Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

by Ralph Helfer

  Bram remained in the hospital for two weeks recovering from his illness. A deadly virus had chosen him for its victim, and had it not been for his quick arrival at the hospital, he might not have recovered at all. Josef didn’t bother to tell the doctor about the strange occurrence of the psychic elephant alerting the family to Bram’s illness.

  The day Bram left the hospital, Josef stopped at a local farm to let him pick out Mo’s choice of fruits and vegetables. Arriving home, Josef let Bram off at the barn, knowing he’d want to be alone with Modoc. Bram quietly opened the barn door and, walking on his toes, sneaked in, hoping to surprise her. As his eyes became accustomed to the half-darkness, he saw her standing with Emma. They were munching on a bale of hay.

  “Mosie!” he yelled.

  Modoc stopped mid-crunch. Throwing her ears forward, she blasted a trumpet that echoed throughout the barn. Bram ran to her, spilling half the food. She caught him with her trunk and held him in her special way. From her chest came her rumble of contentment. Bram wrapped his arms around her trunk and laid his head back against her chest. He knew that she had saved his life, and he loved her deeply for it. In the back of his mind, Bram wondered how she had known he was ill.

  It was Sunday. This was the day Emma was going home to the circus. Although she’d been returning most weekends to perform, it was time she went back to stay.

  “But this is her home,” Bram protested, “and what about Modoc? She’s never been away from her mother for any great length of time.”

  Bram, Curpo, and Josef were busy preparing the truck and trailer to transport Emma.

  “Mo will be fine, and besides,” said Curpo, “she’s got you. Why, I’ve never seen an elephant love anyone the way she loves you.”

  “Okay, old girl, it’s time to go,” Josef said.

  Emma caught him with a flap of an ear as he guided her into the trailer. A huge pile of bananas, apples, and bread awaited her enjoyment during the trip. Bram hugged his mother and Curpo goodbye, and away they went down the dirt road, onto the main highway headed toward Hasengrossck.

  Bram loved riding in the big trucks, sitting up so high he could see for miles, the sound of the big engine roaring. His father sat in complete control, his strong hands holding the wheel firmly and keeping the truck steady. Each sharp turn in the road needed his experienced touch to counterbalance Emma’s rocking motion. Her three-ton body swaying to and fro rocked the trailer. If she swayed in the same direction while going around a sharp curve, well…Josef had to be careful.

  “Someday you will take my place in the circus, as my father did before me!” yelled Josef, putting an affectionate arm around Bram.

  Josef had been teaching his son to be an elephant trainer since the day he was born. Bram had always wanted to follow in his footsteps, but he saw how his father suffered. The thought of working for Wunderzircus sent a shiver racing across his shoulders. Old man Gobel was a very selfish and greedy man. Though his father was one of the most important people in the circus, the uncertainty of employment, low salary, trying to make ends meet, and the possible sale of his animals kept Josef in a state of depression. There was an underlying problem that Bram could not grasp. He just knew it had something to do with them being part Jewish. Bram secretly hoped that by the time he was old enough, the circus would have another owner. He feared old man Gobel as his father did, and blamed him for his father’s occasional illness that seemed to pop up whenever Gobel would threaten to close the circus. Bram wondered if the old man would still be alive when he worked there. He quickly apologized to God for thinking such a bad thought.

  Bram’s concern for his father’s ill health was not unfounded. There wasn’t a day that his ulcers weren’t hurting him, but it was the coughing that worried Bram’s mother even more. It had started about two years ago, when the circus had gone through the worst winter of its existence. Josef never left the elephants’ side, night or day, and slept on the cold dirt floor to be there if they needed him.

  It was then the cough began, and it had never left him. The doctor told Josef not to smoke, but Josef continued to do so. Every night Josef was at home, Bram noticed his father meticulously peeling off the thin silver strips from the waxed paper that sealed the cigarette packets for freshness. Two packets a day, every day. For years Josef had been making a ball of the silver linings.

