by R. P. Harris
“Okay,” Tua said.
“Most elephants that beg in the cities are in poor health, Tua,” Mae Noi said. “It’s very stressful for them. And, of course, they always run the risk of being hit by cars. They don’t get any proper medical attention. We’ll do as much for Pohn-Pohn as we can, in case she has to go back.”
“Okay,” Tua said. Then she looked at Pohn-Pohn and told her with her eyes, “I’ll never let you go back.”
A farang man ran to the edge of the platform, leaned over the railing, and called out to Mae Noi in English.
“There are two men on a motorcycle at the gate.”
Mae Noi looked at Tua.
“It looks like your mahouts are here already,” she said.
Tua sprang up from the ground, ran to Pohn-Pohn’s side, and began scanning the grounds for a place to hide.
“They already know you’re here,” Mae Noi said. “There’s no point in hiding.”
“We’ll go to the forest,” Tua said.
“The safest place for Pohn-Pohn is here at the sanctuary. It could be they’re only after money.”
“But I don’t have any money,” Tua said.
“We’ll see about that later,” Mae Noi said. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”
Then she turned to the farang on the platform and said in English, “Tell Sekson he can let them in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Confrontation
After washing ashore downriver, the two waterlogged mahouts trudged across a parched melon field and hitched a ride to their motorcycle in the back of a truck full of nervous chickens.
Nang spit a feather out of his mouth. “Can we go back to Chiang Mai now, Nak?”
Nak lifted his chin up out of his hands where he had been resting it. The clucking chickens in their cages had lured Nak into hatching a new plan. He stared across the truck bed at Nang and thought to himself, Chickens are more helpful than he is.
“And walk away from all that money?” he said at last. “Do you know what an elephant is worth? No, they’ll pay. They’ll pay plenty.” He brushed the feathers off his shoulders and chest as if preparing himself for the negotiations, then hopped out of the back as the truck came to a stop.
“What if they won’t let us in?” Nang followed Nak, still worrying about the razorback dog at the entrance.
“Ha!” Nak dismissed the notion with a laugh, climbed atop the motorcycle, and motioned for Nang to get into the sidecar. “I’d like to see them try to stop me.”
The motorcycle roared up one hill and down another, then crept to a stop at the entrance to the sanctuary like a cat stalking a bird.
Nak flipped up the visor on his helmet. “I’m here to collect my elephant. Open up,” he ordered the gatekeeper.
Seksan the gatekeeper looked at Fudge the dog. Fudge assumed a crouch, bared his teeth, and raised the hairs on his razorback.
“Have you got an appointment?” asked Seksan.
“They’ll be expecting me,” Nak answered.
“Wait there.” Seksan stepped inside the guardhouse to make a call. A moment later he began raising the gatepost.
Nak popped the clutch and, spitting gravel, the motorcycle reared up like a stallion. Then it dropped to the ground, lurched forward, and ducked under the half-raised gatepost with Nak crouching over the handlebars. Nang was hunched in the sidecar like a toadstool. The chocolate-coated dog with the razorback fell in behind them, baying a warning to the other sanctuary dogs. Elephants began lumbering toward the main building from all directions, gathering into a single herd. A swarm of wasps shadowed the motorcycle like a dark cloud, and Nang hunched lower in his seat. Then a pair of mynahs dove across their path and Nak swerved into a ditch, came up on the other side, and nearly collided with a row of water buffaloes. He veered back down into the ditch and came up fishtailing onto the road again. After gaining control of the motorcycle, he aimed it at the building ahead and gunned the engine.
Scattering chickens and geese, they came to a skidding halt at the end of the driveway to the main building. Nak killed the motor, peeled off his helmet, and glared at the mob that stood before him. He dismounted and began walking down the length of them, inspecting all of their faces.
He stopped in front of Mae Noi.
“I’ve come to collect my property,” he sneered. Then he leaned into Mae Noi’s face and, without removing his eyes from hers, raised his arm and pointed at Pohn-Pohn.
