Endangered

by Linda Chaikin

  Ahead, the three other Land Rovers with Kash, Mckib, Mateo, and the dozen Kenya Rifles slowed, the headlights searching for elephant tracks. Sable, however, was praying, looking up at the Southern Cross, which shone brilliantly like a diamond pendant above the black outcropping of mountains. Uncertainty and foreboding tightened her chest.

  Seventeen

  By noon the next day the elephants were upwind of the Land Rovers, and before Sable realized what had happened, her father’s Land Rover was right among them, and then she understood that he had known they would come this way. She heard branches snapping as the elephants came thrashing their way downriver.

  “They’re cut off. The poachers are ahead, waiting,” said her father, dismayed.

  “Can we turn the elephants around?” she cried desperately.

  He shook his head sadly as though he’d given up, then on second thought he came alert. “Maybe—if I could get their attention, I could get the matriarch to swing left, away from Browning’s and Macklin’s hunters.”

  “Father, wait until Kash gets here. He’s coming now—look—”

  Her father was watching the elephants. The lead matriarch caught the scent of danger on the breeze and stopped, her trunk lifting in all directions. In heart-stopping silence she stood, and the elephants behind her stopped, too, bunching up together with the young ones protected behind them. The matriarch kept her impressive mass between the threat and the rest of the herd.

  “Look—” gasped Sable, awed.

  Out from among the green doum palms came a big bull, alone.

  “It’s him,” breathed her father, stricken. “It’s Ahmed. Those tusks—the hunters will go for the prize!”

  Ahmed swung his huge gray bulk up onto the bank and stood solitary, magnificent, his trunk lifted. He realized the matriarch and herd were farther up the river, and he turned and started in the direction of Mount Marsabit, as if to lead the herd to safety, but the poachers had spotted him.

  Sable’s heart constricted as there came the roar of engines. She saw the zoo hunters’ trucks and Macklin’s Land Rover followed by several others with men shouting, banging on door panels, horns blaring, harassing the elephants into confusion. There followed the squeal and trumpeting of elephants—a cry that tore through the morning air.

  “They’ve got them trapped! They’ve got Ahmed!”

  “The Kenya Rifles!” she cried. “Where are they?”

  “They’re coming now!”

  On the flat plain toward the water hole, the poaching crew was moving into place, closing in cautiously, determined, the noise of their engines merging with the frightened trumpeting. Sable sat in her father’s Land Rover, gripping the seat. She saw Kash driving from the other direction with Mckibber, and the other Land Rovers followed with the armed guards, the Kenya Rifles, led by Mateo.

  “Why don’t the poachers leave?” she cried. “Even if they kill the herd, they won’t have time to take the ivory and get away!”

  “You don’t know these men, daughter. They outnumber us—and they’ll turn their guns on us before they quit now.”

  “Lord, please don’t let them kill them all…please do something to protect them…please….” She watched helplessly.

  For a moment her father sat behind the Land Rover wheel just shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe it was happening, his gaze fixed on the riverbed. The gray hulks drifted through the green doum palms, and the herd with the last of the calves of various ages were coming out onto the flat arid plain, not trumpeting, not making any sound, but moving rapidly to escape. And in the lead, as they headed away from the poachers, was a large female with a young calf that looked to be a newborn.

  “They won’t make it,” whispered Sable. “Look—its legs are about to go out from under it.”

  Her father climbed suddenly out of the Land Rover, and Sable, in dismay, recognized the expression on his sweat-stained face. It was a look of pity, of almost irrational determination, and her eyes widened.

  “Father! No! No! Don’t—”

  He was rushing toward the lake to try to turn the elephants back….

  “Father!” Sable threw open the door and stumbled out, coming to her feet. She screamed for Kash, then ran after her father, but he was already far ahead with his rifle, like an offering, running to his own massacre. He was shouting, but there was so much noise now from the approaching trucks that she couldn’t hear his words. The hunters were driving toward the doum palms and giant euphorbia, where they could come down the embankment onto the arid flat.

  Kash and Mckib had seen them, and turning the wheel, Kash accelerated in the direction of Skyler, but he was still running as the matriarch sighted him.

  Sable scrambled into the Land Rover and started the engine, driving forward over the rocks and ruts, also trying to reach him.

  The elephant was standing, uncertain, her great gray head moving from side to side, one big foot scuffing the ground as she lifted her trunk out toward the Land Rover. The frightened calf moved ahead of her, and she laid her trunk across its small shoulders, edging it into safety behind her as she faced the poachers. The remainder of the herd was bunched up behind her, the older adults making a solid wall of protection with the younger calves behind, all of them alert and roused for the final stand.

  As Sable neared, Kash intercepted, the truck’s wheels throwing dust and gravel as he accelerated to head her off. Sable saw the truck and quickly swerved, driving off into the bush and slamming the brake in her emotional frenzy. “Father!” she kept shouting.

  Skyler stood some fifty yards from the elephants and lifted his rifle to shoot into the air, hoping to turn them back.

  But as Browning’s and Macklin’s two trucks came round the end of the doum palms, there followed an eruption of gunfire from the Kenya Rifles, blowing out the poachers’ front tires. Those loyal to Kash, riding with Browning, turned their rifles on the hunters.

  In that same moment, as Sable swung around in the seat to look behind her, the great bull Ahmed appeared from the trees. The matriarch saw him and trumpeted. And then something happened that held Sable spellbound. As Ahmed flapped his great ears and curled his trunk, the matriarch charged, not trumpeting, not making any noise, but thundering the dusty plain at great speed, the reddish dust flying from beneath her. And behind her, joining in the final stand, came all the herd except Ahmed. Their trunks were curled underneath their great tusks—their heads held high for the thrust.