  “Some day this will help pay for your schooling,” he explained to Bram, and well it might, for it had grown to an impressive size.

  But the silver ball only reminded Bram of how much his father smoked. He wished Josef would use the silver as payment for a doctor to treat his illness.

  The blast of the horn made Bram jump in his seat. He realized he’d been toying with a twig in his mouth, as though it were a cigarette, puffing and blowing out the cold winter vapors. He quickly threw it out the window.

  The fall season was upon them and the countryside began to show its first sign of frost. The leaf-barren trees slept in anticipation of the winter months to come.

  Josef brought the rig to a stop in the outside parking area. They lowered the ramp and slowly backed Emma down to the ground. It was wonderful to hear the sound of the calliope as it played loud and clear across the circus grounds. A good crowd was coming through the stalls, and everyone seemed in good spirits. High in the air, Charlie, the man on stilts, met the people as they thronged through the gate.

  “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Come and see the tallest, strongest, and heaviest persons on earth!” called the barker. “Hello, Bram! You’re sure growing into a fine young man.”

  Bram nodded with a smile and followed his father and Emma down the fairway. He felt so proud. Everybody moved aside as her three-ton body ambled past the penny arcade, across the back of the sideshow, and on to the menagerie tent. Josef gave her the order to “get in line.” Emma swung her derriere around and backed in alongside the other elephants. Then Bram fastened a leg chain on her left hind foot as Josef fastened one to her right front.

  “Now, you don’t have to worry about Modoc,” said Bram. “We’ll take good care of her.” Josef said a few words to the keeper and a quick goodbye, patting Emma on the rump, and they headed back to the truck.

  That evening Bram wanted to sleep in the barn with Modoc. With her mother gone, he figured she’d be lonely, if not afraid.

  “How can I sleep with her in the hay?” he asked his father. “What if she forgot I was there and rolled over on me?”

  “Well, if I wanted to sleep with an elephant,” he said, reminiscing about the days when he was a boy, “I should sleep head to head. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about her rolling on me.”

  “But why does Emma sleep standing up, and Mo lying down?” asked Bram, loving any moments when his father might take on his role as teacher. This was his schooling, and Bram listened carefully.

  “When elephants grow old they rarely lie down because of their tremendous size and weight. The circulation in their legs is restricted and could cause numbness, and if they can’t feel their legs, they are unable to stand. Fluid collects in their stomach, and eventually can cause their death. In the wild, adult elephants doze for only a few minutes at a time. Captivity changes their habits, and therefore their sleep patterns.”

  Later, in the barn, Bram lay awake in the dark. The oat hay mixed with the alfalfa gave off an intoxicating aroma.

  As his father suggested, he lay head to head with Mo. He had barely closed his eyes when a loud bang yanked him from sleep. Bram felt Mo’s trunk reaching in the dark, frantically trying to find him. He touched her trunk. She grabbed his hand, hard, across the wrist, and held tight.

  “It’s all right, girl, just a window blown open by the wind.” He felt her nervous twitching and stroked her skin, soothing her as best he could. It was amazing to him that such a large animal could be so scared of small things, until he remembered that she was still young.

  As Modoc moved a leg to scratch an itch, her leg chain clanked against t
he steel plates in the cement. It reminded Bram of prison: chains, steel, and concrete. He recalled when he was five, wondering how his father could be so cruel as to put a chain on an elephant, the one animal he loved more than any other. It seemed so mean! Later he was to learn that because of elephants’ incredible size and strength, they have to be controlled as best they can without putting any undue stress on them.

  “No, no, the leg chains work quite well. They hang loose, don’t get in the way, and are easy to slip on and off,” his father had explained. “As for the chain, it’s like the one Curpo wears around his neck. Elephants could care less whether it is on them or not.”

  Bram learned some elephants could break their leg chains if they so desired. It was only the perception of humans that made the chains appear so wrong.

