Two seconds later, they splashed through running water, heading for Sophie’s enclosure.
Neither spoke as they dashed down the muddy road, slipping and nearly falling several times. Still, Vincennes’s grip on her hand stayed strong, and when they reached the enclosure, Natalie felt almost reluctant to release it.
The enclosure reeked of elephant dung. “Looks like this storm has literally scared the shit out of someone,” Vincennes said, waving a hand in front of his nose. He laughed good-naturedly, and she shared in his laughter as if she’d known him since high school.
The elephants—Ali, Pahpao, Thaya, and Mai—that had decided to join Sophie outside her enclosure were female with the exception of Ali. The females would not have included him in their group if he’d been in mustph. Thankfully for him, he’d experienced his mustph last month. But because he wasn’t currently raging with testosterone, he acted like the biggest baby in the herd and needed company during thunderstorms. Even now, though he stood at least two feet taller than the other elephants, he frantically tried to squeeze into the middle of the group. Sophie reached for him with her trunk, but the rest of the females ignored him, bumping him with their butts as if he was one of the adolescents.
Vincennes stood a step or two behind Natalie under the overhang, yet not out of the rain. It didn’t seem to bother him. The wetter he became, the tighter his jet black hair curled. It created commas around his forehead and the tips of his ears, shining with the moisture.
“So who are these beauties?” he asked.
As Natalie introduced him to each of the elephants, she watched his face. His eyes, almost black and rimmed with long and feminine kohl eyelashes, squinted a bit as he studied each elephant, his gaze roaming over their faces as if appraising them. But she suspected it was more than that. It seemed he knew he must silently assure them that he was both confident and non-threatening. He aroused her curiosity.
He must be a philanthropist of some sort, one of Andrew’s friends, perhaps one of the people who funded the sanctuaries. Maybe that’s why his name appeared vaguely familiar. And maybe that’s where his self-confidence came from. The few people she knew who were immensely wealthy had an air about them that was difficult to describe as if every one of their physical needs had been met so now they recognized and enjoyed their passions. On some people, that air became an obnoxious and selfish black cloud, while others reflected their passion and embraced new experiences joyfully, like a child, making them appear the golden people. Andrew was like that and Seth Vincennes seemed to be as well. He also wasn’t afraid to get wet.
“And the bull over there who’s a scaredy cat is Ali,” she continued. “He’s Sophie’s best friend.” Natalie gestured toward Ali who had his head tucked against Thaya’s butt. “He’s not a big fan of storms. He’s also a strange male. Usually the boys don’t hang out with the girls in the elephant world.”
“Has he been trained using protected contact, too?”
“No, Sophie’s the only one. The other vet who’s here isn’t quite sold on the technique yet, so Sophie was an experiment. He still believes the mahouts need to use the ankus to direct the elephants. We don’t agree on that. Obviously.” She moved further under the enclosure and reached for Sophie, whose ears were at full attention, a sure sign of her heightened anxiety. Sophie didn’t know Seth Vincennes—and didn’t always trust men. Even though Natalie was sure the storm was the source of most of Sophie’s anxiety, she suspected Vincennes’s sudden appearance in the enclosure hadn’t helped.
“How long have you been working exclusively with Sophie?” he asked, leaning against the gate.
“Almost six months. Every day,” she answered. She stood in the middle of the circle of elephants now, touching each of them and talking to them quietly.
“What treatments is she still getting?”
“The leg wound has pretty much healed, so I work with a salve, for the most part.” Natalie angled herself back so she could see him and kept her voice even. This wasn’t exactly the right time for an interview, but it appeared she didn’t have a choice.
“What about Sophie’s history? Any chance of a relapse into her previously violent reactions?”
“I don’t think so,” Natalie said. She told him the little she knew and the ways she treated Sophie’s PTSD. As she spoke, Sophie watched her, as if she knew Natalie was talking about her. “I’m convinced 90% of Sophie’s reactions were due to the incredible pain she was in.”
Natalie stroked Sophie’s ear as she spoke, willing the elephant to calm. “She’d worn a hooked chain on two legs for most of her life. The infection in her front leg had started to eat the bone. We’re lucky we were able to aggressively treat it—and I really credit the protected contact technique with giving us the capability of moving her leg and administering medicines in a way that was safe for us and calming for her.” As if on cue, Sophie shifted and leaned on her good leg. “Man, once those medicines started working, she calmed down, and I was able to get her to follow the commands the mahouts taught me. It was like magic. Even now, she loves being in the enclosure. She feels safe, I think.”
The thunder abated a bit, though rain still pelted against the roof like machine gun bullets.
“Your article said something about her being insecure around men.” Vincennes took a few steps toward Sophie. The elephant turned her head a bit so she could watch him with her good eye.
“It amazes me that you actually read my whole paper,” Natalie laughed. “When I was regularly publishing, the only people who read my papers were my editors.”
“Of course I did. Why do you think I’m here? In fact, a lot of people are going to read it. Don’t you know you’ll be the talk of the veterinary world? All over the blogs. Your work with PTSD is going to help so many elephants. Hasn’t Andrew told you? I’m here to get the scoop. You’re going to make news in the animal world.” He stood now with his feet spread and his hands on his hips, a flirtatious smile pulling at his mouth.
