Still Life with Elephant (11 page)

I
FELT
her even before I heard her, a soft throbbing undercurrent, a thrumming, that my body, rather than my ears, was picking up. A quiver ran through the leaves overhead; there was a pulse that penetrated the base of my skull and seemed to synchronize its rhythm to my heartbeat.

I followed the men for another ten feet or so, across the stiff, knee-deep yellow grass and hardpack sand, passing an area that had been flattened and bloodied, where she had earlier taken rest. Then we moved toward the closure of trees, tracking along a path of broken and hanging branches. The men quickly convened around Tom. She was in there, they agreed, just ahead, and they formulated a strategy to get her. Several of Tom's crew were dispatched to drive her from behind and into our trap. They slipped among the trees like shadows.

Richie and I were motioned to the side, to give her plenty of room, while Billy and Matt raised their dart guns, waiting for her to come out. I saw that Tom had a gun, too, the big, ugly one he had had in his tent the night before.

“What kind of gun is that?” I whispered to Richie. It had a wide, ominous-looking barrel, and I was afraid of his answer.

“It's an elephant gun,” he whispered. “A .458 Winchester Magnum.”

“An elephant gun?” I repeated.
“Gun?”

“To save our asses,” Tom, who overheard me, brusquely whispered back. “I've never had to use it, but it's powerful enough to kill her if she starts stampeding and one of us gets into trouble.” I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp. I wasn't sure what I would
do if I had to watch Tom shoot her. “If you want to save her life, stay out of her way,” he added, and I was sorry I hadn't stayed in the jeep.

Behind us, the trucks had been positioned, and now the workers were ready, poised. They had worked together like a machine, thirty men, each one doing his part, lowering the ramp, pulling the electric rollers in place, securing the wooden crate with large chains. Some of the men acted as sentries, pacing the perimeter of the work area, eyes constantly searching the horizon, guns perched on their shoulders like crows. I could barely breathe from anticipation.

I heard the men in the bush. They let out a low, keening, rhythmic sound, and rattled the trees for effect. The elephant responded with a guttural rumbling, just before she crashed through the bush, back to us.

Suddenly there she was. Bigger than I could have imagined. A noble monolith of mottled gray. Standing motionless except for her huge ears, flapping the buzzing flies away from her face, her tail lifted with apprehension. She took a step, but it was agony for her. There were open oozing wounds on her legs, on her trunk, wounds that carved out great pieces of flesh from her flanks. She shut her eyes with pain. I could smell the rotting infections and turned my face away. My legs trembled with rage at what had been done to her. The tranq guns went off, phfft, phfft, finding their mark in her right thigh, and the rescue was set into motion.

It would take about seven minutes for the tranquilizers to take full effect, and everything had to be coordinated. The large wooden crate was opened and pushed closer to the conveyer belt; chains, ropes, all were stretched and held ready.

She staggered forward a few steps, while the men behind her urged her toward the trucks. Toward us. Richie grabbed my arm and jerked me aside. Tom held the gun up, waiting. She took another step and, with a deep groan, crashed to the ground.

Thirty men were ready for this moment. Tom threw his gun into the jeep and ran toward the crate. Black, sweating faces intensely concentrating on their work, black arms ropy with straining muscles, the crewmen calling out to each other in ChiShona, and though I
didn't know one word, I knew exactly what they were saying. They wrapped thick, soft white cotton ropes around her legs, which I recognized as the kind of ropes I used for training horses, and they pulled her, inch by inch, into the crate. I drew closer to watch. The heat and humidity made me feel like warm dough, struggling to rise against the thick air. I had to sit down in the jeep while thirty men, sweating and heaving, moved an elephant.

A chain caught, locking onto a corner of the crate, and Billy DuPreez straddled it, trying to free it with his hands. Tom jerked it and the chain lurched upward, hitting Billy between the legs.

“Hey!” he yelped, jumping out of the way. “Watch it! I've only got one ball left after my run-in with that hippo last year!”

“Watch it yourself,” Tom yelled up at him. “There's a lady present.”

“Half a lady,” I announced. “I've only got one ovary.”

