The Tiger Prince

by Iris Johansen

  “Which shows how stupid he is. He does not know an enemy when he sees one.” Li Sung moved around the fallen elephant. “The female is dead. Her eyes are open and—” He stopped in midsentence.

  “What is it?” Jane called.

  “A baby.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Li Sung took another step closer, his gaze on something obscured by the female’s bulk. “It’s a baby elephant.”

  “Alive?” Ruel asked.

  Li Sung nodded. “He’s trying to nurse.” “How old?”

  “How do I know?” Li Sung asked testily. “A few days, I suppose.”

  “I want to see him,” Jane said.

  “Of course you do. Another helpless creature for you to cosset,” Li Sung said caustically. “This is not a stray puppy, Jane.”

  “I want to see him,” Jane repeated. “Danor seems to accept you. Come back and take Ruel’s and my hands and lead us to the female.”

  “Then I could not hold the rifle.”

  “You won’t need the rifle,” Jane said in exasperation. “Look at him. It’s enough to break your heart.”

  “I’ll carry the rifle,” Ruel said. “You’d better do as she says, Li Sung. She’s going to go over there anyway.”

  Li Sung moved toward them. “I know.” He surrendered the rifle to Ruel, clasped both of their hands, and led them toward the elephants. “Now he’ll probably trample all of us into the rest of these bones.”

  “Hush, Li Sung.” Jane tensed as Danor lifted his head and stared at the three of them. No anger, she saw only overwhelming sadness, resignation … and acceptance.

  Then the elephant lowered his head and resumed poking and prodding his fallen mate, urging her to rise to her feet.

  “I think it’s going to be all right.” Jane moved around the female’s body.

  The baby elephant was lying with his legs outspread, nuzzling his mother’s teat.

  Jane felt the tears sting her eyes. “Poor baby.” “No!” Li Sung said sharply. “No, Jane.” “We can’t let him die.”

  “We can’t save him. He needs milk to survive and his mother is dead. Who is going to nurse him?” Li Sung’s gaze went to the bones of the graveyard. “One of those?”

  “If we can get him back to the herd, maybe one of the females will adopt him.”

  “The herd could be a hundred miles to the east.” “Then we’d better start right away.” “And how are we going to find the herd?” Jane gestured to Danor.

  “You think he’s going to lead us to the herd like a horse going back to his stable?”

  “Dilam said he had superior intelligence.” Her brows knitted thoughtfully. “It could be that’s why he tore up the tracks.”

  “He tore up the tracks because it pleased him to do so.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe he wanted us to follow him. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t save his mate but he wanted to give the baby a chance. We’ve got to give him that chance.”

  “No,” Li Sung said flatly.

  “Yes,” Ruel said.

  Li Sung swung to face him. “You agree with this madness?”

  “She wants it done.” Ruel shrugged. “So we do it.”

  Jane looked at him in surprise.

  He smiled as he studied her face. “I told you I’d work on it,” he said softly. “I have to start somewhere.”

  She tore her gaze away from him. “Li Sung, you’ll have to get the baby away from the mother. I’m not sure Danor would let us do it.” She started back across the graveyard. “I’ll go back to camp and pack up. Ruel, you stay with Li Sung. He may need help.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ruel said meekly.

  • • •

  An hour later Li Sung and Ruel appeared at camp, driving before them the tiny elephant. The baby was only three feet high, tottering and weaving uncertainly with every step. He was big-eyed, clumsy, and totally endearing.

  “Did you have any trouble?” she asked Ruel.

  “Not with Danor. He let Li Sung do whatever he wished with the baby.” He made a face and nodded toward the elephant. “But we had trouble convincing this little fellow to leave his mother, and it’s not easy to shift a hundred-and-fifty-pound infant anywhere he doesn’t want to go.”

  “Where’s Danor?”

  “Still trying to wake her,” Ruel said. “We may have to find the herd on our own.”

