Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [27]
Realizing that no one from the New York Ballet was around to grade my potential and wholly involuntary audition, I stopped jumping about like a madman. Clenching my teeth, I searched for the source of the fiery pain. In the center of the back of my left hand, one of those tiny ants was busily screwing itself abdomen- and stinger-first into my flesh, rotating its entire body like a tiny organic drill. It took several forceful shoves with the edge of my other hand to finally dislodge the ant. While the miniscule arthropod that had inflicted the pain had been dealt with, the fire remained. It did not go away, in fact, for a couple of days. Not until the inflamed red spot the size of a dime that marked the injection site finally faded from sight.
Coming over, Boris eyed the angry-looking redness appraisingly.
“I have some salve if you want to put something on it.”
“No, I’ll be all right,” I told him. What I didn’t say was, I’ll tolerate it for as long as it lasts in order to remind me of my arrogance.
It is said that when the local natives want to severely punish someone, they tie them naked to a tangarana tree. I feel safe in presuming that if the miscreant so condemned doesn’t die, they are suitably chastised for the rest of their life. I know from experience what one sting can do.
I prefer not to imagine what a hundred or so would feel like.
* * *
Northeastern Gabon, January 2007
IN THE MOUNTAINOUS NORTHEASTERN CORNER of the central African nation of Gabon, in a region noticed, if at all, by the rest of the world for its occasional headline-making outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus, lies an Eden-like clearing in the jungle called Langoué Bai. Made famous by National Geographic explorer J. Michael Fay in the course of his trail-blazing mega-transect of central Africa, Langoué Bai is home to forest elephants, sitatungas, lowland gorillas, and other fabulous beasts. My sister, Carol, had always wanted to see gorillas, while I dreamed of seeing elephants on a beach. Gabon is the only place in the world where the latter encounter is reasonably possible. Having successfully encountered the surreal sand-loving pachyderms on the coast in Loango National Park, we were now on our way inland to Langoué.
The bai (the Bayaka word for an opening in the forest) lay in rugged and undeveloped Ivindo National Park. To get to Ivindo, we took the train from the town of Libreville. Winding its way through the heart of Africa, the Trans-Gabon train is a little-known miracle of engineering. Its front cars also boast air-conditioning so powerful that it threatens to turn the upper-class passengers into Gabonsicles. In the days to come, we would have occasion to recall that over-cranked air-con longingly.
The town of Ivindo would not exist except to serve the logging industry. An undisciplined scattering of homes, small bars, and shops fan out from the train station side of the railroad tracks. Met by operatives from the Wildlife Conservation Society that operates the scientific station inside Ivindo and that occasionally welcomes tourists, we and a young couple from San Francisco on their honeymoon (!) tossed our backpacks into the rear of a big, dirt-caked 4x4 and embarked on the nearly five-hour drive to the trailhead.
You know when you’ve reached the end of the line because the road grows progressively worse and the vegetation ever denser around it until the track simply slams up against a steep jungle-covered slope and stops. In the rainy season, the dirt road is virtually impassable. Climbing gratefully out of the vehicle after the long, jouncing ride, we immediately found ourselves in the company of swarms of bees. After a minute or two of near-panic engendered by thoughts of Africanized bees, it became apparent that we were in no real danger. These weren’t Africanized bees: They were just African bees.
All right, so maybe I’m splitting antennae here, but it was clear the hundreds of happy