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

by Ralph Helfer

  Mr. North held on to only those things he required to start up the circus again. Most acts were let go as they were replaceable when needed. Many animals were sold along with the equipment, such as cages, concessions, and any tent that wasn’t fireproof.

  Mr. North kept Bram on with Modoc because he figured when he opened the doors again, Modoc’s act would still be the best thing going. Gertie lost her job, as did Kelly. They were promised, as were many others, that when the circus reopened, they would be hired back. Most of the employees didn’t believe it would ever open again and went their separate ways.

  Kelly found a job in the Midwest working horses on a ranch.

  “He always did like to come around and watch the palominos work, or was it the girls?” Gertie would laugh.

  Most of the elephants were kept. Bram was put in charge of them, and on any given day, he could be found out in the vacant lot putting them through their paces.

  The head trainer was fired. He had been there ten years and was bitter about losing his job. Bram felt bad and told him so. He tried to explain that Mr. North had done it to save money, not because the trainer wasn’t good at his job. But the head trainer blamed it on Bram.

  “You and that damn elephant. If I would have known he wanted that kind of act I would have done so,” he boasted. “You took away a ten-year career. Why didn’t he let me work Modoc and fire you? Now you are working my elephants and I’m fired!” He got real close to Bram’s face. “Just let’s not meet up on a side street someday.”

  As always happens, the sideshow people were the hardest hit. Fingers wore five-fingered gloves and got a job parking cars, the Bearded Lady shaved her beard and became a bouncer in a strip club. Fat Lady went to a fat farm to lose some weight, but no one knew if she was successful. Snake Lady went to work as a hairstylist. Strong Man married a woman who was enamored of all those bulging muscles. Tall Man took a job as a doorman at a famous hotel in New York. Most said they would come back when the circus reopened.

  The circus moved to its winter quarters in the South where the weather was constantly warm. Bram and Gertie lived on his new small salary and the memory of the past. They would sit by the hour and talk of what had been.

  Modoc carried with her scars from the fire that would last a lifetime. Some of the skin on her back was permanently blistered with huge welts. Only those accustomed to elephants would notice, but Mr. North made Bram put her blanket on whenever anybody of importance came around.

  After the court cases were over, Mr. North started to build the circus back. Slowly he found investors, and after a one-year period found the money, rebuilding the circus from top to bottom. He planned to use indoor stadiums whenever possible. The new equipment was fireproof. Animal acts were rehired. Some of the people, if they could be found, were asked back, but many had moved, died, or had “no forwarding address.”

  Opening day was successful but brought back the memories of friends like Curpo and Kelly. It was hard on Bram preparing Modoc. He found himself asking Curpo to hand him something, to get Mo’s gold tips.

  The circus was back in business. Receipts were good, the new acts were going well. Mr. North had made a special deal with a train company and now the circus traveled deluxe style.

  Having their own train allowed them to go to towns they had never been to before, their schedule was more relaxed, and life in general was good. But it was one of these stopovers that was to change Modoc’s life forever.

  “Hi, elephants, whatcha doing, huh? Ya want a drink, huh! Burp, ahh, oops, I, ah, slipped, ha, in your poopie. Shusss, don’t let them know I’m here, okay?”

  A drunk had snuck into the elephant tent at night, unbeknownst to the security guard. He carried with him a bottle of scotch and a bull hook that a trainer had left on a hay bale. He sat on a hay bale in front of Modoc.

  “I doon’t feel soo good, ya know, soo I’ll just sit down over here on this ole hay bale, oops, slipped, sorry. Now, you see this? Huh? Huh? Well, hist a bull hook. Ya know, soo don’t mess with me!” Looking up, “They, burp, call you Moodoc, yoour the golden elephantee. You are good, that’s for sure, hiccup, scuze me, you’re in the center ring.”

  The drunk stood up on the hay bale, eye level with Mo. He sunk the hook into Modoc’s chin and pulled. “Come here!” he shouted.

  Mo swung her head to him so fast he lost his balance and fell off the hay bale.

