratch: go into the forest in a straight line and look for the spoor. If the animals had headed this way, if David Jordan was trying to get them out of this area but was avoiding the trail, she might cross their spoor.

She plunged off the trail, into the undergrowth.

It was late afternoon when she found it, half a mile down the steep forested slope on the North Carolina side of the mountain.

She clung to a tree, elated, exhausted, her arms covered with scratches, muscles aching, hair sticking to her neck and forehead. She stared at the spoor.

She could hardly believe it. … That a caravan of big animals could have left so little sign of themselves! There was just one sign of elephant, and that was a conspicuous lump of dung. The undergrowth was so thick and flexible, the dark earth so hidden and spongy, the light and shadows so difficult.

She crouched and touched the dung with the back of her fingers. It was cool.

She looked feverishly about her in the shadows for more signs. None. She knew that a whole troupe of gorillas could pass without leaving obvious sign of themselves—even an elephant over certain terrain—and if she got to her knees now she would find more spoor—but this terrain was so difficult …

She leaned against the tree, getting her breath back; then she started plodding after the spoor. She crept along for five minutes, then she clenched her fist and started stumbling across the mountain slope in the direction she thought they had taken. Surely they were headed out of this area of the woods where the sheriff was after them.

Exhausted, the underbrush grabbing at her, her ankles buckling, Elizabeth was desperate. With her poor physical condition, with the incompetence of her fellows—where was Dr. Bigwheel Ford while she beat her brains out and broke her neck?

After a hundred and fifty yards she slumped to a stop, gasping, heart pounding.

She could see no more spoor.

She looked back; she could not see even her own tracks in this undergrowth and she could see no more than twenty paces in front of her.

An hour later she heard the muffled sound of a vehicle, and she realized that she was near the highway again. Suddenly, twenty yards in front, was the open sunshine.

She knew now. She had long since lost the spoor, but that was where they would have gone: across the highway, into the forest beyond. While that sheriff and his men bumbled around on this side.

She slid down the bank. She wasn’t going to waste any more time looking for tracks here.

She toiled up to her car.

The Appalachian Trail continued on the south side, directly opposite, leading steeply up into the forest again. She reached into her car for the road map.

The next road to the south that crossed the Appalachians was Highway 23, at Sams Gap about eleven miles away. She took a big breath.

She started plodding up the narrow dirt trail again, head lowered, looking for spoor. Within thirty paces she was hidden from the highway, ascending steeply into pine forest and hemlock.

Suddenly she stopped in a patch of sunlight, and her pulse tripped with excitement.

She was not looking at an animal’s footprint. But the hard ground had been scraped by something: by a bunch of leaves, used like a broom.

She crouched, heart pounding, examining the mark. Then she stood and jogged back down the steep trail. She scrambled into the car and did a hard U-turn, back toward Erwin.

She pulled up in front of a sporting goods store. There were several pickup trucks parked outside, gunracks on the back. She hurried inside.

‘You accept these things?’ She held up her American Express card.

‘Sure do, ma’am.’