The dog whimpered softly, his large brown eyes watching Natalie as if certain she knew what she was doing.
“I need some splints. If you don’t have splints, straight pieces of wood will do. And tape. Any kind. A gurney, too. Where’s the clinic? We’re going to need to get him somewhere I can set the leg. You have an x-ray machine here?”
Silence.
Natalie glanced around. Hatcher had stopped what he was doing and stared at her. His neck turned a bright red that slowly crept up his cheeks. Instantly, she realized that while her instinct was to jump into action, she’d inadvertently stepped on Hatcher’s toes. She started to apologize but was interrupted by Andrew, who’d reached the scene right before Natalie. He broke into rapid Thai. Shouting orders, she suspected. Two of the mahouts leapt to their feet and jogged down the road. Hatcher moved away, heading for the elephant.
Within seconds, the mahouts returned with a small gurney for the dog. As they carried him away, Natalie watched Hatcher accept a giant needle from one of the mahouts. Three staff members had looped restraining ropes around the ellie and held her as Hatcher inserted the needle. A sedative, Natalie figured. The elephant’s swollen front right leg was practically double the size of the left. A large open wound oozed a yellowish puss. An infection, for sure, but she had no idea whether the damage had been done a week ago or years prior. The elephant’s giant ears opened wide and flapped, a sure sign she was in the anxiety red zone.
“That wound looks close to being septic. How have you been caring for it?” she asked. She meant the question for Hatcher, but he didn’t answer. Perhaps he didn’t hear her. Perhaps he didn’t want to answer. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pushed her way into the situation.
Sometimes she wished she were better at reading body language.
But isn’t that why I’m here? Dr. Littlefield had said that to learn about yourself, you need to study how others respond to you. She’d given the task to Natalie as a homework assignment for the next year. “You’ve got to be your own therapist,” she’d said. “Pay attention to yourself, as well as to the others around you.” She’d urged Natalie to keep a daily journal, noting her own actions as well as others’ reactions. “Connect to at least one person a day. The only way you’ll learn to trust again is to open yourself to the possibilities. I know it might sound like a cliché, but you’ve got to lower some of the walls you’ve built. Trust your own gut reactions again.”
“Damn dogs don’t know when to keep their tails out of the way,” Andrew said as he lowered to his knees behind her. “That blasted elephant is going to kill one of them someday. She’s a malignant thing, as Shakespeare would say.”
“Not if you let me put her down,” Hatcher said. “She’s a danger to everyone here, as well as herself.” He knelt on the other side of Natalie. The mahouts had led the now docile elephant into a barn-like structure barely visible beyond the tree-line. Natalie watched as Hatcher examined the dog in the identical manner as she had. He bumped her out of the way with his hip.
“Feels like the metacarpal might have suffered a couple of major breaks,” Natalie offered as she moved to her haunches and stroked the dog’s head.
“We won’t know until we take x-rays.” Hatcher’s manner was dismissive as if he couldn’t be bothered listening to her. He turned his back to her.
“So you do have an x-ray machine.”
He nailed her with a cold, over-the-shoulder stare and turned away once again.
She suppressed a sudden urge to slap him, but that would be entirely unprofessional, not to mention a sure way to get off to a disastrous start. She choked back her anger. There’d never been a time prior to being diagnosed with PTSD that she’d had a temper, but now the smallest thing could set her off. When her secretary sat Natalie down to point out the impatience that had pushed away most of Natalie’s friends and co-workers, she realized she needed to get it under control. Obviously, there was still work to do.
Think it through, she told herself. You’re the new girl on the block.
She needed to give Hatcher his space. And respect. After all, he’d been here for years, and she had scarcely arrived. Though she’d been trying to help, he might find her pushy. Not the right way to make friends, she knew, but he wasn’t innocent either. A bit of manners on his part wouldn’t hurt. She hadn’t been bent on ruining his life so many years ago when she evaluated his theories, as he apparently believed. She’d been doing her job. Surely any educated person would understand that.