“No, I didn’t know, to tell you the truth.”
“Then you don’t know who I am, do you?” He laughed as if totally delighted that she wasn’t impressed with him.
“No, I don’t. Should I?”
“Well, a lot of people do.”
She shook her head in apology.
“Do you watch Nat Geo?”
“I haven’t watched television in a long time. And I purposefully haven’t used my cell phone since arriving here. The only time I’ve used technology is for research.” She waved a hand to indicate the area around them. “We don’t get great reception. And to tell the truth, I haven’t missed it.”
He laughed, a deep, rolling laugh that indicated he had taken no offense.
In the light from the gas lanterns hanging from the enclosure’s poles, she studied Seth Vincennes once again. When he watched the elephants or glanced her way, it was with those black fringed eyes, made serious by a squint, as though he spent a lot of time in the sun. A ragged, short beard, kept close to his chin and a sketchy moustache served to punctuate full lips. It was an attractive face, a deceptively serious face, until he smiled, then everything changed, and she was disarmed. Unnerved. Uncomfortable. When he stood near her, she was aware of how tall he was. Six foot two or three, she would guess, and he carried that height comfortably. In another life, he’d be a basketball player or a cowboy. Here in Thailand, he was an anomaly.
Who the hell was he anyway?
He turned to her, only six inches or so away. So close, she could smell his minty breath.
“We’re on TV. My show . . . it’s . . . uh . . .” For a moment, he stammered, which wasn’t exactly what she expected. Could he be a bit embarrassed? She watched him duck his head and run his fingers through his thick wave of hair. “I have a show on Nat Geo. Exotic Beasts of the World. A combination travel documentary and animal reality series. I’m kind of . . . well, I�
�m the host. I think they chose me because of my vet experience, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time.” He grinned modestly. “Each week we focus on a story about human interactions with animals. You know, who’s doing something great with an endangered species or breaking ground with new research.” He paused and flashed her one of his smiles and arched one eyebrow flirtatiously, “Or who’s raising the most adorable baby tiger kittens.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything though she had to clamp her mouth shut to do so.
“That was a joke. You can laugh,” he said, though he wasn’t laughing himself.
If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was nervous.
“My road crew will be here tomorrow. I always get to the location first to scope out the place where we’re going to shoot, and once we’re pretty set, I bring my guys in. Always works out better that way.”
“A television crew,” Natalie repeated slowly. “Cameras and sets and crew members.” She ran her hand absent-mindedly along the edge of Sophie’s trunk. The elephant rumbled and drew her trunk up Natalie’s arm. She could sense Natalie was getting upset.
He nodded and cocked his head to the side. “Andrew didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Not really, but he doesn’t have to, does he? I understand.”
“Hope you do, because Andrew gave me his permission to be here for a month and the wherewithal to shoot what I wish.”
The back of her neck prickled. Had Andrew thought about what this might do to the elephants, particularly Sophie? Why hadn’t he spoken to her about this? Maybe she shouldn’t have written that paper, but how could she have known how much attention it would garner?
A month. The words reverberated as if a gong had been sounded next to her ear.
A television crew.
Thirty-Two
Of all African animals, the elephant is the most difficult for man to live with, yet its passing—if this must come—seems the most tragic of all. I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange such as mow grass with its toenails or draw the tusks from the rotted carcass of another elephant and carry them off into the bush. There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, an ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.
-Peter Matthiessen
Besides the clicking instruments, the only sounds in the clinic were an occasional grunt. The mask over Natalie’s nose and cheeks itched as a drop of sweat trickled down her forehead. She pointed at Anurak who sat on his haunches in the far corner. He never sat in a chair, but that was fine with her. Tucked in a corner, he was less likely to be in the way. He jumped up immediately and dabbed her face with a cloth. In a few more years and with a bit more training, he would be an invaluable veterinary assistant.
Hatcher had awakened her at five that morning, banging on her cabin door and hollering that he needed her immediately. Without posing a single question, wiping the sleep out of her eyes, or throwing on a bra, she’d gone to the clinic in the t-shirt and boxer shorts she’d worn to bed. Four hours later, she still stood next to him helping repair the damage from an early morning dog-and-elephant fight. Thankfully, this time Sophie wasn’t involved, but Thaya and Olan, the oldest bull at the sanctuary, and five dogs were. No one knew exactly what started it, but two of the smaller dogs had broken legs, one of the lab mixes had a crushed front paw (Olan had stepped on it), and the other three had open wounds from being caught up in the melee.
Natalie and Hatcher speculated about the cause of the battle. “It’s got to have been that black lab mix. The one with the white front paw,” Hatcher said. He knew the dogs much better than she, since she had to ensure they didn’t get entangled with Sophie. In fact, she knew that at least four of them lived in his cabin with him. “What did the kids name him? Bonzo? Banzai? He’s a banshee, that’s what he is. Always acting dominant, no matter who’s around.”