Tom looked at me with surprise and then roared with laughter, before giving the chain a final tug. In an instant, the electric rollers eased the crate onto the hydraulic lift and slid it upward onto the back of the truck, where the men strained to right it.

I checked my watch. It had taken forty-five minutes.

Billy DuPreez and Matt jumped onto the truck, behind the crate. Billy filled another syringe with the antidote.

“She can't be sedated for long,” Richie explained to me. Billy and Matt slipped inside the crate to administer the shot, then quickly ducked out. The crate was closed and locked, and Billy waved his hand at the driver. The truck started and strained, its wheels chewing at the dried yellow grass and packed dirt and spitting it out again, the truck engine whining its loud complaint. Finally, the truck rolled forward.

Tom grabbed my arm, and I followed him back to the jeep. His crew jumped into the second truck and, at a wave of his hand, gunned forward. The elephant trumpeted loudly. And the convoy started back for Harare.

Grisha glanced at his watch. “A few cows and we are back in Harare,” he announced, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket. Our jeep jerked to life.

“None too soon,” Tom said. “She's worse off than I thought.”

We had just started rolling across the dried grass when I thought I heard something. Something faint. Barely audible. A distant call. Plaintive.

The elephant trumpeted again and pushed against the wooden slats of the crate. They squeaked under the pressure.

I thought something echoed back from the woods. Perhaps it was an answer from another elephant in her herd. Perhaps it was the dry, hot wind. Perhaps it was my imagination. The trucks rolled onward, crushing the dry brown and yellow grasses into whispers, and I turned my body, straining to listen.

“I think I hear something,” I said to Tom.

He shook his head. “Ellies make a lot of odd noises,” he said.

“Just enamel,” Grisha agreed. “Sometimes they make noise for several cows, all the way to Harare.”

“Can't we just check the trees one more time?” I asked.

“We can't lose the daylight,” Tom replied. “We don't want to camp overnight with her. We'll have poachers up our ass, ready to finish her off for her ivory. Kill us, too.”

She trumpeted again, but it sounded like a cry to me. A call to something she had left behind. And I thought I heard it again. A murmur of grasses, or leaves, really nothing. Hardly a sound, a just-perceptible shiver in the air. A ghost of a call. Like a dying horse. Slipping away from us, as we drove on.

Then I knew. She had left another elephant. Maybe even more wounded. Maybe lying there obscured by the tangle of trees, maybe dying. I tugged at Tom's arm.

“Was there another elephant?”

He shook his head no. “There was no sign of anything else. We checked thoroughly. But if she calls enough, she could bring other elephants. Strong ones. We don't want to get stampeded.”

I sat back and strained to listen. Above the grind of trucks making their way through the grasses, and the screams of birds, annoyed at our intrusion, and the high cackling of a few nearby hyenas, I
could hear it. I could still hear it. Distant, dying. Was it coming from the trees? Or echoing back from my own past? I closed my eyes tight and strained against the noise. And then I was certain. I was crazy with certainty.

I tugged at Tom's arm. “There's a calf,” I yelled. “We can't leave it. We have to go back.”

“There was no sign of anything,” he said calmly. “We looked.”

“No!” I screamed. “No! No! We have to get it. We have to. We have to.”

“We have to get this ellie to Harare and stabilize her,” Billy called down to Tom from the back of the truck, where he was standing, balancing himself against the crate. “She's in bad shape. We can't waste any more time here.”

“You don't understand!” I pulled the door to the jeep open and jumped out, falling into the sharp blades of dried weeds and scraping the skin off my arm. I didn't care. I leapt to my feet and began running back.

“Jesus,” I heard Billy exclaim, “somebody shoot her with the tranq gun.”

Our jeep lurched to a stop, and the truck in front of us started braking. I was becoming a spectacle for thirty solemn black men, staring at me with disapproving eyes. Matt jumped down from the back of the elephant truck and ran after me, catching me by my shoulder and spinning me around.

“Neelie, stop it,” he yelled. “You're acting crazy.”

Tom jumped from the jeep now and caught up to Matt. “Stay with the other vet,” he ordered. “I'll get her back in the jeep if I have to carry her.”

