The Mourning Parade

by Dawn Reno Langley

  Life is about change, she told herself. Endings are beginnings. Life is a series of cycles: birth, death, rebirth, and so on.

  “Dr. Natalie! Dr. Natalie!”

  Natalie heard the distant call and wanted to ignore it.

  “Dr. Natalie! We must needs you!”

  “Who’s there?”

  “I am Khalan. Hurry, Dr. Natalie. We must needs you!”

  She moved from beneath Sophie. “What’s going on?”

  Coming down the road, she heard Andrew’s voice and realized the light was coming from his truck’s headlights. Khalan grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the truck, then unceremoniously shoved her inside. Andrew threw the truck into reverse and the tires spat dust as they wheeled around, then switched into a forward motion. She waited a couple of moments, then asked again.

  “What’s going on?”

  Andrew glanced at her. “Got a call from one of the elephant handlers we work with in the village. Some people call him Sammy. Remember him?”

  She nodded. She’d treated his elephant, an ancient matriarch that Sammy and his family treasured like a family pet. Sammy, short and bow-legged, laughed about everything. She liked him and appreciated how he took such good care of his ellie, Pira.

  Andrew continued. “Pira started getting upset tonight, so Sammy followed her to the edge of the forest on his plantation. He says she led him to three females and a male. All dead. The male’s tusks were gone. Sawed off.” He spoke too evenly. Calmly. Andrew spouted off regularly, his temper tantrums legendary throughout the area, but what most people didn’t realize was that it was his silence you needed to fear. When he seemed calm, he was actually at his most dangerous.

  At that moment her foot hit something cold and steely. She leaned down to move it and traced it with her fingers in the dark. The long, cold barrel of a rifle. She shivered.

  Poaching elephants happened regularly, but she hadn’t expected to be thrust into the middle of it. Part of her wanted off this truck right now, as strongly as another part of her wanted to hold the “Save the Elephants” banner high overhead and follow Andrew into battle. That mix of fear and anger and disgust and uncertainty silenced her. She fixed her eyes on the dark road in front of them and felt her blood pulsing in the base of her throat, a slight tremor in her hands.

  She didn’t know how long they’d been driving when someone pounded twice on the hood of the cab. Andrew slowed down, then took a left down a dirt road that wove through a messy tangle of downed branches and ropes that looked like ivy. A voice that sounded like Khalan’s told Andrew to cut the lights and the engine.

  Suddenly Natalie couldn’t see the trees or the dashboard or Andrew’s profile or her hand in front of her face. She heard him breathing and the stifled cough of someone on the truck bed behind them. They sat there in silence for about fifteen minutes until a thin ray of light broke the darkness to her right.

  A flashlight.

  Khalan jumped off the truck and into the light, greeting what sounded like a group of men. More flashlights sent cones of light into the dark. The jungle came alive with faces. Men, all wearing baseball caps and bandanas over their mouths, came to the driver’s side of the truck and spoke to Andrew. He seemed to know several of them and clasped their hands as they spoke with him urgently in Thai.

  Then the truck started moving again, slowly following the streams of light as the men led them through the undergrowth and into a clearing. The faint reddening of the night sky and the horizon in the distance told Natalie it was almost dawn. They’d been out all night.

  Almost time to have morning tea with Mali on the platform, Natalie thought, and the routine brought a pleasant warmth to her chest.

  Andrew stopped the truck when all the lights converged in front of several greyish-black rocks. As Natalie got out her side, she was instantly struck by a smell that reminded her of low tide on a brutally hot day on the Outer Banks. The closer she came to the rocks, the more it became clear they were not rocks at all. The “rocks” were elephants. Brutally beaten elephants. Elephants sliced raggedly as if someone had taken a chainsaw to their limbs. A year ago—even a month ago—the scene would have made Natalie throw up, but now it roused a hot stream of anger in her belly. She stepped in something sticky and slipped, putting her hand to the ground to stop her fall. The blood had spilled and made small ponds around them. Her stomach flipped and brought its contents into her mouth. She blinked rapidly. Get it together, girl. Get it together.

