The Intrepid

By Jeff Tellier

Documentarian Ridge Garwold discovers a new species of big cat in the Arctic. He gives them a ride to Africa and films their trials and tribulations. He watches them handle lions and hyenas and helps them battle poachers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524655648

Jeff Tellier

Jeff is an avid tennis player and TV watcher. He lives with his wife and daughter in New England and is currently working on a supernatural epic.

Book preview

Chapter 1

"H ello, friends. It’s me, Ridge Garwold with the World Nature Network, filming live here in the Arctic Circle. The WNN originally sent me to do a film and an animal count of the mighty polar bear, but while here, I’ve stumbled across what you’re looking at now."

I paused for effect, focusing on the two creatures in front of me. One was clearly a male, and one was obviously a female based on their size.

There are two sets of two of this species of cat that have never been seen before. Like the two that you’re watching, there is another male and another female heading in a slightly different direction than these two.

I moved closer to the cats but slowed when they turned back to see me. I was hoping for a reaction of some kind, either fierce or fearful, but the male and female cats in front of me simply nodded at me, acknowledging that I was there with them, and then continued onward.

They remind me of lions, folks, especially in their size, but their deep gray coats have never been seen before, so obviously they will need a name. I am going to tentatively name them garwolds for now. Did you note how they looked back at me but did not offer a stirring reaction of any kind? These cats have never been seen before on film, to the best of my knowledge, and yet they did not seem taken aback at me following them in a noisy Jeep.

I momentarily stopped speaking for the documentary. The best documentarians do not spend the majority of their filming time speaking to the masses who will be watching at some point on television. If one did, the documentary would be annoying and the viewer would lose interest quickly; after all, viewers are not interested in hearing a person speak to them constantly and rather are watching the network to see these majestic animals in their element.

This is a new species, however, and though I am a veteran with over twenty-five years of experience, I’m having a hard time containing my excitement.

I’m going to let the camera do the talking for a while, friends. I’m not sure what these garwolds are currently doing or where they’re heading, though they seem to be making a pilgrimage of some kind. We can experience their movements together now.

I clicked the audio off, relaxed, settled back into my seat, and drove slowly over the icy, rugged terrain.

Chapter 2

"S asha, maybe we should have stayed with Sven and Kayla."

We discussed this, Julius. We should stay close, whether it be on the plains in Africa or in the jungles of Asia, because it is going to be challenging and dangerous, especially if we choose Africa. But it is also important for us to have our own, separate territories so that we can raise large families autonomously.

I nodded my thick neck up and down. Yes, my lovely Sasha, we need space for our young to learn, and they will learn to be as strong with fewer cubs around.

Sasha snorted. We are big cats, so we don’t exactly purr like housecats do. Our vocal cords only allow roars or roar-like sounds unless we are actually speaking to each other.

It was Sasha and Kayla’s combined idea to separate and start our own territories. Our former home is cold and bereft of food sources, so it is time to leave.

It has become very hot around the world, and water is starting to dominate this area. We are able to swim, but unlike some of the other big cats in the world, we didn’t have the luxury of looking for food in a river or a lake. We must swim in very frigid ocean water where there were not smaller fish in any abundance. Sven, Kayla, Sasha, and I could live on a walrus or a seal for more than a week, but they are very difficult to kill in the frigid water. That there is now more of the water means we are all very hungry.

We were also forced to compete with the powerful polar bears for the big kills, and those things are nasty, to say the least.

The polar bears’ numbers have decreased throughout my lifetime, but one of them had killed Sven and Sasha’s mother. My mother had died in the cold after injuring herself on a jagged rock, and it is harder and harder to get food in the Arctic.

Kayla was inconsolable for six months and wouldn’t hunt for food during that period. She stayed in the cave where we spent most of our time and never helped search for food, which was limited in the first place.

We liked to stay in the warmer places around here, out of the cold, when we weren’t looking for food. Because of this, we felt that we would be able to thrive in the warm places in Africa, whereas the polar bear would never be able to do so.