They made a small procession to the clinic only a couple of buildings away. Natalie could hear the elephant—had they called her Sophie?—roaring from the barn-like structure. She hoped they were able to control her and simultaneously prayed they weren’t hurting her. No terrified animal deserved to be hurt. Yet, this dog was pretty damn scared, too.
Without speaking, Natalie worked on the dog with Hatcher as a team, stabilizing the right leg that had been broken in six different places, not the two or three Natalie had originally thought. The dog would be lucky to walk again without a brace.
When they finished splinting the dog’s leg, Hatcher pulled off his gloves and tossed them in the trash, then turned back to Natalie. Everyone had left the clinic fifteen minutes before, so they were alone.
“Let’s get something straight.” A slight redness highlighted his cheeks as he pointed his finger at her. “I understand you’ve run your own clinic, but this one is mine, and if I’m not mistaken, your specialty is equine—not pachyderm—surgery, as mine is, so I might be able to teach you a thing or two.”
She started to protest and to explain, but he held up a hand that effectively silenced her.
“I know Andrew thinks you’re some kind of . . . wunderkind, as it were, and you might well be, but if we are to work together, you will follow my surgery’s rules, and the first and most important one for you to remember is that you, my dear, are a volunteer. I am the full-time, paid member in this surgery. Not you. You take your marching orders from me. Things are done my way. Are we clear?”
Natalie had already risen, her hands shaking, a huge knot of self-doubt in her chest. How naive she’d been to believe this place and this experience would be the panacea for much of the pain and sorrow she felt. She kicked herself for having her head in the clouds, a fault Maman had always been quick to point out: Dreaming of how things should be brings nothing but disappointment. Be ready for reality, and it will never hurt.
The reality was that she’d come here in the hopes that she’d be able to successfully move past the worst of the PTSD by working so hard she’d fall into bed exhausted every night. Maybe she’d be able to conclude the most painful part of her grief. The reality was she wasn’t alone in this place, and the others—especially Peter Hatcher—had their own agenda.
“Crystal clear,” Natalie told Hatcher through clenched teeth.
She strode out of the clinic on stilt-like legs and gave serious thought to walking straight out of the sanctuary and thumbing a ride back to Bangkok. But that thought only lasted as long as the walk back to her cabin.
She’d never been a quitter. She wasn’t about to start now.
Five
Man is an animal which, alone among
the animals, refuses to be satisfied by
the fulfillment of animal desires.
-Alexander Gordon Bell
“We’ve broken you in right properly, haven’t we, love?” Andrew grinned at her devilishly as they ate their lunch. He’d urged everyone to gather back on the platform for their afternoon meal, served banquet-style on one of the large picnic tables. “Believe me, it’s not always this exciting. Most of the elephants are boring old dears. Sophie’s the only one who’s regularly a bother.”
With the sun directly overhead on the end of the platform where they sat, the day’s humidity made North Carolina’s summer appear more like autumn. Natalie felt logy, unable to mo
ve. Her t-shirt and shorts stuck to her skin like Saran Wrap.
After they finished eating, Andrew invited her to meet the elephants that she hadn’t met that morning. Their giant heads bobbed at the edge, even with the concrete platform. She guesstimated the platform to be a dozen feet off the ground. The herd had wandered in from the meadow where they freely roamed only an hour before. Now they waited patiently for their specially prepared meals. Quiet. Dignified. Enormous grayish-pink ears waving away insects. Shifting from one foot to another. Inquisitive trunks reaching out like snakes. Large caramel brown eyes watching her passively.
“All of these lovelies have been abused. Humans train elephants to do things that they should never do,” Andrew stated as he walked slowly in front of her, gently touching the trunks reaching out to touch him. “They are not meant to pirouette on their hind legs, yet circuses have forced them to perform that way for centuries. Their backs are not strong enough to withstand more than one hundred pounds, yet trekking camps outfit the ellies with wooden boxes that weigh far more, then they fill those boxes with humans. That’s far more than their spines can withstand. And elephants do not paint. Whoever concocted that bloody ridiculous idea knew that these dignified creatures will do anything for their mahouts.”
