“I am not spoiling the fun.”
“Yes, you are,” said Kanchi. “Keep going, Dilly!”
My face flushed hot. I had not meant to ruin the night. I wanted to be sure we had enough fun for the next evening, which was the real Tihar celebration. I was quiet as we walked back to the stable. I did not like Dilly talking to me that way, and showing off to impress Jayanti.
The fog was so thick the next morning, I could barely make out the tethering area. It was only fifty feet from the edge of the barracks, but I could not see the elephants. When I reached Hira Prashad’s post, he was gone. He had slipped his chains in the night. I had set them loose like Subba-sahib had told me to do in case the wild bull returned. “Indra, Dilly, come quick! Hira Prashad has gone. Indra, tell Subba-sahib. Dilly and I will go on foot and you can catch up with us on the elephants.”
I raced back to the barracks to grab my satchel. I threw in it some kuchis to lure my tusker back. Then we followed Hira Prashad’s tracks, bending low as we ran to watch his path on the ground. Luckily, he kept to the dirt track, so we could easily see his enormous footprints.
Soon we found a fresh pile of his steaming droppings. “Dilly, he must be close.”
“He is headed to Lalmati. I wonder if he is going to cross the river there.”
Was he going to meet the other tusker?
The sun was rising, burning off the top layer of fog, which hovered like wisps of gray cotton over the jungle. Still, on the ground, we could barely see a hundred feet in front of us. After almost two hours of trailing him, we caught a glimpse of Hira Prashad, sticking out of the fog, but only his rear end, before he vanished back into the forest. We followed as best we could straight into the Lalmati grassland.
A roar echoed across the northern rim. I had never heard such a sound. A battle cry! Hira Prashad roared back, and the sounds filled the valley around us. Soon we heard beneath the roars the squeaks and rumbles of more elephants. As if nature were on our side, the fog lifted like the velvet curtain at the Hindi cinema, and the open area in front of us came into view. At the far end, maybe three hundred feet away, were twenty wild elephants. In the middle of the grassland was the giant bull who had rushed through our camp weeks ago. Facing off, his ears spread wide in a threatening posture, was my Hira Prashad, ready to defend his family.
“Dilly, that tusker could kill him.”
“We cannot do anything, Nandu. This fight is between them.”
The two bulls roared and lunged for each other. They slapped each other with their trunks. The tusks of the wild bull grazed Hira Prashad. They backed away from each other for a moment, then the wild bull charged again. He was stronger, but Hira Prashad was more agile. He dodged the wild male’s tusks, then turned, scraping his own tusks across the face of the wild male, who let out a bloodcurdling cry of pain.
The earth shook underneath my feet from the power of the clashing giants. I could not watch. I sat down, using my satchel as a mat, and tucked my face into my hands. My tusker was going to die.
I flashed back to when I had first seen Hira Prashad, when he was being starved to death by the two elephant handlers. The Python, the wealthy local landlord who had employed the men, wanted my tusker’s ivory. Then we rescued him, only for him to end up fighting for his life, in this same grassland where he had saved mine from the earthquake. I prayed for another tremor to shake the trees and make the elephants run for safety.
At last I stood and saw the rival bull lunge at Hira Prashad. My elephant quickly moved out of his way. But he would tire soon, and the more powerful male would gore my tusker and that would be the end. I wanted to run to get between them to plead with them to stop, but I knew I would be trampled.
My thoughts raced as I tried to think of something I could do. I sat down in despair. Then suddenly I felt the lump I had been sitting on. In the satchel were some firecrackers and a few cherry bombs that I had stuffed into my pack last night.
“Dilly, do you have your lighter?” I shouted.
I took out my slingshot, which I always kept for protection, and the fireworks. Dilly nodded, without even having to speak.
I positioned the firecrackers in my slingshot. “Okay, light the fuses,” I said.
Dilly lit the first one. I fired it toward the wild bull. He turned to face me.
“The cherry bomb, Dilly!”
