Fear No Evil

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 called Sally.

For, back in the gloom of the Elephant House, with the sounds of the young man heaving open the cages and then leading the elephants out one by one—excited silhouettes lumbering into the wonderful starry night, all that animal eagerness in the air—in those long, tense minutes the old hippopotamus had sensed what was going to happen, that the man was taking them away with him forever. Each time old Sally had thought that her turn would be next, and she had stood there massively quivering, nostrils dilated, lumbering around her cage in agitation and anticipation. Then he had come up to her cage, and looked at her standing there huffing and trembling with excitement, and he had said hoarsely:

‘I’m sorry, Sally … I’m terribly sorry, my old hippo …’

Then he had turned and walked quickly back through the big double door, and he was gone.

And suddenly she had understood: that she was being left behind, he was not taking her with him after all; and up her old chest there swelled an incredulous rumble-cry of anguish, and her square mouth gaped and her eyes rolled and then out broke her hippopotamus bark of heartbreak and appeal, a croak that erupted in long staccato grunts from the bottom of her old belly, and David Jordan had stopped.

He had reopened the door, and the starlight had shone in again, and Sally had lunged against her bars in incredulous joy, snorting and blundering, her eyes rolling wide.

‘All right, Sally … we’ll do the best we can …’

four (#ulink_3e271922-199c-5ef1-b667-3e161d208bb6)

Every time he saw headlights in the wing mirrors his heart thumped; he would give Big Charlie a warning flash of his taillights, and they would slow down to the speed limit, waiting for the police siren.

The two trucks drove on through the night. They were in Pennsylvania now, on Highway 81 south, two hundred miles from New York. The road signs flashed by, towns, gas stations, connecting routes. Homesteads, barns, silos, belts of trees, the distant glow of town lights. Five miles away, on their left, was the dark silhouette of the Appalachian Mountains, undulating almost the whole length of the United States, from Maine in the north down to the Great Smoky Mountains in the south, and beyond into Georgia.

He looked at his watch. Three A.M. Another four hours at the most before the zoo would discover the animals were missing and the alarm would sound.

He glanced at his fuel gauge. It was half full. Above the music he feverishly calculated they would have to refuel about sunrise—near Roanoke, Virginia. He wanted to stop only once to refuel, so he had to wait as long as possible.

The two great trucks of The World’s Greatest Show roared along, head lights beaming up the wide swath of highway, radios playing; and in the backs the animals were wide-eyed in the vibrating darkness, grunting, huffing, snorting.

Big Charlie Buffalohorn’s broad brow furrowed, and he muttered aloud: ‘Usin’ an awful lot of gas …’

Huge signboards flashed past, advertising motels, garages, tires, skating rinks, batteries, Exxon, Texaco, Shell, banks, Southern Fried Chicken, hamburgers with a college education. The Shenandoah Valley stretched ahead into the night, and just a few miles to the east was the black silhouette of the Shenandoah National Park.

David Jordan knew the number of year-rings on the giant stumps of ancient trees up there that had taken hundreds of years to grow and a few hours to hack down; he knew what the rocks were made of and that they had been there since the oceans covered the land. Through this wilderness swept the Skyline Drive, with its overlooks and picnic sites and campgrounds and comfort stations and grocery stores and gift shops and laundries and camping stores and ice sales and firewood sales and stables and gas stations, and signboards everywhere telling you to stay on the trails and make sure you have proper footwear and how dangerous the wilderness is. And down here the eight-laned Highway 81 swept through the Shenandoah Valley, and all the way the signboards signboards signboards for the people people people. And across the mighty land, the pollution hanging in the air in a haze, factory smoke and the exhaust fumes of automobiles and airplanes.

But roaring through the night in the stolen truck, his face tense, his heart jumping every time he saw headlights, his mind darting over and over the same things, he was feverishly grateful for all the roads turning off up to that long black ridge of mountains. Those mountains were what he had to get into if the police cars tried to force him off the road: he’d just keep going flat out to the next turnoff, with the police car bouncing off his side.

At four-thirty he saw Big Charlie’s headlights flashing him, and his heart tripped.

