The Tiger Prince (55 page)

“If we’re through acting nursemaid to this elephant, maybe we can get back to work,” Li Sung said. “We have track to lay while there’s still light.”

Dilam nodded. “We can complete another quarter of a mile before dusk.” She turned to Ruel. “Tamar is at the encampment. He came with a message from James Medford.”

Ruel frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “You were busy. And this appeared of more importance.”

“Elephants are always more important to her than humans,” Li Sung said caustically.

“I’ll go with you,” Jane told Ruel. She turned to Li Sung. “I’ll be with you as soon as we see what Medford has to say.”

“I do not have to be guarded and nurtured like your precious elephant.” He tore his gaze from Danor and the baby and got back on his horse. “I will see you back at camp at supper. If fortune is with us, all those elephants will have moved back where they came from by then.”

“Something’s wrong,” Jane said as she saw Ruel’s expression when he came toward her after speaking to Tamar. “Is it the railroad? Does Medford have a problem?”

“No, but we may have more problems than we can handle. Medford just got a message from Pickering. The maharajah is dead.”

“No! So soon?”

“Pickering suspects Abdar may have hastened his demise, but it’s not wise to suggest that possibility with Abdar in power.”

“He’ll start for here immediately?”

Ruel shook his head. “There’s a three-month period of mourning before Abdar ascends the throne. Until that time he has no more power than he had before. We may
even have a month or two grace after that before he turns his attention in our direction, but we can’t count on it.”

“Three months,” Jane muttered. “I can’t possibly-complete the line in that time.”

“It’s got to be done in two,” Ruel said flatly. “I’ll need the extra month for shipping the gold and fortifying the harbor.”

“Impossible.”

“It’s got to be done. Medford’s almost finished his portion of the line. I’ll set him to laying the track down the canyon trail.” He frowned in concentration. “And I’ll close down the mine and transfer the workers to the railroad and supervise that crew myself. Will that make it possible?”

“Possible but not probable. The jungle is much denser ahead. It will need extensive clearing along the track.”

“I’ll recruit more help from the Cinnidar village.” “It still may not be enough.”

“I
need
this done, Jane. I could lose everything I’ve worked for all these years.” He gazed directly into her eyes. “I need your help. Will you give it to me?”

She had never thought he would ask her for anything. He had always demanded, not asked, but he wasn’t demanding now. Nor was he trying to use that mesmerizing charm that was his most potent weapon. He had stated his need simply and honestly. He loved this island. It was home to him. She felt an odd surge of fierce protectiveness as she looked at him. Dammit, she would not let Abdar either hurt him or take his home. “I’ll see to it.” She turned and moved toward the tent. “Come with me. We’ll need to look at the map. There’s a stretch of marshland just ahead that I was planning to go around. It’s a nightmare finding firm ground to lay the track and working in all that mud, but we can cut seven miles off the final stretch if I go through it instead of around. That will help, won’t it?”

“Seven miles will help a hell of a lot.”

“Then you can take your crew and start laying the
track beyond the marsh while Li Sung, Dilam, and I work our way through it. If we can—”

“Jane.”

She looked at him. “Yes?”

He smiled, that rare beautiful smile. “Thank you.”

The words were beautiful too, and filled her with a perilous happiness. She lifted the flap of the tent. “You’re quite welcome.” She made a face. “At the moment. I’m not sure I’ll feel quite so magnanimous when we begin going through that marsh.”

“Why do they not go away?” Li Sung said as he gazed in exasperation over his shoulder at the elephants standing in the trees. “It has been over a week now and they still try to follow behind us like tame dogs.”

She smothered a smile. “Dilam says Danor likes you.
makbol.
”

He scowled. “She told you that foolishness?”

“Or perhaps he misses his mate.”

“Then let him go court another one and leave me alone.”

“I believe Dilam is right. Why else would Danor keep the herd nearby? And he watches you all the time.”

“Maybe he is looking for an opportunity to smash me into the marsh.” He grimaced. “Though I could not be much worse off. I’ve been mud from head to toe for the last three days.”

