They were still in a group and were coming toward us single file, making scarcely a sound. Far to the right was a whole cluster of turbans and faces-the villagers. Manchu was a few paces to one side of him, moving along striking the boles of the trees with the flat of a small ax. Tyler FreelĪfter perhaps two hours of waiting, we made out the bobbing turban of Sardarsingh our tracker. The author’s guide, Rao, with his foot on a shooting platform. Far off to the side we saw the spiral horns of a big-bodied antelope called the blue bull as it broke through the trees and dashed away. A spotted deer barked like the baying of a hound.
A flight of parrots flew past, their bodies emerald-green against the evening sky. Peafowl screamed in the distance. I’d already seen the villagers of Arjuni walk through the thick brush to drive man-eating tigers up to us. Certainly these Gindoli villagers weren’t going to be afraid to drive bears in the same way.īut Rao shook his head as he saw the villagers leave. Brownie and I were occupied with the sights and sounds of the jungle in the late afternoon. This driving technique is one standard way to hunt tigers. The plan was for the line of men to circle wide and form on the far side of the mohwa thicket, then, with shouting and noise, drive the bears toward us. Our two trackers, Manchu and Sardarsingh, tried to marshal them into some semblance of order, but it was obviously difficult.
#DEER IN CROSSHAIRS DRIVERS#
A Gindoli woman gathering mohwas had been killed by the big male sloth bear only the month before.Īs Rao signaled the drivers to move off, they walked reluctantly and still in a group. This fruit drops off the branches every night and covers the ground with a fragrant-smelling layer that looks like a carpet of popcorn. The mohwa fruit is eaten by almost all the animals of India, including humans. Beyond this the mohwa and sal trees grew thick to form an almost impenetrable wall of vegetation. The mohwa trees at this time of the year produce a white fruit the size of a small crab apple. From the platform, or machan, we could see across one of the little open spaces of bare rock for perhaps 100 yards. It was late afternoon as we took our position. The bed was lashed in a horizontal position and Rao, Brownie, and I climbed up to the platform. The men from the village stayed in a tight group and talked in low tones as Rao directed their hoisting the charpoy into the forked branch of a low tree. “They water at night at the pond below the village. “The bears have been eating the fruit of the mohwa tree in the valley beyond here,” Rao explained. My wife and I thought the man might be applying for a job or that he had news of our big tiger, but as he talked in Hindustani it became clear that he was asking for something. It was his only badge of office as being some kind of a minor official in the district. He saluted smartly, in keeping with his cap, and asked if he might speak with the sahib. Rao was somewhat annoyed when on the fourth evening of our stay at Arjuni a little man broke into our conversation at the government rest house which was our camp. The fellow wore the usual white rag around his buttocks and was otherwise naked except for a distinctive cap which had a visor and a flap of cloth behind. As he manipulated the jeep through the suffocating clouds of dust, Rao explained that we had come all this way not just for tigers but for one particular tiger. As we jounced along, the road steadily degenerated into a jungle track with the dust churned powder-dry and a foot deep by the wooden wheels of the bullock carts hauling out teak and bamboo. From Raipur, Rao drove the jeep and trailer 100 miles or so along forest roads which the British had years ago built into the heart of the teak forests north and east of Raipur.