I could have said yes, of course, when Nicky offered me the job. In less…confusing…circumstances I would have. She needed help. Helping people was what I did. Or use to do. Back before—
No. Don’t go there.
But Brandon needed help too. Like Nicky he had a business to run and needed people to help him. I had agreed. A simple transaction. A gentleman’s handshake. I could go back on my word, but I wouldn’t.
I didn’t have much left in this world, but honor was one thing I clung to yet.
Besides, Brandon had painted a picture of WildLot that fit my needs and skills. I hadn’t lied to Nicky when I called it a brokerage firm.
“We broker animals the way a bank brokers any other commodity,” Brandon had explained to me. “But WildLot also has conservation at its heart. We only cull animals for the health of herds and prides and the land itself, to mitigate over-grazing and starvation along the natural food chain. And for safety. Because of us, capture becomes a choice for unmanageable beasts that typically farmers would hunt down and kill to protect their livestock and homes. WildLot goes in, captures the animal, pays the villagers for the privilege, then relocates the animal—to a Chinese zoo, perhaps—and gives it a second chance.”
It all seemed pretty fair and straightforward. I especially liked the part about ‘second chances’. What was there not to look forward to starting tomorrow? I was going to put my skills to use and still help the less fortunate while working a job that would keep me—mostly—isolated.
Just like I wanted.
Just like I needed.
Why then the nagging prickle in my gut?
Was it only because I turned my back on Nicky?
Because I’d forced her out of my life not once, but twice?
Because while Brandon needed me, it was clear Nicky needed me more?
Or maybe because I needed her more?
6
Nicky
Two days after Abasi’s run to the hospital and one day after the surgery to repair his bullet-shattered bones, Rasheda called from Liparamba, a small game reserve to the southeast. Jack Thomas, Kulinda’s previous owner, and Rasheda had always had a good relationship, exchanging the occasional animal as population sizes warranted. I knew of Rasheda but had never spoken with her.
“I hope your day is going well,” she began. Whoever coined the term ‘patience is a virtue’ had to have lived in southern Africa where every conversation begins with interminable small talk. Only after we chatted about the weather and exchanged pleasantries about our respective health did Rasheda get to the crux of why she’d called. “I have a female elephant, an adult who needs some special care. Jack told me you were going to re-establish ellies in Kulinda. This one’s pregnant. Would you be interested?”
At the word elephant, my heart raced and wary excitement began to build. “Curious, yes.” Desperately so. “There’s a catch in there somewhere, though, right?”
Rasheda laughed. A yes, you caught me laugh, but not an unfriendly one. She fully expected my skepticism. “There’s always a catch with ellies. This one’s been living on a stretch of unprotected government land. Over the last couple of years, hunters had really done a number on her herd, till it was just her and her sister and her sister’s young bull left. A couple of weeks ago, hunters got her sister and the little bull. Right now she’s crazy with grief. Add in all those hormones from being pregnant and she’s been…troublesome.”
My enthusiasm was fast slipping away. I didn’t expect any elephant that came my way to be issueless. Dangerous, though, was another matter. “How troublesome?”
“Downed fences. She charged some cattle. Nothing and no one dead, but she isn’t getting any calmer. If I can’t find a home for her fast, someone’s going to shoot her. The calf at least could be salvageable even if the mum has to be put down. So you’d at least get one ellie for your trouble.”
“You’ve got more experience with this. Can’t you take her?”
“I’m at capacity now, with two babies already on their way. I’ve only got the one boma to start them in and I’ve got rhinos in there now. In her state, I daren’t mix her in with the rhinos—they’re too expensive to lose. Timing just couldn’t be worse here, but I want to help, and she deserves it. Men made her this way. It’s not the ellie’s fault.”
Damn the woman. She was playing me. Damn me. I was allowing myself to be played. “How pregnant is she?”
I didn’t fail to hear the quiet note of triumph in Rasheda’s tone when she said, “Probably a month out. Not much of a time investment with the mum if things…don’t work out.”
If I had to kill the mother she meant.
“What do I need to do?” I was still short-handed.
“You’ve already got elephant fencing up. And all the trees have been cleared around. She won’t be shorting out the wires by pushing trees down on them at least. Just make sure any new growth is cleared and that the fence is fully juiced. Give me a twelve-inch ditch at the gate—though eighteen would be better. Order up some hay and stock feed. Some fruit too, if you want to make her feel really welcome. I can have her darted and loaded in the morning and have her at your door mid-afternoon tomorrow. Are you game to go?”
That was the question I was still asking myself. To move 8000 miles here and say I wanted elephants while picturing those docile herds in travel brochures was far different from being confronted with the prospect of a troublesome beast with the power to topple small trees if she got into a snit.
If I’d heard about her plight on the news, I could have simply turned a deaf ear to it while reciting the only mantra I knew that could protect my heart: I can’t save them all. But a personal plea like this? A connection already made to an animal I didn’t know, hadn’t seen?
