7. The Jaguar in the Forest
No longer harried by the Raven, the hunter clambered down the cliff to rescue his fallen comrade. Hope faded as the minutes ticked by. He could only pray that Malone had revived and made his way to shore. He had trouble concentrating on lowering himself safely, fear and guilt driving him to risky handholds and long drops. When he was ten feet from the water’s surface he let go and landed feet-first in the pool. He was pulled downstream, the cold water driving the panicky fear from his mind. He caught hold of a fallen tree and pulled himself free of the water and walked along the bank for a short while, picking up his partially-submerged hat along the way. Around the next corner, he saw a man’s figure stretched out in the shallow water along the river bank. He splashed through the shoals toward him.
The sight of Malone’s motionless body caused the old horror to rise in his gut. Most of the reporter’s body was in the water, shifting slightly with the currents. His head and one shoulder were on the bank, half-sunk in the mud. A spill of blood was easily visible through his short blond hair. Roxton knelt at his side. A quick survey of breathing and pulse proved that Ned was alive. There were no obvious broken bones. The only serious injury was the ugly gash on the back of his skull. The swelling was serious but no worse than the unfortunate lad had suffered in earlier attacks.
The hunter bent to grab the Ned’s limp body under the armpits and drag him onto dry land. Neither shouting his name nor rough pats on the cheek roused the American from his stupor. Roxton left him briefly to reconnoitre the area, looking for Vantu, animal predators and birds that were not birds. There were no signs of any of these threats but he did retrieve Malone’s pack that had been knocked over the cliff in their struggles.
Roxton returned to the inert man and sat beside him debating his course of action. The hunter prided himself on making tough decisions swiftly and rationally. In this situation, however, his gallant heart and guilt-ridden soul were at war with each other. Malone needed him to stay here beside him, to protect him as he recovered his senses. But the mocking voice of the fake-Jesuit tore a hole through his brain, screaming at him to drop everything, hide Ned somewhere so the predators couldn’t find him and rush back to the treehouse, to Marguerite’s defence. He was their protector –every one of them. He had told Challenger often enough of his loyalty to the man’s cause. If anything happened to Marguerite, he wasn’t sure how his life would continue. And here, at his feet, lay an injured young man who reminded John Roxton so much of his own brother that it hurt.
The hunter rose to his feet and paced, his shoulders hunched in frustrated anguish. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to return to the treehouse, to run until he could see her face, hear her voice, quell the awful feeling in his chest. No matter that Veronica and Challenger were by her side, protecting Marguerite from this demon. She was his love, his responsibility, his heart. Damn, he couldn’t stay here; he had to go back. He returned to Malone’s side, determined to find a place to leave the injured man so that he would be safe from attackers until he regained consciousness. Again he shouted Malone’s name. The reporter remained limp, his face pale beneath his tan. Roxton had seen enough injuries in his time to know that Ned was in bad shape. To abandon him now could be leaving him to his death. John Roxton groaned in defeat.
The shape-shifters had chided him, mocked his inability to save everyone. With a deep sadness he made his decision. He would protect the man whose life depended on his actions right now. Malone would live if he had anything to do with it. Only when that pledge was complete would he return to the treehouse and look for the woman who owned his heart.
Thus determined, he mapped out a plan of action. If Malone did not regain consciousness within the hour, he would have to carry the man back to the Chuen village. It would be a challenging journey that he dearly hoped to avoid. Worse, it would put him yet another day behind the others. He rummaged through the reporter’s rucksack for a bite to eat, his own pack still lying at the top of the bluff.
After an hour of rest, the tall Englishman stood and stretched then pulled the still-unconscious Malone into a fireman’s carry. He held his limp burden in place, a hand through his legs to clasp the dangling wrist. With his other hand he held his rifle. Roxton began the slow journey up the trail they had taken when they had first approached Chuen two days ago. The well-muscled hunter kept a steady pace for an hour before his aching shoulders forced him to stop for a moment. He stretched and kneaded the muscles at the side of the neck, pressing out the knots that had formed. Malone, though still unconscious, had better colour now and was breathing normally. After five minutes of recovery, Roxton leaned over to shoulder the American once again. It would take no more than twenty minutes to reach his goal.