I shot the cherry bomb next. It exploded at the bull’s feet. He raised his trunk and spread his ears, like he was about to charge. I had his full attention and his herd’s, too. The females and young jumbos panicked and ran back into the cover of the jungle, distracting him.
The roaring and trumpeting resumed. The two males lunged at each other. The hollow clatter of tusk against tusk rang across the grasslands.
“Dilly, let’s try a rocket,” I said. I was desperate. The bottle rocket shot into the air and exploded, but the bull elephants ignored the confetti of colors and kept attacking each other. When I turned around, the elephants from our stable were standing right behind us. They had moved in as silently as ghosts. My father was by my side. I was never so relieved to see him.
“Subba-sahib, what do we do?”
“Nothing, Nandu. We must wait and pray. This bull is too dangerous for any of us to approach. The fireworks helped us find you. We came straight to the noise.”
I knelt to the ground.
Ban Devi, please protect Hira Prashad. And do not let him kill this bull. No one should die.
The bulls lunged at each other one more time. Then they both stopped. Our goddess had heard me.
“Look, Subba-sahib, they are exhausted. They have taken measure of each other. It is a standoff. Maybe they will both retreat to their herds,” Ramji said.
The two tuskers did not move for five minutes more. I strained to hear their conversation through the soles of my bare feet. I thought if I closed my eyes, I might see an image, a clue to what they were saying.
“Nandu, put your hand on Prem Kali’s trunk and on Punti Kali’s, too,” my father instructed me. “They are talking to the two males, of this I am sure, even if we cannot hear anything. I believe they are saying in their language, ‘Stop fighting, you are brothers, not rivals. You must both protect our herd.’ ”
The wild herd reappeared from the edge of the forest. An old female trumpeted and turned away, as if she had had enough of the spectacle. The wild tusker drifted off silently and followed her into the jungle.
I climbed up on Bhim Prashad and sat behind my father, who calmly directed his elephant to turn toward the stable. Our other elephants followed. I was afraid to look, but when I turned, there was Hira Prashad following us at a distance, his trunk searching the air and finally dropping. Peace had been reached. At least for now.
y peaceful kingdom was becoming a battleground. There was already a battle between our stable and the poachers, and now, on top of that, a war between two giant tuskers for control over the Borderlands herds—wild and domestic. “Subba-sahib, the two bulls fight when they should be allies. What if the poachers turn from rhinos to elephants?”
“I think that bull and our Hira Prashad are safe for now, Nandu. Rhino horn is worth much more to them than elephant ivory. But we need to step up our protection and push the warden. He is new and naïve. And Ganesh Lal seems like he has no clue either about what to do.”
Ten days had passed since we returned from the Bheri Valley. To the best of our knowledge, the warden had done nothing. My father sent word to his contact in the Royal Palace, asking if there had been any activity at the guard posts in question, and his contact had answered that “everything is as usual.”
My father was more agitated than I had ever seen him. He hated being part of another man’s lie—especially when that lie was the result of cowardice.
My father gathered us together in the tethering area in the early hours of the morning to speak to us drivers.
“It is our duty to go check on the rhinos in the Bheri River Valley, and on the return, travel along the Great San
d Bar River near Lalmati to locate as many rhinos as we can. We are their defenders now. We will report our census numbers to the authorities. I will take five elephants and ten drivers with me. We leave tomorrow.”
“Subba-sahib,” I said. “Will Hira Prashad’s wounds be a problem?”
“No,” my father said firmly. “He is far tougher than that.”
Father Autry came to see us off. He would not join us this time, but he had offered to stay behind with Maila, Rita, and the girls.
“Good luck, Nandu,” he said. “Let us hope you find them.” I waved to him and to what now looked like a flock of children surrounding him: Maila, Rita, Kabita, Jayanti, and Kanchi. They waved back, their arms flapping like wings.