But I had wrested Matt's arm from my body and was running toward the trees again, toward the sound. “I'll find it myself,” I screamed back at them. “I don't care. I hear it!” I ran as fast as I could.

“Neelie!” Tom caught up with me and grabbed my shoulder. “She doesn't look like she's lactating. There's nothing back there ex
cept maybe a lion.” I pulled away. He wrapped his arms around my arms, pinning them to my sides and dragged me backward. “A lion or a hyena that's just waiting for you to come back.”

“You can't let it die,” I choked, trying to free myself from his arms. “Please. She has a baby. Please.” I didn't care that I was making a fool of myself in front of him. “You can't let it die.”

“I won't,” he growled into my ear. “I won't. I promise. I believe you. And if there's something there, I'll find it. Now get back in the jeep.”

 

Twice I had felt my life implode, turn inward, pulling my world in around me. Pulling in the words I was hearing, the trust I had that things would work out, and, finally, pulling me in as well. Now everything was exploding, coming apart in great pieces of death and pain. I screamed at Tom, at the trucks, at the vicious beauty of Africa, at the heartlessness that lay beneath, and let Tom take me back into the jeep. I lay down on the seat, under the khaki blanket, and while Tom awkwardly patted my shoulder, I cried all the way back to Harare.

 

In the end, Tom diverted the second truck and sent it back with Billy DuPreez and they found her. A very young calf, dehydrated, lying inside a nearby grove of trees, about a half a mile in the bush, too weak to move, maybe dying, calling back to her mother. Mother and daughter. Or maybe its mother had been killed and we had taken her aunt. Elephants, in their matriarchal wisdom, will adopt each other's babies. The men carried her onto the truck. It took only a few men. Billy started an IV, and they brought her to Harare just an hour and a half after we arrived with her mother. They loaded them together. To be saved. To live. Together.

And I thought, Implosion, explosion, it's not so much about the direction as it is about where it takes you.

B
ABY ON
board, I repeated to myself, baby on board. Like those signs you used to see in car windows. Only we had a baby elephant in a trailer.

We were going home. The cargo plane left Harare, and flew directly to New York, where it and Tom were met by USDA officials. The paperwork was smoothed over, and the elephants were loaded onto a large trailer, as Tom had prearranged. We have elephants, I thought with some awe, as I watched them march slowly up the ramp into the trailer. We have elephants!

Matt was solely responsible for them now. He had restarted IVs in both mother and baby, to stabilize them as the trailer lumbered along the familiar highways that curved through the mountains of upstate New York.

We left Grisha with the cargo plane, for his voyage home to Pulkovo Airport. And now we sat exhaustedly in the cab, Richie, Tom, Matt, and I, too tired to say much of anything, our heads resting against the back of our seats, only able to grunt half-words, hoping that the others would understand and respond, and spare us the effort of forming whole sentences.

Despite my nervousness, the plane ride had been uneventful. Matt kept the elephant mildly sedated, enough to examine her. And he bottle-fed the baby, coaxing her to take weak, fitful sips of the special formula that Billy always carried with him. I slept sporadically, trying to keep a watchful eye on Grisha's cigarettes, and Tom busied himself going over importation papers that he would need for the USDA.

And now we were driving to the sanctuary in a small tractor trailer, carrying one large and one very small elephant.

Every so often the trailer behind us swayed from the adult elephant's shifting her weight. A camera and microphone were trained on her, and we could hear her grunting and barking in an effort to reassure her baby. The calf had dropped down into the straw, too weak to move, and we watched the monitor as her mother ran her trunk reassuringly over her head and body. Several times the mother trumpeted, and I smiled inwardly, thinking how startling it must be to the other drivers on the road to hear the trumpeting of an elephant.

The volunteers had the barn ready for us. The cement floor had been scrubbed clean, overlaid with thick rubber mats, while one half of it was banked deeply in hay. The wooden walls had been whitewashed and then protected with thick metal rods; the heat lamps were already turned on. There were crates of carrots and apples. An office had already been set up with medical supplies.