  The patriarch lay in the middle, two bloody holes where there were once a massive set of tusks.

  Natalie paused, wanting to scream, but she told herself to control the anger. She fought with her emotions as she stood with the others in stunned silence. Flashlights shot unforgiving spotlights on the bodies.

  Then instinct kicked in. She ran from one elephant to another, head to each chest, listening (hoping) for a heartbeat, her fingers searching the back side of each elephant’s ear flap for a pulse, her cheek to each mouth sensing for breath and sniffing for signs of life. One large male and two grown females, one with still-full teats meant for nursing. Natalie palpated the uterine area.

  “There must be a young calf somewhere. She gave birth not too long ago. A week. Maybe two,” she told Andrew. “Can you check to see if the baby’s under one of these elephants? It’s either here . . . or it got away with the rest of the herd. God, I hope it’s close by.”

  “I don’t know if there is more to this herd.” Andrew moved around, shining his flashlight on the ground. “We don’t see any other large footprints. All I can see are smaller ones. That baby has to be hiding. Probably petrified. Looks like it circled these larger ones over and over. Something must have scared the humans away or they would have taken the calf with them. They’re worth some serious money on the open market.”

  He swung the flashlight around erratically. “Listen up, everyone! We need to find that calf and get it onto the truck so we can bring it back to the sanctuary before it dies out here. It’s probably spooked, so if you do find it, please call me and give me your location. Whatever you do, don’t scare it. Remember not to stare or to reach out for it. Let’s take it slow and easy. Got it?”

  Everyone answered, then fanned out. Their flashlight beams disappeared into the dense grasses and brush.

  Natalie followed Andrew, trying to walk as soundlessly as possible, but with every step, she crunched. Finally, she stopped and listened. The guys had gone off to the left, Andrew to the right, so she backtracked to the elephant carcasses, her heart breaking. She stood there and held her breath. In front of where she stood, she heard leaves move, twigs break, and the faint hush-hush-hush of something breathing. Then a cry. Quiet and scared, but a cry. She froze, wondering why she’d been left without a flashlight. In the total darkness she sensed rather than saw an animal. Something half her size.

  God, a wild boar. Shit. They’re drawn by the smell of blood.

  Again, she heard the cry, then realized the sound was closer and as she peered through the darkness, she saw a moving shadow and instinctively knew that it was the baby. The poor thing stood beside what she imagined was its mother. Crying.

  Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Natalie moved in the direction of the calf. She reached out her hand, searching blindly for the orphaned elephant, unsure how big it would be. With only a cursory exam of the mother, Natalie couldn’t be quite sure. Her heart beat hard. She held her breath. Again.

  Then a warm wetness met her fingers. The tip of a baby elephant’s trunk. It trembled. Natalie’s eyes watered and she stood still, let the baby come to her. The trunk explored her arm. A squeak escaped, and the trunk disappeared. Natalie exhaled and said, “It’s okay.” She knew the elephant didn’t understand, but she hoped the softness of her tone and her smell would reassure the baby. Another squeak.

  Natalie called out softly, “I found it.”

  Reli
eved voices answered from all directions. The flashlights started coming closer. Natalie reached out in the direction of where she last heard the baby’s cry. It seemed like it was calling for reassurance. A hand brushed against the baby’s hide and in the ever-lightening shadows, she saw its silhouette and stood, then pressed her hip against the calf. The baby leaned against her with a deep exhale. Natalie leaned back and wrapped her arm around the little one’s neck. It shivered.

  “Andrew, walk very slowly,” Natalie said, keeping her tone conversational, concerned about spooking the calf. She anchored herself, letting the calf explore her with its mouth. If she had known where they were going or what to expect, she would have brought some cream or milk or something liquid, but how could she know? “I have the baby. If you can come over to the side, we can put the baby between us. Slowly, though. This little one’s scared out of its mind.”

