by Anna del Mar
On my way back, I jumped over a wet ravine and spotted human footprints in the mud. They were several different sizes. I took pictures then surveyed the elephant team. They were working the opposite bank, closer to the truck. I was pretty sure they hadn’t come this way.
A soft rumble caught my attention, an almost imperceptible sound, an intriguing, vibrating noise. I followed the sound and the tracks through the deepening, down-sloping ravine. The ravine opened up to a copse of acacias at the bottom of the hill. I came to a dead stop. Standing among the acacias, not ten feet away, perfectly camouflaged among the reedy branches, stood a single, gigantic elephant.
Uh-oh. I almost peed my pants. It was a huge elephant, at least twelve or thirteen feet tall, with long tusks and large ears fanned forward in my direction. Holy crap. I fought the urge to bolt. Running was always a bad idea. But the animal’s full attention was on me.
“Easy does it,” I mumbled and took a step back in slow motion. “I was just leaving.”
The elephant flapped its ears. I froze in my tracks. The animal eyed me closely, but it didn’t charge. The look in its eyes echoed the words streaming in my head. Assess. Adapt. Overcome. The elephant came to its own conclusions faster than I did, because its ears relaxed.
I studied the elephant in return. She was a female with full breasts hanging between her front legs. She was close enough that I could see the details in her scarred, corrugated gray hide, the notch in her right ear and the slashed scar she bore on her wrinkled forehead. Her long, bushy lashes cased a pair of alert caramel eyes.
The cow took a few slow, ponderous steps and, leaving the shade of the trees, came out into the open to stand before me. My feet grew roots. I couldn’t move. It took all I had not to whimper like an incoherent madwoman. The elephant’s trunk coiled up in the air, nostrils quivering as she sniffed in my direction. Her trunk stretched toward me, close, closer still, like a brawny tentacle with a life of its own, reaching for me, the little nostrils expanding and contracting, hovering close to my face. I shut my eyes and prayed.
A touch, so light and delicate; a ruffling of my hair that sent tingles all over my scalp; a warm leathery stroke sliding over my temple and down toward the side of my head. The clink of my earring as the elephant fingered it delicately with the tip of her flexible trunk. The earring, swinging from my lobe as she let go. A puff of air right to my face. Oh, God. More praying on my part, teeth gritted, nails dug into my camera’s frame.
And then…nothing.
I opened my eyes slowly. The elephant was still there, standing just a few feet from me, silent and immobile. Her little eyes scoured me thoroughly, the way women often do when another female arrives on the scene, shoes, dress, purse, hair. It was unreal, but the elephant totally checked me out.
Her stare touched something inside of me. With a swipe and a stomp, she could’ve trampled me. In two steps, she could’ve easily pinned me to the ground with her head and made a mash of my internal organs. But she didn’t do any of that. She just stared at me like an old woman, teaching me with her restraint that I was in the presence of wisdom.
I recognized her for the intelligent, self-aware creature she was. I know you, her gaze acknowledged before she turned around to display her huge flank. I thought she was leaving. I let out the breath I’d been holding. She was so close to the waterhole and yet invisible to Matthias, Sarah, and the researchers who would’ve given an arm and a leg to be part of this incredible encounter.
But I was wrong. She wasn’t leaving. She swung her enormous head my way and swiped the ground with her trunk, stirring the dust, waving her long trunk back and forth several times, as if saying…follow me?
Jesus. It didn’t sound like my brightest idea. If I took off after the elephant, Matthias would have a cow, no pun intended. The elephant took a few steps and repeated her actions, slowly, patiently, deliberately, like Granny Romo did when she taught me her secret recipes. When she repeated her motions exactly for a third time, I was pretty sure she wanted me to follow her.
“Okay.” I gulped down a swallow of pure adrenaline. I stepped lightly, trailing the cow at a safe distance. Was there such a thing as a safe distance when David hung out with Goliath?
