Tiger Hills (29 page)

The fields were bare, shorn bald of their crop, the dark underbelly of soil naked and exposed to the winter sun. The land held the quiet of the afternoon in its palm, not a stray bark nor even a distant clunk of a cowbell to be heard. There was not a person in sight, none to glance wonderingly toward him or attempt to stay his hand.

Take it back, take it all back, I am not worthy.

A kingfisher dived toward the river, a brilliant blur of blue slicing into the water to emerge triumphant a moment later, a tiny koilé fish slithering desperately in its beak. The hunter and the hunted. This was the natural order of things, was it not?

And he had hunted a tiger, the greatest hunter of them all. Yet with what ease he himself had been taken.

It had been the nape of her neck. The first, fatal hook. The smooth-skinned grace of it, all but obscured by the braid that swung to her hips. She had thrust past him at the Kaveri tank, the very picture of determination, and his spurt of irritation was swiftly replaced by amusement. And then, as she had wedged herself before him, he had found himself unable to tear his eyes away. Following every dip of light and shadow, the interplay of muscle beneath the translucent skin as she craned her neck this way and that. He had shut his eyes for only a brief moment in prayer; when they opened, she was tilting slowly toward the water. The compactness of her waist, fitting neatly into the span of his hands.

And the shock, the bone-jarring jolt he had felt when finally he had looked into the perfection of her face.

She had startled him with her forthrightness.
By your side,
she had said, up on the mountain peak, silhouetted against the clouds.
Here is where I belong.
Those eyes, staring at him, with not a trace of guile or embarrassment.

He had tried to convince himself of the foolishness of his obsession. Tried to persuade himself after the festival that he had exaggerated the memory of her; that nobody could possibly be as bewitching. She was spoiled, he reminded himself, even as his feet made their way to her father's house. A willful child-woman. And then she had walked out onto the verandah, a flash of red tucked into her plait, and all he could think about was pulling out that flower, petal by petal, letting loose that silken weight of hair till it tumbled freely down her back.

He had left her home abruptly, for the first time in his life afraid. Of what he might do or say if he was around her too long, shaken by this tongue-melting heat, this untenable tenderness she managed to evoke in him by just one long-lashed glance.

At least his face had betrayed nothing, he was sure of that.

And then Machu had started to laugh, doubled over on the trail at the bitter absurdity of it all. What a fool he was, behaving like a lovelorn yokel. There were three years for the vow to be over. How could he ask her to wait for so long? It was just an absurd obsession; it would pass.

He had stayed stubbornly away through the slow sludge of the next months, blocking her from memory. And then a heron would take sudden wing, its neck held elegantly against the clouds, bringing to mind an unbidden, heart-stopping flash of her. Ah, it was foolish, he would insist to himself, turning away. This. Made. No. Sense. Then, the sight of her at the feast, even lovelier than he had remembered.

The sharp flush of pleasure as he had felt her eyes following him, the thrill as he had realized that
she, too, had been unable to forget.
He had been amused at first at her blatant efforts to make him jealous. Deliberately turning his back on her, enjoying their little game. Then despite himself, he had grown angry.

Why did she insist on taking matters so far, making eyes at every poor fool who crossed her path?
Fickle-hearted tramp,
he had cursed silently to himself. She knew full well the effect she had on those hapless idiots. And on him. Or did she even care? He had looked worriedly toward her then, but she was busy twirling her plait at some slack-jawed oaf. Machu's fingers had tightened around his drink.

She had looked at him that night in the lane that led to her home, with the same guilelessness he had tried so hard to forget.
I will wait for you,
she had said.
I am yours, forever.

He was the
tiger killer.
And yet, played for a fool.

Machu's hand shook, a mere hint of a tremor, but that was all it took for the freshly sharpened blade to slice into his skin. He paused, shocked by the sudden sting after the epochal darkness of the past months. The fingers he raised to his cheeks came away stippled with blood.