Natalie grunted as she concentrated on putting the final stitches into a cut on the eldest lab-mix who answered to the name Salé. She slipped her mask down for a moment and relished the coolness of fresh air against her sweaty skin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the little ones. They move too fast around the ellies’ legs. Bet they were chasing each other like they always do, and the rest of them joined in. The ellies were probably dancing, trying to get out of the way and the dogs were caught in between.”
Olan never went far from the feeding platform. He was older than Ali and much less sociable. An injury to his right leg had resulted in severe arthritis that got worse every year, making it hard to move more than a couple of feet. Once in a while his mahout brought Olan to the river, but those trips became fewer every month.
The elephants weren’t badly injured—just scratches. They milled about anxiously, yet to settle down. Natalie and Hatcher had been setting bones, stitching wounds and operating all morning, and even worse, they’d had cameras in their faces the whole time, one of the reasons for being soaked in sweat.
The only one who seemed to be enjoying the drama of the whole event was Anurak. He hadn’t stopped grinning since the cameras came into the room. Even now while wiping her brow, he grinned with his missing front tooth and the cowlick that stubbornly stuck up in the middle of his head. He actually posed for the camera any time the crew was in sight, hand on his hip like a model. If not for being so immersed in operating, she would have laughed at his goofiness.
Rob, a chunky and happy-go-lucky guy from China, spoke perfect English. He’d told her when they first met that he learned the language by watching American TV. Even now, idioms crept into his conversation. Sidecar was the exact opposite of Rob: a small and skinny guy from southern India, he wore wire-rimmed glasses that he constantly pushed up the bridge of his nose. He was serious, where Rob always joked. The two of them constituted a great pair, partners who worked in perfect concert with each other, an artistic coupling.
“Closing up here,” Hatcher said, pulling some thread through his needle. “We’re almost done.”
She flexed her fingers, working out a wrist cramp, and pulled off her gloves and mask. She needed to soak in the shower. Cleaning up the countertop where she’d been working, she dumped the surgical instruments into the sink, filled it with disinfectant, then motioned for Anurak to scrub them.
When she turned, ready to leave, she spotted Hatcher and Seth in the far corner of the room, standing head to head, talking animatedly. She had a feeling the conversation had nothing to do with the surgical procedures they had just performed. If circumstances had been different, she might be curious, but right now, she was done. Everything was under control.
She told Anurak that he and Decha should leave, and the boy’s face was as crestfallen as if he’d been told Santa wasn’t coming this year. But when she made the sign for lunch, his face brightened a little, then his head cocked as it did when he sensed something out of the norm.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shook his head as if to silence her and lifted a finger. She opened the door and felt the rumble at the same time she heard the roar.
Sophie trumpeted, again. The screaming, high-pitched sound she made when upset. The trumpeting turned into a roar, and Natalie took off running toward the elephant’s enclosure.
Even before she saw Sophie, Natalie heard Chanchai, the mahout, screaming at the top of his lungs. She pumped her legs faster, pushing herself to gallop, certain she would find a devastating scene.
As she came to the curve in the road where the enclosure loomed into sight, she saw Chanchai, ankus high above his head, waving it menacingly at Sophie. The ankus. The one thing that terrified her. The elephant’s screams were full of that fear.
“What the hell are you doing?” Natalie yelled. She reached for the ankus as Cha
nchai pulled back to strike Sophie again. The sharp tip caught Natalie’s palm, and she cried out and doubled over. Still, she had to stop him. She screamed again, “Chanchai, what the hell are you thinking? You know you can’t use the ankus with her! Do you want to get yourself killed?”
Wild-eyed, he ignored her and yelled another command. A garbled word. Another slash with the ankus.
Sophie surged forward.
__________
The woman grabs for the howling mahout’s red and black shirt but misses. Ducking out of the way, the mahout pokes and yells at the elephant, trapped in the enclosure.
Sophie hates this man, his violence, his unfathomably black eyes. She wants to flee, to run far away from him, but her back is against the columns that support the enclosure’s roof. She has nowhere else to go, and the mahout is taking advantage of it, poking the silver-sharp pole at her through the bars. She widens her eyes, her large pink ears flare, she pushes against the bars, flails her trunk everywhere, tries to reach the mahout. Trumpets, then trumpets again, as loudly and ferociously as she can. She could kill this mahout easily, could stomp on him or gore him with her tusk, but she has been taught to fear the men, to fear the ankus, and since she has not tried to defend herself against anything but the dogs, she has no true idea of her own strength.
Still, the mahout screams and pokes, jabbing the ankus at her every time he’s within reach. He yells commands, but none of them make sense, nor does he give the elephant a chance to accomplish what he’s asking.
Behind her, the elephant hears humans running and voices shouting but she instinctively knows that if she looks, she’ll lose control over the greatest danger: the mahout waving the ankus. Another roaring trumpet travels up through the elephant’s vocal cords, almost ripping them, she has exerted so much power. Her throat tightens. The cry comes out strangled, high-pitched, full of terror.
The Mourning Parade Page 24