White Gold

by Caitlin O'Connell

  “I can imagine. Especially if they go off to graze on their own.”

  “We don’t let them wander too far. If they met up with wild herds, they could either try to steal Dim Sum or our elephants could choose to go off with them and never come back. But that hasn’t happened yet.”

  We cautiously approached Dim Sum again, and Ling-Ru picked up another banana leaf from the truck. “May I?” she asked Jet.

  Jet waved his hand, signaling her to proceed as Ling-Ru fed it to Dim Sum from a good distance as Lily ate alfalfa cubes and kept a watchful eye on us. “Elephants really kidnap other calves?”

  “Sometimes they’ll have a few bad years and no births,” Jet explained. “A dominant female could get greedy. Even Lily here is a little paranoid and doesn’t like to share. And boy, does a dominant female exhort her will on the others.” He shook his head as he looked at Lily. “It’s Lily’s way or the highway, as my boss would say. Lu Lu here is a prime example.” Jet called her over. “Lu Lu!”

  A shorter female elephant with a pink trunk peppered with large dark gray polka dots walked over to us. She had pink-rimmed ears and the underside of her trunk was also pink.

  Jet slapped her flank. “Lu Lu here is twenty-three years old. She has good days and bad days, and on the bad ones, she can be extremely dangerous. If my boss knew that I didn’t make her perform on those days, he’d probably fire me. And Lily thinks I’m playing favorites when I do that, so it’s not good all around. Elephants aren’t allowed to have bad days in the entertainment business. But I can’t bring myself to force poor Lu Lu to work when she doesn’t want to.”

  “For the nonexperts among us, how does Lily exhort her will on the others exactly?” Ling-Ru asked.

  “In the beginning, Dim Sum was a bit of a momma’s boy and didn’t leave her side,” Jet explained. “Male calves are usually more adventurous and take more risks than the female calves. But then we realized that it was partly Lily’s fault for being so protective. Over time, it seemed like he accepted it and took comfort in her protection. There was only one elephant that he seemed interested in other than his mom, and that was Lu Lu.

  “Since Lu Lu was the lowest ranking of the six adult females, Lily didn’t like Dim Sum to spend time with her. Every time he would approach her to play with her, Lily would chase Lu Lu away. And just in case there were any misunderstandings, Lily started stealing Lu Lu’s food.”

  I looked at Lu Lu, who was standing on her own, eating a pile of forage under the watchful eye of one of the keepers. “That’s terrible!”

  Jet nodded. “Lily never treated Lu Lu very well to begin with, but this additional salt in the wound seemed cruel. But that’s Mother Nature, isn’t it? For one to be on top, the bottom must live in fear. Although I’ve met a few matriarchs where the kowtowing from lower ranks seemed to be inspired by reverence and not fear.” He laughed. “Mao must have been a paranoid elephant matriarch in his former life.”

  Ling-Ru whispered, “Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe Mao lives on in Lily.”

  Jet shifted his body away from Ling-Ru. “It will be harder now for me to love Lily with that thought in my head.”

  I laughed. “Elephants and humans are similar in more ways than we’d like to think.”

  “It gets even more complicated,” Jet explained. “Lu Lu had a calf that was born the same time as Dim Sum, but the owner sold her to an entertainment company because he needed the money.”

  “Oh no, how sad!” I looked at Lu Lu with sympathetic eyes.

  “Indeed it was. Her name was Little Gracie, after our first matriarch, Grace.”

  “What was Grace like?” I was hoping to hear that she had a better relationship with Lu Lu than what Lu Lu had with Lily.

  “Grace was a beauty. The finest diplomat I had ever seen in the elephant world. But she had one flaw.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “She loved Lu Lu best.”

  “Is that why…?”

  “She didn’t treat the others poorly, it was just clear that she had a favorite.” Jet pointed to scarring on the insides of Lu Lu’s front and back legs and chain scars around her feet. “I think she could sense Lu Lu’s bad past and wanted to give her a better life.”