Matt taped the IV lines to the mother's body before Richie dropped the ramp on the trailer. The elephant, blinking against the barn lights, stepped out cautiously. Richie and Matt guided her forward while Tom and I helped the baby follow, supporting her body with the ropes. She was barely past my knees, tender and small and vulnerable and very thin from her ordeal. She trembled alarmingly as she held tightly on to her mother's tail and struggled to follow her into the barn. She dropped into the straw as soon as we let go of the ropes. Richie covered her with a thick, warm blanket.

We turned our attention to her mother again. That's when I noticed the chains. A heavy chain wrapped around each front ankle. They must been put on while she was sedated. Richie quickly attached them to chains that were cemented to metal brackets in the floor. The sight of them upset me. There is something repulsive in seeing a wild animal in chains. A moment later, she felt the restraints and tried to lift her leg, but they held her fast. She struggled against them, trumpeting loudly.

“Why is she in chains?” I demanded of Richie. Matt was busy adjusting the IV. My voice rose. “Why is she in chains?”

She tried to lift her leg, found it secured, tried to shake off the chain, and began screaming with rage and frustration.

“Oh God,” I said, putting my hands over my ears. “I can't bear it.” She thrashed her trunk back and forth with fury, aiming first at Richie, then Matt, trumpeting all the while, the whites rimming her brown eyes. Her baby, startled, tried unsuccessfully to struggle to her feet.

“Take them off!” I yelled. “Look what it's doing to them.”

Matt just ignored me. He went on examining her wounds with his bright flashlight, while dodging her trunk, then rinsed out the deep pockets of necrotic flesh with sterile water and filled them with handfuls of white cream. Richie restrained the baby, talking to her in a gentle voice.

“Oh God,” I said again.

Tom grabbed my arm and steered me outside the barn. “Calm down,” he said firmly, after we stepped into the fresh air, “before you get the elephant even more upset. How else is Matt to treat her, without getting hurt?”

“She doesn't belong in chains,” I whispered. She didn't. No more than Homer belonged in a Gogue.

“Bracelets,” he said. “They're called bracelets. They'll come off as soon as they're finished working on her. It'll be okay.” He put a hand on my shoulder, like a clamp.

I could hear the elephant screaming in panic, and the sound sickened me. I wanted to run to her, but Tom's grasp held me in place and I began to weep with frustration.

“I can't listen to this,” I cried out.

“Stop it,” Tom commanded sharply. “They have to do this. It's the only way we can help her.” There was an edge of impatience in his voice. His hand remained tight on my shoulder.

I knew it was necessary for her to be restrained, for us both to be restrained, because I knew I would have foolishly run to her—to do what, I didn't know.

I was embarrassed at Tom's annoyance with me.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He put his arms around me in a great hug and rocked me, then stepped back and dropped his arms to his sides. “I'm sorry too,” he said, “but you have to let things happen the way they need to happen.”

He was so close to me, I could feel his presence in the dark night. I could hear him breathing, and I remembered the feel of his body when he had kissed me. What was wrong with me, that I was thinking of this?

We stood outside the barn for a little while more, but it seemed like hours. We said nothing, only listened to the elephant raging at her confinement. I looked up at the stars and thought that they had looked so different in Africa, but they were really the same stars, and we were still the same people. All the flying back and forth had changed nothing. Or had it? I looked over at Tom. Then it went quiet.

“You can come in now.” Richie poked his head out from the barn, and we followed him in. I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at her.

The bracelets were still around her ankles, but unclipped from the floor chains, and she was able to move about. Her wounds were covered in salve, big white patches melting into her gray skin. She lowered her trunk and poked at the hay in front of her, then slowly sniffed the bars. Her baby was down again, asleep in a pile of hay. Matt eased himself from the enclosure and locked the gate.

“I gave her a shot of long-acting antibiotics,” he said to no one in particular. “And I put some Silvadene on her wounds. The stuff's great for infection. I'll be back tomorrow to clean things up again.”

“I'll stay with her tonight,” said Richie.

“Good idea,” Matt agreed. “Check her temperature at least once overnight, and call me if it goes up. Also, try to get some more of that formula into the baby.”

“Will the baby make it?” I asked Matt, forcing myself to look at him.

