The Eye of the Elephant

by Mark James Owens

  Walking along the hippo path, we soon catch up and trail the lions, staying about one hundred fifty yards behind. The females move purposefully, as though they know exactly where they are going; the cubs roll and tumble behind their mothers, playing chase through the grass. Before we reach the edge of the trees, the females stop and look ahead. Standing in a small grassy clearing is a large male lion with a full golden mane. As I look through my binoculars I see that he wears a radio collar; it is Bouncer. It has been more than a year since we've seen him. Because of the poaching war, we haven't been able to study the lions as we had wanted.

  The females rush to Bouncer and greet him with long, sensuous rubs. Lifting his tail, he scent-marks a bush. Then they settle into a deep Combretum thicket to spend the day in the shade. We humans return to my little camp for breakfast. The vegetation is too thick, the terrain too rough to follow the pride in the truck, and I do not feel safe following them at night on foot. But each morning and evening I search for them and make observations on their prey choice and habitat movements.

  Now that it is the dry season, they have moved away from the plains and spend most of their time in the woodlands near the Luangwa. One morning I watch the females hunt a warthog; another morning they stalk a puku. But mostly they kill buffalo, one of which is large enough to feed the whole pride for several days.

  The days are cool now, and one day the lionesses and their cubs spend the entire morning sunning themselves on the beach. Soon a female puku and her fawn walk across the sand toward the river. She apparently wants to drink, but seeing the lions she stops about fifty yards away. For a few moments she looks back and forth from the water to the lions, and ultimately lies down with her fawn right where she is. Watching from my camp, I wish so much that I could stroll across the sand and join the ladies on the beach.

  The breeze blows strongly against my face, and as I stand alone on the riverbank, I feel as though I am being interviewed by the wind. How can we hold on to the old, wild Africa? When the elephants are safe, can we go back to our lives of lion watching?

  I long to return to studying the animals, sinking into Nature and learning her ways. There are always more wonders to uncover. Discover them quickly, before they go—is that where we are? In the Kalahari, Mark and I discovered the second largest wildebeest migration in Africa. No one else saw it except the sun; a few years later it was gone. Will anything save the elephants? Will the rain bring back the desert? Will the desert bring back the wildebeest, or have they all marched on to a world—a time—that was and will not be again? Somewhere, is there a dusty plain where wildebeest still dance?

  The wind rises and slaps my hair, but I do not have the answers. The Africa I speak of is still here, but it is in little pockets—in small corners of the continent—hiding.

  Driving back and forth between Mpika and the Luangwa, I divide my time in the dry season of 1990 between our work in the villages—that we now call the Community Service and Conservation Education Programs—and my studies at the river. We have expanded our programs to ten target villages that are near the park and have many poachers. These projects have grown so much that we have taken on a full-time employee, Max Saili, and two volunteers from Texas, Tom and Wanda Canon. I still believe that the only way to save the elephants in the long term is to convince the people in the area that they are worth saving.

  On one of my trips back to base camp to resupply, Mark and I walk along the Lubonga, trading war stories about the game guards. He has not had time to visit my camp, and the only chance we have to see each other is when I come to Marula-Puku for supplies. There is still a strain between us and we operate more or less in our own realms, our personal lives on hold.

  Mark lags behind me, which is so unusual that I turn around to see if he is all right. He walks slowly, his head down, the .375 rifle slung loosely over his right shoulder.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I feel a little weird." Beads of sweat glisten on his forehead. "Need some food. Gotta get to camp, some food." He starts to sway and stumble.

  Rushing to him, I grab the rifle. "First, you've got to sit down." I push him gently to the ground. He sits hard and then falls backward. His right arm flings out straight, his head lurches back, and he slumps into unconsciousness.

  "Oh God! Mark, is it your heart? Tell me what's wrong!" His eyes are open, staring blankly. I grab his clammy wrist and feel for his pulse. It is strong. His breathing seems normal but his lips are blue. Mark has had mild trouble with his blood sugar for years, but can usually control it by eating properly and avoiding too much caffeine. Lately, however, he has been drinking cup after cup of strong black coffee with sugar to stay awake for his hours of night flying. Since his sickness in Lusaka he has been lethargic, barely able to keep going. I have begged him to see a doctor, but he has refused, saying that if anything serious were found, he might be grounded, and that his flying is our only weapon against the poachers.

