“I do have one,” I said as I picked up the picnic paraphernalia. “I got a call yesterday from Brandon Briggs at WildLot. Do you know him?”
Rasheda was silent so long I thought we’d been disconnected. “What did he want?”
“The elephant.”
“And you told him…?”
“No. That she wasn’t for sale.”
“Good. Whatever lies he tells you, your answer is always no.”
“What is he?”
“A monster dressed in a charming smile.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up, more worried now than before about Peter. I resolved to call him later after Jasiri was settled in. Then I sped back down to the boma to await my ellie.
* * *
The truck that swung through the main gates and crunched its way across the gravel drive to the boma looked formidable. All iron and steel with impossibly high sides and large enough to carry six of these great beasts. The man who jumped from the cab high over the monster of an engine, though, once he backed the truck into perfect position outside the boma gates, was small and wiry with a perpetual grin on his thin face. His elongated earlobes made me think he was a Maasai tribesman like Badru and Kapuki and Leta, but I wasn’t yet adept enough at African cultures and the 120 tribes indigenous to Tanzania to be sure.
From the other side of the cab, two more men swarmed down.
“Your tembo, bwana?” The driver asked.
The mix of English and Swahili used by many of the tribesmen who spoke any English—which was an impressive number—always took me by surprise. “My elephant, yes.” I told him, accepting the term bwana generally reserved for men of position.
“Tembo, mbaya-sana. Very bad. You sure?”
I nodded. “I want to help her.”
Shrugging, the driver directed Steve and the two men who were apparently now our temporary hires to stand by the boma gates and the power switch. He clambered up a ladder bolted to the side of the cargo hold and the tip of a trunk appeared over the rim, snaking fast toward him. I watched with trepidation since that trunk had only to wrap around an ankle to drag him into the hold with her. One of the driver’s men handed him a long pole, then stood by the truck’s massive rear doors. At the driver’s signal, the men unbolted the doors and swung them open between the boma gates.
Steve and his crew couldn’t have finished off the loading ditch more perfectly. The floor of the truck hovered no more than eight inches above the ground and the doors swung out past 90 degrees in either direction before grounding. Plenty of room for Jasiri to make her grand entrance.
With pent breath I waited to see her.
Except for a shift in the truck’s suspension, there was no sign of her as initial expectation turned into concern. Finally, the driver dropped his pole over the side and gave the elephant below a prod.
With an ear-splitting trumpet, Jasiri exploded out of the truck. Thirty yards away she turned and flapped her ears at us. A warning.
The driver’s men slammed the truck doors closed and rammed the lock bar into place. Just in time, as Jasiri pinned back her ears in preparation for a charge.
“Out!” the driver shouted, and both teams slid out of the boma through the narrow spaces between the gate poles and the sides of the truck. Until the gates were closed and the heavy electric wires could be connected, there was no power to the fence. It was at its most vulnerable as we waited to see what Jasiri would do. The truck, if she charged its rear, would hold. That was the best-case scenario. If she hit the fence itself at full charge, she’d uproot the concreted poles along with the 12-gauge wires as easily as a child knocking over his Legos.
She chose the truck.
And even then she wheeled at the very last second, seeming to realize hers was a futile threat.
Screaming her frustration, she took off along the fence’s perimeter.
“If she tries to get out…!” I shouted.
“On it!” Steve yelled back, as his men hurriedly swung the boma gate shut, connected the interior wires, and Steve threw the power switch. He watched the dials a moment and gave the thumbs up. “All good.”
We couldn’t see her where she’d disappeared behind a thicket of trees, but somewhere in there we had an elephant, safe and contained.
Still grinning, the driver scrambled back into the cab with his men. “Mbaya-sana tembo!” he called back, his head shaking, as they drove off.
Very bad elephant or not, she was mine.
8
Nicky
For two days I watched Jasiri from my veranda. Binoculars in hand, I got to know her from a distance, if only because any time Steve or Melea or I wandered anywhere close to the boma, she flew into a rage. Even left alone, she took out her grief and frustration on the trees, uprooting and tossing a half-dozen tamboties that first day and then as many again the next.
She hit the fence early the first day, and I believed it was the surprise of the electric shock and not at all the pain of it that stopped her from trying it again. But it was only a matter of time before a blind rage incited by anyone walking by would force her to test the fence again. Simply put, if she were willing to endure the voltage—which would knock a man flat but not kill him, and she had an additional inch-thick hide with a layer of not very conductive fat under it—she’d be through the fence and out of the boma in a heartbeat. Without the time to imprint Kulinda as home, she’d likely find the perimeter fence to be even less a challenge and be on her way back to her old home to terrorize the villagers where her herd had been systematically slaughtered.
And if she made it that far, the only reward for her persistence and sacrifice would be a bullet to the brain from a high-powered elephant gun.
I had to find a way to earn her trust, to make her feel she was a part of the world, part of a family again. That she could survive the infinite loneliness that had to be tearing through her heart and soul.
Did elephants cry?
When Jasiri wasn’t trumpeting in rage, trunk high, ears out, pacing anxiously in a challenge to anything near her, she stood with her head low and trunk down, dragging the ground, bleating softly and dejectedly to herself.