  By midnight the weather had turned unusually cold. Bram had a blanket to sleep in and was quite warm, but he felt Mo shivering. He knew it wasn’t just the cold, but a sense of loss for her mother. Once his own mother had traveled far away, and while she was gone young Bram had shivered every night. He figured Emma’s huge body gave off a lot of body heat that helped Modoc stay warm. He got up and, not wanting to start the electric generator that ran the heater for fear of waking the family, lit a candle. He set the candle far from the hay and pondered the situation. How does one warm a two-ton elephant? Hay! He decided to cover her with hay. Bram opened bale after bale; pitchfork after pitchfork of hay was thrown on her. He had no idea it would take so much hay. When he was done, there stood before him a mountain eight feet high. He couldn’t see Mo, but he knew that somewhere in that enormous pile was a young elephant.

  “You all right, Mo?” asked Bram.

  A snakelike trunk slithered out from under the edge of the hay. A stifled sneeze and a puff of dust and hay blasted out of her trunk. This time he slept with his arm wrapped around Mo’s trunk.

  During the night Bram awoke again. It was unusually quiet. It was too quiet. Something was wrong. Mo wasn’t breathing. He listened again. Nothing. Was she just sleeping soundly or…or…? He sat up in a panic. Maybe something horrible had happened, like suffocating under all that hay? Bram reached down and gently pinched the tip of her trunk closed to see if she was breathing. He waited, figuring that if she was all right this would force her to breathe through her trunk. Like a bursting boiler, a great rush of air blasted out of her trunk, blowing it free of his grip and throwing Bram, startled, onto his back. Then, like a mystical apparition, she rose from the earth. The hay fell away, some still remaining on top of her head. Towering eight feet in the air, she raised her trunk to resume the loud gusts of wind in Bram’s direction, showing her definite displeasure at being awakened in the middle of the night by having her nose squeezed.

  “Well, you should breathe more often!”

  “Erruuuuu!”

  “All elephants breathe often.”

  “Wwwuuuuugruuuuu!”

  “I breathe often.”

  “Braa hecuuuu!”

  “So I didn’t get any rest either. You shouldn’t sleep so deeply.”

  4

  SATURDAY MORNING. There was no great fanfare about it. Modoc’s left front foot was resting on a large oak stump while Bram put the finishing touches to the trimming and rasping of her nails. His father had used great patience in teaching him exactly how it should be done, and Bram, perfectionist that he was, had each nail cut and groomed perfectly. There were no splits and all were nicely convex in shape. Bram smiled when he remembered how his father had made a comparison between his mother’s nail kit and Mo’s. Everything was the same except for size. Katrina’s dainty little file, clippers, and trimmers were small compared to the giant ones used for elephants, but the method was similar.

  It had been a sweaty, tough job, and he was in the process of putting some softening salve on the cuticles when an arm appeared over his shoulder and set a package on the stump. Bram looked up to see his father standing behind him.

  “What is it?” he asked, stretching his back muscles that were sore from bending for the past two hours.

  “Sit down, son,” said Josef, asking as an afterthought, “How’s the trimming coming along?”

  Bram had Mo lower her foot to the ground so he and his father could both sit on the log. She stood close to Bram, her trunk playing with the twigs on the ground.

  “Just fine, Papa,” Bram replied, with a sideways glance at the package.

  Bram had become a big help to his father, always taking his responsibilities seriously, never shirking his duties. He’d been given jobs of the utmost importance; he drove the tractor and could make the furrows almost as straight as Josef’s. Bram and Curpo watered, fed, and cleaned all the livestock on the farm. Although his duties were many, his first thought upon awakening, and the last when going to sleep, was when he could spend time with Modoc.

  “There is something I want to give you,” Josef began, “something that has been in our family for many generations. My father gave it to me when I was thirteen. I stopped using it the day you were born. All things have a life expectancy, you see, even material things, and I wanted to be sure that it had many years of wear ahead so you would be able to enjoy using it as I did.”