It took us two days to reach the Bheri Valley. I had to work to keep my mind from conjuring images of the worst we might find. We climbed switchbacks up the steep Siwalik slopes, five elephants, single file, in silence. I thought of Hannibal scaling the Alps as we made our way up to the ridge. We would be an army to defend the lives of the rhinos. But in truth I felt powerless to truly save them. To wait two days to answer a question of life or death is an eternity. Time slows down. Each second ticks away at hope.
I imagined running into the poachers surrounding a rhino. Except this time, like Hannibal, we were riding the king of Nepal’s war elephants. I pictured Hira Prashad with armor on his face and trunk, charging the poachers, straight at their rifles aimed our way—trampling them before they could shoot. Over the long hours, my story grew more and more vivid.
We would reach the rhinos in time. We had to.
The guard post was again deserted when we arrived.
Where have the rangers gone? This is their duty. Why has the warden not sent Ganesh Lal to oversee these posts? He is useless back at the warden’s office. He should be out in the field, near the rhinos.
It was late October, so I was surprised to hear so few birds singing. Had life left the Bheri Valley? At least there were no vultures circling, a good sign. We made camp and allowed the elephants to graze freely.
“We will spread out and search the valley from one end to the other, starting tomorrow,” my father instructed. “Take rest, drivers, tomorrow will be a long day.”
I was on edge. Each time I fell asleep, violent images woke me. In my nightmares, the poachers fired cannons at our war elephants. We were thrown as our brave warrior elephants dropped to the ground and died at our feet.
Real life, though, is never like nightmares. It is often worse. Just after dawn, the elephants led us to the first carcass, or what remained of it, a few hundred feet from where we had found the first dead rhino almost two weeks ago. All that was left was a piece of the large skull the hyenas could not drag off. I took deep breaths so that my emotions would not overpower me. We had to stay focused on our quest to count their numbers and report their deaths. In this way, the palace would have to take heed, even if it was too late to save these rhinos.
“Now I am worried about the rhinos between Chisapani and Lalmati,” my father said. “We must go there quickly. Let us not spend more time here. We will come back to the Bheri with the commanding officers.” My father turned to face us all, strong and angry. “To Lalmati, drivers!”
The elephants descended the ridge single file. Four miles below the Chisapani guard post, five more rhino skulls and a few scattered bones, picked clean, littered the earth. The vultures had long finished their work, so we had to rely on the elephants and our own eyes.
With the discovery of each new carcass in the tall grass, another piece of me sank deeper. I did not think I was capable of such sadness.
Hira Prashad found them first, indicating we were nearby with a deep, mournful rumble. Elephants have human emotions, or we humans have some fraction of theirs. I believe the latter is closer to the truth.
Every other mile we found another poached rhino. The same scene: only the skull left but with clear signs where the nasal bones would have been, the signs of chopping with an ax. There were no footprints or blue canvas sneakers, or any clues as to who did this. Too much time had passed.
I wondered if I came upon a poacher in the act and had a rifle in my hands, would I have shot those people dead? Would I have fired at the boy who set the snares and was part of their gang? At that moment, I am afraid I would have had no trouble pulling the trigger. These people were murderers.
“If only the warden would have sent more guards,” I blurted out.
My father said nothing. When he is deeply upset he does not talk.
We found eight more rhinos, or what was left of them, before dark. We marked where they had been killed on a map. The last rhinos had been shot near Lalmati. Subba-sahib thought they had been dead for a week or more. Searching along the Great Sand Bar River, we found old bones of ten more rhinos that had been scattered by hyenas. These must have been poached since May, when Pradhan was killed. It is why our count with Ganesh Lal could not locate the fifty rhinos we thought lived in the reserve. Some were already killed, but they were shot too far from our stable to hear the poachers’ guns.
I totaled the number of dead rhinos we had discovered from the beginning and wrote each location in my notebook. My sickening sum ran to twenty-four rhinos killed.
My father’s voice at the evening campfire drew me closer to the others. “I know that we are tired and sad. But we must summon our strength and head home at dawn as fast as our elephants can carry us. The rhinos near our stable are better guarded, but they may be the next targets. The poachers fled our area after they killed Pradhan, but now that they have killed many rhinos far from the guard posts, they are emboldened.”