The phone chirped. Damn Rasheda. She had anticipated that too. Two pictures arrived. The first showed the full-bellied elephant standing by an acacia tree, head hung low, ears and trunk drooping, looking thoroughly dejected. I knew not to page to the second picture, but I also knew there was little that could stop me from it. It was a headshot—a profile—and the look in the elephant’s eye was one of terror, of grief. This was a proud lady who’d endured the slaughter of her entire herd. A social beast desperate for the love that she’d lost, her life reduced to the baby she carried inside. A baby who would never know the loving embrace of an aunt or two to help it up when it fell or to shade it from a blazing sun. Nor would the mom ever have the joy of showing off her new baby to a welcoming herd, or of twining trunks with her sisters and sharing whatever confidences elephants shared in one another’s great ears.
There was nothing ‘troublesome’ about the elephant staring at me through heart grief simply too terrible to bear inside, that demanded she do something to make the pain go away. Not knowing it would never be gone. That she would carry it always and forever.
Whatever resolve I might have faked at first melted at that incredibly sad look on this fine lady’s face. I couldn’t anymore turn my back on her than I could turn away the little kudu calf wobbling around in its awkward splint this morning under Melea’s motherly care.
I sighed. “Send her over.”
“Pushover,” Rasheda teased. But I also heard the gratitude in her voice. This elephant had become special to her as well.
After hanging up I flipped back and forth between the two pictures. I didn’t really believe in the mojo of names having power, of the thing becoming its name, but this lady needed every advantage. From my limited Swahili vocabulary, I chose one that she would need to be and hoped I was somehow imbuing her with it, giving her the strength to face her new life head-on.
“Jasiri,” I whispered.
Brave.
7
Nicky
I was in the barn the next morning with Melea and Zuri, watching the kudu calf suckle greedily at the bottle Melea held. It may not have been a perfect replacement for mother’s milk, but the concoction we blended up certainly satisfied the bill—tasty yet nutr
itious enough that the calf was thriving. It also seemed to be accepting its circumstances well enough, imprinting on Melea almost as if it had already forgotten its own mother. So maybe it was doing too well.
“We’ll need a plan for introducing her back to her herd in a couple of months.” I watched Melea’s face fall at the thought, although she nodded dutifully. “You’re doing a great job with her,” I assured Melea. “I’ll have to change out her splint in a couple of days since she’s growing so fast.”
That produced a smile from Melea just as my phone chirped.
“Rasheda, good morning.”
“Hujambo. Another hot day it looks to be. Our work is favored this morning.”
I hated to think how rain and mud would complicate capturing and transporting an adult elephant, but I was eager to hear how things were actually going in that regard. However, I also knew customs couldn’t be hurried. “We’ll be wishing for rain soon enough. Your ponds are full?”
“Enough to start the seasons with. Our largest is river-fed and never runs completely dry.”
“A boon for your water buffalo and elephants, I’m sure.” I hoped the emphasis would give her a needed nudge.
“Indeed. Speaking of elephants, yours has now been darted and loaded. There is some concern about the number of darts it took to drop her. The men were careful to use as little tranquilizer as possible because of the baby, but her adrenaline and hormone levels are extremely high, which meant using more than the minimum hoped-for dose. Her vitals are depressed right now and she’s not waking quickly, even with a shot of diprenorphine, but she is coming around, and by the time the truck reaches you, she’s likely to be her bad-ass self again.”
Rasheda didn’t sound overly worried, but from what I knew about it, diprenorphine was a pretty effective reversal drug for most of the game tranquilizers. If it wasn’t working quickly… “Are they monitoring the baby?”
“Not directly. They got a heartbeat before they loaded up the mum, but it’s too dangerous for anyone to be in the cargo hold with her. She’s not going to be a happy girl when she does wake up.” Rasheda sensed my hesitation. “This team has moved a couple of dozen ellies at least. They know what they’re doing.”
“Of course.” And, of course, complications could happen even with the most caring and experienced teams. Even routine procedures sometimes ended in tragedy. Bleeders that couldn’t be stopped. Organ damage that went undetected until stressed by even minor surgery. The only surety in this business was that no one ever had a 100% success rate.
“They should be there around 2 o’clock,” Rasheda said. “I’ll call back when they get closer.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I hung up, then thumbed the phone to alert Steve. The phone chirped before the call to Steve completed. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Dr. Tarantino?” The male voice sounded British.
“Yes?”
“I’m Brandon Briggs with WildLot Enterprises. I understand you have an elephant en route.”
Brandon. I’d heard that name before. And recently. Where—? Memory of a swarthy man with a trimmed beard and bush hat talking to Peter in the bar where he and I had lunch flashed vividly through my brain.
“And where does your understanding come from, Mr. Briggs?”
“It may surprise you that the animal transport service community isn’t a very large one, comparatively speaking. And as you seem the direct sort, I’ll get straight to the point. I’d like to buy your elephant.”
“Buy her? Why?”
“I have a client in the market.”
“Your community network seems to have failed you. She’s been labeled a problem elephant.”
“Which is precisely why she is a fit for this client. I can pay you 30,000 dollars U.S. for her, and I’ll take her directly from the truck.”
“You do know she’s pregnant?”
There was a slight pause on the other end.
“I can up that to 36,000.”