  Bram looked into his father’s face, watching its serious lines convey the message. For a moment his father appeared very old and tired, and he had to blink his eyes to return to the present. Josef laid a chamois-wrapped article in Bram’s lap. The skin was old and worn but its dark mahogany color still looked rich, and it was as soft as velvet to touch. As Bram began opening the package, he noticed his father looking at his face, rather than at what he was doing. He felt embarrassed, hoping his first impression of the gift was what his father expected it to be.

  He unfolded the chamois to find the most beautiful hand-carved bull hook. It was about a foot and a half long and two inches thick. The handle was made of rare teak root from India. The end piece of tempered steel formed two points, one straight, the other curved back toward the handle, and both points were rounded off at the tips. It was entirely inlaid with sculpted silver elephants, edged in the same exotic wood as the handle. Along the handle were various carved figures of men and elephants, interacting with each other. Running down the inner side of the shaft were a series of engraved initials, of the mahouts who had once owned it. Bram noticed that the last ones were “B.G.”—newly carved.

  “Remember, son, this is a guide, a liaison between you and your charge, to express your desires to the elephant. It is not meant to be used as a weapon. Guide her well. Never push beyond her endurance. She will always tell you what her limits are.”

  Bram ran his hand over the smooth wood and metal. It seemed to speak to him, and he felt in the right time and place he could relive the great experiences the hook had known.

  “You can now feel free to take Modoc out for walks into the forest. I am sure you both will enjoy them.” Josef put his hand on Bram’s shoulder. “This is a big responsibility I am giving you, son. You must never allow your mind to wander for a moment. Elephants are large and strong, but they need your protection from that which they do not know or understand.” Josef’s finger under Bram’s chin raised the boy’s eyes from the bull hook to look directly into his eyes. “This is also a good time to find the spiritual way of the world. A place few people ever find. When you learn to hear the voice of nature instead of your own, you will be allowed to enter through the door of the metaphysical world. Bram, listen to Modoc; she will teach you how to cross over into her world.”

  Bram had never heard his father talk of these things and yet he, on his own, had often thought of a spiritual existence between men and elephants.

  “There are times, Papa, I feel I know what Mo is thinking, and she as well knows my thoughts. It’s as though I live in her world, sharing the same thoughts and feelings, as though my blood flows with hers.” Bram considered this for a moment. “If our blood mingles,” he continued, “doesn’t that mean we are kin, brethren, and are one…tog
ether?” he finished hesitantly.

  Josef’s heart swelled. His eyes misted over. He knew those metaphysical feelings from long ago, and was proud that now his son shared them. He answered by drawing Bram to him. Their embrace was one of men who share secrets few others know, of kings passing down thrones to sons, of the camaraderie that goes with living the adventure of life’s new experiences.

  The next morning Bram, new bull hook in hand, and Modoc headed into the forest. Cutting down through the valley and across old man Geckkor’s property, they went to the secluded far end of Cryer Lake. Here the cool blue-green waters were calm and shallow. Friendly indigenous wildlife dotted the shoreline, drinking the melted snow from the Alps.

  Flocks of rooks swept over the trees, cawing at Mo as she ventured, with Bram atop her broad back, out into the lake. It reminded Bram of what his father had just said. Soon the tapering land disappeared beneath her feet and she floated free. Her huge legs hung loose, letting the current move her at its will. While the water gently lapped at her sides, she drifted quietly through the sunlit rays into the cool shadows of overhanging trees.

  “Well, Mosie,” said Bram, who had removed his shirt to enjoy the sun, “you’re getting pretty big now. Papa says you’re already a third bigger than most elephants your age. He says you’re very special and that you learn awfully quick. I guess we’re both in school ’cause Papa’s teaching me how to train and tells me the same, that I’m a fast learner.” Bram let his hand drop, his fingers cutting ripples in the cool water. “Wouldn’t it be great if someday you and I could have our own act! Just you and me! We’d have the best performance in the whole world!”