The polar bear will have to stay in the dwindling arctic, but we can leave. I like to think that the four of us leaving will allow the polar bears more access to the food in the arctic, but the practical part of me believes that it is only a matter of time before the polar bear goes extinct. They were our enemy, but not because of disrespect; they were our enemy because of competition and a lack of resources. Now the competition would be over, and I hope that they have a chance up here on the top of the world.

We are leaving to join the other big cats. We re most likely going to Africa, where there are cheetahs sprinting around, looking for gazelles. We are going to the savannahs where there are thickets of trees filled with leopards, looking to pounce on deer. We are going to the plains, where majestic and powerful lions hang around in prides and dominate the food chain. We are going where there are lakes and rivers whose shores are filled with fish, crocodiles, hippos, buffaloes, and wildebeests.

I, for one, am excited about the new life we will be leading, but I have worries. There are only four of us, which is why I believe we should stay together. There are four of us in the whole world, and if we died, we would be extinct. Out here, there are only bears for us to worry about; the four of us separating while we make the journey should be fine for a while, but across northern Canada, there will certainly be cougars and brown bears to watch out for. Cougars are not really a problem because they are no match for us and they tend to hunt alone, so there wouldn’t be any large group of them together. Brown bears are not as tough or as strong as their polar bear cousins, so again, we don’t have a lot to fear until we cross the Siberian tigers in Russia, but the four of us should stay together.

Sasha, I believe we should make the journey with Sven and Kayla. There is no reason for us to be apart. In Africa, we may very well need to stay together.

I truly believe that strength in numbers on the Dark Continent is our best chance to thrive and grow our family.

Sasha snorted again as we descended a rocky, snowy cliff. The human male is not far off as he follows us, but he couldn’t safely go this way in his wheeled vehicle.

Sasha, this is not up for debate. I am laying down the law on this one, and there will be no argument.

You have decided for the four of us what we will do, Julius?

I growled, and then I heard the squeal of something from that vehicle with the man and that thing that took pictures of us.

After leaping down the final fifteen or twenty feet of the cliff and turning up to see Sasha meander her way down more carefully, I growled again and faced her so that she could not escape my intentions. I am the dominant one of the four of us, so if that is what I decide, then it will be, my love. But I am not alone. Sven and I are both in agreement about the journey and about what we should do once in Africa. There are dangers from lions, hyenas, and crocodiles, and the four of us should raise our cubs together for safety reasons. I believe that I can defeat any male lion, but they have very large prides with many males, and I might not be as lucky in that scenario. If Sven is beside me, and if you and Kayla are backing us up, then we can find food, avoid dangers, and have our cubs grow to be big and strong adults.

Sasha growled, but one deft paw delivered lightly to her snout ended the noise. She said, I am not so sure that I want to have cubs with you right now.

I growled ferociously, probably scaring every squirrel and bunny within a five-mile radius. You have no choice in that, Sasha, unless you are okay with us going extinct—in which case, we may as well return to the circle.

She pushed forward and came off the cliff, making sure to avoid me. Her tail stood straight up in the air, though not in happiness this time.

The terrain descended a little more, and I heard the vehicle with the man with the filming device coming around the corner. The driving machine is a marvel to me, but it is plainly pathetic at handling some of the terrain that we traverse.

Off in the distance, I could still smell both Sven and Kayla, but their scents were starting to fade away from my nostrils, and before too long, I will not be able to easily find them as I will lose their smells.

I growled calmly, but Sasha ignored me as if she planned on ignoring my wishes and walking all of the way to Africa.

That is fine, Sasha. You can continue on that path. As for me, I am making my way back to my sister and your brother.

I rushed along for a moment, but stopped as I saw the man in the Jeep. He stopped too. For a moment, I sat down and stared at him, gauging what he was thinking as he adjusted the filming device on his door and held some kind of piece of equipment up to his small mouth.

I heard him speaking into the small piece of equipment almost touching his tiny mouth.

I wished that I could understand what he was saying. We know of humans, but until this moment, we had never met any. We know that they typically run the world, but it is surprising to me because they are so obviously weak compared to us.

I suppose that humans rule most of the world because of all of these machines that they know how to operate. They have vehicles to drive around in, saving their energy. I doubt that any of us have the dexterity to drive those vehicles.

