An Inconvenient Elephant (8 page)

“YOU!”

The owner of the donut shop recognized me as soon as I gave him an order for four dozen jelly donuts. “I no have four dozen jelly! Long time ago you buy donut, donut, all the time donut, donut, and I make donut, donut like crazy jelly donut factory, but then you no come back. My wife and I eat every night, donut, donut.”

“Well, I'm back again,” I said. “Today I'll take whatever you have, but tomorrow I'll need all raspberry jelly, please.”

“You come every day?” he asked, his black caterpillar eyebrows dancing happily while he emptied his shelves of every variety of donut he had and rapidly boxed them.

“Every day,” I promised. “Four dozen jellies.”

“Wonderful goodness,” he said, mollified, and handed me
the boxes with an ecstatic smile. “I tell my wife everything okay now. Then I surprise myself with new big-screen TV.”

 

“Muffins? Donuts? Bread? Your family have a baked goods fetish?” Diamond asked as I drove us to our next destination. “I suppose your brother is competing in the World Cup for pie throwing?”

“These donuts are for Margo,” I replied. “She's the elephant I told you about—the one I helped bring from Zimbabwe. She's at the Wycliff-Pennington sanctuary, and that's where we're going next.”

“Pennington?” Diamond caught the name of the farm. “Tom Pennington
again
?”

“Him,” I said. “But he doesn't stay there, he only supports it.”

“And donuts are on the treat list because you think pastries are a natural diet for elephants?” Diamond asked, reaching into a box and stealing a Boston cream.

I pushed the lid closed. “No, but they'll keep Margo from playing her little jokes,” I explained. “She just loves picking people up and throwing them across her enclosure.”

“Oh, great,” Diamond said, noisily sucking out the filling. “I guess I'm dressed for the occasion after all.”

 

Puffs of dust swirled lazily around the car as we pulled into the parking lot of the sanctuary. I was surprised at how rundown it had gotten. The unpaved driveway looked more rutted than I remembered, and weeds raggedly outlined the buildings, which could have used a few coats of paint.

Diamond-Rose uncurled her long legs from the front seat
of the car to stand next to me in the parking lot. She executed a slow three-sixty to take in the several small barns, the larger elephant barn in front, all the fencing and gates. I knew what she was thinking. Fencing and gates. And more fencing.

“Civilized,” she sniffed.

But I was puzzled. Elisabeth Wycliff, the elderly owner of the sanctuary, was almost always to be found driving her vintage '70s Chevy truck across the grounds, its bed filled with buckets of fruit or frozen raw chicken or bales of hay for the animals, but now it was parked next to her house, covered in more dust than usual, with a large crumple in the front fender that pushed the hood up like a metal origami. And the truck belonging to Richie and Jackie Chiger, the farm managers, was parked by their house, though it had been a rule that either Mrs. Wycliff or Richie had to be patrolling the property during the day. I knocked on Richie's door, but there was no answer. This struck me as odd since Jackie usually answered. Mrs. Wycliff's house looked equally quiet. Well, I would find them later. All I really cared about was seeing Margo again. And Abbie.

 

The doors to the elephant barn were wide open, revealing that it was empty except for the usual large pile of hay stacked in a corner of the huge metal cage inside. Everything looked the same as I remembered except for a few heavy-duty truck tires that were suspended by chains from the ceiling for Margo to play with. The familiar smell of elephant hung in the air, and I sniffed at it as though I were inhaling the scent of fine perfume.

“It's been four days since I've smelled elephant,” I exclaimed to Diamond, “and I miss it already. Margo must be down at her pond with her baby. Maybe Richie's out there with them, though he usually takes his truck.”

We walked from the barn through the gates that separated the upper part of the sanctuary from the lower elephant field. I led Diamond along a narrow path that started at the top of a rise and traced a dusty line along a grassy hill before finally winding its way down to a meadow and the pond.

There was an elephant next to the water. A monolith in gray, standing on the bank, dozing in the afternoon sun, plump and peaceful, the tip of her trunk resting on the ground, her ears slowly fanning away the flies. My elephant. Stunningly large and real and glorious.