“So have we all.” Jane wearily wiped her brow as she gazed at the workers trying to keep their balance in the slippery mud beside the track. “Another mile and we’ll be out of it.” Her gaze wistfully shifted to the river a half-mile distant. “It will be good to wash the muck off this evening.”

“That’s five hours away.” Li Sung turned and moved cautiously along the side of the rails, measuring the width of the track. “Let’s hope we are out of this marsh by—what the—”

He lost his footing, his feet slid out from under him, and he fell to the ground. The next moment he was
sliding helplessly down the slippery incline to splash into a mud-filled ditch.

He came to the surface, floundering, spitting a mixture of Chinese and English curses, completely encased in grainy yellow mud from head to toe.

“Are you hurt?” Jane called. The ground was soft, and she doubted if he had come to any harm. Dear heaven, she mustn’t laugh. Li Sung would kill her if she laughed.

She couldn’t help it. Heavens, he looked funny.

“Stop that snickering.” Li Sung glared at her, his black eyes shining from his mud-coated face. He gazed at the Cinnidan laborers who had stopped working to grin at his dilemma. “And you too. It is not—no! Get him away from me!”

Danor had suddenly appeared and was lumbering down the slippery incline toward Li Sung.

Jane’s amusement vanished. “Good God, what on earth is he doing?”

Danor wrapped his trunk around Li Sung and heaved him out of the ditch.

“Let me go, you armor-plated baboon,” Li Sung spat out, struggling futilely in the elephant’s grasp. He shouted. “Dilam!”

“I am here.” Dilam beamed at him as she trotted down the track toward them.

“But you’re not
doing
anything. You’re supposed to know about elephants. Make him—”

“He will not hurt you.” She frowned. “I do not think.”

Danor turned and trotted up the embankment and off across the flat marsh, moving so quickly his heavy bulk did not have a chance to sink into the soft muddy ground.

“Jane!” Li Sung shouted. “Are you going to shoot this beast or not?”

Jane found herself laughing helplessly again. “He’s not hurting you, is he? Surely you wouldn’t want me to kill him for stinging your pride?”

“The hell I wouldn’t.” The words drifted back to her as Danor picked up speed. “Put me down!”

Jane could see where Danor was headed now, and she started after them at a run, her boots sinking into the muddy earth with every step. “Don’t worry. I think he’ll drop you soon.”

“And then step on my head.”

She was breathless with laughter as well as running. “No, I don’t believe you’ll have to worry about that.”

Danor stopped at the bank of the river—and tossed Li Sung into the water.

Li Sung came up sputtering and cursing. Danor lumbered into the water, filled his trunk, and sprayed Li Sung in the face.

“He is trying to drown me.”

“No.” Jane gasped, tears pouring down her face. “I think he’s trying to give you a bath.”

“Stupid beast!” Li Sung hit the water with his hand, sending a spray at the elephant.

Danor promptly squirted him again.

“This is …” Li Sung looked at Jane and then at the elephant and suddenly his anger ebbed and his lips began to twitch. “Completely unfair.” The smile became a chuckle. “I do not have a monstrous nose with which to gather water.”

Danor’s trunk wound around Li Sung’s shoulders, moving gently up and down his body. It was almost a loving caress, Jane thought, like the way the elephant had touched his baby that night in the jungle.

Li Sung’s expression became oddly arrested. He stood quite still, his head tilted as if listening to something. “All right, I forgive you,” Li Sung said grudgingly. “But only because I needed the bath.” He grimaced ruefully. “And the laughter. I feel better now.” He turned and waded back to shore.

“So do I.” Jane reached out a hand to help him up the bank. “It doesn’t seem nearly so long until sundown now.”

Li Sung looked back at the elephant, but Danor was now ignoring them, siphoning and spraying water on
himself. “Selfish beast. Look at him enjoy himself. He does not have to labor from sunrise to sundown.”

In spite of the content of the words, Jane noticed a lack of antagonism that was usually present in Li Sung’s tone when he spoke of Danor. It was as if that moment in the lake had washed away more than the mud encasing her friend.

Li Sung frowned when he looked at Jane. “What are you smiling about now?”

She started across the marsh toward the track where Dilam stood waiting, a broad grin on her face. “Was I smiling?”

Danor was there again, standing in the shadows of the trees across the clearing.