The drums in the courtyard had been so loud that night that nobody had heard the gun go off in the attic. Devanna's blood had
soaked into the floorboards by the time they found him, a dark, mushroom-shaped stain that would cling to the wood even weeks later despite the repeated scrubbings with rock salt and linseed oil. A colony of ants had already been foraging in his shattered flesh, raising the hairs on the back of Machu's neck even now, as he remembered.

Mercifully, it had been late, long after the crowds come to witness the ancestor propitiations had dispersed. The family had lifted Devanna's body down to the inner courtyard, and there they had found, to their shock and horrified pity, that under the mess of blood and tissue, his pulse was still faintly beating.

It had been Machu who had raced to summon Dr. Jameson. He remembered little of the ride save the sweating flanks of the horse beneath his thighs and the fitful light of the moon, casting a dim light now and then along on the path. He had burst into the Jameson home, not even noticing the squawking watchman. Jameson had emerged purple with fury, his nightcap askew and the Remington rifle in his hand. He had swiftly calmed down, however, recognizing the Nayak's name and prudently choosing the lure of handsome payment over a night's sleep. Gathering up his bag, calling for his horse to be saddled, and throwing a coat over his pajamas, he had hurried out into the night after Machu.

He had shaken his head as he took Devanna's pulse. “Yes, he's alive. How, I don't know. It's a miracle. The bullet—one centimeter to the right and it would have gone through his heart.”

Many years later, Jameson, long retired to his village in England, would recite the story over and over to his cronies at the Flying Owl, none of whom even pretended to listen anymore. “Just like that. Bang! One bullet, through the heart, that's the preferred method. Clean and quick, that's what they believe. You see it so often in that pagan country, one might almost think it's taught to them in the cradle. So this lad … barely whiskered, early twenties, no more, decides for some obscure reason that he too has had enough and wants to end it all. Sneaks up to the attic while the rest of the family is at yet another ungodly feast. Takes a gun from the rack, only”—Jameson would artfully pause to take a long
swig of his ale—“
only
the poor sod chooses the one gun in the rack that
listed to the left!
”

“Some sort of ceremonial gun,” Jameson would explain. “It had once taken down a tiger, and was prized by the family despite its fatal flaw.”

They had transferred Devanna to the Mercara Medical Clinic, and through the bumpy ride and the next months he had held on.

Rumors had flown through the family. That girl Devi. The oracle had warned them, had he not, of an impending tragedy? She was at the root of it all, they were sure. Look at her poor husband, caught in a living hell, not even able to end his life honorably. Some wife she had turned out to be …

Machu had listened to them silently, unable to come to her defense without betraying her further. The words cold and congealing on his tongue. He had brought this upon them after all, this curse. He had broken a sacred vow, forsaken his dharma. And for what? To be the plaything of a married woman? To betray the trust of a
kinsman?

He began to shave again, roughly, not caring about the cuts that appeared under the blade.

How old had he been the day of the cobra? Seven? Eight? His uncles had taken him on a hunt. It had not been going well; all they had to show for an entire day was a single gamy jungle fowl. They had pitched camp that night, sharing the few ottis they had carried with them and roasting the fowl on a spit, cursing at the stringiness of its flesh. They had started early the next morning, but nonetheless, it had not been until many hours later that they had spotted the bison herd. Silently, with the utmost care, they had begun to take their positions. Nobody had needed to tell him what to do, he knew instinctively to melt into the brush, watching as his uncles lined their sights. One of the bison glanced in their direction, peering shortsightedly toward them, and then lowered its snout again into the grass. His uncles motioned to one another.
Soon.

He had taken his eyes off the bison for an instant, squinting at the sun blazing down on them through the jackfruit trees. A sudden
hiss, like the exhalation of an irritable crone. A burn in his leg so sharp that Machu had shouted out in agony. The bison had whisked their tails and spun instantly around, thundering away in a flurry of hooves. His uncles lowered their guns and raced toward him. “Cobra! Watch out, careful!” they had cried as they speared the snake.