  “Hey now, that wasn’t nice! You need to be taught some manners.”

  Modoc sensed the man wanted to cause her injury. He wanted something from her. What? He got to his feet, picked up the bull hook, and swung it at Mo. She backed away, avoiding the hit.

  “You bitch, come here now, I say!”

  This time he circled her like a cat does a mouse. She watched him carefully. He ran at her again and smacked the hook against her side, ripping the flesh. She let out a bellow. He swung again, cutting her a six-inch gash.

  Modoc whipped her foot out against the leg chains but they kept her at bay. Again he lashed out, catching her square on the face above the eye. The man was now committed to his task. His drunken stupor was not as evident. His anger had overcome his drinking. Modoc felt threatened. She would never hurt anyone unless provoked—and this man was hurting her. He came at her again, bull hook raised. She held her head high so he couldn’t reach her, then jerked her body to the side, breaking one of the hind leg chains.

  “Well, now the battle is more even, isn’t it?” he shouted.

  Sweat poured down his face. His shirt was sopping wet. Mo’s attitude was now aggressive. She balled her trunk, ears out, and waited for the onslaught. The man saw she now meant business. At first his face registered fear, as though he might back away, then the anger came again. He moved to the side of the barn and picked up a pitchfork.

  “Now the score is a little more even, isn’t it?” Like a matador he circled Mo, pitchfork in one hand, bull hook in the other, poised for attack. “I can’t kill you, bitch, but I can hurt you.”

  With this he made his move. He jabbed the pitchfork into her leg so deep he had to tug to get it out. Mo roared her pain. Blood was spilling down her side from the first wound, but the flow from the pitchfork was more profuse.

  It flooded the hay around her feet, turning it into a slippery pool. Mo picked up a large sheaf of hay and threw it at him. The whole barn became a shower of hay particles.

  “Ha ha, you big boob!”

  Mo jerked at the front leg chain. It was heavier than the back one and refused to break. The man, his bloody pitchfork poised, held out in front of him, the bull hook shorter but lethal, came again. Full out. Like a kamikaze, screaming like a banshee, he launched himself at her. Mo grabbed the pitchfork from him, breaking it against her own leg. Then she grabbed him, holding him high. Her eyes were deep red. She hesitated, wondering whether to stomp him or throw him. The hesitation was all it took for the monster to swing the bull hook with all his might, sinking it into her eye!

  With the hook still sticking out, she, bellowing with pain, slammed him to the ground, put a foot on his head, and decapitated him.

  Bram, having heard the screams of agony, raced in to find the horror—the headless man and the bull hook still imbedded in her eye hanging loosely, swinging back and forth.

  Mo lay still, tranquilized from the operation.

  “The eye is gone, Bram, she will never see out of it again. I’ve left it intact. It will stay a whitish color; it’s the best I can do.”

  The man who had hurt Mo had been a top trainer many years past. The records showed he’d been working with elephants, lions, tigers, as well as horses and even Brahma bulls. He was very successful with the Lippizaners and had landed a top position in the circus. It was an easy step from there to learn the big cats from the arena trainer. He wasn’t very good at it, but he was fascinated by the elephants. When a trainer was hurt by one of the big cow elephants, he asked for the position. That was the beginning of a new career that was to last ten years. He was a
good trainer, gentle yet firm, and was praised by his peers.

  He fell in love with the high-wire lady and they were inseparable. One day he was putting the elephants through their paces in ring three. The high-wire act was performing in the center ring. He heard a scream and looked in time to see her plummet forty feet to her death.

  He turned to drinking hard liquor to help kill the pain of loss. It was when he started to take it out on the elephants that the management had issued a warning. But the beatings continued until one of the elephants, Rosie, picked him up and threw him about twenty feet. She would have killed him had she been off her leg chains. He never got another job after that. He hit skid row and stayed there for years, became an alcoholic, and the rest was history.

  Anyone who knew him felt he wanted to die but didn’t have the courage to do it himself.