  I touched the scars on her chest. “What happened?”

  “Her former owner used to beat her.”

  “Who was that?”

  “One of the traffickers. I used to work for a group run by the Sun Hee Un. But I quit after they partnered with a British smuggler. I never liked him. He encouraged the beatings.”

  “Was that Nigel Lofty?” I asked.

  “Yes, in fact, the day I went to go pick up Lu Lu, I saw him beating her so badly, I wanted to take the bull hook to him.”

  “Why did he beat her?”

  “She was having a bad day. They tried to beat it out of her, but it only made it worse. That’s why they sold her to us.”

  “Lucky for her.”

  “Grace immediately took her under her wing. She granted Lu Lu special favors like allowing her to share her food and letting her cut in front of her on a walk, things like that. Things that she’d never let the others get away with—especially Lily.”

  “What was Lily’s rank at that time?”

  “She was second. And she beat on all the others so they wouldn’t forget where she stood in the hierarchy. And when Grace wasn’t looking, she’d give Lu Lu an extra slap for good measure.”

  Ling-Ru was astonished. “They really are more human than I realized.”

  Jet laughed. “Yes, you should have seen it. After Lily would give Lu Lu a trunk slap, Lu Lu would go screaming off to find Grace, and Grace would then come charging over and shove Lily. It was remarkable. But when Grace passed, Lily took over with a vengeance. She made life a living hell for poor Lu Lu, especially around mealtime. It got so bad, Lu Lu was hiding food on top of her back so Lily couldn’t steal it. We had to intervene.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We set out all the food piles for each elephant. We put Lu Lu’s pile the farthest away from Lily in a straight line of sight. Then, in between, we sprinkled bananas along a path and left a good gap in the middle. They had to walk along the path in order to collect all the bananas and then they ended up on opposite sides of the gap. In that way, we forced them to be near each other, but Lily wasn’t able to reach Lu Lu or steal her food.”

  “That’s very clever.” I admired the lengths Jet was willing to go to facilitate harmony in camp.

  “It worked for a while until they both got pregnant. Then, just at around twenty months, I could swear that Lily was trying to make Lu Lu lose her calf. When that didn’t work and the babies were born, she wouldn’t let Little Gracie anywhere near Dim Sum, despite the two of them wanting so desperately to play together.”

  Ling-Ru gasped. “How cruel.” She was now just as engrossed in the elephant soap opera as I was.

  “Every once in a while, we’d trick Lily with sweet rice cakes and get her away from the rest of the group just long enough for the little ones to play. All the trainers would gather around and watch. It was a special treat to see the two of them carrying on. But Lily would catch on pretty quickly and run back over and break up the playdate.

  “Anyway, I tried to convince the boss to sell Dim Sum instead of Little Gracie, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Since Lily was dominant, he thought she might kill Lu Lu’s calf if hers was taken. He may have been right.”

  “Good point,” I conceded, still horrified that either elephant would have to lose her calf.

  “Poor Lu Lu,” Ling-Ru added.

  “Lu Lu’s never been the same since. She went into a funk after searching for Little Gracie for months. She hardly ate or drank. She carried around a little red ball that Gracie used to love to play with. She wouldn’t let anyone take it away or try to exchange it for food. I thought she’d starve herself to death. But one day, she came out of it. Just like that. She dropped the ball
and let the trainers take it away.”

  “What do you think triggered the change?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. But I knew she still wasn’t okay. Her eyes never smiled again. And now we can’t trust her. She’s become more unpredictable than ever. She has attacked three and almost killed one of the trainers, so we have to be careful with her.”

  “What a terrible thing for poor Lu Lu.”

  “I did what I could, but the boss is the boss. I even offered to resign to save money so Lu Lu could keep Little Gracie, but he wouldn’t hear of it. And then I realized that if I left, she’d lose both of us. I made sure I wasn’t around when she was taken. I made an excuse that I had to go back to Thailand to see a sick relative. I cried with Lu Lu when I got back. I think she understood that I wasn’t involved. I hope she did.”