  Now he lies totally unconscious, legs and arms splayed across the ground. I try to stay calm, to think. I have to get some glucose into him. I run the five hundred yards to camp, screaming for Simbeye to get the truck. In the kitchen boma I mix powdered milk, water, and honey into a canteen. My hands shake, and white powder and goo spill all over. What seems like hours later, all the guys are in the back of the truck and we race out to where Mark lies.

  I stare deep into his vacant eyes, which seem pale and lifeless. If I try to give him the honey mixture now, he will choke. Since it is Sunday, there is no radio schedule until tomorrow morning—no way to call for help, and a six- or seven-hour drive to the clinic. It has been twenty minutes since he collapsed.

  Slowly he blinks. He moves his head. I put my face directly over his.

  "Mark, can you see me?" He twists his head around, his eyes full of fear.

  "What happened? Where am I?"

  "It's okay. You fainted. I mixed some milk and honey for you. Can you drink it?"

  "I think so." But before I can get the canteen to his lips, he passes out again, staring straight ahead with empty eyes for another ten minutes.

  Again he tries to look around him. "Boo, where am I? Did I crash the plane?"

  "No, Mark," I say softly. "It's okay. You're right outside camp. Remember, we were walking."

  "Oh, I see." He faints again. For fifteen more minutes he slides into and out of consciousness.

  Kasokola and I lift him by the shoulders, until he is slumped against me. When he wakes again, I murmur, "Here, drink this." He sips the milk laced with swirls of honey. Leaning heavily against me, he is able to get five or six swallows down. He rests with eyes closed.

  "I feel better," he whispers. I push the canteen to his lips and he drinks again. "Where am I? Is anybody else hurt?"

  I explain again, holding him tightly in my arms. "It's all right, everything is all right."

  After ten minutes he is able to sit up by himself, and is already joking with the guys, who stare from the back of the truck with deep concern on their faces, like so many masks. "I just had too many beers," he cracks, "what's all the fuss about?" But they do not laugh. To see a strong man in such a state is not funny.

  I call softly to Kasokola and Simbeye, and we lift Mark into the back of the truck and lay him down. I drive him to the bedroom cottage, and they help me get him into bed. Kasokola asks if he can bring more milk and honey, and I say, "Yes, please."

  When they are gone, I whisper, "Mark we can't go on like this. We have to do something different. We have to get some help."

  "You're right, Boo, we will. I promise."

  But the next morning—only fifteen hours after passing out, and in spite of everything I say—Mark flies another antipoaching flight. Feeling that I can no longer reach him, I return to my river camp.

  19. Close Encounters

  MARK

  The elephant moves slowly to protect its vast brain, With which it hears subsonic sound, And in which it carries the topology, The resonances and reverberations,
Of a continent.

  — HEATHCOTE WILLIAMS

  I HAVE JUST FALLEN ASLEEP when I am awakened by the sounds of harsh breathing, heavy footsteps, and grass being ripped from the ground somewhere near my head. Waiting through the window is a sweaty, bovine odor mixed with the sweet pungence of marula fruits. Sliding slowly out of bed, I press my face to the flyscreen. Six Cape buffalo loom in the darkness, one of them an arm's length away, its stomach churning like an old-fashioned Maytag. Moving along the cottage, the old bull rakes his horns against the stone wall, making a clacking sound. I am lulled to sleep knowing that in some small way we have been successful.

  When we first stood on the high bluff looking down on Marula-Puku, we didn't know it had once been a poachers' camp. But we soon found abandoned meat racks and ashes beneath the marula trees. Poaching had conditioned the animals along the Lubonga to fear humans. After we arrived and began defending them, it took only a few months for the animals to grow accustomed to their new sanctuary. Soon puku, impalas, wildebeest, buffalo, and waterbuck grazed across the river from us, then around camp, and finally among our cottages at night after we had gone to bed. Mornings we would hurry outside to see how the shrubbery had been rearranged during the night.