She didn’t go very far. She edged around the hill, up a small knoll and then, a minute later, she stopped. She uttered that low rumbling sound again and eyed me, as if making sure I was paying attention. She stepped into another copse of acacias. I followed her with no small amount of trepidation and my heart booming in my chest. When I looked beneath the shadow of the trees, she stood next to a tall pile of yellow grass.
At first, my eyes couldn’t make sense of what I saw. I tilted my head and realized that the object before me was not a random pile, but rather a man-made grass shack, hidden in the brush, a simple construction of reeds, roped together at the top with a small, round hole that served as a door.
“Jade!” Matthias’s shout startled me out of the trance, loud and not necessarily friendly.
I blinked hard and looked again. The shack was still there, but the elephant was gone, and I mean, disappeared, vanished. One moment she’d been standing there, right next to the shack and then…
I scanned the brush again. No trace of the huge cow, as if she’d never been there. I scratched my head. How could a fifteen thousand pound giant disappear like that?
Matthias came trotting down the hill, clutching his rifle against his chest, boots crunching on the ground. He skidded to a stop when he saw me, then stomped over, mouth twisted into a fearsome scowl.
“Goddamn it, Jade,” he ground out and not kindly. “What the hell did I tell you? When I said stick with the group, I mean stick with the goddamn group, within my line of sight, at all times…”
“Matthias?” My knees shook and my bladder was still iffy.
He barked. “What?”
“Um…there was this elephant—”
“An elephant?” His fingers tightened around his weapon and his eyes scoured the ravine as he turned around in a circle, scouting our surroundings. “Here? Now?”
“Unh-huh.”
“I don’t see any elephants,” he muttered, but he kept looking.
“She…um…she was…really big…”
“How big?”
“Um…tall, maybe fourteen, fifteen feet? Full breasts, notched right ear, slashed scar on the forehead.”
He frowned, casing me with his shades. “Bibi was here?”
“Bibi?” I repeated numbly.
“You’re describing the matriarch of the Eastland’s herd very specifically.”
“Oh…well…Bibi…” She had a name. “Bibi told me…”
“Jade?” Matthias stepped up and pressed his palm against my forehead. “Are you feverish?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned into his touch, rooting myself to the moment. “But Bibi…”
“Jesus, Jade,” Matthias interrupted me. “Please tell me you didn’t get close to the elephant, did you?”
“Um…no, not really.” Technically, it was Bibi who’d gotten close to me, but I decided to skip that part. “Um…Bibi…” I continued, trying to digest my very own, implausible story, “she was here and she told me…well…not told me…showed me…brought me…here.” I stretched out my arm and pointed at the acacia cluster.
Matthias’s gaze shifted to the trees. He pushed up his sunglasses. His eyes widened as they fell on the grass shack. “Oh, shit.”
My stomach squeezed. “Is that a…?”
“The killers were here.” Matthias swore under his breath. “That’s a poacher’s shed.”
15
Matthias
The poachers had been here, at this waterhole, in the reserve, in my reserve, and not too long ago. The anger and fear that etched Jade’s face twisted my guts. She looked around as if Kumbuyo was gonna creep out of the bush anytime now. Raged boiled through my veins, a surge of superheated steam. Cool it, soldier. Get to work, nose on the trail. I ripped the radio from my belt and be
gan to bark orders, redistributing my patrols to search the grid.
“Sheds like these are almost impossible to locate.” My knees cracked as I crouched on the ground. I braced my elbows on my knees and studied the site. “How the hell did you manage to find it?”
“I told you,” Jade said. “Bibi showed it to me.”
I straightened on my feet, lowered my sunglasses, and scanned the terrain around us. “Where’s Bibi now?”
“She just…disappeared.”
“Did you take some pictures?”
“Pictures?” She shook her head, as if waking up from a dream. “Oh, my God. I…I…Can you believe this? I forgot!”
The shock on her face was almost comical. I may have laughed if the situation wasn’t so critical. I didn’t blame her. I’d had similar experiences, coming close to a creature I’d never seen in the wild and forgetting that the rest of the world existed.
