"Anthony Wall - The Eden Mission (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wall Anthony)

retreated to the high grass.

Now she watched and waited. She refused to surrender the hard-won meal, her
first catch in many tries. The tigress was very hungry. But her three cubs,
fidgeting beneath a saja tree, were hungrier.

Once, there had been four of them, born blind in a cave six months ago. They
grew sleek and fat on their mother's milk until the day they were ready to
venture out with her and start learning how to hunt for themselves. It was
then that their father, a swaggering giant of 550 pounds, seized one of the
cubs and devoured it behind a bush. He tried again--but the tigress was alert,
and spat a challenge that froze him in his tracks. Though he outweighed her by
200 pounds, he knew she would fight to the death to defend her young. The
tiger had backed down and slunk off.

Turning from the lake, the tigress checked that the three cubs were safe
before resuming her long vigil. The sun was high and hot, and she panted
heavily. All around could be heard the buzz, hum, click, fizz and rattle of
insects.

Ranee, as she was known by the wardens of this Indian nature reserve, was a
splendid specimen. Nearly nine feet long, seven years old, in her prime. She
should live to the age of eleven, maybe twice that. For the next seventeen
months she would devote herself to rearing and teaching the cubs. The wardens
could easily recognise Ranee by the stripes and squiggles on her cheeks and
eyebrows--as distinctive as human fingerprints--quite different from those of
her massive mate and the five other tigresses in his scattered harem.
By now the temperature had soared to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.
Ranee still watched and waited. A snake slithered past her paw. She recoiled
slightly, remembering a painful incident as a cub, but the snake trickled away
through a crack in the ground and was gone.

In the late afternoon Ranee's patience was rewarded. The sambur buck floated
to the surface. But it was surrounded by crocodiles --their teeth, ideal for
gripping, could not tear off the firm flesh. Ranee glared, summoning her
courage. The deer's body beckoned, fifty yards from the rim of the lake.

Quivering with anticipation, Ranee dashed forward. She swam strongly, ignoring
the crocodiles, grabbed the sambur by the throat and began her return journey.
Their two heads bobbed up and down between the water lilies. At last Ranee
landed her catch.

Laboriously she hauled the deer towards her cubs.

Crack!

Three small striped faces grimaced in alarm.

The bullet from the high-powered rifle entered through Ranee's right eye,
ploughed on and shattered her brain. She moaned once, then collapsed over the