Tua and Pohn-Pohn took two steps back as if the finger had reached across the distance and tapped them on their foreheads. Why hadn’t they run when they had the chance?
“We have evidence that you’ve been mistreating this elephant,” Mae Noi said.
“Evidence,” Nak scoffed. “It’s my property. I’ll treat it any way I like.”
“I could report you—”
“You’re harboring a thief,” he spat. “You’re in possession of stolen property. Who are you going to report me to? The authorities? The authorities are on my side. You’re the one breaking the law. If you want to keep that elephant, then you’ve got to pay me for it. Four hundred thousand baht.”
Tua and Pohn-Pohn took two more steps back.
“I have the right to keep this elephant for as long as it takes us to conduct tests and—”
“I’m taking that elephant now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just try and stop me.” He scanned the faces looking for a challenger.
“No,” Kanchanok stepped forward.
“Go back to your mud wallow, buffalo boy,” Nak snarled.
Then he called over his shoulder to Nang. “Bring me the chain and ankus.”
Nang climbed out of the sidecar, pulled off his bubble helmet, spit a feather out of his mouth, and reached behind the seat for the chain and hooked spike. As he was slinging the heavy chain over his shoulder, a ginger-haired farang stepped out of the crowd.
“Wait a minute,” she said in English. She walked up to Nang and ran her eyes over him, as if counting his limbs. “I know you. You’re that phony beggar from the train station. And you.” She turned and pointed at Nak. “I remember you, too. You’re the shady character who stole my wallet while he created a distraction. Somebody call the police!” she shouted.
Nak looked at Nang, who shrugged. He didn’t know who this woman was or what she was talking about.
“What is this?” demanded Nak.
“This woman claims you stole her wallet at the train station in Chiang Mai yesterday,” Mae Noi explained in Thai. “She’s asked me to call the police.
“Margareta, would you get Chief Montri on the phone?” Turning back to Nak, she said, “I’m sure the local chief of police would like to ask you some questions. It shouldn’t take long to clear this up. A phone call to Chiang Mai to check the police report and view the videotapes, and then you can be on your way.”
“You can’t prove …”
Nak’s hand rose to his breast and covered the pocket where he had slipped the farang’s credit cards and driver’s license. He could feel them through the thin cloth, and he staggered back a couple of paces.
Several farangs took cell phones out of their pockets and began snapping pictures of the two mahouts.
Nak put his hands in front of his face and retreated to the motorcycle, while Nang pushed the helmet down over his head.
“You,” Nak growled at Tua. “You.”
“I’ll make sure Chief Montri gets a copy of your photographs,” Mae Noi said. “And your license number.”
The motorcycle roared Nak’s reply, tore at the gravel beneath its tires, and hurtled screaming down the road like a whipped dog.
“Are they gone?” Tua asked.
“They’re gone. And we have Shelly to thank for that.”
Mae Noi turned to the ginger-haired farang and bowed a wai. “Thank you so much, Shelly. You saved the day. Tua, it looks like you and Pohn-Pohn have an American auntie.”
“Khawp khun kha, Auntie,” Tua grinned and bow
ed a wai.
Shelly bowed a wai back, then reached out her hand and stroked Pohn-Pohn’s trunk.
Smiling, Mae Noi draped her arm around Tua’s shoulder. “So, Tua,” she said, “what would you like to do?”
“Do?”
“The last van of the day is leaving for Chiang Mai in half an hour. There won’t be another one until tomorrow. Do you want to be on it?”
“I’d better call my mother,” Tua said.
The motorcycle turned off the paved road and crawled along a dirt track to a ridge overlooking the sanctuary.
“Is that a police car down there?” Nang said. “We’ll never get the elephant back now, will we?”
“An elephant isn’t the only thing worth money on the black market,” Nak replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Night at the
Sanctuary
Tua hung snugly in a hammock under a shelter, while Pohn-Pohn rocked back and forth beside her as if swaying to a lullaby. Stars spattered the sky at the end of the thatched roof and then fell behind a dark silhouette of jagged mountains. An insect chorus rustled in the underbrush, and the river murmured a quiet melody.