  Andrew whispered to the other guys to go slow. Their flashlights dimmed and the circle became smaller as they all drew back to the place where Natalie stood. Within another couple of seconds, the men surrounded her and their flashlights shone on the calf in the middle of the human circle. She was small, barely a couple of weeks old, and her eyes were rimmed with fear.

  Khalan came up behind Natalie and whispered in her ear, “Baby lost mama. Baby not live long.”

  “You’re wrong,” she returned. “You’re wrong.” But she knew his experience proved otherwise. One of the greatest challenges to any elephant camp was keeping orphaned babies alive. Often they died for no apparent reason. Feeding them the correct formula of mother’s milk and providing a social environment as soon as possible was paramount. She wouldn’t lose this calf. She couldn’t.

  Andrew and the two other locals joined Khalan and Natalie. The five of them encircled the baby, someone found a blanket and threw it over the shivering infant’s back, and they all worked together to get the baby on the back of the truck. Natalie pulled out a hypodermic filled with a tranquilizer and shot some of it into the baby’s hip, whispering, “God, I’m going by my guts here. I’m not even sure how much I’ve given this little guy. Hope it’s not too much.”

  All the way home, she cradled the baby’s head in her lap, listening for her breath and praying to whatever god would listen to her to keep this infant alive.

  When they arrived at the sanctuary, the sky, striped with low-hanging pink and orange clouds, felt optimistic.

  Forty-One

  Any wild elephant group is, in essence, one large and highly sensitive organism. Young elephants are raised within a matriarchal family of doting female caregivers, beginning with the birth mother and then branching out to include sisters, cousins, aunts, grandmothers, and established friends. These bonds endure over a life span that can be as long as 70 years. Young elephants stay close to their mothers and extended family members—males until they are about 14, females for life. When a calf is threatened or harmed, all the other elephants comfort and protect it.

  -Charles Siebert

  By the time they arrived back at the sanctuary, morning had broken and the place buzzed with people at work. Since Andrew had called Mali and told her to ask the other mahouts to prepare a space for the calf, Seth and Mali ran down the platform stairs to meet the truck. Natalie felt her stomach rumble as the mahouts loaded the baby onto a big, blue tarpaulin and carried her carefully down the road. Her own hunger reminded her that the baby would be hungry and disoriented when she awoke from the sedative. Determined to be by its side when the calf came to, Natalie stayed close.

  Mali had thought ahead and prepared some food for everyone. She passed around some bowls of larb gai, a spicy salad eaten with one’s fingers, while Natalie questioned Khalan—with Andrew and Mali’s help—about what the calf would eat and how they could best introduce her to her new home.

  “We could very easily lose this little one, you are aware of that, aren’t you?” Andrew folded a piece of lettuce in half, spooned some larb gai into it, rolled it between his fingers and practically inhaled it. They only had about ten more minutes before the calf woke up.

  Natalie nodded.

  For the first time, she missed Peter Hatcher’s knowledge. She’d heard him speak fondly—and proudly—of several foundling calves he’d helped raise successfully. He would have known what to do. But . . . he was gone because of what he did to Seth and to her, and she hated him. How immature that sounds, she thought, but it’s honest. Still, if he’d been here, he could have helped. Andrew had some practical experience, but he lacked the veterinary knowledge.

  Twisting his Yankees baseball cap on his head, Khalan told them in fits and starts about the calves he’d fed and cared for during his career. He knew how to train them and how to care for various ailments, even how to introduce new calves to adult elephants, yet he’d never actually prepared food for a newborn nor had he cared for an orphan. Even without understanding most of his words, Natalie could tell by the way he pursed his lips and looked to the sky before answering that he was unsure of his own knowledge. Though he was normally a self-assured mahout, Khalan was still a teenager looking for approval and sometimes he’d make up stories to gain attention. She hoped this conversation wasn’t one of them.