Natalie’s mouth twisted. Physical abuse made her stomach churn. It enraged her. Channel your anger, she told herself. Control it. She’d come unhinged more than once during her career, and the aftermath of her rage was never pretty. She’d lost more than one client through the years. Control it. Make it work for something good.
“Some of our ellies are ancient: rheumy-eyed and slope-backed. Others, like that one to the right: alert and adolescent. None of them move very quickly, but they can, if they want to. I’ve seen some elephants sprint, so keep that in mind.”
“I know. I saw them do that during the time I spent at the Wildlife Farm in Texas. That was about fifteen years ago, but I remember it well.”
He stole a glance at her. “Then you know elephants charge anything they consider a threat, and though they appear benevolent and lazy now, you must respect their sheer size and powerful strength. Not only can they bring down a full grown oak, but they can topple trucks by simply leaning against them. They do it here all the time. And their trunks are not used only for eating, smelling, and drinking, but you know that, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ve seen an elephant toss a guy who weighed more than two hundred pounds as if he was a piece of tissue paper. Broke his back, both legs and dislocated his shoulder. Poor bugger.”
She groaned and sucked a breath between her teeth making a whistling sound that caused the large bull elephant near them to raise his head and look at her quizzically
“Make sure you stay where they can see you, love,” Andrew told her. “They’ll watch you. Size you up. If you’re going to administer medicines or treat them, they will have to build a relationship with you first.” He winked at her. “Some’ll be more anxious to cross that bridge than others. Like this ol’ flirt.” He walked to the large bull whose enormous tusks rested on the concrete platform. The elephant rumbled contentedly.
“This is Ali. He’s about thirty-two years old. He’s a bit scarred from the way he’s been treated over the years, but still quite handsome, eh? His mahouts weren’t too kind to him when they were training him, yet he still loves humans. Amazing, huh? This guy does fine and loves the ladies. Don’t you, ol’ boy?”
Andrew reached into one of the large palm leaf baskets the volunteers placed on the platform and found a couple of small plantains. He waved them in front of Ali’s trunk, causing the elephant’s trunk to follow the snack like a cobra dancing to flute music. Andrew kept the bananas out of range for a moment before Ali greedily grabbed them.
Andrew chuckled and reached for more, then handed them to Natalie. “We all need to help at mealtimes.”
Natalie gingerly held out the mushy, rotten bananas toward Ali.
“Make sure you stay where he can see you and hold the food close enough for him to reach. Believe me, he’ll find it.”
Sure enough, Ali stretched his trunk in her direction and grabbed the bananas. His trunk felt soft and wet but strong. When he wrapped the tip of it around her hand to grab the bananas, one of her rings slipped off her finger, and she watched it fly over the railing. It flipped to the ground, landing near the elephant’s heavy foot.
“Oh crap, that’s the ring . . . that’s a special ring. Stephen—my son—gave it to me.” She hesitated, watching Ali’s legs shift. She pointed to the mahout who sat near her on the crossbars above the elephant’s head, pantomiming that she’d lost her ring and that it was on the ground. If Ali shifted even half a foot, he’d step right on it. As easily as a child shimmying down a tree, the mahout jumped off the porch, picked up the ring and hopped back up to where Natalie waited. She thanked him, and told Andrew she felt somewhat guilty that she’d made so much of it. In this country of Buddhists, such a connection to personal valuables was unusual. Sentimental value outweighed monetary value any time.
“No worries,” Andrew answered. “I’ve kept every scrap of paper Sivad colors for me.”