I tried to control my growing sense of rage and turn it to something positive, something I knew I could achieve. I would defend our Borderland family with my life. I knew it then. I knew, too, that my elephant brother would do the same.
I needed time to talk to my father and tell him what Hira Prashad and I would dedicate ourselves to do. He rode with me on my tusker back to the stable. He sensed my anger, and kept his one hand on my shoulder as we moved down the trail from Lalmati to the stable. At first, I thought it was because of the pain from his gout, maybe he needed to keep his balance. But then I realized it was to keep me from exploding.
“Subba-sahib, why do men behave like animals? No, that is unfair to animals. Why do they act like demons?”
“Nandu, we will catch them and put a stop to this. Do not worry,” he said, squeezing my shoulder.
I could not let it go. “But Kalomutu is in prison and so are the other Maroons who could lead this gang. Do you think Ramji is right, that his evil spirit departs his body or spreads from him to others?”
“Nandu, Kalomutu is not a threat to us. There are others among us, just as ruthless. My Tharu relatives believe the Borderlands are a refuge from evil in the world, protected by Ban Devi. We will make it so again.”
I did not believe this was possible anymore. Ban Devi was losing her power over this evil. But I could never say this to my father.
“Ban Devi helped us catch the Maroons last year when they were robbing villages across the Borderlands. I believe she will help us catch these other criminals. And with the help of the police and maybe the army if needed, we will catch them.”
“Subba-sahib, I think I understand now why these new bandits kill rhinos instead of rob villages like the Maroons,” I said.
“Then you must explain it to me,” he said.
“Stealing from nature is much easier than robbing people. If the Maroons steal from poor villagers, hundreds of police officers will scour the jungle for them. If they are caught, they will be sent to jail, just like Kalomutu.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“But if this new band of outlaws goes after rhinos for their horns, all they have to worry about are men like the warden-sahib, who is a coward, and Ganesh Lal, who never speaks, and the guards who spend their days at the raksi stalls or who have deserted their posts.”
“Yes
, Nandu, I felt the same hopelessness, but these people have gone too far. They have killed twenty-four rhinos and stolen their horns. Rhinos are the property of the king. Once Kathmandu hears the news, the palace will mobilize the Royal Nepal Army.”
Army soldiers coming to the Borderlands was what we needed. Maybe the king would order a division of fierce Gurkhas to protect the Borderlands. The Gurkhas were known for their fearlessness and skill using the curved blades of their kukhris. If a regiment of them came, the poachers would flee for their lives when the Gurkhas drew their blades.
I wanted to say that if the army did not come, Hira Prashad and I would stop the poachers ourselves. Just how, I did not know yet. I needed a plan.
The stable was not far off now. Our elephants knew it, too, and rumbled back and forth. I thought they were rumbling out of happiness to be heading home again, but they were joined by the sound of a small group of sambar deer barking in alarm. From the corner of my eye I saw flashes of red bounding through the grass. It was the dhole pack on a hunt. My body relaxed. I turned to say something to my father when a shot rang out.
“Agat!” I shouted, but Hira Prashad needed no command. All five elephants turned toward the sound, trumpeting their alarm.
As we grew nearer, I realized we were close to the Baba’s temple.
Subba-sahib motioned for the other elephants to fan out, and we did a sweep of the area. No one was about. Not even the Baba. I prayed that he had not been shot by the angry mob. Would they kill a man? A holy man?
Ahead, Dilly let out a sharp whistle and motioned with his arm. We headed toward the ravine near the Baba’s temple where the Jogi Khola, the Holy Man’s River, flowed. Sprawled in the ravine next to the pool where he used to cool off was the Baba’s tiger.
I jumped off Hira Prashad and rolled. I could not wait for him to kneel.
The tiger’s front foot had been caught in a wire snare. The poachers had shot him. It must have only just happened. The Baba’s tiger lay motionless.
A Circle of Elephants Page 13