Machu had known that he had to compensate. “No, let me, let me,” he had insisted, gasping through the pain. He had barely been able to see, his hands slippery with sweat, but he knew that he had ruined the hunt. He knew that he needed to pay, that he alone now must kill the snake. He threw his peechekathi, the dagger flying in a single, graceful arc, slicing the reptile in half.

This will hurt, his uncle had warned, kneeling by his side. Machu had nodded, clamping down on his lower lip. Not a sound he had uttered as his leg was sliced open. Not even a murmur, all through the agony of the wound being squeezed until the black, poisoned blood had spilled and clotted down his leg. His uncles had packed gunpowder into the hole, then ignited it with a match to cauterize the wound, and still he had gritted his teeth and remained silent. “Truly not one word,” they had said admiringly of him that night at the Kambeymada house, thumping him on the back. “Can you believe this boy, not a sound!”

He had visited only once, nearly two months after Devanna was admitted to the Mercara Clinic. He went, drawn by his guilt and the unbearable absence of her. The November squalls were ended, and December was upon them with its fog-filled mornings and clear, crisp nights. In a couple of weeks, it would be 1901.

The clinic had been hushed, its antiseptic air catching at the back of Machu's throat. The initial crowd of relatives had now been reduced to two young cousins stationed in Devanna's room. The child was there, too, Nanju, toddling about while his mother sat by the bed, still as a statue.
That neck, the curved elegance of it.
The sound of Devanna's breathing, a snuffled wheezing, like an animal might make as the life drained from its body.

She had looked up sharply. The hope flooding her face, the color staining her pale cheeks. “You came.”

He sent the boys out with a couple of coins. “Get yourself some sweets,” he told them. “I will stand watch for a while.”

“You came.” Her face was radiant. “I
knew
you wouldn't leave me, that you would come.” Her eyes filling with tears, she shook her head, not yet noticing he had not said a word.

The slow, accusatory wheezing from the bed, of a man trapped between life and death.

“Take me away,” she said desperately. “Take me away, Machu, just … Let's go away, anywhere, we will make it work, just the two of us.”

He had jumped at her touch. “Your
husband
is lying there.”

“No, you don't understand.” She had reached toward him, trying to cup his face in her hands, and he had brushed them away. “He did this for me, don't you see? I know Devanna, he was trying to right the wrong … he did this for
us.
”

A numbness was descending upon him. The sound of Devanna's breathing echoing in his ears, like a trapped animal pleading to be set free.
I am the tiger killer.
The weight of the tiger settling into his bones.

“He knew? He
knew
about us?”

It was he who had killed Devanna, as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

“Machu, you don't understand.” Her eyes were ablaze, the words tripping off her tongue. “He was trying to set things right.”

Machu shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs. “He
knew
about us. He found out the night of the oracle, did he not?”

“He wanted you and I to—”

“Enough. You married him, Devi. You chose HIM. And yet, I … You … we have done enough.” It hurt to breathe. “No more, Devi. We are finished.”

The last few hairs from his sideburns sailed toward the water and were immediately carried away downstream. His jaw itched.
Machu slowly ran his fingers over the expanse of nicked, newly shaven skin. It was done. The solution had finally come to him that morning. The payment, the rightful dues, to balance this wrong.

No more the tiger killer, no more the chosen one. He had given away everything he had.

All he had ever been.

He washed his face, the water cool, soothing his skin.
Do with me as you will, Swami Ayappa. But spare his life.

A school of tiny koilé rushed to the surface, gulping at the flecks of his blood swirling in the Kaveri.

The stupefied family clustered about him that evening. “But why?” the shocked Nayak asked him. “Why this foolishness? You are
Kambeymada Machaiah.
The tiger killer. Do you not know what an honor this is for the family? How could you spurn this?”

“It was the tiger who was the true hero,” Machu said tiredly to the Nayak. He gestured toward the tiger skin, now a little frayed about the edges but still hanging proudly along one wall of the inner courtyard. “I happened to be the one to wield the sword, but Swami Ayappa … he had already willed the tiger to be felled. I was but an instrument. A plaything.”