Li Sung turned over on his side and pulled his blankets up to his neck, deliberately ignoring the elephant.

The stupid beast could stay there all night, as he had for the past three nights. He would pay no attention to him. He needed his sleep.

The elephant was still watching him.

Li Sung muttered a curse and tossed aside his blanket. He moved past the sleeping workers as he stalked toward Danor. “Go
away.”

The elephant took a step closer to Li Sung.

“Have you nothing better to do than torment me? Go take care of your baby or something.”

The elephant made a soft, rumbling sound deep in his throat.

“I do not want you. What use do I have for an elephant?”

Danor’s trunk reached out and gently, tentatively, touched his cheek.

“Stop it!” Li Sung stepped back.

Danor stepped forward, his trunk moving caressingly down Li Sung’s body.

Togetherness. Affection. Serenity. Li Sung closed his eyes as the same emotions he had experienced that moment in the river surged through him.

“I do not want—” He stopped with a sigh of resignation. “But you do not care what I want, do you? Perhaps you do not want it either. Maybe you do miss your mate. We will have to see if we can’t find you another.” He touched Danor’s trunk. It was rough and leathery, yet oddly comforting, like touching the bark of a tree grown in a beloved childhood garden. “All right, we will try to be friends. It is not impossible we may find a common-no!”

He was lifted high and the next moment deposited on the elephant’s back. “This is too much. I did not want you to—”

Togetherness, bonding, and something else …

Power.

He had never felt so strong or so complete.

Danor began to walk slowly across the glade toward the herd, his gait smooth, almost rolling. He felt no pain as he did when mounted on a horse or mule, Li Sung realized with amazement. His bad leg was lifted and held at an angle that was without strain. He felt whole again, as he had as a boy before he had become a cripple.

A wild sense of exhilaration flowed through him. He lifted his face and felt the wind touch his cheeks and something else touch his soul.
makhol?
It did not seem such a bizarre idea now. He didn’t know what bond there was between them, but he knew he had never been more content or alive than at that moment.

“Jane! Wake up!”

Li Sung’s voice, Jane realized sleepily, but there was something strange …

“Jane!”

She came fully awake and the next moment she was off her cot and at the tent entrance. “What’s wrong? Is there—”

Li Sung sat on Danor’s back just a few yards from her tent. “Li Sung!” she whispered.

“I wanted to share it with you,” he said simply.

She didn’t have to ask what he had chosen to share.
It was all there in his expression—joy, exhilaration, exultation.

“How did it happen?”

“Danor.” He patted the elephant’s head. “He has great determination.”

“I noticed that. You look very comfortable up there.”

“It’s like nothing …” He trailed off. “I can’t explain.”

“You don’t have to.” She smiled.
“makhol.”

A brilliant smile lit his face, and he suddenly looked younger than the boy who had come to Frenchie’s that day so long ago.
“makhol.
” He touched Danor’s left ear, and the elephant turned away from Jane’s tent. “We are learning to accommodate each other, but I may have to stay up here all night.” He made a face. “I still have not figured out how to tell him I want down….”

His words trailed off as Danor moved back across the clearing toward the herd.

Jane gazed after him for a long time before she let the tent flap fall and turned back to her cot. Tomorrow would be another exhausting day, and she must get some sleep. She was happy for Li Sung. How could she not be happy when he had found something that made him look like that? Nothing had really changed. He had come to share his happiness with her as a good friend would.

She was foolish to feel this aching sense of something lost forever.

“You cannot do it,” Pachtal said positively.

“But of course I can.” Abdar smiled. “I’m the maharajah.”

“You have not been crowned yet. It will be another month before you’re free to go to Cinnidar.”

“I cannot wait. Your informant said the line is close to completion. Am I to wait until MacClaren has the means to fortify against me?” Abdar turned and gazed at the masks mounted on his wall and murmured, “I must tell Benares to pack up those masks.”

“You’re taking them with you?” Pachtal asked. “All of them?”

“Of course, and Benares must also come in case I find anyone worthy of Kali on Cinnidar. I will need power to defeat MacClaren.”

“You will need an army.”

Abdar frowned. “Do you question Kali’s power?”