  For six months Bram nursed Mo back to health. The eyelids functioned normally, but the eye itself was a chalk white.

  The newspapers were not favorable to Modoc:

  KILLER ELEPHANT GOES CRAZY

  Others dubbed her Ol’ One Eye.

  It wasn’t that long ago they had loved her, called her the Golden Elephant. Now, with one terrible act, she was regarded as a monster.

  38

  “I’M SELLING MO.”

  Mr. North had called Bram into his office. “She’s blind.”

  “No she’s not!”

  “…in one eye. Her back is a mess!”

  “From saving people!”

  “And now she’s killed a man!”

  “Who was trying to kill her!”

  “Look, Bram, although I’ll never understand your…so-called love for this animal, I want to be fair. I will sell her to whoever gives me the most money.”

  “But you know I don’t have much money saved on what little I earn.”

  “Well, maybe no one wants her and you can get her—free!” he yelled, grinding his teeth in a sarcastic way.

  “Gertie, what are we going to do?”

  For the last hour they had been in the kitchen trying to find a way to raise enough money to buy Modoc. “We don’t have anywhere near the amount of money that old miser will get for her.”

  Bram racked his brain for an answer. “We just have to raise enough to buy her.”

  “And maintain her,” added Gertie. “Imagine the cost of just feeding her. Even if we do,” continued Gertie, “where can we go? Where do we keep her?”

  “Gertie!” yelled Bram.

  “Well, I’m just being practical.”

  “You mean you would not want Mo?” Bram’s voice showed great pain.

  “Don’t be silly, I’m just trying to think ahead. Women do that, you know.”

  “Hmm.”

  Bram called everybody he knew. Kelly, the sideshow people, everybody. Friends, bankers, shopkeepers, pet shops, asking to borrow money to buy Mo. Many were sympathetic to his needs and responded fast and handsomely, others were more skeptical, afraid they wouldn’t get their money back.

  “How do you plan on paying it back?” he was asked time and time again. “You can’t make much money with a killer elephant, let alone one that has only one good eye.”

  Bram tried in vain to convince them otherwise, but to no avail.

  For two months Mr. North offered Modoc for sale to the highest bidder. Bram was surprised that only a few offered to bid. Most were too scared to keep her.

  “After all, she did kill a man. And who’s to know when it might happen again?”

  Many were afraid that she wouldn’t work for them.

  “She ain’t gonna work for anybody ’cept him,” piped up old Mr. Barnes from the Humane Association.

  Others, knowing the details of what had occurred and Mo’s love of Bram, refused to bid.

  “They belong together, North,” some said. “You shouldn’t separate them.”

  Another, “Just go ahead and give her to him, you greedy old fart!”

  “Bram, the old man wants to see you,” a roustabout yelled into his trailer door.

  Mr. North was exasperated. “The best offer I got was $5,000! I can’t believe it! This world-famous elephant, the Golden Elephant, the one that can do an act without a trainer! $5,000. Huh! Amazing. Well, that’s it. Can you come up with the money or do I call the dog food people!”

  “They’re the ones offering the money?” Bram asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, “That’s sick! That’s really sick!”

  Mr. North loved to antagonize him. “We even had to weigh her on our truck scales to come up with the right amount. It was the only way. They were buying her at so much a pound!”

  Bram had borrowed $6,000. He had never believed it would be enough to buy her. He was elated! But he didn’t want to show Mr. North his feelings.

  “Yes, we can match that.”

  “You mean beat it, don’t you?”

  “Okay. $5,500!”

  “Sold!”

  Mr. North was rotten through and through. Even to the end. The bill of sale and the payment exchange were to take place at the winter quarters. The season would be over. Bram had found a little house with a bit of property in the back where they could keep Mo. A few friends were going to help out on the payments.

  Things were looking up.

  They still had some fourteen hundred miles to go. They were in the Rhode Island area and winter quarters were in south Florida.

  There were two trains. It was the procedure to allow the staff and equipment to take the first train to reach the facility earlier. This way they could set up and prepare the quarters for the animals before they arrived.