Humans also have weapons that they can shoot to injure animals or other humans. I have seen pictures, and once again, I don’t believe that our paws would allow us to hold and shoot those weapons.

I pondered whether I should try to scare him. Humans hadn’t shown up in the Arctic very often, and when they did in the past, we always stayed hidden from them. We could hear their vehicles from time to time, and they had different kinds of equipment with some strange power sources that made a lot of noise, but they weren’t hunting for pictures of us before.

While staring intently at this human, my thoughts were immediately interrupted by Sasha as she came back around to the old, black vehicle. My intention of scaring the human male immediately went away as Sasha growled at him, causing him to back up.

I wanted to laugh at his level of fear, but as I nuzzled up to her and tried to make amends for laying down the law with her, he seemed to calm down and moved back into his seat behind the circular contraption in front of him that he uses for navigation of the vehicle.

Humans are big in terms of how tall they are, but they have small mouths and little teeth, and aren’t very muscular compared to us. There have been lots of stories about them, but I didn’t see all of the bad that we had heard of in this particular human male.

This human has been following us since we split with Kayla and Sven. What is his deal? Is he dangerous?

Does he look dangerous, my sweet?

No. He almost jumped through the top of his vehicle when I growled at him, Julius.

He’s taking pictures of us with that filming equipment. I don’t know if anyone has ever caught us on camera before, so he is probably very interested.

Sasha snorted and looked at him, and I followed suit. He had this strange look on his face, as though he had never seen anything like the two of us before.

I moved slightly closer to him. He did not appear to be a threat, so my guard was down, but that didn’t mean that I did not feel like testing him a little.

I growled and watched him freeze this time. He turned like he was going to drive away, but I growled fiercely, and once again he stopped moving.

I placed my two massive front paws inside his somewhat open vehicle and retracted my massive claws. I smelled him. I could smell him on top of the hill when he was down on the bottom, trying to mark us in his vehicle, but this time the smells were appetizing.

I had no intention of eating him or harming him in any way, but his level of fear smelled powerful. I sniffed his jacket, shoes, and socks, wondering if Sasha felt compelled to eat him because of his amazing level of fear.

It had been a long while since we’d had a good meal, and the thought occurred to me, but I would not feel right about it. I sort of liked this awkward and feeble human male. He was not as imposing as other human males I had seen in pictures in the past.

I wanted to talk to him but knew that he wouldn’t understand us, just as I would not understand him. I put my paws on his small waist, and his level of fear increased dramatically.

I would lick his hand or face, but I knew that our slightly jagged tongues, which enabled us to remove the skin from our prey, would probably remove his skin too. I did not wish for any harm to come to this small human male.

Instead, I nuzzled my large head into his chest and massaged his jacket with my fur. I wondered if I smelled very bad to him. He smelled clean, and though we constantly gave each other showers with our jagged tongues, we don’t have any antiseptic products to make us smell better.

To see what he thought, I pulled my head away from his chest and stared intently into his eyes. He was wide-eyed and amazed, but I thought that he now knew he could safely follow us on our journey. I hoped he realized that this journey is going to take a very long time.

I slid my paws from his waist to the bottom of his vehicle, and then I slid them all of the way out, though I never took my eyes off of his.

Once all four of my paws were back on the ground, I briefly nuzzled up against Sasha before sniffing the air once more. The scents of both Sven and Kayla deteriorated exponentially, and I realized that it was time for us to get after them. Sasha, we need to catch up with Sven and Kayla.

Sasha slightly growled once more, making me look back at the human in the Jeep to see what kind of reaction he would have to her growl.

He still seemed wide-eyed and lost in his own human thoughts, but he was not put off by it.

This goes against what we planned, Julius.

I started off and looked back to see her following me in spite of her protests. The human in the vehicle was turning the vehicle around also, in order to follow.

It goes against what we planned, my love, but ultimately we are stronger as a foursome against any of the things that we might face. If we decide to have our offspring well before we reach deep, dark Africa, we can do it around each other and should do it around each other. Four, six, or eight cubs are ultimately safer with us four adults around than two, three, or four of them would be with only two adults around. Remember, we don’t truly know about all of the things that we are going to face in Africa, and the same can be said about the things that we might face before we get there.

