Page 82 of Tiger Queen
We drove around the zoo with our eyes peeled. One of the female Bengals was sitting by the entrance to the zoo as if waiting to be let out. She flicked her tail and stared at us with predatory eyes, but remained stationary while I prepped the syringe and hit her in the flank.
All the lights in the zoo suddenly came on at once, bathing the paths with harsh light. Jake and I winced and covered our eyes for a moment until they adjusted.
“Could’ve used a warning,” Jake said into the walkie-talkie.
“There’s no pleasing you.”
Driving through the zoo was a lot easier now that we weren’t relying solely on the Mule’s headlights. But it also made it easier for some animals to hide in the trees where the lights did not shine.
“Have you found Mary Beth yet?” Jake asked the walkie-talkie. There was no response. Jake and I shared a worried look. If something had happened to them…
We rounded a corner and saw the other female Bengal, Chloe. She was moving away from us slowly, stalking forward as low to the ground as she could go. We saw her target a second later: a large male peacock about fifty feet away, pecking at something on the path.
I hurried to prepare the next syringe. Chloe was about three-fifty the last time I weighed her. I loaded the dart syringe with the correct amount of Telazol and tried to load it into the tranquilizer gun, but my hands were shaking so badly that the tip broke off in the barrel.
“Shit!”
“Hurry up,” Jake hissed. “She’s about to pounce.”
“I’m trying!”
The peacock was totally unaware of the enormous cat that was about to turn it into a late-night snack. The bird had been in captivity too long to know what was good for it. I filled another dart syringe with liquid…
Jake cursed and jumped out of the Mule.
“What are you doing!”
“Hey Chloe!” Jake shouted, waving one of the jab sticks over his head. “You sassy bitch!”
That scared the peacock away. Chloe rounded on Jake, snarling angrily at having lost her kill.
If the pressure of watching a peacock get killed was high, the pressure of Jake’s life being on the line was an order of magnitude worse. My pulse was like a drum in my ears as I loaded the dart into the gun, going extra slow to make sure the tip didn’t break. Chloe was stalking toward Jake, her tail low to the ground.
I aimed the gun but I had no good shot. She was facing us, and I needed to hit her in the side or flank. She was thirty feet from Jake and drawing closer. Her lower jaw flexed and eyes narrowed.
“Take the shot!” Jake shouted.
With no other choice, I jumped out of the Mule and ran sideways until I had a clearer shot of her side.
Jake’s jaw dropped when he glanced back at me. “You’re running away?!?!”
I went to one knee and aimed the gun. My hands were still trembling, but the tiger was about to pounce so it was now or never. I exhaled and squeezed the trigger. There was a puff of compressed gas, and a pink dart hissed through the air.
Chloe snarled and jumped back with alarm. She twisted like a dog chasing its tail, trying to get at the thing sticking out of her torso, but she couldn’t reach it with her teeth. After three rotations she staggered to the side like a drunk on the sidewalk, then finally gave up and lay down like she was bored with the whole thing. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Cutting it a little close there, huh?” Jake wiped sweat from his forehead.
“I told you not to do anything stupid!”
He lowered the jab stick. “She was gonna kill the peacock. What was I supposed to do?”
Adrenaline was turning my vision white. The back of my mouth tasted like pennies. I dropped the tranquilizer gun in the Mule and grabbed the walkie-talkie.
“We’ve got the wolves, chimps, and both tigers safe. Aside from the peacock we just saved from a gruesome death, what else is loose?”
I was terrified that we would get no response again. But then David’s voice came to life: “Not sure. But we caught the saboteur. We’re over by the lion pen.”
Jake and I relaxed in the Mule. “On our way. Fair warning: you might have to stop me from punching Mary Beth in the nose.”