  For some reason the warthogs seem more shy than the buffalo and other animals. With faces like uprooted tree stumps—all knobs and nodules—they have a right to be shy. But during the dry season of 1990 a boar, a sow, and three piglets begin feeding across the river from camp, usually in the late afternoon. On their front knees, they root for tubers along the far bank, occasionally splashing through the rocky drift upstream from camp, all in a line, their tails stiff as pokers and straight up like lightning rods. Whenever they reach the edge of camp, they stop to watch us for a while, then trot off in the opposite direction, still afraid of us after all this time.

  One afternoon in late August, Survivor comes into camp again on his way to the mountains. There are no marula fruits now, but he feeds on the new leaves and seeds of the Combretum trees. The six buffalo still graze along the bedroom cottage each night until morning, but otherwise Survivor has camp all to himself.

  Right on schedule, he strolls into camp along the track. Jogging close at his heels, as if they were his miniature cousins, are the members of the warthog family. The gray, wrinkled pigs trot in the footsteps of the gray, wrinkled elephant. As Survivor stops to feed on some small shrubs, the warthogs fan out to root tubers, shoots, and bulbs. They never venture more than twenty feet or so from their towering companion, and when he finally ambles out of camp, the warthogs jog in a line behind him, down the track and out of sight. If only Delia could have been here to see this procession.

  Soon Survivor is coming every day with his entourage, and as I walk along the footpaths between the kitchen boma and the office cottage, the pigs pay no attention to me and keep on rooting.

  One evening Luke Daka, permanent secretary to the minister of tourism, and Akim Mwenya, deputy director of national parks, are sitting with me on the riverbank at camp. Over the years Delia and I have met with numerous officials in Lusaka to describe the poaching and corruption, and have invited them to visit the project. Daka and Mwenya are the first to come.

  "Look! An elephant!" He points across the river as Survivor strolls to the water's edge. Jumping up from his chair, he exclaims, "I can't believe it. I am Zambian, but this is the first time I've ever seen an elephant in the wilderness."

  "That's Survivor. If you can imagine it, there used to be seventeen thousand elephants in North Luangwa. Now, because of poaching, maybe a thousand or two are left."

  "That's awful," he says. "Of course, you have told me at our meetings in Lusaka, but I didn't imagine it was so bad."

  "It's bad all right. When I next see you in Lusaka, Survivor may be dead—unless you can help us." I tell him again about the apathy and corruption among the game scouts and officials in Mpika. By the time I finish, Daka's face is sagging. He promises to do what he can.

  The next morning, after Daka and Mwenya leave, Survivor is back in camp. The poaching is still bad, and I should be flying. Delia is right, though—I need a day off. So I gather up my daypack, field notes, and binoculars, intending to follow my favorite elephant, record his behavior, and see where he will lead me. I'll have to do this surreptitiously, because Survivor still does not like people to approach him; he prefers to make the advances.

  He leaves camp by way of our outhouse, where I fall in behind him. I stay far enough back that I can keep his tall rump in sight without his seeing me, and stay downwind so that he won't be able to smell me. He crosses the stream cut next to camp, climbs a steep bank, and wanders through an expanse of Combretum fragrans, casually wrapping his trunk around an eight-foot bush and decapitating it as he passes. He doubles back to our track, crosses it, and descends the old false bank of the Lubonga, where the river used to run, there to stand in a deep glade under a huge marula tree. I close to within thirty yards of him, sit with my back against another tree, and we doze together until midafternoon.

  At about three-thirty he leads me along the river, past the airstrip ridge and onto a floodplain near Khaya Stream. The grass here is more than eight feet tall. Since I can no longer see him, I follow his rustling sounds.

