Scorpion Sting by Justin D'Ath

Author:Justin D'Ath
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742280592
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Published: 2009-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

14

HUNTED ANIMAL

A huge pale shape loomed out of the darkness ahead. I had to swerve to miss it. Another lurched across in front of me. Kangaroos? I wondered. But they were too big for kangaroos. I flicked the headlight on. Holy guacamole! I was surrounded by knobbly knees, enormous pale bodies with dusty, frayed-carpet hides, and eyes that glowed green in the Kawasaki’s bouncing headlight. Camels. I had ridden right into the middle of a herd of them.

They had been sleeping before I came along. Now they were staggering to their feet all around me, groaning and snorting and bumping into each other in their hurry to get out of my way. I was too surprised to hit the brakes. There wasn’t time anyway. The terrorists were only a hundred metres behind, just around the last corner. I swerved to miss a camel calf and nearly had a head-on with its mother. Panicked camels were charging in all directions. A big bull swung around and roared, showering my face with a spray of evil-smelling saliva. The shaggy tail of another animal whacked me across the chest. I heaved the bike right, then left, then right again. Camels shot past me on either side. I could barely see where I was going; it was a nightmare slalom. I was riding for my life. One wrong turn, one moment’s loss of control in the loose sand, and whomp, it would be all over – either I’d break my neck, or the terrorists would get me.

It didn’t happen. Somehow I avoided the camels. Or they avoided me. Instead of running into them, I found myself riding behind a group of ten or twelve of the huge stampeding animals, like a cowboy herding cattle. I was eating their dust as they went thundering off into the night. It gave me an idea.

I switched off the headlight, waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, then rode right in among the herd. Two of the rear-most animals snorted in fright and peeled off to the left, but the rest continued galloping straight ahead, with me in the middle. I had the Kawasaki in third gear and its exhaust note was pretty quiet, barely as loud as the camels’ pounding hooves and their whoofing, puffing breath. In the confusion of the shadowy stampede, they must have thought I was one of them.

We continued that way for several minutes, until we came to a steep rise. Then I had to change down to first gear and pour on the juice. The Kawasaki roared. It gave the game away. Finally realising there was an impostor in their midst, the camels scattered left and right.

But they had served their purpose. For two or three kilometres, my unwitting escorts had obliterated the Kawasaki’s tyre marks with their hoof prints. Back in the valley where I had disturbed the sleeping herd, the terrorists would find nothing but camel tracks leading off in all directions. They wouldn’t know which trail to follow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.