  “He’s so sweet.” Jane reached out and gently caressed the baby’s trunk. “We’ll have to give him a name.”

  “Why?” Li Sung asked. “So you’ll have a name to mourn him by when he dies?”

  “He’s not going to die.” The elephant curled his trunk about her wrist. “I’ve always liked the name Caleb. We’ll call him Caleb.”

  Li Sung made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a snort.

  The elephant released her wrist and started to totter toward her.

  Jane’s brow knitted worriedly. “He doesn’t seem too steady on his feet.”

  “He’s weak.” Ruel said. “There’s no telling how much milk the mother was able to give him before she died.”

  “What can we feed him, Li Sung?”

  Li Sung looked at her without speaking.

  “Li Sung?” she prompted.

  “He will die anyway.”

  “We don’t know that. Tell me what to feed him.”

  “Water or milk,” Li Sung said reluctantly. “He’s probably too young for anything else.”

  Caleb’s legs gave out, and he fell in a heap to the ground. Jane felt a melting tenderness as she looked at the helpless baby.

  In spite of his disapproval, Li Sung appeared to be similarly affected. “He needs milk, but perhaps water will help ease his hunger. I will go to the pond and get some.” He snatched a canteen from the saddle and stalked off down the path.

  “It isn’t like Li Sung to be so hard,” Jane murmured as she stared after him. “I don’t understand him.”

  “I do,” Ruel said. “He feels cheated. He was braced for a warrior’s battle and now he finds himself acting as nursemaid to his foe’s offspring. It’s not easy for him to accept.”

  “Danor doesn’t think of him as a foe.”

  “He can’t accept that either.” He started down the path. “Stay by the fire and don’t let Caleb wander off. I’ll be right back.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “He’s not going to be able to walk long. I’m going to find some branches to use as poles and fashion a stretcher I can fasten to my saddle and drag him behind.”

  “Ruel.”

  He glanced over his shoulder.

  She reached out and gently touched the baby elephant’s trunk. “He is going to live, isn’t he?”

  “You want him to live, he’ll live,” Ruel stated unequivocally. He strode out of view into the shrubbery.

  It was absurd to feel this rush of relief at his words. Yet the mandarin had spoken, and if he had been capable of jerking Ian back from the gates of death, why not this big, clumsy baby?

  Nugget made no protest when Ruel attached the two poles to the saddle but went into a bucking fit when Caleb was placed on the stretcher close to his hindquarters. Li Sung’s horse and Bedelia had a similar reaction when Ruel tried to attach the stretcher to their saddles.

  Ruel swore beneath his breath. “Dammit, I didn’t need this.”

  “What do you expect when you try to put an elephant and a horse in tandem?” Li Sung asked.

  Jane frowned worriedly. “What can we do?” Caleb would never be able to make the trip on foot, when he could stand on his feet for only short periods before collapsing.

  “We don’t seem to have any choice,” Ruel said grimly. He unfastened the poles from Bedelia’s saddle and began forming a harness with a rope. “You’ll have to lead Nugget and I’ll be the beast of burden.”

  “Much as I approve the benefit to your character of such a humbling experience, may I remind you he weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds?” Li Sung said. />
  “And I’m sure I’ll feel every pound before we stop for the night.” Ruel slipped the harness over his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” Jane took two shirts from her saddlebag and crossed to Ruel to tuck them under the harness to protect his shoulders from the ropes. “I’m afraid they won’t help much, dragging that kind of weight.”

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not the one dragging Caleb through the jungle.” She got back on Bedelia. “Tell us when you need to stop and rest.”

  “Don’t worry.” He made a face as he lurched forward. “I assure you I will.”

  They stopped to rest twice during the night but did not make camp until just before dawn. Jane reined in at a small clearing near a stream and got down off her horse.

  “Li Sung, grab two canteens and get some more water for Caleb while I make a fire.”

  “I live only to serve,” Li Sung said sarcastically as he took the canteens and moved stiffly toward the stream. “Now I am water bearer for an elephant.”