I quickened my pace, as did Sasha, which was difficult because I was getting very hungry.

Chapter 3

I , Ridge Garwold, am more enamored with these gorgeous and fantastic creatures than when I first saw them. Trust me when I tell you that as I follow them to wherever they may lead me, when I first witnessed them, my heart skipped a beat. I saw four big cats roaming on the ice that are reminiscent of lions but have different coloring, and I was instantly certain that nobody else had ever seen them before.

Their actions amazed me even more than realizing their existence.

It was as though the very large male, akin to the size of a male tiger or lion, was trying to communicate with me. He was trying to portray that he and his female are okay with me following them, and I could have sworn that he was trying to talk to me.

I will not lie friends, what just happened with the garwold male has never happened to me before. I do not solely film the big cats like some of the other gentlemen in my profession do. In my experience, especially with lions, they would allow me to stay in my vehicle and film them, but they were not particularly thrilled about it.

The male garwold almost seemed to be welcoming me to stay the course with them on their journey. Of course I am going to do that, even if it means intercontinental movements, but I am curious exactly where they are going.

When I first spotted them, I was doing a story on the polar bears, which I immediately scrapped because I had never seen these big cats before, and I knew of no species of cats that lived in the Arctic proper. There are snow leopards, mountain lions, and Siberian tigers who happened to excel in austere and cold climates, but none of those climates are as brutal as the Arctic Circle.

These cats are a revelation, and if anyone else had known of them before, I would have seen it.

The four amazing cats separated near the ocean, and at first I believed that they were going off somewhere in their territory, likely to hunt for food. I was thrilled with the prospect of following them to see how they hunted and what they hunted.

Admittedly, I was more than slightly worried about the idea of running into a hungry polar bear in the woods, because unlike the big cats in Africa and the jungles of Asia, the polar bear would eat anything to sustain itself.

Now, it seemed the four garwolds were going to rejoin and make their journey together. If a polar bear tried to eat me out here, the male would not allow it, and though I would be fascinated by how the confrontation between the male garwold and a hungry polar bear would go, I am relieved that these beautiful cats seem to be leaving their territory behind.

We have traveled about fifteen miles, and a polar bear would generally never drift so far away from the ocean simply because it would be too taxing on them to follow a scent as appetizing as me when they know that there would be seals around the ice.

It does occur to me, though, that if the garwolds re making a migration to elsewhere in the world that we would have to cross the Baffin Bay onto Baffin Island and eventually into Canada. I would have to worry about two things at that point.

There could easily be polar bears on the icy waters there, hunting for seals., I may not be able to cross if the ice is not as solid as it needs to be for me to support the weight of the Jeep.

I will gauge that when the time comes, if the time comes, but I will do everything that I can to continue to follow them. I have enough gas to fill up the tank another ten times, and there would be spots along the way where I could refill the containers.

If I couldn’t proceed over the water, I would have to park the Jeep, pull out the equipment, and have a helicopter deliver me to another location where I could follow, but I would not have a second Jeep right on the edge of Baffin Bay where I could simply hop back in and continue to follow the cats.

If that most unfortunate eventuality happens to play out, I would lose track of these cats for some time, and because they are new and fascinating, I may miss a lot of exciting events on their journey—events that would help paint a better picture about exactly what kinds of things this newly discovered species of cats do.

I have to chuckle because I believe that these cats would actually put me on their backs to get me across the frigid bay if it were to come to that. Though that is an outrageous potentiality, it makes me feel good about the four creatures that should soon rejoin.

As I stayed close behind them and hoped that they chose paths that are simpler for me to follow, I must admit that I wished communication with that male would have been possible. If it were, I could find out what they are doing and help them make their journey much faster.

Part of this profession is to be uncomfortable and get the job done so that the viewing audiences everywhere, who love big animals, get to see the animals in their environs. I had to admit that a long journey through this rugged terrain in temperatures that are impossible for man to take without the proper clothing and a heat source was a little terrifying. My Jeep is fully functioning and has been made ready for this trip by my bosses at WNN, but the terrain could cause a fatal error within the mechanisms of the Jeep. I have backup and people who know that I am here, and they would help me after a single call, but in these conditions, even that might not be enough to save me.

