Hairy Hezekiah Read online

“For people to drink. They milk us.”

  People, thought Hezekiah. I don’t want them to see me; they’d put me back in the zoo. He decided he’d ask the cows’ advice, politely of course.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if you can help me. You see, I’ve just escaped from the zoo and I don’t want to go back there. I want to find somewhere safe to go, somewhere with lots of space. Do you know of anywhere?”

  The cows looked at one another. Then they looked again at the large, dark, hairy, humped figure of the camel. Then one cow came closer to Hezekiah and said, “You’re in luck, my friend. There’s a place not far from ‘ere where they do keep all kinds of curious critters. That’s where you do want to go, I reckon.”

  “Oh,” said Hezekiah. “What is this place?”

  The cow replied, “‘Tis the safari park.”

  4

  “Safari park?” said Hezekiah. “What does that mean?”

  “Well,” said the cow, “we ain’t never bin there, of course, but we do hear tell that ‘tis a fine place to live.”

  “Plenty of room for everyone,” said another.

  “Bit different from your old zoo, I daresay,” said a third.

  “How do I get there?”

  The whole herd of Holsteins turned to look in one direction.

  “See them hills in the distance?” they said. “With a good few trees on ‘em?”

  “Yes,” replied Hezekiah.

  “That’s the edge of the safari park.”

  “Oh, thanks, thanks!” cried Hezekiah. “I’ll go there right away, if you’ll all excuse me.”

  “But you can’t get out of this field,” they all said, “till the farmer opens the gate to get us for morning milking.”

  “Oh, I don’t need a gate,” said the camel. “I’ll go out the same way as I came in. Through the hedge.”

  What a day it was for the farmers of that part of Somerset! Since he had left the hills in the darkness, Hezekiah had wreaked a trail of havoc through the countryside. Hedges and fences and gates that kept cows and sheep and horses in were no match for the size and strength of the camel. He simply smashed his way through them.

  Worse, it was a Sunday, and though farmers work a seven-day week, fifty-two weeks of the year, they do expect to take things a bit easier on Sundays.

  But after Hezekiah burst out again through the far hedge of the Holsteins’ field, there was chaos in his wake all through that part of the West Country. Everywhere livestock had taken advantage of the camel’s bulldozing passage. Dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, horses, and ponies—all found themselves free to leave their pastures and paddocks and go wherever they pleased.

  Farmers can curse as well as most people, but never had there been heard such dreadful cursing as on that Sunday morning. Everyone tried to round up their strays and get them back home and mend the broken gates, the smashed fences, the great camel-sized holes in the hedges.

  Hezekiah’s Holstein friends were a good example of the confusion, for they all went out through the gap that he had made and mingled happily with a neighboring herd of Ayrshire cows in the next field. It took so long for their angry owners to sort them all out that morning milking did not start till the afternoon.

  Hezekiah, meanwhile, made steady, destructive progress toward his goal, crossing, though he did not know it, from Somerset into the county of Wiltshire. He was filled with curiosity about this strange place called a safari park. What would it be like? At

  last he broke out into a road, a small country lane bordered by trees. Ahead of him was a junction, at which a signpost stood. SHORTSEAT, it said.

  Hezekiah hesitated. “Is that the way to the safari park?” he asked himself, and then he heard in the distance the answer to his question. It was a deep rolling roar that ended in a couple of grunts.

  5

  The great country house of Shortseat was the ancestral home of a noble family. The present Earl of Basin had inherited the estate on the death of his father, who had turned his well-wooded lands into a safari park. First he introduced lions. Later he brought in other kinds of interesting and attractive animals that would normally be found behind bars in zoos. But it was the lions of Shortseat that first attracted the public in great numbers.

  As well as coming to see the animals, they came to look around the great house, and on that Sunday afternoon it was filled with people. The present Earl of Basin moved easily among them, chatting with the visitors, most of whom felt honored to be addressed by such a great nobleman.

  This Lord Basin was (like Hezekiah) an extremely hairy person, and he chose to wear very colorful clothes, as though to mark himself out from the common herd.

  On this day he was dressed in sky-blue corduroy trousers, a pink shirt with an emerald-green cravat, and a black velvet jacket lavishly embroidered with gold thread.

  At that moment a servant came up to the Earl. “My Lord,” he said, “you are wanted on the telephone.”

  “Will you forgive me?” said Lord Basin to the visitors (for politeness costs nothing). “I fear I must leave you.”

  “Of course,” murmured some, while many others, unsure of how properly to address the nobleman, replied, “Of course, sir” or “Of course, Your Lordship” or “Of course, Your Grace” and one small boy said, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  The Earl of Basin made his way to his study, where his estate manager was waiting, phone in hand.

  “It’s the police, sir,” he said.

  “Whatever do they want?” asked Lord Basin.

  He took the phone.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Lord Basin?” said a voice.

  “Speaking.”

  “Sorry to bother you, my Lord, but we were wondering if any of your animals had escaped? It would be a large one by the look of things.”