Could elephants go mad with grief?
Right now, the round swell of her belly was the only thing that gave me hope she’d settle down. That a new-born calf would give her purpose, show her that she hadn’t lost everything in a world that had treated her with so much cruelty.
Could elephants die from utter heartbreak?
What fear Rasheda had about the extra dart it had taken to subdue Jasiri and her unresponsiveness immediately to the reversal drug seemed unfounded considering how well she’d recovered in the truck. The baby would come, likely within the month. It was up to me to figure a way to keep Jasiri contained and alive till then.
And maybe even find a way to reach her heart.
* * *
Early in the morning Day 3 AE, after elephant, I was walking to the clinic when Melea emerged from the barn to join me. “Jambo,” I greeted her when I noticed the little kudu calf wobbling behind her, swinging its splinted leg in a gait reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster. “You have a shadow,” I laughed.
Melea turned a sheepish look on me. “I think she’s taken me for her mum.”
“You have a decision to make and not much time to make it,” I reminded her.
“Would it be so bad if Zuri stayed here and didn’t go back to the herd?”
“So bad for her—or you?”
She sighed. But when we got to the clinic door she held it open so Zuri could follow her in.
I knew I should admonish Melea, but frankly in my own heart I was just as delighted as she to see the little kudu recovering so well. Not just physically but emotionally too. And that was all on Melea. She had done a wonderful job making the calf feel safe and protected, giving it the courage to explore the strangeness of the clinic with a curious nose.
Luckily my phone chirped then, absolving me of any respon
sibility toward Melea and her calf this morning.
My heart fluttered when I saw who was calling.
“Morning, Peter.” I tried my best to sound non-committal. I certainly hadn’t expected our one hookup to lead to anything more, especially with Peter just starting a new job even further away from the sanctuary. Not that I wouldn’t be up for another round. In fact, muscles deep within my abdomen were already clenching at the thought—at the memory.
“Good morning, Nicky. Are you free later today?”
“Define ‘free’ and ‘later’.”
His laugh was still as rich. “No, this isn’t a social call. This time I’m the one pleading business.”
That was unexpected. “Have you reconsidered my offer?” My whole body went still as I waited for his answer.
“You don’t know how tempting that is, but no. It’s WildLot business. My boss suggested I meet with you personally.”
His words poured over me like a cold shower, effectively quenching the flickers of desire that had started to build. “You want my elephant.”
It wasn’t a question. There was a long pause, then Peter said, “Yes.”
“I thought I made it clear to Mr. Briggs that she isn’t for sale.”
“Please, Nicky. Let’s not argue on the phone. Can I see you in person?”
“You could see me naked again and I won’t change my mind.”
“Is that a proposition?”
My knees went weak at his tone. Dammit, why was I responding this way to him right now? I had no objection to another hookup with him—had even wondered on the drive home that day if we could become regular hookup buddies—but not if business kept interfering. Not if he was bedding me for any other motive than having that proverbial ‘good time’.
“Sex or no sex, you’re not getting my elephant. End of story. If you want to spend half the day driving out here and back just to hear me say hell no to your face, you’re welcome to come out. Otherwise, tell your boss to stop harassing me.”
“I want to come.”
“Fine. I’ll ask Kapuki to set another place at lunch.”
“As long as it’s not fried python.”
“No, I think I saw her catch a water rat this morning. They always bake up nicely.”
“I’d laugh if there wasn’t the possibility you were serious.”
“Still coming?”
“I’ll be there by noon.”
I hung up, actually glad he was coming about Jasiri. It would give me a chance to satisfy my curiosity about what WildLot intended to do with the rogue elephant. Although I had already concocted some pretty good ideas of my own.
* * *
A few minutes before noon I was on the veranda, Jasiri’s boma spread below me just to the south and east. She was in her quiet, dejected mood right now. It didn’t take binoculars even from this distance to see the stoop to the gray lady’s body as she stood just outside the shade of an acacia tree.
I had gone down to see her mid-morning. To speak soft words of encouragement and hope to her. Also to see if she’d broken open the bags of grain Steve had tossed into the enclosure the day before when she was hiding in the thickets. But even the sorghum mixed in the cattle grain hat hadn’t tempted her. Her unborn baby needed nourishment and I had yet to see Jasiri browse. If she had gone on a hunger strike, I had no idea how to handle that.
She had barely been here three days and I was failing her miserably.
Which made me miserable.
At the sound of the purring engine and tires crunching on gravel, my mood picked up. Until the black SUV came into view with the oversized WildLot logo emblazoned on the doors, reminding me Peter wasn’t here on a social call.
Why was it I could move out to the wilds of Africa and still be plagued with a complication like Peter? Wasn’t I here specifically to embrace a simpler life?
Stupid civilization.
My whole body tingled at the sight of him walking up the path to the veranda, memory of the feel and smell of him still achingly vivid in my mind.
Business, I reminded myself. And WildLot business at that.