He shrugged. “I don't know. She's very sick. The first two weeks are going to be critical, and Billy said that baby elephants are very fragile.”

We turned to watch our new charges. The mother had lowered her head and closed her eyes, her trunk now resting on the floor.

Tom turned to us, like a commanding officer. “Well, good job, everyone,” he said. “Thank you for your work.”

“Thanks for bringing her here.” Richie shook Tom's hand. “I can't tell you how thrilled I am. She's my first elephant.”

“You're an enamel server,” I joked to Tom.

“Ah. Grisha.” He gave me a knowing smile. “He's a good man. Been involved in animal conservancy for years.”

“What will he do now?”

“He'll go back to Africa. Maybe sneak back into Zimbabwe, keep an eye on things. Mugabe proclaimed all the elephants there are Presidential Elephants, and he promised to protect them, but they are still being hunted like crazy. Some of it to spite him. When Grisha finds an animal that needs me, he'll let me know soon enough.”

“I think we should let them sleep now,” Matt suggested. He gave me a long look and walked outside, hoping, I think, that I would follow him.

“Good idea,” Richie agreed. He lowered the lights, and we followed Matt into the night. He and Richie stepped aside to discuss medications and treatment, in low tones.

I turned to take one last peek. Even in the darkened barn, I could see the outline of her huge body, the shape of her bony head, the big fan ears, and it thrilled me.

“She's magnificent,” I said softly to Tom.

“You can have the privilege of naming her,” he replied quietly.

“I'd rather name the baby,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows, then touched my arm. “She won't be the last baby in your life, you know.”

“Maybe not.” I caught my breath. “But she's my first.”

We stood outside the barn in a circle of triumph and immense fatigue, reluctant to let the night go.

Matt stretched and yawned and looked over to me. “Want to grab a cup of coffee?” he asked. “And then I can take you home.”

“No thanks,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Okay.” He turned from me and walked to his car.

“I'm going home to shower,” Richie said to me. “And then I'll set up a cot and take the first shift. We can do one week on and one week off.”

“Let me know when you want me to take over,” I said.

“Yep.” He gave me and Tom bear hugs and headed down to his house, leaving us standing together in front of the barn.

“What are you going to name her?” I asked Tom. “The mother, I mean.”

“Maybe Margo,” Tom said, “after my mother. I never got to name one after her.”

“Margo,” I repeated. “Yes.”

“Do you need a lift home?” he asked. “I'm taking a cab back into the city tonight. I could drop you off.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Half an hour later, we pulled up at my house. We had been too tired to make much conversation during the ride. Tom took my luggage from the driver and carried it to the front door for me.

“Maybe I could call you in a day or two,” he said, his voice carefully noncommittal. “See if you've recuperated.”

“I don't know how much I'm going to recuperate, sleeping with an elephant every other week,” I said, “but I would like that.”

“I'm concerned about you.” He raised his arm to touch me, then seemed to think better of it.

“Thank you,” I said. He stood next to me as I fished through my fanny-pack for my keys. I didn't want to ring my bell and bring bigmouth Reese to the door. “I'll be okay,” I added, thinking I would give him a way out, if he wanted one.

“I think so, too,” Tom said. “But I'm not sure you believe it yet.”

“Will you be checking on—Margo?” I asked.

“I'll come up here once in a while,” he said, “when my schedule permits. I think you and Matt and Richie can handle things.”

“Oh.” I felt disappointed. And annoyed with myself for feeling
that way. “You must be very busy, of course,” I said. “It's probably going to be difficult for you to find the time.”

“I'll find the time,” he said. He stepped toward me and lifted my face with his fingers and brushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. I looked up into his eyes, because eyes can tell you everything, but I couldn't read his. He has careful eyes, I thought. Then he leaned toward me and gently pulled my face to his, and kissed me. If his eyes were careful, his lips betrayed him. They pressed against mine with heat and urgency and the answers I was searching for. He found me desirable. Desirable. I wanted to know that. He kissed me, and I wanted more. I kissed him back, and he held me to him, covering my face with kisses. Suddenly he backed away a step and cupped my chin and grinned. “I'll find the time,” he said. “I always find the time if something's important to me.”