He slammed his foot on the power brakes and swung off onto the emergency lane. The other truck pulled in behind and Charlie jumped out of the high cab and worked himself under the engine. He reached up into the machinery. He brought down his hand, then showed it to Davey. It shone with diesel fuel.

‘How much you got left?’

‘Nearly empty.’

He ran back to his truck and leaped up into the cab. He revved the big engine and slammed off the brake. His heart was pounding and he felt sick.

He drove hard, willing the truck to go faster, racing the moment Charlie’s lights would flash at him again. That meant disaster: trying to fix it themselves, patching up the leak, and siphoning fuel from his truck to Charlie’s, parked wide out in the open highway.

At twenty minutes to five Big Charlie’s fuel gauge registered empty.

At quarter to five he saw a sign, GAS FOOD LODGING IO MILES, and he felt a surge of relief.

There was a long hill ahead, stretching away in his headlights. The accelerator was pressed to the floor, he was praying feverishly, Please God not this hill … Black yellow tarmac swept up and up endlessly, and all the time the diesel was squirting out of Big Charlie’s fuel pump. Then at last the headlights picked up the hilltop, and far away on the horizon he saw the signs, a hundred feet high: Shell, Texaco and, higher than them all, Exxon. Then his teeth clenched: there was another hill to climb.

His eyes darted to the mirror, willing Big Charlie to make it. He was halfway down the first hill now, and he still could not see the lights of Big Charlie’s truck. He wanted to bellow out, God, help us now!—and Big Charlie’s headlights came over the crest. He sighed and trod on the accelerator.

Davey roared up the new hill, his headlights searching for the top. Then, five miles ahead, he saw the signs gleaming like lighthouses, and he had never been so grateful to see American commercialism blighting the landscape. Then he gritted a curse as he saw one more long hill before those truckstop lights. Big Charlie’s headlights came into his wing mirror. Davey started up the last long hill, and the crest came into view. He roared to the top, and Big Charlie’s headlights were in his wing mirror all the way. Just three miles to go: he started downhill towards the lights, thanking God, and Big Charlie was still hammering up the other side of the hill, and his truck gave out.

Suddenly the engine coughed, and Big Charlie trod on the accelerator. The truck jerked, the animals lurched, and the huge machine started to shudder. It came to a grinding standstill in the emergency lane of Highway 81. David was pounding down on the other side of the hill, watching desperately for Big Charlie’s head-lights. He came to the bottom, with the hillcrest half a mile behind him; then he swung the truck into the emergency lane and slammed on his brakes.

He stared into the mirror for half a minute, praying, Please God … The eight-lane highway was divided by a wide ditch of no-man’s-land—it. was impossible to drive across. Then he clenched his teeth and rammed his truck into low gear. He roared the engine and heaved the wheel into a U-turn. He swung his huge truck right across the highway, then jammed his foot flat. He pulled back into the emergency lane, then roared the massive truck northward up the southbound lanes, his eyes bright with fury, praying Please God no traffic for just two minutes!

He drove flat out, hunched over the wheel, heart drumming. The long black hill stretched up ahead of him, on and on. He was almost crying. At last his headlights showed the top. He leaned on the horn, and came over the top of the hill.

There, halfway down, was Charlie’s truck. Davey tore down the hill, praying to God to keep the traffic away, then he drove out across the highway into another U-turn.

He swung his huge truck right across the four lanes, desperately checking the long hill for headlights. His wheel was hard over, the great truck was coming around, and he thought he was going to make it in one swing. His right fender was coming around, around, around—and then it was not going to make it. He slammed on his brakes and jerked his engine into reverse. Teeth clenched, he twisted the wheel and let out the clutch.

Big Charlie bellowed, ‘There’s a truck coming!’

Suddenly a big beam lit up the sky beyond the crest of the hill. The truck full of elephants was stretched across all four lanes. David kicked the accelerator flat and his truck screamed backward as the terrible headlights burst over the crest, blinding bright. Then Big Charlie was running at them, shouting and waving his arms. David rammed his gears, roared the engine, and let out the clutch; the truck leaped—and it stalled.