A sudden raucous cawing in a nearby tree raised Roxton’s alarm. He stared ahead to see a dark shape glide out from the trees to stand in the path ahead. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck as golden eyes stared out of the shadowy blackness. His gut heaved to recognize a melanistic jaguar, commonly called a black panther. In the continent of South America, no predator was more feared. It usually dispatched its prey by piercing its skull in one swift bite of its powerful jaws. This one was creeping closer, the hunter and his unconscious burden its obvious prey. As Roxton slowly slid Malone to the ground, he had a fleeting moment of gallows humour. Things could be worse –the attacker might have been a T. rex.
Roxton raised the rifle to his shoulder, transfixed by the heartless hunger in those yellow eyes. He squeezed the trigger only to see the panther become translucent. The bullets passed through it harmlessly. Roxton cursed aloud. More tricks! He grabbed for a pistol as the wild cat charged. He fired off a few rounds even though he could see the forest through the body of the beast. As the Panther launched itself, the desperate hunter dove forward so that the animal sailed over him, clipping the diving man’s back with its rear legs. The blow drove Roxton into the dust. Well, thought the scrambling man, the jungle cat was certainly solid enough now. He aimed his pistol but the black Panther become gauzy once more. The beast launched a second charge.
The Spectre revelled in this opportunity to rip the life from this dangerous human. He loved the form of the panther; the power of the mighty cat filled him with a wild hunger. He became solid now so that he could grasp the man’s skull in his jaws. Suddenly a noise behind him distracted him from his prey.
With a vicious snarl a large tawny blur bounded out of the forest. A Jaguar of much the same size as the black one, this one had the more usual black rosettes on its golden brown fur. It wrapped its claws around the hindquarters of the darker animal and the two cats rolled along in a muscular mass of snarling fury. The Panther broke away and ran with desperate bounds down the path. It was closely pursued by the spotted cat. The Jaguar drew closer than launched itself in a long leap, imbedding its claws in the back of the other. Then suddenly there was no black Panther, only an inky vapour enveloping the head of the Jaguar. The startled cat tumbled forward and rose to its feet, pawing at its eyes in obvious pain. Shaking its head it bounded into the forest. The smoky blackness rose in a spiral then drifted toward the croaking Raven that had voiced the original warning. The bird took off, a grey cloak forming around it as it flew away.
Roxton stood stock-still, trying to piece together a rational explanation for the amazing scene that had just occurred. The panther had to be the shape-shifting man in black. If that was the case why did his partner the Raven warn the hunter with his cry of alarm? And what was the other animal – a real jaguar or a second spirit or demon? The English lord shook his head in wonder. Chances were that it had not been a real jaguar; its behaviour had been too bizarre, the timing too coincidental. If not real, then what? He smiled in recognition of the old adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He wondered if that went for beasties as well. That Jaguar certainly was no friend of the fake-panther, that was for sure. Perhaps that made it a friend of his.
There was little to be accomplished by standing there as the sun sunk low in the sky. He hefted Malone back on his shoulder and made his way along the path. A few hundred yards down the trail, he happened to glance upwards. On a branch of a majestic pine, twenty feet above his head, the dappled jungle cat was draped over a branch, his tail drooping in a gentle curl. The tawny feline gazed down at the man below, occasionally rubbing its front paws over its eyes. The Jaguar was unlikely to attack; the big-game hunter could tell the relaxed posture of a sated feline. He admired the glossy spotted coat, the powerful shoulders. He had never seen as magnificent an example of the Panthera onca in any of his hunts. After a brief hesitation, the Englishman strode on. He was taking a chance leaving his back vulnerable to the beast, but he had rolled the dice that this creature was somehow a protector not a predator. He caught glimpses of the wild cat as he trudged back to the village. It paralleled him through the brush, quiet and vigilant. Eventually Roxton stood outside the village holding Malone now in his arms as the shadows grew long. The Jaguar drew closer, then with a low growl turned and ran back into the forest.
Roxton walked toward the closest building, calling out the greeting he had heard Veronica use short days ago. A few warriors conducted him to the home of the shaman. The man gestured him inside and prepared a place for the injured Malone. The hunter noticed some of Challenger’s remedies among the treatments used by the shaman. In an hour, the young American was awake and coherent, a little woozy but showing promise of a rapid recovery.
Though short in length, the night dragged on for the anxious Englishman. As dawn broke, he was on the trail, his injured friend in the trusted hands of the Chuen shaman. Roxton made excellent time along the now-familiar trail. He could only pray it wouldn’t be too late.
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