  Ling-Ru looked at the surrounding lush green forest. “It looks like there’s so much to eat here. I’m surprised the wild elephants would have a bad year and not have a calf.”

  “It can look like that. But the wild herd is getting smaller. I think it’s because of the rubber plantations. Southern Yunnan is the only place in China with tropical rain forests, but it’s also where rubber grows best. The price of rubber is going up, and rubber trees are taking over the elephant habitats.”

  “Is it true that elephants prefer secondary-growth forest?”

  “Indeed, but those, too, are being taken over. And what little forest is left is getting fragmented, making it dangerous to get from one patch of forest to another, having to cross through farms and growing villages. I don’t think elephants are getting enough to eat.”

  “Why is it dangerous?” Ling-Ru asked.

  “Because there are more people in these areas—and more crops. When elephants have to leave the forest and cross paths with humans, it doesn’t end well.” Jet gave Lily’s flank a healthy slap. “But they can’t find sweet rice cakes in the wild, can they? I think that’s why they come home every night, right, Lily?”

  Jet looked at me gravely. “You may have witnessed the slaughter of elephants for ivory, but I witness the vanishing forests, a silent killer of elephants before they are even born. I have seen the families with no babies where there should be. Even come upon miscarriages sometimes. So much stress and just not enough nutrition. It makes our elephants very upset when we come across a miscarriage.” He shook his head. “The wild elephant is not long for this world.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t let myself believe that.”

  Jet realized he was getting too morose and bounced back. “Come”—he waved us toward the small building—“let’s have some tea. I’m sure you didn’t come here to hear my sad stories.”

  We entered the building and sat down in a little kitchenette as Jet went about making a pot of tea.

  I looked at some pictures on the wall of elephant-back safaris through mountainous terrain. “Tell me about your elephant-back trips to Myanmar.”

  “It’s tough terrain, but we’ve done it.” Jet sat down. “It’s tedious to watch for signs of land mines. That’s what makes it so dangerous at night, even in full moon. There’s usually too much of a canopy to help see subtle shadows on the ground.”

  “Are you aware of when these transports are going to happen ahead of time?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been involved for months. And hope never to have to do one again.”

  “When the others go, do you hear about it?”

  “I try not to be involved.”

  “Would you be willing to tell us about when and where a transport might happen?”

  “I would like the government to put a stop to the illegal trafficking, but I haven’t had the right contacts.”

  “We would appreciate if you could let us know when you hear something.”

  “I will do that.”

  “Another thing I’ve been meaning to ask. Ling-Ru told me about the Tai Lu language and how there are small groups of people that speak this language in Yunnan and in Thailand. Are you familiar with this language?”

  “Somewhat, yes.”

  I pulled out my photo of the script written on one of the fish meal crates that we found on the tugboat and showed it to Jet. “Do you know what this script says?”

  Jet studied the script for some time. “Where did you get this?”

  “Is it Tai Lu?”

  “Yes. But there is a reference to a place, and I’m not sure how to interpret it.”

  “It came from the contents of a boat that originated in Vietnam. We wanted to see if this script refers to a destination for the shipment, or even the origin.”

  “What was in the shipment?”

  I looked at Ling-Ru, uncertain of whether to reveal that ivory had been hidden in the shipment. “It was crates of fish meal.”

  “Fish meal?” Jet looked confused.

  “What does it say?”

  “I believe this stamp refers to ivory, and specifically to the art of carving ivory—as if it were destined for an ivory carving factory.” He looked up at me. “Where did you find the boat?”

  “It broke down somewhere along the way and ended up on Lantau Island in Hong Kong.”

  “Da Xin,” Jet whispered.

  Ling-Ru’s ears perked up. “What did you say?”

  “The Da Xin Ivory Carving Factory in Guangzhou,” Jet explained. “The boat was probably heading for the Pearl River before it broke down.”

  Ling-Ru turned to me. “That’s the factory where Li’s father used to work.”