  “Escaped?” said the Earl. “Animals don’t escape from Shortseat—they’re too happy here. What animals have you found?”

  “None, my Lord,” replied the policeman, “but we are getting reports of widespread damage in that part of Somerset to the west of you. Everywhere farmers and landowners are reporting broken gates and fences and big holes through hedges, and they suspect that something large and strong may have escaped from Shortseat. There are fears that it might be one of your lions.”

  “Rubbish!” said Lord Basin loudly. “Lions don’t break gates and make holes in hedges. Sounds more like a camel to me.”

  “Very good, my Lord,” said the policeman, and hung up.

  Many years ago, when Lord Basin was a boy, his father had taken him on a visit to the very city zoo from which Hezekiah had escaped, and he had ridden on a Bactrian camel.

  He’d never forgotten the sensation of sitting between those two great humps as the camel swayed along the paths of the zoo.

  When he was a young man, he heard that that camel had died of old age. When later he inherited Shortseat, he vowed that he would one day have a camel there. But they were very rare. Only a thousand or so still survived in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert.

  “You haven’t had any report of anything escaping, have you, John?” said Lord Basin to his manager.

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, whatever’s caused all this damage, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

  Even as Lord Basin spoke, Hezekiah was approaching the main gate of the Shortseat Safari Park.

  Lord Basin sat back in his office chair, stroking his beard thoughtfully Maybe the feel of it made him think of hairy creatures.

  “Switch on the television, John, please. I want to watch the West Country News.”

  How I’d love to have a Bactrian camel, he thought, and to his utter amazement the first item on the news was about the escape of a camel from the zoo. It had set off cross-country, the newscaster said, ending up at Shortseat.

  Maybe there is a special deity that looks after earls, but at that very moment Hezekiah passed through the gates into Shortseat before the astonished eyes of the gatekeeper and a number of visitors who
were about to enter.

  With slow steps (for he was now somewhat hoofsore) he made his rolling, dignified way, his humps swaying a little, down the long, straight avenue that led to the great house.

  Frantically, the gatekeeper telephoned the manager.

  Hastily, the manager told the Earl.

  Excitedly, the Earl made his way through the visitors to the front doors of Shortseat and stood, in his colorful raiment, at the top of the stone steps that led up to the entrance. Behind him, faces peered from every window, witnesses to the arrival of Hezekiah at Shortseat.

  They saw the great hairy Lord standing at the top of the steps. They saw the great hairy camel at the bottom.

  Hezekiah was very tired now, for he had traveled a long, long way, and he had no intention of trying to climb those steps. Like all camels, he had horny kneepads to rest upon.

  So, to the delight of all and in particular of the owner of Shortseat, Hezekiah the Bactrian camel knelt before the Earl of Basin.

  6

  Later, the curator of the zoo called. He and the Earl were old friends, but still there was an edge to his voice as he said, “You’ve nabbed my Bactrian camel!”

  “I haven’t nabbed him,” said Lord Basin. “He wasn’t invited here; he’s just a gate-crasher.”

  “You can say that again,” remarked the curator. “It’s going to cost us thousands to repair the damage.”

  The Earl pulled at his beard thoughtfully.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

  “Really? That’s very good of you.”

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You let me keep him.”

  There was a pause, and then the curator said, “It’s an idea. But I think we’d need a bit of icing on the cake. What can you offer in return for him?”

  “A zebra?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “A giraffe?”

  “No.”

  “How about a white tiger?” said Lord Basin.

  “It’s a deal!”

  “Good. By the way, what’s the camel’s name?”

  “Hezekiah.”

  The Earl of Basin went to bed that night in a daze of happiness. He was fond of animals in general, but the one that had stuck in his memory all those years was that old Bactrian camel on which he’d ridden at the zoo. And now he actually owned one!

  He stroked his beard as he settled himself for sleep. And it’s a very hairy beast too, he thought.

  While Hezekiah had been kneeling below the steps to the front entrance of Shortseat, two of the park rangers had put a rope over his neck, one on either side. They prepared themselves for what they imagined would be quite a tussle when the camel got to his feet. But Hezekiah stood quite quietly, gazing at them with eyes as mild as an old Holstein cow. He did make a lot of rumbling noises, though of course they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

  “Now look, you chaps,” he said. “I’ve come a heck of a long way today and I could do with a good night’s sleep.”

  Which is just what he got, for the rangers decided not to turn him out into one of the enclosures, but to put him, for the time being, in a nice warm old shed that was sometimes used to house sick beasts.

  After letting him drink his fill from a water trough, they made him a good bed of straw, and gave him a helping of hay and some interesting roots he’d never seen before. It didn’t take long for Hezekiah to decide that he liked mangel-wurzels, and he polished them all off. Then, with a long sigh of content, he fell into a deep sleep.

  He slept so well and dreamlessly that the next thing he knew it was morning. Someone opened the door of the shed and came in. He looked at the man’s hairy face and recognized him as the person who had stood at the top of the stairs, dressed in strange clothes.