“Mama and Auntie Orchid are coming to get me in the morning, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua yawned and closed her eyes. “I don’t want you to worry if I have to go back to Chiang Mai tomorrow. It’ll only be for a little while. And Kanchanok will look after you while I’m gone. Mae Noi says new volunteers come to the sanctuary every day, and I can come up with them.” She rolled over on her side and rested her head on her folded arm. “I love you, Pohn-Pohn. I’ll never, ever”—she yawned— “leave you.”
Pohn-Pohn reached out her trunk and brushed Tua’s cheek. Then she rocked the hammock as if it were a cradle.
“Good night, Pohn-Pohn. Sweet dreams and glad awaken—”
Pohn-Pohn drooped her head and closed her sleepy eyes as well.
A hush fell over the fields; the river gurgled in the background; a twig snapped. A dark shadow drifted in front of the moon like a tattered cloak, blocking out the light. Nak looked over his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. Nang opened his mouth to speak, saw Nak bare his teeth, and shrugged instead.
The two mahouts ducked behind a tool shed and listened to the silence. No footfalls, no voices, no barks. Nak looked around the corner and searched the grounds: all the buildings were as dark as cellars. His eyes stopped at the shelter across the path. He could hear the elephant and the brat breathing. Holding up two fingers to Nang, he pointed them at his eyes, and then beckoned him to follow.
With a tarp stretched between them, they swooped into the shelter like owls, tossed the tarp over Pohn-Pohn’s head, looped a rope around her legs, and turned their attention to Tua.
Nang slapped tape over Tua’s mouth, and Nak began spinning the hammock like a spider winding its prey in a silken shroud.
Tua’s eyes opened to a blur, as if she were tumbling down a deep well. The webbing of the hammock pinched tighter and tighter, squeezing the breath out of her lungs.
“Mmmm!” she tried to scream through the tape.
Pohn-Pohn cried out, bucked, spun around, and then beat her trunk on the ground.
Abruptly, the hammock stopped, but Tua’s head continued to spin. Nang began wrapping tape around Tua, binding her like a package. Nak cut the hammock down, tossed Tua over his shoulder, and ran across the field to where the motorcycle crouched hidden in the ferns.
Pohn-Pohn gripped the tarp with her trunk and tore it off her head. Then she stamped her feet until the rope loosened and fell to the ground.
Tua was gone.
All that remained was the rank smell of her kidnappers. Pohn-Pohn tossed her trunk in the air until she located where the stench was strongest and, giving one long trumpet call to let Tua know she was coming, ran into the dark after the foul odor.
Nak was handing Tua over the fence to Nang when he heard a noise coming up behind him like an ill wind. He looked over his shoulder and saw a wide swath of cornstalks toppling in the nearby field. The ground trembled beneath his feet.
“What’s that?” Nang cocked an ear and squinted through the fence poles.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nak said, throwing his leg over the fence and dropping to the other side. “It can’t save her, now. Put her in the sidecar.”
Tua sucked air through her nostrils and tried to lift her head. She could see the backs of someone’s legs, and the ground rushing past below her. They crossed a paved road and entered a bushy field of ferns. Then she was lifted off the shoulder and dropped into the sidecar on her back. The last thing she saw was Nak’s toothy grin before a blanket was tossed over her face.
Nak raised his head in time to see the fence across the road explode into splinters. He jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out the key, but it leapt free of his grasp and disappeared into the dense underbrush. Dropping to his knees, he began clawing at the ferns like a terrier. As Nang dashed past him, he sprang to his feet. The dark shape was bearing down fast. He turned and sprinted across the field after Nang, leaving Tua stashed in the sidecar.
A massive banyan tree sprang up out of the empty field ahead of them, its trunk flexed like a muscular forearm, its hand buried up to the wrist and gripping the ground with rooted fingers. The foliage and branches were so thick and entwined that no moonlight penetrated between them. Nak and Nang scrambled up the trunk like feral cats, climbing higher and higher into the dense, dark foliage.
Nang pulled himself onto a large bough, turned around to scan the horizon below—and came face to face with an upside-down face.
