THE ELEPHANT HUNTER by Shane Ryan “The fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog knows one good one.” —Archilocus, c. 700 BC PART ONE: THE RISE OF THE HUNTER “Please don’t confront me with my failures…I had not forgotten them.” —Jackson Browne Chapter 1: The Bird Watcher Carthage, NC, September 18 For the third straight morning, he had come to kill the Senator. Rivers of sweat streamed down his back as the relentless North Carolina sun shimmered and burned. He lifted the binoculars hanging from his neck and peered west down Union Church Road—nothing yet. No Senator, no bike, no cars. He took a deep breath. The smell of pine on the wind gave him the briefest sense of peace—not quite serenity itself, but a faint shadow of something he had lost a long time ago. His only true companion, for years and years, was his rage. He peered into the tall trees. In the very unlikely case that anybody was watching the desolate road, they would see what appeared to be a stereotype—khaki suit, hiking boots, thick gardener’s gloves, and an olive-colored hat with a drooping brim that hid his face. It was a face he needed to hide, because it had become bone thin from the years of never being hungry, of forcing himself to eat at regular intervals, of forgetting too often…a face that was too memorable. He looked cartoonish, and he chose the outfit for that exact effect. Someone might lay eyes on him, but even ten minutes later, they wouldn’t be able to describe him beyond generic terms—a bird watcher. That was one of the mantras he had repeated to himself in the planning stages: Not invisible, but unknowable. The fragrant pine boughs were a welcome distraction, and not just from the mission that lay before him. It was more—he desperately needed to escape a gnawing thought. It was a demon he’d first confronted years ago, but managed to drown with action. Now it had returned: the truth that deep down, what he wanted more than almost anything else… Just say it— You want to die. As the hour for killing approached, he was forced to admit that the old desire had gathered its forces once more in the secret chambers of his mind. This time, to his surprise, the realization didn’t fill him with panic or dread. There would be no crisis. This time he had approached something like acceptance. Yes, you want to die. But you want them to die first. 1 * It required so much waiting. Three days and counting, not to mention the lonely years of preparation. He had to kill now. This morning. The Senator had seen him twice, and while the man might chalk that up to coincidence, meeting the same person in the same spot at the same time on three straight days could raise alarm bells in even the most unobservant mind. If it didn’t happen today, he’d abort, move on to the next target. Failure would be a fitting end to an odyssey of frustration. On the first day, several cars had come at the wrong moment, leaving him no choice but to delay. Conditions were perfect on day two, but he’d lost his nerve. He didn’t even open the door of his gray Honda Civic…just gawked like an imbecile while the Senator pedaled past, raising a friendly hand. The memory filled him with shame. Conditions were perfect again. The collaborating sun was just where it should be, high in the sky at his back, bright enough to blind anyone coming up the road from the west. He ran through his preparations. The Senator was an avid road cyclist, a fact he’d learned from a local newspaper one year earlier and confirmed during two scouting missions. On those trips, and again this week, he’d slept in the back of his Civic in a Wal-Mart parking lot two hours to the west in Charlotte. He bought the car a year ago, with cash, from an obvious drug addict, and he had his lies prepared if a cop or a security guard tapped on his window. His cover story even included a favorite bird, the Antillean nighthawk. He knew that the Senator, a fit 45, would cross the Sandhills on his bike every day during the recess periods when he was home from Raleigh. And as good luck had it, the man was a creature of habit who rode the same route each time. Most of the 25-mile ride was lonely and isolated, but one spot stood out above the others as an ideal ambush spot. And so, for three straight days, the bird watcher had parked his car facing west at the top of this short, steep valley in Union Church Road. The depression went on for a half mile before it rose again, just as steeply, and the road bent out of sight on both sides of the dip to form a horseshoe. Thickets of tall loblolly pine crowded the shoulder on either side, cutting off sight lines from the north and south. As for people? No chance. These were the boondocks—no homes within earshot. Whatever happened in that hollow was invisible and inaudible to the outside world. The fact that a cyclist would necessarily be crawling as he scaled the eastern face, and that he’d have to shield his eyes against the morning sun, made it perfect. 2 The margins were tight. He’d have approximately three minutes from the moment the Senator appeared on the crest of the western hill to when he finished his climb. Three minutes to stage the hit-and-run. Three minutes to kill. * He raised his binoculars again. He spotted a motorcycle in the distance, but no bike. The Senator was late. He tried to admire the scenery, to pretend he was less nervous than he felt. If you only paid attention to the acres of undulating trees, he thought, you might mistake this place for verdant. In fact, the soil was hard-baked, sandy, tough. Millions of years ago, before the ocean retreated, this had been the beach—an endless stretch of sand dunes. Now it was a bridge between the mountains and the new coastal plain, but you could see the remnants of its littoral history on the dry forest floor. The endless minutes passed. He spotted a hazy shape on the horizon. He adjusted the focus, and… Okay. The Senator. The man himself, in the flesh, unmistakable in his red-and-white cycling jersey and blue padded shorts atop the expensive Trek bike. In his reverie, he had lost precious seconds, and so he raced to the car. He gunned the engine, pulled out, and realized he had forgotten to check for other cars. He knew he should stop, but for once he felt ready. You’ll have to take your chances sooner or later. When the senator reached the valley floor and began his climb, the bird watcher took a deep breath and started down the hill. The hesitation from the day before hit him again, but now he was ready for it. He accelerated, and the needle on the speedometer jumped. At the critical moment, almost sick with fear and anger, he made his move. With a wrench of the wheel, foot hard on the accelerator, he steered his car into the bike. A muffled shout, a thud of flesh and pavement. Now the adrenaline surged. He steered away from the ditch and executed a K-turn. With the sunlight in his face, he could barely make out the scene before him. The 3 senator had been unable to dislodge his shoes from the clips when he fell, and now he tugged at them as he lay on his side, the bike locked between his knees. His face went through a series of pained contortions—he may have broken his hip, or his collarbone—and he screamed something in the direction of the car. Paralyzed, the bird watcher sat in his car and watched as the man finally freed his left foot. He crawled on his hands knees downhill, his right shoulder hunched around his ear, and began to reach for the rear pouch of his jersey. A cell phone. Shit. He never expected his victim to be coherent enough to make a call. The car sped forward, as though operating in defiance of the driver’s indecision. The Senator tried to protect himself, and the fender slammed into his back. The impact shook the car, and the Senator tumbled forward and seemed to skid when he landed. The bird watcher drove away, up the eastern hill, where he parked the car on the shoulder, threw the door open, and made it fifteen feet into the woods before he vomited into a bed of pine needles. He sensed his entire body shaking, but he couldn’t focus enough to see—he moved through a gauzy mist, heavy and slow, floating above his own body. He wanted to escape. He walked back to his car, put both hands on the hood and leaned forward. He heard himself panting. He might not be dead. The whole purpose was to kill him. What good would it do if he were left alive? He returned to the Civic. Blinking against the sun, he spotted the Senator at the bottom of the far hill. He’s moving. This time the wounded man saw the car approach, and began dragging himself toward the forest.