It jolted to a stop across all four lanes. The other truck was three hundred yards off, hurtling down on them at sixty miles an hour. David bellowed, wrenched out the decompressor and slammed his foot on the starter. The truck was two hundred and fifty yards away now, and the driver still had not seen him. David shoved back the decompressor, and the engine roared to life. He revved it for all its might, took his foot off the clutch, and the massive vehicle surged forward.

The truck was a hundred and fifty yards off when the driver saw the long side. At sixty miles an hour a vehicle travels a hundred and fifty yards in five seconds. The driver leaned on his horn and jammed his foot on the brakes. There was a screaming blast and a shattering hiss of brakes, the roaring of engines and the screaming of tires. The other truck came tearing down the highway toward his side, twenty yards, fifteen, ten, five—blasting and screeching—and the driver swung wildly to the left; David roared his truck full of animals across the road, and the truck hurtled past, missing Davey’s by a yard, blasting a wall of wind in front of it, the driver bellowing obscenities. Davey brought his vehicle to a stop in front of Big Charlie’s and slumped over his wheel, ashen-faced, eyes closed.

Fifteen minutes later the two trucks of The World’s Greatest Show crawled into the all-night truck stop, one towing the other.

It was a big complex, scores of massive vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder. Some of the trucks still had their engines running, exhausts spewing, while their drivers were in the cafeteria, and the cold night air was dense with diesel fumes. David towed Big Charlie’s truck into the farthest corner of the big parking lot. Then they set feverishly to work. Davey wriggled under the engine with the wrench while Big Charlie held the flashlight. He began to unbolt the fuel pump.

‘Where’s another Fargo?’

They found one, and Davey scrambled under the hood and stole its fuel pump.

five (#ulink_05902c9b-31d5-556d-89f8-996ddc71ebb7)

The two trucks of The World’s Greatest Show hurtled down the eight-lane highway.

The first gray was slowly turning pink above the Appalachians; then came the golden red spreading across the starry sky; and now the trees on the Appalachian ridge were flaming silhouettes. Then the tip of the sun came up, setting the east on fire, beaming down into the Shenandoah Valley, casting long shadows through the trees and the farmlands and across the highway, shining golden into the cabs of the two trucks and into the tired faces of David Jordan and Big Charlie Buffalohorn as they hammered down Highway 81. And for those moments the world beyond this ugly highway was young and beautiful; those purple and gold early morning mountains stretched southward in the sunrise, and Davey knew every river, stream, glade and gulley, and he was glad with all his heart for what he was doing.

For once upon a time, and not so long ago, the great mauve forests stretched right across the mighty land, trees with trunks wider than a coach and four, and firs and spruce, elm and pine and chestnut, towering forest peaks and valleys and great plains rich in waving grass, like an ocean, as far as the eye could see. There were herds of bison, and deer and bears and game; and rushing rivers and tumbling brooks and waterfalls and rapids and canyons, all of the purest water. The air was clean: from the vast blue lakes of Canada in the north, to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, from the mighty Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachians here in the east. That was how God made it, and it had taken millions of years to do it; it was beautiful, and it would have gone on forever, for He made it to stand all the ravages of time; but He did not make it to withstand the gluttony of Man.

Davey Jordan drove the truck of animals down the highway in the sunrise, the towns and cloverleafs and signboards flashing by, and those mountains up there were all that was left of the wilderness. The only pioneering that was left for a man was to get to the next gas station, his only survival problem the price of a hamburger.

At seven o’clock they heard it on the radio. Suddenly the jolly wakee-wakee music was cut off. His heart crunched and the disc jockey said excitedly:

We interrupt your favorite program to bring you this amazing newsflash. Now you’ve heard it all, folks. You’ve heard of huge bank robberies, all kinds of hijacks and sky-jacks and kidnaps and stick-em-ups, but this has got to be the zaniest of them all! Now get this: the Bronx Zoo has been robbed!

Yes, you heard me right! The Bronx Zoo has been robbed, but not of its cash box!