  Other elephant paths intersect this one now, so I quicken my pace, afraid that he has taken one of the trails to the side and is about to lose me. I pause to kneel at a pile of dung and an elephant's track at the junction of two paths. The grass in the track is flattened to the ground, but a few stems are beginning to rise as I watch. I poke my finger into one of the balls of dung; it is very warm. He has just passed. I stand and hurry on.

  Suddenly the air reverberates with a deep rumble, like thunder far away. There is Survivor, less than ten yards ahead, curling his trunk high above the grasses like a periscope. Other deep rumbles sound. And now I hear the grass rustling from several directions. Other elephants are coming toward us. Afraid to retreat, I sidestep off the trail into a shallow mud hole and squat down. The massive crown of a bull elephant, ears flapping, feet swishing in the grass, cruises by so close I can see his eyelashes. He is like a giant combine harvester in a field of tall wheat. Reaching Survivor, he lowers his head and the two bulls briefly push at each other. Several other bulls arrive, milling about Survivor for a minute, their trunks touching the streams of temporal gland secretions that flow from the sides of his head, behind and below his eyes. The elephants remind me of humans, shedding tears of welcome. Then Survivor leads them off toward Khaya Stream two hundred yards ahead. I follow.

  Nearer the stream the grass mostly gives way to tall Khaya nyasica and Trichelia emetica trees, which stand on a high bank above the streambed. The elephants follow the trail through a deep cut in the bank and disappear. Creeping closer, I hear the sound of splashing water. Anxious to see what is going on, I crawl into a clump of grass on the bank and ease forward, my chin on the ground, until I can see over the edge.

  Below, the elephants have assembled around a pool at the edge of the sandy streambed. A ledge of rock running across the stream provides a shallow basin that collects water trickling from a natural spring halfway up the bank. They stand shoulder to shoulder around the basin, drawing up water, raising their heads and curling their trunks into their mouths to drink. Their thirst slaked, they squirt water over their own backs, and onto one another. It is an elephants' spa.

  Finished with their bath, they walk five yards to a dust wallow near an enormous ebony tree that grows horizontally about six feet above the ground. With the tips of their trunks they gather a quart of the gray powder at a time, flinging it over their backs and between their legs until a great cloud rises against the red sun of late afternoon. Then, one by one, they file past the "Scratching Tree," each leaning against it at a spot rubbed shiny smooth, heaving his bulk up and down against its bark, his eyelids heavy.

  For the next half-hour, they stand around in the spa, heads hanging, trunks resting on the ground. My neck tir
es of holding up my head, so I rest my chin on my hand. But in moving I dislodge a pebble that rolls down the bank into the streambed near Survivor. Jerking his head up, eyes wide, the bull elephant pivots toward me. His trunk is up and air blasts from his mouth. Aroused, the others spin around, prepared to flee. Lying motionless, my face in full view, I feel like a Peeping Tom. Survivor walks slowly toward me, his trunk snaked out. Before I can react, the tip of his trunk is snuffling through the grass, inches away from my right foot. The tall bank stops his advance, but he keeps reaching for me, his trunk fully extended, patting around in the grass, as though looking for my foot. We stare into each other's eyes for long seconds. I think he knew I was here all along—just another guy in the locker room.

  Curiously, Survivor takes a bite out of the bank, withdraws his trunk, turns and walks back to the others, dropping the grass and soil from his mouth along the way. Alert, but apparently no longer afraid, the elephants file into the long grass beyond the stream, Survivor in the lead.

  The shadows are long, so I follow an elephant trail along the Lubonga on my way back to camp. Not far from the elephants' spa, the path leads to the edge of the Lubonga, where the river cuts into a low hill on the opposite bank. Directly across from me a bull buffalo is grazing the grass on a shelf fifteen feet above the water. Immediately beyond him the hill rises steeply away from the river. I am so close to him, no more than thirty yards, that I am amazed he has not seen me. Raising my field glasses to watch him, I immediately realize why he has not: his left eye is bluish-white and stares sightlessly into space. His hide is covered with old scars, his ears have been shredded by thorns, his tail has been stumped—probably by lions or hyenas—and over the years the African bush has worn the tips of his horns to polished black stubs. He has been well used—almost used up.