“I wasn’t negotiating.”
“You should be. Look, if she’s a problem outside the sanctuary, she’ll be a problem inside it too. A problem I can make go away before you even have to face it. Plus you get a few thousand to use toward the care of another elephant. A less problem one.”
His words were making sense, but there was something here that wasn’t. Gut instinct only, but I had learned through heartache and pain to trust my gut. The same gut that had told me to say yes to this elephant in the first place.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Briggs, she’s not for sale.”
“Since she’s already loaded, I can up the amount to 37,000. But I really can’t go higher.” I heard the exasperation creeping into his voice, pictured him being more flustered that a woman was telling him no than that he wasn’t getting the elephant. From car dealerships to medical equipment sales, that type of man not only still existed but seemed to flourish.
“And I really can’t help you. How much clearer do I have to make myself? She’s not for sale.”
“If you change your mind in the next couple of days, call me. I’ll be at this number. After a week, delete it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Briggs, I will.” I let him take that whichever way he wanted and hung up.
“Someone wants the ellie?” Melea asked.
“An animal broker.”
“Ah. Mr. Thomas called them bad news. He would never deal with them either. Most of their animals seem to wind up dead. I much prefer them alive, like Zuri.” She gave the calf a hug as it finished the last of its bottle. I gave her a sharp look.
“Alive and in the wild,” I stressed. Reluctantly, she let go the calf and patted its head instead. I rolled my eyes.
She was right, though. Animal brokers often worked with private hunters as well as game reserves and non-government-supported third-world zoos and circuses. My decision was the right one. Even if it ended up with Jasiri needing to be put down, it would be done quickly and humanely. After everything she’d been through, she deserved that.
Walking out of the barn, I could have put the whole conversation with WildLot behind me if not for one nagging thought: Why the hell was Peter mixed up with them?
* * *
At 11 o’clock, I walked the perimeter of the boma. Steve had walked it yesterday along with a couple of trusted hired laborers from the village. Aside from cutting a handful of saplings, an easy job for a big Swede like Steve, he had pronounced it as ready for elephants as the previous owner ever intended it to be. I’d watch them test the power myself. Not that an electric charge could actually stop a determined or an enraged elephant, but 10,000 volts packed enough of a punch to keep one who was just testing the limits of their enclosure from trying. To keep Jasiri happy, there was plenty in the boma to occupy her, from a pond with low banks for a good mud wallow to the tasty leaves on the variety of acacia, tambotie, and other trees that dotted the interior.
As Steve had said, it was as ready for Jasiri as it would ever be. I was simply anxious and looking for distractions. At noon, I asked Kapuki to pack up my lunch and took it and the Land Rover to the bank of the Mbingi River, a small fork of the larger Matandu River, that streamed lazily through the northern acres of Kulinda.
At dawn and dusk these banks were lively with wildlife as herds followed the well-worn trails to the water’s edge. In the heat of the day, as I watched from the shade of a wild date palm tree, only a few water buffalo stood knee-high in the river while a couple of disinterested crocodiles hid in the shallows, only the tops of their heads and upper bodies visible.
As I munched on Kabuki’s excellent mshikaki, a rich marinated beef dish, and ndizi kaanga, fried plantains that Kabuki dusted with sugar to appeal to my Western tastes, the faintest whisper of the rustle of sun-dried leaves caught my ear. When I turned my head to the sound, I saw a flicker of serpent tail disappearing through the tall grass maybe 10 feet away. It was gone before I could identify it. Most of the snakes around were fairly innocuous, g
oing about their business catching frogs and lizards and sucking the occasional guinea egg from ground nests hidden in the weeds. There were the occasional rock pythons, though, that grew to fairly impressive length, although they were mainly a threat to small mammals and human youngsters, not a 5’6”, 130-pound woman with a .38 clipped to her belt. Not that I would use the handgun save in dire need. Like if one of the area’s rare cobras or mambas threatened me. A spitting cobra that could attack with deadly venom from several feet away was a sobering reality out here, surpassed only by the black mamba, possibly the world’s deadliest snake. Without fast medical intervention, a healthy adult could be dead from a mamba bite in less than 30 minutes.
While I had a healthy respect for the snakes of Africa and took precautions, I wasn’t overly worried about being attacked when I was simply sitting here enjoying a lunch that would taste extraordinary if not for the knot of anxiety about Jasiri’s impending arrival twisting in my stomach. For the most part, snakes wanted to interact with people about as much as people wanted to interact with them. Without an imminent threat, retreat was always the first course of action.
My phone chirped, a rude sound in the quiet of the bush, but I left it off vibrate because I didn’t want any possibility of missing a call. It was Rasheda.
“I hope your afternoon has started well.”
A pox on formalities! “It’s been a lovely start here on the banks of the Mbingi. Yours too is going well?”
“No complaints, I thank you for asking. I did just hear from the truck driver, though. He’s about an hour out now. Are you ready?”
“Yes. No! Yes, yes the boma’s been checked and double-checked.”
Rasheda laughed. “I was just like you with my first ellie. As bad as any expectant mum. If you have any questions, just ask.”
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 25