“From a friend who worked at Busch Gardens in the seventies,” said Serge. “He used to run the rib shack, and people really must have loved ribs back then because by the end of the day, they had such huge piles of ashes from the wood they’d burned that it filled several fifty-five-gallon drums. Then they loaded the drums on the back of a big Cushman golf cart, and the animal handlers would give them the all clear, open the gates and wave them through. They’d drive around the Serengeti Plain in the dark, spreading the ashes because it’s a good fertilizer.”
“That doesn’t sound dangerous,” said Coleman.
“It’s not,” said Serge. “Except one night when they reached their first drop point, faint yelling erupted back at the gate:
“Peril?” Coleman looked up at the gnarled ranch sign over the gate. “I’m not buying it.”
“I was skeptical, too, so I did some research on the Internet.” Serge watched his former captive break into a full sprint. “Found reports of several deaths every year in South Africa and Louisiana, even videos on YouTube. One article quoted a California zookeeper saying that they’d had a couple lions escape since they opened, except they weren’t worried because the big cats were old and sluggish. But there was one zoo resident whose possibility of escape freaked them out more than all the others and required the tightest security.”
“It’s starting to chase him,” said Coleman, tracking the pursuit with a pointed finger. “Man, I had no idea they could run that fast.”
“A sustained forty miles an hour, with even faster bursts.” Serge raised binoculars. “That’s what my friend at Busch Gardens found out.”
“But, Serge, when you’re waxing a dude, you usually like it to have some kind of . . .” Coleman stopped to ponder.
“Theme?” said Serge.
“That’s it.”
“Oh, it’s got a theme all right. Some of the finest unknown Florida history around. Back in the late 1800s, they had breeding farms all over the northern half of the state, some for the meat, others for entertainment.”
“Entertainment? Like this?” Coleman gestured across the field at their former hostage, who was losing ground.
“Believe it or not, they used to race these things with little jockeys on their backs. Around 1890, a farm in Jacksonville actually became one of the earliest Florida tourist attractions, with a greyhound-like track. I don’t know if they placed bets. There were other races and farms, including one in St. Petersburg. EBay has some hundred-year-old sepia-tone postcards of people saddling these babies up. Then the whole thing died out until a couple decades ago when breeders started getting good money again for the drumsticks, and they began a resurgence.”
Coleman looked up at the sign again: CIRCLE K OSTRICH RANCH. “So what happened to your friend?”
“The ostrich was much faster than his golf cart, so while my friend drove, the other guy from the rib shack starts pushing fifty-five-gallon drums off the back, one after another, and the ostrich just hurdles them like one of those exciting raptor chases from
Coleman’s finger was still pointing. “It’s almost to the guy. He’s looking over his shoulder . . . But what makes an ostrich so dangerous? Their beaks don’t look too scary.”
“Not beaks, their feet.” Serge held his hands apart like a fisherman bragging about a catch. “They’re huge and powerful, and if you saw a cropped photo without the rest of the bird, you’d swear they belonged to a dinosaur, which on the evolutionary family tree is actually correct. Each foot has two toes with a giant weapon at the end that is a cross between a hoof and a talon.”
“Can I borrow the binoculars?”
Serge handed them over, and Coleman followed the action with magnification. “It’s just a few yards behind him now . . . How do they use those toes, anyway?”
“In the case of human attack, first they knock their prey down and pin the person on their back with one foot . . .”
Coleman tightened the focus. “Just happened.”
“. . . Then they start raking their victim’s chest with the other foot.”
A shrill, spine-tingling scream echoed across the field. “Put a check mark there,” said Coleman.
“The feet are so powerful that they easily rip out all the ribs and keep going through the internal organs until the dude’s on empty.”
“Something went flying,” said Coleman. “Definitely a rib.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
Coleman kept his eyes pressed to the binoculars. “Ostriches are cool!”
“I’m thinking of approaching some of these farmers to start up the races again.”
“What happened to your empathy thing?” asked Coleman.