  “Looks like we need to pay Da Xin a visit.” I took my phone back and sent a text to Craig about Da Xin.

  Elephant Tree House

  Zhang pulled up in his jeep and we said our goodbyes to Jet, Lu Lu, Dim Sum, Lily, and the others and headed into the heart of the park. Since it was early enough in the day, Ling-Ru and I were hoping to be able to walk to the tree house and stay the night before heading back to Hong Kong the following morning.

  “Why don’t I drive you in the jeep?” Zhang suggested.

  I shook my head. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I thought about it on the way over here,” Zhang explained. “About how we have only a few hundred wild elephants left in the park, and they are dangerous. The walkways are narrow and the jungle is dense. A tourist was killed on that path two days ago, a man from England. An elephant cow came out of nowhere and attacked him. She gored him to death. His wife was standing nearby, helpless, watching it happen.” He looked at me through his rearview mirror. “You must be careful staying in that tree house overnight.”

  I nodded as we drove through the dripping forest for a tense hour before we reached the tree house. It was perched in a large strangler fig above a rapidly flowing stream, just as I saw it in Zhang’s office when we met.

  Zhang led us up a set of rickety stairs and into the tiny space that had just enough room for two thin beds with woven reed mats as bedding. The flooring was flimsy—linoleum covering rotting plywood that had fallen through in places.

  We carefully dodged the holes and situated ourselves on our respective beds, afraid to move around. There was a narrow unscreened porch overlooking the stream below and the hum of mosquitoes was louder than the noise of the stream. I was glad that I brought a can of mosquito repellent, a sarong to cover myself with, some energy bars, a bottle of water, a flashlight, and a book.

  It was tough to settle in for the night. I wasn’t tired enough yet to fall asleep, and it was frustrating to no end that Ling-Ru was out and snoring within five minutes.

  I, on the other hand, covered myself with OFF!, ate an energy bar through bitter-tasting fingers, tried reading for a while, and then tossed and turned, hoping that sleep would take hold.

  I thought for a long time about what it would be like to fly the Myanmar mountain pass and finally dozed off while going through a flight checklist, as if I were about to take off to fly the mountains instead of going by elephant back. I kept repeating and repeating every step and then lost track
and kept repeating the same item on the safety checklist until I fell asleep.

  Sometime later in the night, I was shocked awake by a loud noise underneath us. It sounded like the stream had suddenly turned into a raging river with the noise of the roar reverberating in my head, but it hadn’t rained enough recently to produce such a flow. Something had happened. I listened more carefully and heard a sharp bellow.

  “Elephants!” I whispered to Ling-Ru, who had been solidly snoring away, oblivious to the wild pachyderms visiting the stream below us.

  I shook her shoulder. “Ling-Ru, elephants!”

  Ling-Ru turned over.

  An elephant screamed and Ling-Ru shot up and looked at me with panic in her eyes, trying to understand the noise that had just woken her up.

  “There are elephants in the stream down there.”

  Ling-Ru leaned forward in her bed and opened a tattered curtain. “Really?”

  We peered down from the tree house and couldn’t see anything. It was pitch dark but for an occasional dark shadow moving on one side of the river or the other. The elephants were churning up the water, and the sound was louder than I would have imagined it could be.

  We both laughed in disbelief.

  I dug around my things to find my night vision and switched it on. Suddenly the forest came alive with elephants below us. They moved in and out of the water and up and down the stream. It was several small family groups. We watched as they splashed and romped and behaved like wild elephants should behave, roaring and bellowing to announce that at least this little bit of forest was still theirs—for now.

  We watched them for a long while until they moved off back into the forest. Then Ling-Ru and I settled in for a more restful sleep until we awoke at dawn.

  We packed up our things and waited for Zhang as we listened to the dawn chorus. Zhang was going to meet us at seven o’clock to take us to the bus depot. When he hadn’t shown by seven thirty, we started to get nervous. We’d miss our bus if it got much later.