The Runaways Read Online Free PDF Page B

which had become sticky with sardine oil.
    Yarra came wraith-like through the gloom at the top of the garden. She saw Smiler by the river, her head turning at the movement of his arm as he tossed his rubbish into the water, her nostrils catching his scent almost at the same time. She moved on without pausing and without any great interest in him. The scent was the same as she had caught the previous night, though the shape was leaner and no flapping came from it. Had she been hungry and in a bad temper just the sight of him might have stirred resentment. But she was well-fed and wanted only the comfort of her hut and the litter of warm straw. That morning she had worked her way upstream on the right bank of the river through steep plantation slopes of young firs and old woods of bare trees. She had taken a grey squirrel – tempted out by the sunshine – as it had scurried for the trunk of a tall beech, jumping and pawing it down from the smooth grey bark when it was six feet from the ground. Full of her waterhen meal, she had done no more that take a bite from its soft belly and leave it. Most of the day she had passed in the river woods, moving away whenever she heard voices or sounds that disturbed her. During the late afternoon she had come out of the woods at the top of the river slope. Here, on a long, rolling down, she had put up a hare from a clump of dead bracken. Yarra had seen hares before moving across the parkland pasture outside her Longleat enclosure. They had always excited her just as did the young deer that also moved beyond the wire in freedom. She had gone after the hare, hearing the thump of its feet as it raced away. The hare had had a fifteen-yard start on her but, although it had twisted, zig-zagged and doubled at top speed, she had moved like an orange-gold blur and taken it within a hundred yards easily. She had eaten it, relishing the meat which was strange to her.
    Now, full of food, wanting only her resting place, she passed around the barn and through the open door to find her litter of straw. In the darkness she pawed with her claws at the flattened straw to shape and bulk it. Satisfied after a while, she dropped flat on it. She stretched her legs stiffly, tightened her shoulder muscles, and then relaxed, her head cocked over one shoulder watching the open doorway.
    A few moments later Smiler came through the door, humming softly to himself. Momentarily Yarra’s mask wrinkled and she opened her jaws, half-threatening, but making no sound. There was no real malice in her.
    Smiler closed the door on the latch, felt for the ladder rungs in the darkness and went up to his loft and dropped the trapdoor quietly.
    That evening before going to sleep Smiler listened to the radio for two or three hours. He had the set turned down very low and tucked into the hay close to his head. When the news came on he was interested to hear whether there would be anything about his escape on it. But he was disappointed. It would have been quite something to have had his own name broadcast.
    However, there was something about another escaper. A cheetah (Smiler tried to picture what a cheetah was like and fancied it was something like a panther or leopard) which had escaped from the Longleat wild life reserve the day before had not so far been found. Smiler – whose home was at Fishponds on the outskirts of Bristol – had heard of Longleat and its lions though he had never been there. No one had yet reported seeing the animal but the Longleat authorities had said that it was not likely to travel far. It was probably still quite close to the park or somewhere in the large tract of country in the triangle made by the towns of Frome, Warminster and Mere. Anyone seeing the animal was asked to keep well away from it and to inform the police or the Longleat Park authorities. At the end of the news there was a short interview with a man from Longleat Park who gave some general information about cheetahs. In