  “And what task am I assigned, memsahib?” Ruel asked.

  “Li Sung and I can do anything that needs doing,” she said as she began gathering wood from the side of the path. “Sit down and rest.”

  “Am I being pampered? How unusual.”

  “It’s hardly pampering to let you rest after you spent the last six hours dragging an elephant behind you.”

  “I won’t argue.” He unfastened his harness and sat down on the ground beside Caleb’s stretcher. “Pamper me.”

  Weariness layered the usual mockery in his tone. She turned to look at him, but it was too dark to see his expression. He was only a shadow figure hunched beside Caleb’s stretcher. “Did the pads help to cushion the ropes?”

  “Well enough.” He changed the subject. “We’ll have to replace this blanket I stretched over these poles before long. It’s wearing thin.”

  “I’ll give you one of mine before we start again.” She knelt beside the pile of wood and kindling and lit the fire before glancing over her shoulder. “It’s a wonder it lasted this long, pulled over that rough ground with Caleb on—”

  There was blood on Ruel’s shirt.

  She jumped to her feet and hurried to his side. His face was pale in the firelight, his lips set with strain. “I thought you said the pads helped. You lied to me.”

  He shrugged. “They did as good a job as could be expected.”

  She fell to her knees beside him and started to unbutton his shirt. “We’ll have to double them tomorrow.” She unbuttoned his shirt. “And I can help. I can take one pole and help pull.”

  “You’re still weak from that damn fever. I’ll manage alone.”

  “Don’t be foolish. I’m getting stronger every day, and there’s no reason why I can’t—” She broke off as she pulled the shirt off his shoulders and saw the ugly chafing caused by the ropes. His right shoulder was crisscrossed with angry red marks, the flesh cut and bleeding across the collarbone. She whispered, “Good God, this must have been terribly painful.”

  “It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “So that you could weep over me as you did over Caleb?” He smiled. “Doesn’t it touch your heart that I’ve shed my blood for your sake?”

  “Don’t joke,” she said huskily. She fetched a canteen and handkerchief from her saddlebag, knelt again beside him, and began to wash the lacerated flesh. “Why do you always have to joke?”

  “To show what a brave and stalwart specimen I am. I understand it’s considered the thing to do.”

  Her hand was shaking and she had to steady it before starting to wrap the cloth around his shoulder. “We’ll have to think of another way to help Caleb. You can’t go on like this.”

  “Yes, I can. I can do anything I have to do.”

  “It was my decision to bring Caleb. I can’t let you suffer because—”

  “I’m going to do it, Jane.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then you’ll know that every drop of blood I shed is for your sake.” He held her gaze. “And every time you care for my wounds, it will bind you closer to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You said it yourself, Jane. You’re a caretaker.” He looked down at her hands binding the bandage at his shoulder. “And when you take care of someone, they belong to you. I want to belong to you.”

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  A sudden smile lit his face as he glanced at Caleb. “Besides, I like this little fellow. I’d do it even if I weren’t courting you.”

  “Courting?” That word brought a rush of memories of that night on the veranda in Kasanpore. “We can’t go back,” she said stiltedly.

  “I don’t want to go back. I want a new start.”

  “We can’t do that either.” She finished tying the bandage and glanced at his left shoulder. The halter hadn’t damaged it as much as the other, but he should have stopped long before this. His shoulders were rope-burned almost as badly as they had been after he had come up the slope from Lanpur Gorge dragging Ian behind him. No, that wasn’t true, she recalled. His flesh had been in bloody rags then and she had—

  “What’s the matter?” Ruel’s gaze was on her face. “What the hell is wrong now?”

  “The halter,” she whispered. “I just remembered Lanpur Gorge.”

  For a minute his expression hardened before he forced a smile. “You can’t go back,” he repeated her words. “So stop thinking about it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

  “Everything is possible.” He glanced at Caleb. “What were his chances of living two days ago?”