  Bram said his goodbye to Mo. “You just take it easy now. Trains are fun. You can look out the window, see the world go by. There are many cows in the pasture. You like cows don’t you?” He planted a big kiss above her bad eye. “See ya,” he said.

  He didn’t like being separated from Mo but it was for only a few days, and it did give him time to prepare everything at the new place before she arrived.

  The trains separated in upper New York state. The staff boarded the faster train heading for winter quarters, leaving the keepers to stay and care for the animals on the much slower menagerie train.

  At a small whistlestop somewhere in the Ozarks, the menagerie train came to a stop. It was two in the morning. A slight foggy mist had settled over the train depot. All was quiet except for the air brakes hissing their release. The only vehicle in the station was a large low-boy furniture van. The truck was parked in the shadows near the train track. A man smoking a cigar sat behind the wheel.

  The sound of a boxcar’s heavy steel sliding doors being opened was heard. A ramp was lowered, the lights from inside blasted the darkness, silhouetting a man leading an elephant down the plank. Only the stationmaster and a luggage boy saw the elephant being unloaded. The man in the furniture van flipped his cigar into the gutter and went to the back of his truck. Opening the huge doors, he winched down a ramp. The other man arrived and loaded the elephant. The two spoke for a minute, exchanged something, then returned to their respective jobs.

  The truck drove away as the train pulled out of the station quietly, no slipping of the wheels, no sound, no whistle. Anyone sleeping on the train would never even have woken up.

  “Where’s Mo? North! Where’s Mo?”

  Bram and Gertie had met the train but Mo wasn’t on it.

  “Where is she?” Bram was breathing hard, trembling, talking to Mr. North, who sat calmly at his desk in the lead train. Two big bouncer-type guys stood at each side of his desk. Bram had never seen them before.

  “I sold her,” he said, quite matter-of-fact.

  “What? What?”

  “She was mine, I owned her, and I sold her.”

  He never looked up.

  “You sold her to me! I have $5,500 for her right here. Where is she?” Bram’s body was visibly shaking, his voice was reaching its breaking point, as was his control.

  “I was offered $10,000 for her…and I
took it.”

  Bram saw nothing but flashes of red. Not even the brawn of the two strong men was enough to keep him away from Mr. North.

  “You dirty bastard!” He leaped over the desk, knocking him off his chair, and proceeded to beat his head against the wall. His fist connected with North’s face, teeth flew, an arm was pointing the wrong way before the heavyweights could dislodge him, hauling him out of the room. “Where is she! Where is she!” he yelled as they dragged him down the hall.

  Within minutes an ambulance and police car arrived simultaneously. Mr. North was put on a gurney and wheeled to the ambulance for a trip to the hospital. Bram was handcuffed, put into the backseat of the police car, and hustled off to the local jail.

  The next morning the judge sat patiently while the lawyers battled out their complaints in favor of their clients. It wasn’t a matter of why he did it. Everyone knew about Mr. North’s meanness, and when the facts were told, even the prosecutor for Mr. North showed a bit of concern for Bram. He didn’t voice it in court, but in the plea bargaining he was most lenient.

  Assault and battery was the crime. A suspended thirty days in jail, one-year probation, and payment of all hospital bills, plus the replacement of one broken desk!

  Bram later found out the judge was a friend of a friend and never did like North since he heard what happened to the victims of the fire.

  Bram spent all his money on the lawyer as well as paying for Mr. North’s hospital bill and desk. Mr. North spent one month in the hospital recovering from his injuries.

  Bram and Gertie continued their search for Modoc well into the future. But as the months, then years passed, the cold emptiness in Bram was cemented and he rarely lived a contented day. He was helpless to do anything more.

  39

  AN ANIMAL COMPANY called Gentle Jungle Exotic Animal Rental had acquired the contract to supply all the trained exotic animals for a television series. Gentle Jungle was owned and operated by a man named Ralph. Things were going along great until one morning when he received an early telephone call from the director.