I began to giggle. Whether it was from the shock of the fall, or out of sheer terror, or an appreciation of the ultimate absurdity of my position, I wasn't sure. It simply struck me as enormously funny that a dwarf should be sitting in the snow facing a hurt, hungry tiger, with nothing but a tranquilizer gun and pockets full of dog biscuits.
As a last line of defense, I had the flare gun and one flare in an inner pocket, but that would have to be removed and loaded. It was obvious that I wasn't going to have time, even if I chose to use it.
Still giggling, my hair standing on end, I slowly crawled away from the patches of blood. Sam, seeing me move, stopped and crouched still lower, his ears pointed and his lips curled back in a snarl.
I slowly cocked the tranquilizer gun and brought it around to a firing position. The muscles on Sam's flanks fluttered; the movement had made him nervous, and he was ready to charge.
Still I waited. There was only one cartridge in the gun. One shot. I would have to make it count, waiting until the last moment to make sure I didn't miss.
The muscles bunched in Sam's hind legs, and I brought my gun up to firing position. At the same time I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, to the left, behind Sam.
Hayes. Ignoring me, he had drawn a bead on Sam. My next action was pure reflex. It had nothing to do with conscious thought, but with some mad emotional need deep within my being. I wheeled on Hayes and pulled the trigger on my gun.
The dart caught him in the left side, slicing neatly through the layers of his clothing and piercing his flesh.
His gun discharged harmlessly in the air as he clawed at the dart in his side. But the effect of the drug was almost instantaneous; Hayes stiffened, then toppled over in the snow, out of my line of sight.
Now I was in a bit of a jam. Sam had already begun his charge, and about all I could do was throw my arms up in front of my face. But the report of the gun had startled Sam, frightened him and thrown him off his stride. By the time he reached me, he was already trying to brake his charge, looking back over his shoulder.
He veered to the side, ramming into me and knocking me over. I rolled, frantically clawing at the zipper on my parka. But rolling in the snow, fingers frozen with fear, is not the optimum condition under which to unzip a jacket. Besides, it was stuck.
I ended up on my knees, staring at Sam, who was squatting about fifteen yards away. I could see the wound on his leg now where Hayes or one of his men had jabbed him; it was raw and festering, enough to drive any animal wild with pain.
But Sam wasn't moving, and he had his head cocked to one side. He seemed almost uncertain. I was past my giggling stage, and it occurred to me that there was just a chance he might have gotten a good whiff of me as he went past, and that it might have stirred memories.
A romantic thought, indeed. But it was the only hope I had.
"Sam." My voice was so weak I could hardly hear myself. I cleared my throat. "Sam! Hey, Sam! Hey, Sam!"
Animals occasionally grunt. Sam grunted.
"Hi! Sam!" It was time to assert myself. Gripping the tranquilizer gun by the barrel, I rose and slowly began to walk forward. "Okay, Sam. Easy Sam. It's all right. I'm not going to-"
I'd made a mistake, gone too far too fast. Sam was going to charge; I could see that now. He reared back, the muscles in his hind legs forming great knots. His ears lay flat against his head, and his lips curled back in a snarl. Suddenly he let out a thunderous roar.
And rolled over.
Sam was somewhat hampered by the wound on his leg, but he still managed a pretty fine roll. He came up and squatted, tongue out, staring at me. Not getting any reaction from me save a frozen, open-mouthed mumble, Sam decided to try it again. He rolled back the other way, sat up and whined. One paw was raised a few inches off the snow.
It took me almost a full minute to realize that I was crying. Sam waited patiently.
"Sam," I murmured. "Oh damn, Sam. You damn animal."
From that point on, I never hesitated. I threw the gun into the snow, walked forward and wrapped my arms around Sam's neck. Sam purred contentedly while I groped in the snow for some of the meat, stuffing it into his mouth.
I was laughing again, loud and long.
I gathered the meat together in a pile and left Sam long enough to check out Hayes. The sheriff was breathing fairly regularly. As far as I could tell, his only lingering problem from the drug would be a pronounced desire to want to sleep for the next few weeks. But he'd make it.
If I made it. There was still the problem of Sam, and the meat was gone. Sam was looking around for more. I walked slowly forward, holding a dog biscuit. Sam's tongue flicked out and it disappeared.
At that rate, they wouldn't last long. I gave him a handful, then sat down in the snow. I managed to loose the zipper and reach the flares. Still muttering words of encouragement that I hoped a tiger would find soothing, I fired one off into the sky.
The flare burst in the night with an eye-piercing flash of blues and yellows, and then it was once again dark. Sam started, but settled down when I gave him another biscuit.
I vaguely wondered what the reaction of Phil and the state troopers would be when they arrived and discovered one very wide awake tiger waiting for them.
"Roll over, Sam."
Sam rolled over. I figured the biscuits would last longer if I made Sam work for them.
Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard the sound of snowmobiles. Sam heard them too, and his ears snapped back.
"Roll over, Sam. Play it again, Sam." Sam rolled over, but this time I withheld the biscuit for just a moment. "Now, Sam, you must be a very good tiger or you are going to be shot. Boom. Do you understand?"
Sam rolled over.
I was hungry. I took one of the biscuits out of my pocket and stared at it. It had a greenish tint. I took a small bite out of it, then gave the rest to the waiting tiger. It tasted terrible.
Candala
1
Indiri Tamidian wafted into my downtown office like a gossamer breath of incense from some Hindu temple in her native India. Her young, lithe body rippled beneath the rustling silk folds of her sari; her coal black eyes, sheened by that enormous zest for life that was Indiri's very quintessence, smoldered in their sockets. Blue-black hair tumbled to her shoulders, perfectly complementing the translucent, light chocolate-colored flesh of her face. Indiri was stunningly beautiful. And troubled; the light from her eyes could not disguise the fact that she had been crying.
Self-pity, unexpected and unbidden, welled up within me like a poisonous cloud, a hated stench from a dark, secret place deep inside my soul. Some thoughts have teeth; just as it is dangerous for an artist to search too hard for the murky headwaters of his power, it is folly for a dwarf to entertain romantic thoughts of beautiful women. I fall into the second category.
I pushed the cloud back to its wet place and clamped the lid on. I stood and smiled as Indiri glanced around her.
"So this is where the famous criminologist spends his time when he's not teaching," Indiri said with a forced gaiety that fell just short of its mark.
I grunted. "You could have seen the criminology professor anytime on campus, even if you are majoring in agriculture," I said easily. "You didn't have to come all the way down here."
"I didn't come to see the professor," Indiri said, leaning forward on my desk. "I came to see the detective. I would like to hire you."
"Now, what would a lovely, intelligent young woman like you want with a seedy private detective?" Immediately my smile faded. The girl's flesh had paled, isolating the painted ceremonial dot in the center of her forehead, lending it the appearance of an accusing third eye. It had been a stupid thing to say. Worse, it had sounded patronizing, and Indiri Tamidian was not a woman to be patronized. "How can I help you, Indiri?"