I stood when he came up to the table. There was an awkward moment over the proper way to greet someone in a private business setting that you’ve rather enthusiastically slept with. In the end I relented and hugged him, enjoying that jolt of electricity reverberating between us. He would have ended it in a kiss, but I pushed him back arm’s length before that happened.
God, that face with its hint of beard was still one of the most gorgeous things I’d ever seen. His eyes were filled with me as well before he tore them away to look toward the boma.
“So you have your elephant.”
“My first,” I nodded. “The goal is to establish a herd here.”
Kapuki arrived with a tray holding a communal bowl of coconut-bean soup, a platter of chapati bread and cold drinks. When I smiled thanks at her she winked Peter’s way at me before retreating.
Special ops training and used to dangerous assignments or not, Peter was clearly uncomfortable at having been sent into this combat zone. “My boss wants me to negotiate for it.”
“Her,” I corrected Peter, well understanding the psychological distancing calling her a ‘thing’ afforded. I’d dealt with it enough in my practice in the States. Parents who never wanted the child’s pet in the first place faced with having to shell out college fund money for expensive treatment or emergency surgery. Hoarders who simply tired of an animal who’d outgrown the cute stage. Breeders whose carefully engineered baby had been born too big, too little, the wrong color, imperfect in a way that would reflect poorly on them.
I had only to hear the word it used for the animal to know without a doubt the next words would be ‘no treatment’, ‘no surgery’ or ‘put it down’. It was distressingly easy to make the hard decision for an it. I had done so myself. When Melea’s kudu calf had first been brought in, for instance. Sometimes we needed that emotional distance to do the difficult jobs.
I added a name to break the anonymity shield as well. “I named her Jasiri. It means brave.” A healthier attitude toward the elephant now established, I asked the question that had gnawed at me since Brandon had called. “Why her?”
“He figures he can get a good price on her and the calf together. Especially if she’s as unmanageable as he’s been told.”
“Depends on what he means by unmanageable.” I shrugged.
Fixing his gaze across the dozen uprooted trees strewn across the visible boma like slain soldiers, Peter swept an all-encompassing hand across the expanse. “How do you propose to handle her?”
“How do you…or your boss…propose to? Whips? Chains? Why would you or anyone own an animal as ‘unmanageable’ as her? To put her in a closed pen and pretend she’s wild for some idiot with more money than brains to shoot? To sell her baby to some ill-equipped third-world zoo that will keep it alone and caged until it goes mad?”
“That’s not what will happen—”
“No? Then what will? Look at her and tell me what will.”
“And what purpose is there in keeping a crazed beast that clearly doesn’t care whether it lives or dies?”
“Maybe because I have a heart, something you clearly don’t possess.”
I took a breath and saw uncertainty in Peter’s dark eyes. He was new to this life, to his job. It was possible he didn’t know the real score here. “What did your boss tell you about her?”
“That she’s rogue. The cattlemen were complaining about her tearing down fences and stampeding their herds. For fun. That she was to be culled—until you gave her a reprieve.” His face changed. “Why did you take her?”
“Because two weeks ago she was an elephant with a family—a sister and nephew—what was left after poachers gunned down the rest of her herd a year ago. Because two weeks ago she was part of a loving family looking forward to nothing more than a new baby to welcome to help ease the pain of those they’d lost.”
His face changed
again. “What happened…two weeks ago?”
“They slaughtered the rest of her family.” I faced him, forcing him to see the truth through my eyes. “What would you do, lost, alone, your life ripped away from you? What would you become?”
He went pale and silent, his eyes hooded with grief and secrets so profound I could get lost in them if I stared too deeply. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.
I believed him. I saw the subtleties of the change in his demeanor. Felt the core shift in attitude, a force that couldn’t be faked. “Of course she’s crazed now—with grief. What caring soul wouldn’t be? She needs help. A herd. A home. She needs time. And her baby to focus on and love when it comes. She’s why I came here. To give her kind a chance. To give them hope. So no, WildLot can’t have her. She’s not property to be negotiated away. She’s a heart that needs to be won, a life that needs new purpose.”
As if on cue, Jasiri flared her ears, trumpeting as she charged for reasons known only to her, stopping mere inches from the electrified fence.
Peter took an instinctive step forward. Out of sadistic pleasure, wanting to watch a six-ton animal tear through the fence the same way folk rubber-necked to watch traffic accidents? Or out of concern?
Whichever of his reasons, I smiled. This had been a mock charge. Yesterday, Jasiri, ears pinned back, would’ve been willing to run full tilt into 10,000 volts. Maybe…just maybe…with the impending birth she wasn’t as suicidal as I’d feared.
Trunk trailing the ground, Jasiri paced slowly back to her place in the shade, whatever demons goading her to charge vanished for now. Had she maybe been dreaming? “I wonder what nightmares she wakes to,” I murmured.
Peter stepped in close beside me, the hard bulk of him promising protection and surety no matter what insanities the world pitched my way. Although that thought itself seemed insane enough given the circumstances. His hand, firm yet gentle in its approach, found its way into mine.
“You’re not getting my elephant,” I told him again, although I figured that admonishment was probably no longer necessary.
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 26