“It’s okay.” I tilted my head in the direction of the shack. “Take your pictures now. Be thorough and do it before we start to collect evidence.”
Jade’s fingers deftly worked the shutter and the ring. I walked the site’s perimeter. The shack would be invisible to the eye from almost any angle, including from the air, and yet it took advantage of the grooves in the geography to offer a commanding view of the water hole. The sun illuminated the small interior. It was abandoned, but it was obvious that someone had been spending time watching the waterhole.
I spotted something in the corner of the shed. Careful not to disturb the footprints, I reached in and plucked a piece of paper from the ground. It looked like it might have fallen out of someone’s pocket. I unfolded the paper. It was a grayscale photocopy of a picture of Jade, the one usually posted next to her blog on the Mission Protect website. A target had been drawn on Jade’s forehead.
My gut clutched in an involuntary spasm. I’d known that Jade was in danger, of course I’d known. But this? This made the threat even more real. Every one of Kumbuyo’s men probably carried her picture. The paper crumpled in my fist.
“Matthias?” Zeke crouched next to me. “Everything okay?”
“Nothing’s okay.” I simmered with hot anger. “Take a look at this.”
Zeke took the paper from me and grimaced. “Not good. But…”
I almost barked. “But what?”
“Don’t let Kumbuyo make you angry.” Zeke paused to allow the words to sink in. “Angry men make mistakes. We need him to make that mistake. Not you.”
I took a huge inhale and bent down to dust the edges of the closest set of footprints. Zeke was right. Head in the mission. “I need you to take some rangers and follow these tracks.”
“Right away.” Zeke rallied the rangers who’d arrived with him and took off down the ravine.
I tried to clear my head from the rage. Anger was an emotion that brought no advantages in battle. “Be careful,” I called out after Zeke. “There’s at least one elephant around.”
“I’m so glad you believe me,” Jade murmured, drifting closer to me to take pictures of the tracks as well.
“Bibi usually sticks with her herd,” I said. “But on several occasions, she’s been known to display some very odd behaviors. Are you done?”
Jade nodded. I took her elbow and led her back to the water hole, hanging on to her, afraid that if I let her out of my reach I’d find her gone, poached from me by Kumbuyo, or communing with lions, or worse, serving as a meal for the pride.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Nothing happened.”
“Lots happened,” I said. “And any of it could’ve gotten you killed. Doctor Valdez?”
The doctor looked up from his field case, where he was cataloguing his samples. “Yes?”
“Do you have a water testing kit on hand?”
“Sure thing.” Doctor Valdez rummaged through his case. “Why do you need it?”
“Poacher shed, east side, twenty yards off the water hole. I want to make sure the water’s safe for the animals.”
Doctor Valdez’s gaze shifted from me to Jade, eyes full of questions. “Cyanide?”
“It’s a possibility I need to discard.”
Jade shivered beneath my fingers, her emerald irises sparkling with anger.
Doctor Valdez snatched his kit and stomped off. “I’ll test the water.”
“Don’t forget to watch for crocs,” I called after him.
“Yeah, yeah.” Doctor Valdez waved a hand in the air. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Come on.” I led Jade over to the truck, where I climbed on the hood and up to the Land Rover’s roof. I scanned the waterhole, taking a headcount of the people in the field before I jerked my chin. “You, up here, with me.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Jade gave me a mock salute then scrambled up.
She didn’t need my help, but I offered her my hand and pulled her up anyway. She stumbled at the top. I caught her against my chest. It was only an instant, but that instant was all my body needed to remind me how violently her proximity affected me. It took all I had not to kiss her, right there and then. Her reaction was my opposite in every way. She pushed away from me, scrambling to the other side.
God give me patience.
“At ease,” I said. “I’m not going to maul you right now.”
Her cheeks were on fire and her chest rose in shallow breaths, but she refused to meet my gaze, focusing her attention on her camera, reviewing her pictures.