Natalie wiped the simple, silver ring clean and stuck it in her pocket, fighting back the memory of eight-year-old Stephen at Christmastime, so proud of his gift that he smiled, baring the gap where he’d lost his first tooth. Her hands trembled a bit when she turned back to the task of feeding Ali. Overly ripe bananas, some melons, small pomegranates, squash, and a few potatoes seemed an odd mix, but Ali didn’t seem to mind. He grabbed each handful with his trunk, then leisurely lifted the pungent mush into his mouth, never taking his lushly-fringed brown eye off of her. She talked to him quietly as she fed him, making sure to remain in his line of sight, as Andrew had directed.
All along the platform, mahouts and volunteers mirrored Natalie’s actions. The mahouts—young, fairly small, and agile men—laughed among themselves as they hand-fed their elephants. On occasion, one of them would shout a sharp command and though Natalie didn’t know what they were saying, she studied the elephant’s response and the techniques each mahout used to keep his charge in line.
“I wonder if some of the training skills we use with horses would work with the elephants,” she mused, more to herself than to Andrew.
“Probably.” Andrew watched her, smiling. “You always wanted to work with animals since you were a wee thing, didn’t you, love?
She nodded. “I volunteered at horse farms long before I opened the clinic, and, even as a little girl, I’d sit for hours watching the horses and our dogs, learning their cues and reading their responses, mainly to keep from getting kicked or bitten.” She laughed a little, remembering. The day Dr. Slater, one of her favorite professors at NC State’s vet program, told her in earshot of other students, “At least you don’t anthropomorphize animals like ninety-nine percent of those other buffoons.” They’d barely finished a particularly tough day that had sent three other students to the infirmary with damaging bites from the orangutans they’d been studying. Only six students, including Natalie (the only female in the group) were left out of twenty-four.
“Animals are not humans,” Dr. Slater told the group, “and the only good vet is the one who never forgets that.”
He was so right. So damn right on the money. Yet, her deepest, darkest secret is that she talks to the animal she treats. She can’t help it. She tries to think about her predilection in an intellectual fashion. She manages to occasionally convince herself that it’s just the rumbling sound she makes when she talks that calms down her animals, but she knows the communication between species has many layers. It’s deeper than just the sound of a human voice. It’s inflection, emotion, delivery, and the actual words. She thinks often of Dr. Slater and whether he’d believe now that animals understand language.
With Dr. Slater still on her mind, she finished feeding Ali the last bits of fruits an
d vegetables in the basket. Then she sat cross-legged on the platform in front of him, patting his trunk as he inquisitively checked out her legs and arms, touching her softly, snuffling a bit as he did so.
“Your bristly hair tickles, buddy,” she said, stroking Ali’s forehead. “You’re a big ol’ boy, aren’t you? You’re going to be my friend, huh? We’re going to get along fine.”
Ali’s long, gray eyelashes flickered as he watched her. He munched on some palm fronds, slowly and thoughtfully, as if considering whether to grant her his friendship. He reminded her of what the elephant version of Albert Einstein would look like: intelligent and funny with gray tufts of wiry hair creating puffs around the tops of his ears.
She smiled—a comfortable, natural smile. It had been a very long time since she’d smiled without forcing it, but immediately following the smile, the guilt resurfaced. She had no right to feel any kind of happiness.
She could feel her cheek muscles slackening and her eyes turning down at the sides. It felt as if her skin might slide right off her bones. She’d forgotten how many muscles it took to smile and how few to be unhappy.
“Come meet the folks you’ll be working with every day.” Andrew offered a hand to help her to her feet.
She ducked her head as he helped her up, not wanting him—or anyone else for that matter—to read the emotions she felt. Often, she couldn’t even identify them herself, but she did know one thing for certain. A bit of happiness and a spontaneous outburst of love for another being were feelings she hadn’t had in a while. She counted her steps as she followed along behind Andrew.
They walked along the platform that stretched from the main pavilion to a smaller seating area with a roof made of roughly hewn posts supported by large steel trusses. Further in the distance, Natalie saw another, smaller building that might have been offices or a storage area.
The Mourning Parade Page 5