An elfish-looking man stared back at him. He had round brown eyes like polished teak, and a pointy nose and ears. He was wearing a fuzzy brown sweater and had a long black leather coat draped over his shoulders. The little man blinked his eyes, threw open his coat, dropped from the branch above, and swooped into the air on a five-foot wingspan. Then the entire banyan tree seemed to come apart as the air filled with the flapping wings and squeaking cries of a hundred flying foxes.
Shaking like a kitten, Nang crawled along on all fours, wrapped his arms and legs around the thick bough, whispered a chant, and pinched his eyes closed. Seeing the elephant quit the chase, Nak quickly climbed to the lowest-hanging branch. He was about to drop to the ground when the snapping jaws and bloodcurdling howls of the sanctuary dogs sent him scampering up the tree again.
Stuffed inside the sidecar, Tua wriggled under the blanket. “Hmm-hmm-hmm? Hmm!”
She caught her breath as a long arm reached out of the dark and drew back the cover.
“Hmmmmm!” she squirmed.
“Tua?” Kanchanok gently pulled the tape off her mouth. “What happened?”
“Kanchanok,” Tua said with her first big breath. “Where’s Pohn-Pohn?”
Pohn-Pohn reached over Kanchanok’s shoulder, inspected Tua from the top of her head to the soles of her bare feet, slipped her trunk under her back, lifted her out of the sidecar, and sat her standing on the ground.
“Pohn-Pohn,” she gasped. “I knew you would come—but the mahouts, Kanchanok! They’re getting away!”
“Don’t worry about them.” Kanchanok began unwinding the tape from around Tua’s body. “They’re up a tree and won’t be coming down again anytime soon if Fudge, Shadow, and Peppy have anything to say about it.”
“Thank you for saving me, Pohn-Pohn.” Tua stretched on tiptoes and touched her forehead to the base of Pohn-Pohn’s trunk.
Nak was led away to a police car in handcuffs, but Nang, frozen with fear, couldn’t be coaxed down from the tree. Two policemen climbed up and pried him loose, tied a rope around his waist, and lowered him through the branches while the volunteers and staff covered him with their flashlights.
“I’m not a kidnapper,” he began confessing before his feet touched the ground. “It was him,” he pointed an accusing finger at Nak. “He made me do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A New Beginning
The sun rose
at last, chasing away the shadows, rousing the birds to song, and warming the wings of drowsy insects. Flowers lifted their faces, turned down their collars, and spread out their arms to greet the morning light.
“I’m feeling hungry, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said, responding to her rumbling stomach. She stretched and yawned. “How about you?”
Pohn-Pohn didn’t need convincing. She lifted Tua to her feet and steered her toward the feeding platform. When they came upon Mae Noi sitting on a log under her floppy hat, Tua sat down beside her. She was watching an old man leaning on a stick at the edge of the pasture. He beckoned Pohn-Pohn to come to him, pawing the air with a gnarled hand.
“Who is that man?” Tua asked Mae Noi.
“That’s Ek, the shaman. He lives deep in the forest and is as shy around people as a mouse deer. But because there are so few elephants living in the wild anymore, he must come to the sanctuary to talk to them.”
“He talks to the elephants?” Tua gasped.
“Why does that surprise you? Don’t you talk to Pohn-Pohn?”
“Yes, but …”
“How do you talk to her?” Mae Noi asked.
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“You speak to her with your heart, Tua, the same way she speaks to you. And you speak with your eyes, the tone of your voice, and the touch of your hand. The language of the heart is a tongue all of us would understand if we only took the time to learn it. And you, my little Tua, have a very big heart indeed.”
“I do?”
“I’ve never seen one bigger.”
They watched the old man talking to Pohn-Pohn and drawing his hand in the air as if illustrating a story. He cackled at the end, patted her cheek and shoulder as if dismissing a grandchild, waved his stick over his head to Mae Noi, hoisted up his sarong, and waded into the river.
“I guess I’ll have to go back to Chiang Mai today,” Tua said, looking down between her feet.