“You should’ve stayed in my line of sight,” I grumbled, pacing back and forth on the roof, my boots thudding on the metal, worry and impatience burning in my gut. “Wild animals are always unpredictable.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she said. “And I found that shack.”
“The shack was a good find,” I admitted. “I’m glad you found it.”
“Credit Bibi for it,” she said. “She was so purposeful in everything she did, so smart. Is it possible that she knows the difference between a camera and a rifle? She stuck around while there were no weapons, then you came and poof, she was gone.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said, keeping my eyes on the horizon and tracking the radio communications. “Elephants are extremely intelligent creatures. They communicate, love, grieve. Hell, sometimes, when I’m watching them, I can almost hear them thinking.”
“You’re right.” A smile animated her face. “I had the same feeling today. Bibi was amazing.” Her grin wilted and her mouth straightened. “Is there any chance that the footprints and the hut could belong to some locals or to Maasai maybe?”
“Negative, not Maasai,” I said. “They stick to their cattle and this area is unauthorized for grazing or hunting access.” Besides, Maasai didn’t carry pictures of Jade with a target on her forehead, trying to terrorize her—not to mention me. “Somebody is trekking where they’re not supposed to be and I’m gonna find them.”
I waited to hear back from Doctor Valdez and Zeke and his rangers. Local animals depended on this waterhole for hydration. If there was cyanide in the water, it was gonna be a massacre. I paced some more, shoulders tight, muscles knotted, eyes working the terrain. Within a few minutes, another truck drove up, carrying more rangers. I directed them to join Zeke and the men tracking the intruders.
Not knowing if the water was poisoned was killing me, so I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. “How much longer?”
“Twenty minutes,” the doctor shouted back.
I cursed under my breath and popped my neck one side first, then the other. The shack. The picture. I didn’t like any of it. Not knowing what Jade was thinking about my proposal last night added to my impatience.
“You don’t have to be so uptight.” Jade said. “We’re all big boys and girls out here.”
“Maybe,” I said, checking my magazine. “But it makes for a very long day and a shitload of paperwork when the researchers get shot at in the field.”
“You won’t let that happen.”
“You bet.” Silence and then—damn—t
he last ounce of patience evaporated from me. “Did you think about what I said last night?”
She froze, eyes wide with alarm, mouth pressed into a tight, white line, knuckles pale as she clung to her camera, holding it like a shield over her heart.
“Hell, Jade, you don’t have to look like an antelope caught in the headlights.” I hugged my carbine to my chest. “Any time now, feel free to peel your tongue from the roof of your mouth and talk to me. That’s what adults do. Talk things out.”
“The thing is…” She started, then stopped, then started again. Christ, she was gonna kill me with her reluctance. “I…I don’t know if this…um…thing…you know…between us…if it’s a good idea…”
“Why not?”
“I’ll be leaving soon and—”
“When?” I demanded.
“Well…” She hesitated again, her voice high and frail. “I don’t really know for sure…I…I…”
This was the same woman who’d confronted poachers, grizzlies and elephants and yet she couldn’t talk to me?
“Spit it out,” I said. “Say what you’re thinking.”
Her throat rippled with a hard swallow. “I’ll be gone as soon as I’m done.” She fidgeted with her camera. “I’m not the steady type, you know. I’m always on the go.”
“I gathered that much,” I said. “But Hannah said you run your own assignments.”
Her brow crumpled into a questioning frown. “You talked to Hannah?”
“She called me, to smooth things out, she said. Don’t look so stomped, Turbo Jade.”
She gasped. “She told you about that?”
“She mentioned your nickname in passing.” I didn’t dare a laugh, or to acknowledge that after having raced her, she was perfectly nicknamed. “She said you’re always on the run, always pushing yourself toward the next goal, never slowing down, always leaving the past in the dust and accelerating toward your next adventure.”
“Holy crap.” The flush brightened Jade’s smooth olive skin. “What the hell was Hannah thinking?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she found me trustworthy?” I teased with a wry grin. “She also told me you’re the one who decides when and where you go, and how long you’re willing to stay.”