  Lord Basin had risen early and hurried out, still in his nightclothes. He wore pajamas and a dressing gown and slippers, all very brightly colored. On his head was a brilliant red woolly nightcap.

  “Hezekiah!” he cried.

  This was in fact the only word of human language that the camel knew, so often had he heard it. He recognized it as his name. He got to his feet and moved a pace or two toward the Earl. They looked into each other’s eyes, and perhaps because each was so hairy, both felt that they were kindred spirits and had become—and would always continue to be—best friends.

  “I expect you’d like to stretch your legs,” said Lord Basin. “It’s a bit cramped for you in this old shed. Though you can always come back in here to sleep if you like.”

  In reply he heard the camel make a number of grunty, growly noises. “Any chance I could stretch my legs?” Hezekiah was saying. “This old shed’s not all that big. Though I wouldn’t mind coming back in here at night.”

  The Earl of Basin put out a hand to his Bactrian camel. Something told him that the animal would not bite his hand, and indeed Hezekiah did not. He merely touched it gently with his thick rubbery lips in a kind of kiss.

  7

  After Lord Basin had left the shed to begin the important business of dressing up for the day, the rangers came in to get the camel. They led him along one of the park’s roads to a very large enclosure, a hundred times bigger than his old zoo paddock.

  They opened a gate and let him loose inside, but stayed to watch and make sure there would be no trouble with the other animals in there. They didn’t expect any fuss, but as well as biting, zebras can kick, and so can ostriches, and so can giraffes.

  The rangers watched as the other animals moved toward the camel, curious about this hairy beast that carried two humps on its back. They formed a circle around the newcomer. Hezekiah stood patiently among them, and the rangers, satisfied, moved off.

  There were zebras at the zoo—the camel had seen them from his paddock but he had never before set eyes on a giraffe or an ostrich.

  “A very good morning to you all,” he said (for politeness costs nothing), “and I hope you’ll forgive me for trespassing. It’s a pleasure to meet you all and before you ask, I’m a Bactrian camel.”

  At this, one of the zebras in the little herd hee-hawed loudly and one of the three ostriches gave out a deep booming noise. Neither of the two giraffes made a sound.

  Then the zebra who had neighed said, “Hope you’re a vegetarian, mate.”

  “Certainly I am. Camels don’t eat meat.”

  “Good,” said the zebra. “If there’s one thing we can’t stand, it’s a carnivore.”

  “And we’ve got plenty of them in Shortseat,” said another, “as I expect you know.”

  “Blasted lions!” said a third.

  “I thought I heard one just as I arrived yesterday,” said Hezekiah.

  “There are dozens of the horrible things,” said the first zebra.

  “Safely fenced in, I trust?”

  “Oh, yes,” said an ostrich. “We can’t see them but we can hear them.”

  “And smell ‘em,” said the first zebra.

  One of the two giraffes curved its very long neck down as though to smell the camel, but it said nothing.

  It seemed to Hezekiah to be waiting for him to speak, so he asked it, “Do you like living here?”

  There was no reply.

  “You won’t get a word out of him, mate,” the zebras said.

  “Why not?”

  “They can’t talk, giraffes can’t.”

  “A female can make a sort of noise to call her calf,” an ostrich said, “but they can’t speak like we can. Anyway, the answer to your question is—yes, we all like living here. We’ve got plenty of freedom and friends and food.”

  “And no foes,” chorused the zebras.

  In the distance, a lion roared.

  “Like him,” boomed the ostrich.

  The sound of the lion seemed to excite all the animals. The zebras hee-hawed rudely in reply and set off at a gallop, the ostriches sped away at great speed on their powerful legs that ended in huge two-toed feet, and the two
giraffes cantered off gracefully together, in perfect step, like dancers.

  Left to himself, Hezekiah walked over to a water trough that stood by the fence and drank a dozen gallons of water. Then he heard the noise of motors and looked up to see a Land Rover coming up the road toward him. It was followed by a van marked in large letters FILM UNIT (which meant nothing to Hezekiah), and after that came a pickup truck loaded with hay (which meant a lot).

  When they drew up by him, there stepped from the Land Rover a bearded figure dressed in riding breeches above bright yellow stockings and suede boots and wearing a cowboy hat.

  “Good morning, my friend!” said the camel loudly.

  “Feed him!” cried the Earl to the rangers in the pickup truck. To the film crew who emerged from the van he said, “Here he is, chaps! Isn’t he magnificent? Did you ever see anything so hairy?”

  The director, the cameraman, and the soundman all looked at the camel.

  Then they looked at the Earl.

  Then they looked at one another.

  Then they replied, “No. Never.”

  8

  As darkness fell, the rangers came to take the camel back to his shed.

  “Hezekiah!” they called, and at the sound of his name, he came immediately to them like a well-trained dog, while the zebras, the ostriches, and the giraffes watched.

  “Wow! He’s obedient!” said the zebras.

  “Knows his name,” said the ostriches.

  The giraffes, of course, said nothing.