Margo.

I pressed my hands to my mouth as my eyes filled with tears. “I've missed her so much,” I whispered.

I had missed sitting in the barn at night and talking to her. I had missed our old games, when Margo would wrap her trunk gently around my waist and lift me a few inches from the ground. I missed how Margo shook her head in rhythm to the music when I turned on the radio, or tossed her big beach ball back to me. For the whole year I had been in Kenya, surrounded by dozens of baby ellies, I longed for Margo.

“And that's Abbie.” I pointed to Margo's daughter, a yearling now, up to her knees in the green algae pond, gleefully spraying water into the air. “Oh my God, look at how much she grew!”

“Abbie?” Diamond repeated. “Like your mother?”

I nodded. “Margo was named for Tom's mother. I met her once. She's more of a horse person, but she loved having an elephant named for her.”

“I don't blame her,” Diamond said. “It's an honor.”

“And I named Abbie for my mother.” I giggled at the memory. “You'd think she'd have been pleased but, well, that's my mother.”

Diamond gave me an affectionate smile. “
Our
mother.”

 

We watched quietly from the top of the knoll.

Before us stood two gray silhouettes against the blue sky, framed by the distant kaleidoscope colors of the Catskill Mountains. A loxodontine study of Madonna and child, with all their strength and magnificence and sad vulnerability, pursued no longer, now secure and serene, standing safely together.

“How sad,” murmured Diamond. “Two wild creatures. They don't belong here, locked up like criminals.”

Of course I knew that. They belonged to a different world. A world where Margo would be with her herd, her mother, her aunts and cousins, as they made their lumbering treks across the African landscape. I knew Abbie needed an extended family to grow up healthy. If I knew anything about elephants, it was this: family was everything.

“She would have died in Zimbabwe,” I replied, a little defensively. How could Diamond ruin the moment by criticizing this place? Margo had not been merely taken, she had been
rescued
. She had been wounded by poachers and left to die with her baby next to her. To not take her, to leave them
both to die would have been unforgivable. “Besides, where do you think we'll be bringing Tusker?” I reminded her. “We can't just turn him loose once he gets to the States!”

“He can't live behind fences,” she said. “It isn't right. We'll have to find something more suitable.”

Abbie diverted our discussion by blowing another spray of water into the air and then nudging her mother with her little trunk and squealing with happiness.

I took a step toward them and gestured for Diamond to follow. “I can't wait for them to see me again,” I said. “We have a very unique relationship. We're like soul mates.”

 

It was Abbie who spotted us first. She climbed from the pond with a huge splash, barking and squealing until her mother startled awake and turned around to see what the disturbance was. Margo studied us for a moment, then swung her head and trunk sideways with a deep rumble. I took another impatient step down the slope, but Diamond-Rose grabbed my shoulder.

“One thing I learned in the bush,” she said quietly. “It's never a good idea to just pop in on your local wildlife.”

“Well, she doesn't have a doorbell,” I joked, but in my impatience I was rushing things, and Diamond was right to be concerned. I forced myself to stay on the slope and wait for a friendly sign, but Margo slowly flapped her ears and continued to stare. I knew enough about ears to know leisure flapping was good, that the elephant was thinking things over.

Margo didn't seem concerned as we started down the hill. Diamond and I were almost at the base when Margo suddenly rumbled and held her ears straight out from her
head, apparently perceiving us as a threat. She marched forward a few steps for a better look. We froze in our tracks.

“That's not quite the reception I'd expect from a soul mate,” Diamond said in a low voice.

“It's been over a year,” I replied. “But it should be okay—elephants never forget.”

Still, I decided prudence was the better part of safety and waited for a sign that it was okay to proceed. Margo rumbled again and took another step, flapping her ears a bit more vigorously, then raising her trunk over her head and blasting us with a trumpeting roar.

“That looks more like a challenge,” Diamond whispered.

I wasn't sure. Though I wanted to rush to Margo's side, she was definitely giving signals of intruder alert. A moment later she was moving toward us in a rapid, undulating walk.