  “Not much better than now.” Li Sung came toward them, carrying the canteens. “I see he marked you. Truly his father’s child.” In spite of his harsh words, both his hands and expression were gentle as he knelt beside the baby and gently poured water into Caleb’s mouth. “No doubt he will also grow into a killer rogue.”

  Jane was too weary and shaken to argue with Li Sung. And if she was weary, what must Ruel feel like? “Go to sleep,” she told both of them as she went to her own blankets by the fire.

  “I believe I’ll do that.” Ruel stretched out next to Caleb on the blanket and closed his eyes.

  Jane frowned. “You can’t sleep there.”

  “Watch me.” He closed his eyes. “Too tired to move …”

  “I’ll make up your blankets for you.”

  “I’m fine …” He turned on his side. “Four hours. No more. We can’t afford the time. We have to get Caleb to …” He trailed off, and Jane realized he had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

  Li Sung soon followed him in slumber, but she lay there unable to sleep in spite of her weariness. Ruel’s words and actions had thrown her into a turmoil of emotion—worry, tenderness, admiration, and a multitude of other fragmented feelings too dangerous to examine closely. Just when she had thought herself free of the mandarin, he had changed and become a man, a vulnerable man whom she was beginning to find … lovable.

  Dear God, what was she doing searching her soul when she should be sleeping? she thought impatiently. She huddled down in her blankets and closed her eyes. The heat from the fire felt warm and soothing, the crackling of the logs a cozy song in the darkness.

  But an early morning chill lingered in the air.

  Ruel was several yards distant from the fire.

  She got to her feet, grabbed one of her blankets, and marched over to where Ruel and Caleb were lying. Ruel was sleeping soundly, but Caleb opened his glowing eyes as she tucked the blanket over Ruel. The baby elephant’s trunk lifted to touch her cheek. “Shh.” She patted his head, got to her feet, and went back to her blanket by the fire.

  Caretaker.

  Well, what if she was? There was nothing wrong with sharing a blanket with someone who had sacrificed so much for her sake. Nothing wrong at all.

  The crashing of shrubbery woke Jane, R
uel, and Li Sung from sleep on the second night of their trek back to the crossing. Jane opened her eyes to see Danor standing, looking at them from the edge of the trees. His eyes glittered in the campfire, and she had an uneasy memory of that moment on the tracks when she had thought the elephant a mad rogue.

  Fear vanished as she saw Danor come slowly forward to stand over the stretcher by the fire where the baby elephant lay. His trunk curled around Caleb’s neck and then began probing gently, inquiringly, at his body as he had at that of his dead mate’s.

  The baby was too weak now to do more than raise his head, his trunk seeking and then locking with Danor’s.

  The sight was inexpressibly touching, and Jane felt the tears burn her lids.

  Then Danor disentangled his trunk, backed away, and lumbered past the fire and into the jungle.

  Li Sung said sourly, “He disturbs our sleep and then leaves it to us to care for his child. We will probably not see him again.”

  “He went in the direction of the crossing,” Ruel pointed out.

  “So he’s rejoining the herd. That does not mean we will see him again.” Li Sung lay down again and closed his eyes. “Which will be the most fortuitous circumstance occurring since we arrived in Cinnidar.”

  Jane shook her head in resignation as she pulled her blanket around her shoulders. She had never seen Li Sung as stubborn as he was being about the bull elephant. He was wrong. She knew Danor had been concerned about the baby.

  He was not the only one concerned. Her gaze went to the baby elephant. He was growing weaker. They had been feeding him water to assuage his hunger, but how long could he live without nourishment?

  “He’ll live.”

  She turned to see Ruel’s gaze on her face.

  “Will he?” she whispered. “Even if we reach the herd in time to save him, we might not find a nursing cow who will accept him.”

  “Then I’ll ride up to the Cinnidar village and bring back some goats for milking.”

  In spite of her concern, she had to chuckle at the unlikely thought of Ruel as shepherd. “It would take an entire herd to feed him.”