I knew these risks, and I wasn’t supposed to be so mobile when I was covering the magnificent polar bear, but those at WNN are excited by my discovery—and so am I. These magnificent animals re worth the risks. Still, I couldn’t help but hearken back to the male putting his paws on my lap in a non-threatening manner. Was it his attempt to communicate with me?

It was too bad that I couldn’t find a way to break the communication barrier and give the felines a ride. They might not all fit in this vehicle. Combined, I would venture a guess that the four garwolds weighed between fifteen hundred pounds and a full ton. Still, if I could find a way to speak to them so to speak, other measures could easily be taken if the Jeep would not accommodate them.

While briefly looking down at my portable pack on my seat, I saw a book with different varieties of animals in different climates, and a thought occurred to me. But …

I have to slam on the brakes when I realized I was about to run into a tree! My heart racing, I looked over immediately to see if I had rated the attention of the garwolds with my buffoonery. As instantaneously as the thought crossed my mind, I received a look back from the female. She was crouched near the tree that I hit, and the male was out of my view; he seemed to be on the prowl.

What they were hunting out here, I had no idea, but the male was in classic attack mode.

I looked at the female again as I focused my camera on the small thicket of elevated woods just in front of me. She seemed upset with me, and I felt awful, hoping that my screeching brakes and the thud of the grooves in my big tires as I clumsily stopped didn’t scare off their conquest.

She circled around my Jeep and advanced to my right, to the north. She seemed to be working with the male now.

I adjusted the resolution, and as I looked into the camera, I marveled at the technology within these devices. I could see very well into the woods. I wouldn’t be able to film their hunt if they had to go too far into the woods and up the hill without getting out of the Jeep, which in these conditions could be construed as suicidal, but I was hopeful that they got their target while I sat here. If they didn’t, I would put their hunting skills in jeopardy by making noise because I would surely climb clumsily in the snow covered by ice in the woods.

Their hunt was on in full force. The female had circled around, and it was clear that she was going to push whatever they were hunting back toward the male, who was crouching in between a swath of three trees and with their dark gray fur, he blends in quite well. If he moved, I would have difficulty seeing him.

I was racking my brain, wondering what they might be hunting. There were certainly reindeer around, especially as we got into the treeline, but my camera was not picking up any reindeer, and they were seldom alone.

Big cats didn’t tend to hunt small prey like chipmunks, which were also up here, because there was not enough food on the little animals to feed them. They were also too small and versatile, which led the big cats to get quickly tired.

Then again, this is a new species, so these magnificent, charcoal-colored felines might have more endurance than the African, Asian, or South American big cats. I suspected that was not true. Cheetahs have greater endurance than the rest of the big cat predators because they are lighter—up to four hundred pounds lighter than tigers or even more than that. These beautiful garwolds seemed to be similar to lions and sheer physics and biology dictate that they were not going to be capable of chasing smaller prey for more than a few hundred yards.

I moved the camera slightly, scanning for the prey and for the female, realizing fully that endurance was not going to be needed for this kill.

I found the female, and she came out of her crouch and launched forward with a powerful jump toward … what was it?

It was a young polar bear! The mother bear is probably nearby too.

The adolescent polar bear probably weighed nearly as much as the adult female garwold. The female could probably kill it on her own, but maybe with this new species, the males did all of the killing. It didn’t seem to be in keeping with the other big cats. Lions are the only group of cats where one would find males, females, and the young together simultaneously. Tigers, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, pumas, and cougars are soloists unless mothers re rearing their cubs.

This did not seem to be true of the garwolds. Two pairs of male and female adults were together, and as I could hear the unmistakable roar of the young male polar bear, the other two garwolds reappeared.

Filled with excitement over this confrontation and the prospect of a larger and more virile polar bear showing up to the scene simultaneous to the rejoining of the four garwolds, I turned on the audio. "I am only just learning about these four garwolds, but they have rejoined just in time for a battle with a young polar bear. Never before has a breed of big cat and a species of wild bear tangled on camera. It seems obvious that the garwolds and the polar bears are familiar with each other.