“Bollocks! I believe she's coming right at us,” Diamond announced in a tight voice, her years in the bush having taught her not to scream while in the direct path of a charging animal.

We both backed up a few steps. “She'll remember me,” I said hopefully.

“Before or after she tramples us?”

It was a good question, because between Margo and Abbie, there was probably close to eight thousand pounds of inquisitive pachyderm bearing down on us. The ground trembled with each step, and I worried that I might have been overconfident. A whole year had passed. I was thinner, tanner, and had even brought a stranger. And I knew there was nothing more furiously protective than a mother elephant, except maybe Richie, who would be livid with me for taking such a risk.

I quickly looked around for options, but trying to return to the top of the hill before Margo reached us was not one of them. Doing so could escalate the elephant into a rage, and she was quite capable of outrunning us. My second choice, dodging around the two elephants was too risky.

“Bollocks!” Diamond declared as the elephants closed in to five hundred feet. “Can't you throw her one of those donuts or something?”

“I left them in the barn.”

Three hundred feet.

“Neelie?”

Two hundred feet.

“I'm waiting for her to recognize me,” I said with a quaver.

One hundred feet.

“What happens if she's myopic?” Diamond demanded.

Fifty feet and closing in.

Good point.

“Margo!” I screamed. “It's me! Margo! Margo!”

Like a runaway freight train that had just found its brakes, the elephant let out one last glorious trumpet blast and screeched to a halt within several feet of us.

“Fucking soul mates, eh?” Diamond breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “That's the last time I ever want to hear
those
words.”

 

Elephant protocol demanded we remain still as Margo pointed her trunk straight at us, sniffing our hair, our faces, our jeans, our shoes, leaving spirals of wet mud wherever she touched.

“Oh, Margo!” I was almost faint with relief. “Margo!”
I wanted to caress her dear, noble face, but it wasn't until she started purring softly that I knew I had been accepted back into her life. My darling Margo remembered me. How could I have doubted her? Elephants remember just about everything they ever encounter in their lives—of course she would remember me. I pressed against her body, took her trunk gently in my hands and blew softly into the tip, the standard elephant greeting. Margo acknowledged me with an affectionate hug, squeezing her trunk around my waist, purring even louder.

“I love you, too,” I murmured, and unwound myself from her strong grip to reach up and caress the leathery face.

Diamond watched us admiringly from a few feet away. “She's a beauty,” she said softly. I beckoned her to approach, and she moved carefully. She already knew how to bring Margo's trunk to her lips and blow into the tip.

“Now she'll remember you forever,” I said as Margo purred her acceptance.

“Is she rideable?” Diamond asked.

I was shocked that Diamond would even think of such a thing “She's wild!” I gasped. “Whatever gave you the idea she would be rideable!”

Diamond just shrugged. “I've ridden elephants. People all over the world ride elephants.”

In the meantime, not to be ignored, Abbie dug furiously in my pockets with her little trunk. I knew what she wanted. I glanced at my watch—it was already two in the afternoon. Lunchtime.

“She's looking for snacks,” I said to Diamond. Suddenly it occurred to me that there still had been no sign of Richie.
“We'll feed them ourselves,” I said. “And then I'll show you the rest of the sanctuary.”

We made a slow procession to the top of the hill and back to the barn, Margo and Abbie walking in single file behind me. Margo's trunk rested on my shoulder, Abbie held onto her mother's tail like a proper baby ellie, and Diamond was in the very rear, playing it safe.

“I'm not lucky enough to have one of your special bonds,” she said, grinning.

 

There should have been the usual bucket of apples and carrots waiting for them inside, but their plastic feed tub was empty.

“That's so odd,” I commented. “Richie never misses feeding time.” I hand-fed the donuts to Margo, who ate them greedily, then sniffed through the boxes for more. “That's all,” I chided. “You have to watch your waistline.” Apparently agreeing, Margo turned her attention to the hay stacked in the corner, while Abbie dropped into a sleepy gray heap.