  “Oh, God—” Sable choked in prayer, watching her father flung aside. Rifle shots split the air, but a cloud of dust from the trucks descended, blurring the vision of the hunters, and now they became the objects of death.

  One elephant was struck, another slumped to the earth, but the matriarch kept coming.

  Then it was Ahmed! And he was in the lead now, the ground rumbling beneath his feet as though an earthquake were tearing open the ground beneath him. They charged straight for Browning’s trucks.

  The elephants were now among the poachers, and confusion reigned, with rifle shots ringing out and Browning trying to back out his truck with two shot-out tires. The hunters were shooting and elephants were falling, but the herd came on with Ahmed in the lead, a gray tidal wave that engulfed all in its rage. The matriarch’s flailing trunk came smashing down on Browning. Tusks drove into Macklin’s Land Rover, sending it rolling over on its side, roof, and finally settling on the other side, with the wheels still spinning and throwing gravel. The hunters were running. Vince emerged from the passenger side of Browning’s truck and, stumbling, crawled into a thornbush.

  The cows stood their ground, thrusting their tusks into metal objects they deemed the source of their misery, trumpeting their frustration, their fury, then roaring and screaming as more bullets were fired into their hides. Macklin’s Land Rover was met by Ahmed. The entire vehicle was lifted and flung into the air like a toy. When it crashed to the earth, Ahmed kneeled on it, reducing it to less than half its height. Then the bull rose, to
ssing his mammoth tusks toward the sky and scuffing the ground with his foot.

  Sable had sunk to the grass, staring—dazed, pale, and in shock.

  The elephants were moving on swiftly for the water, and she saw Ahmed disappear into the dark doum palms as the matriarch was gathering her last calf close, her trunk moving over it from head to tail again and again as if to check whether it was hurt. Then apparently satisfied, she edged it off toward the flowing river, where the rest of the elephants were moving down the stream to safety.

  The dust had settled, and the Kenyan sun cast a crimson stain on a cloud in the high sky while the earth lay blood-drenched beneath. A wounded elephant opened its mouth in pain, trying to rise from where it had fallen, near the place where Skyler had chosen to make his final stand.

  Exhausted and weak, Sable managed to push herself up from the grass, and in a daze, she walked toward the devastation.

  Her father lay in a fallen heap, crushed into the ground.

  As she slowly drew nearer, Kash moved to steer her away. “No, darling….”

  He grasped her in his arms, and she buried her face in the safety of his embrace. She clung to him, heartbroken, too devastated even for tears.

  Mckibber came limping toward them, his hard-lined face telling all, his hands clenched about his rifle as his eyes searched for Skyler. He walked over to his body, stooping into the hot, churned dust while the flies found their prey. “There’s lots of things that matter, that’s worth dyin’ for” was all he said, laying a trembling hand on the bloodied shoulder.

  Mateo murmured to Kash, “Both dead, Browning and Macklin, and most of the crew. We’ve arrested the others.”

  Dr. Vince Adler limped out from behind the bush he had sought for cover and headed toward his Land Rover, still on its side in the dust with the front tire shot out. He leaned there, covered with dust and dripping sweat, a hunted look on his face.

  Sable stepped away from Kash and slowly walked toward him. His cheek twitched as he unwillingly met her stare. She remained still in the glaring sunlight, the insects droning, her eyes holding his.

  Vince’s gaze fell away and he turned his head.

  A ripple of dust arose from Kash’s boots as he came up beside Sable, his eyes narrowing into heated cobalt, his body looking ready to pounce. But then the tension visibly eased in his muscled body, wet with perspiration.

  “Adler, you’re under arrest to be handed over to the Kenyan authorities,” he breathed.

  Vince swallowed and closed his eyes, nodding that he understood.

  “You’re answering for more than what happened today,” continued Kash, his voice dangerously quiet. “There’s the death of my brother. There’s also the Dunsmoor shipping you used to haul ivory to your Far Eastern contacts.” He paused. “Take a good look around you. I want you to remember it in detail…for the rest of your life. Decide if it was worth it—for your grand humanistic dream out at Lake Rudolf. Because you’re going to live with this memory for a long, long time.”

  Vince made no reply, his head bent as he crumpled to the ground against the overturned Land Rover, both man and machine a testament to the strength of the matriarch.

  Kash took Sable’s hand and together they walked away.

  ****

  The setting sun splashed the vast African sky with ruby fierceness. After darkness settled and the jewels flickered above, a hot wind rippled through the acacia trees. Somewhere a lone lion roared, its rumble sweeping across the vast dried savanna grassland; somewhere a bull elephant stood alone, its ears fanned back and white tusks gleaming; somewhere a matriarch gave comfort, her trunk calming her trembling calf, and hope lived on for another day. Out of the African night, it seemed that the warrior song of the Maasai echoed, dancing on the wind, and all merged into one haunting theme. The song rose higher and higher until it became a plaintive prayer that sighed and moaned for eternal deliverance to break like a joyous flood upon the sin-cursed earth. Then, one day, the Prince of Peace will rule…and the lion and lamb will lie down together, and none shall make them afraid.

  Kash stood with Sable beside the Land Rover, two dark silhouettes against the pale yellow moon, the wind caressing them. A promised future of their own waited, and they held to each other tightly, two hearts beating as one.

  LINDA CHAIKIN is the award-winning author of numerous bestselling books. Her epic stories and endearing characters have captured a loyal readership.

  Books by Linda Chaikin

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  Endangered

  Heart of India Series

  Silk

  Under Eastern Stars

  Kingscote

  The Great Northwest Series

  Empire Builders

  Winds of Allegiance

  Royal Pavilion Series

  Swords and Scimitars

  Golden Palaces