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Burning Bright (Cont.)

AT SUNRISE THE NEXT DAY, in fresh morning light, two chasing males of the tiny scarlet minivet sparkled back and forth and up and down among the spring leaves on the tall trees on the steep slopes of the grassland plateau called Bija Dadar. Passing beneath tall bija trees, the track leveled off on the ridge plateau. In the warm sunlight, little bee-eaters in dancing greens flared

Were a tiger to take form in the roadside thicket or step onto the road, I thought, the taut landscape would crack like an old shard of gilt ceramic.

quick butterfly wings of turquoise and warm copper, and in the deep shade, two gaur bulls browsed the light, feathery shoots of new bamboo that whispered in the warm wind of the plateau. This great wild ox, which can weigh more than a ton, has thick backswept horns, a prominent head knob, and a massive boss, like a Cape buffalo. Slow to alarm, the huge beasts raised great ivory-snouted heads to contemplate the intruders with hard ocher eyes, switching hard manure-flecked rumps with their short tails.

Tiger pugmarks on the track were fresh, and so was what the forest guide, holding his nose, called "leopard scat"; despite the soft breeze, its reek filled a whole curve in the road. Rashid, murmuring to spare the young guide's feelings, told me this was no leopard, but a wild dog, or dhole.

Hearing something, the driver stopped, and at once a loud yowling arose from the near undergrowth—a tiger cub, distressed by our idling motor. Earlier that winter, not far from the same place, one of these open vehicles from Kipling Camp had been false-charged by a mating tigress, roaring her outrage that a carload of voyeurs should be privy to her copulations, and the guide was concerned that the cub's yowl might summon that same mother. Within moments, a tigress answered it from down the ridge, a loud sharp growl that might have been a warning to her restive cub. The Land Rover moved off a little ways to wait.

A golden-backed woodpecker in bounding flight crossed the fiery mountain light—a tiger light—which made the early springtime in these highlands seem like fall. The tigress did not roar again; possibly she had crept close to her cub and was watching from nearby. In the great stillness, a blue ground thrush picked and kicked through the bamboo. Were a tiger to take form in the roadside thicket or step onto the road, I thought, the taut landscape would crack like an old shard of gilt ceramic.

ONE MORNING, AS IF PROTESTING three long days without a tiger sighting, the Land Rover rather mysteriously quit on the forest track. Rashid, who served as driver-guide, set off on foot toward the main Kisli-Kanha road in search of aid; since he was not there to forbid it, I took advantage of a rare opportunity to stretch my legs.

On foot, one travels through a forest very different from the one patrolled so blithely in a vehicle. Hearing each fallen nut or twig, I was alert for the alarm cries of chital and langur; I saw wild dog sign and a snake's curved track, paid close attention to tree shadows, and took note of a tiger scat so ancient that all was leached away except the coarse guard hairs of a deer, never digested.

A mile or more down the track was a stockade from which an elderly forest guard rushed forth, waving his stick: I was to go no farther, I must wait right there. Pretending not to understand, answering with something foolish about meeting Rashid Ali at the vehicle, I turned and headed back, so exhilarated by this brief safari that I trekked some ways beyond the car.

By the time Rashid showed up with another vehicle, noon had come and the woods had fallen quiet. On the return, a large black-tailed mongoose crossed the track (reminding me of Kipling's cobra-killing mongoose, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, whose eyes turned red when he was angry). Two wild dogs accompanied the car some little distance, trotting just back of the first line of trees while keeping to the shadows of the forest.

Farther along, a kill had taken place just minutes earlier. Three chital bucks moved in a stiff, slow line, white tails upright. From the direction they were pointing, more chitals came running, gathering up small companies of their kind from open woods and meadow, until more than a hundred scampered past. A jackal trotted toward a brushy gully where the cat had dragged its prey, and jungle crows and white-backed vultures came gliding in to a dead tree, craning and peering. Since they did not descend, it was quite clear that the predator was right there on the kill.

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