  “What about the other mahouts?” Andrew asked Khalan. “Chanchai? Jabari?”

  Khalan put a dirty finger to his temple and thought about the question. “Chanchai maybe know.”

  They finished their breakfast as they walked toward the shed where the calf had been moved. Andrew asked one of the children to find Chanchai. Three of them, along with several dogs, ran off to do the errand, treating the task as if it were one great adventure. A trail of giggles followed them, floating on the air and echoing as they disappeared into the trees.

  “If Rob and Sidecar were around, at least we’d have some valuable extra hands,” Seth said.

  She’d be willing to bet that was not what Seth was thinking. He wanted their cameras and sound equipment. Seth’s first thought would be to record the event, to get the story of the dramatic rescue. He was the consummate journalist, and this was a good story. But he’d have to record this one using old school tools: pen and paper.

  “Babies in peril always make great stories.” Her voice sounded louder than she’d meant it to be. She avoided Seth’s glance, thankful they had arrived at the shed, and that she wouldn’t need to clarify her remark.

  The calf now stood on her feet, her eyes wide, trunk swinging from side to side like an out-of-control snake. Natalie moved into the enclosure leaving everyone else at the door. The shed was a tin box barely three-feet wide by six-feet long. Not meant for animals. It had been used to store gardening equipment, which now lay nearby on the ground. The rakes and hoes and shovels had been quickly tossed outside so the baby could be contained. The interior steamed with the morning’s heat. It wouldn’t do to leave the little one in here for long.

  “Hey, sweetie. Shhh . . . shhh . . . I know you’re scared, but I have to look you over, then we’ll get you fed.” As she talked, Natalie visually checked the tiny pachyderm and then gently traced over the baby’s body, checking for any injuries. “Looks like you’re in pretty good shape other than being awfully scared. Can’t say that I blame you . . .”

  The calf trumpeted loudly in Natalie’s ear and tried to head butt her, but there wasn’t enough room in the shed to move around. Natalie placed her open palm at the end of the baby’s trunk and called for some soft bananas.

  “Mush them up really good,” she said, “and see if Chanchai’s coming! We need to make a bottle of some kind. She has to nurse. We have to get something into her soon.”

  “I’ll go up to the kitchen,” Seth said. He’d been filming her with his cell phone, but pocketed it as he sprinted away.

  Chanchai’s face replaced Seth’s. His wild eyes looked to the right, though he spoke directly to Natalie. He ordered her to do something in his gravelly voice, though she had no idea
what he said since he only spoke Thai. But whatever he said must be important because he kept repeating it.

  “Will someone please tell me what the hell he’s saying?”

  “He says ‘no bananas.’” Mali stood behind Chanchai like a ventriloquist would stand behind her puppet, her hand on his shoulder. “Make a bottle with baby’s formula and honey and calcium pills. No cow’s milk, he says. Definitely no cow’s milk. And I have no idea if we have any baby formula either. I’m going to have to see if there are any leftover cans in the back of the kitchen shelves . . .”

  “Are you sure? I read somewhere that the mixture should be goat’s milk and something else.”

  Mali translated, and during that short pause, the calf reached its pink-tipped trunk for Natalie’s face. Natalie turned and looked the little elephant straight in the eye. Her innocent gaze reached for Natalie’s heart and squeezed it. That single look pleaded on a more elemental level than any animal’s she’d ever met. Of all the dogs and horses and cats and cows she’d medicated and operated on, the lives she’d saved and the ones she’d put down, this one reached into her soul and made her see its pain.

  Mama, save her, Danny’s voice whispered in her ear.

  She gasped.

  Danny. Her eyes darted into every corner. She searched the faces peering in the doorway, but her son wasn’t there. Her shoulders folded forward, and she went to one knee, her forehead falling against the calf’s flank. She fought for breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “He says he’ll mix a formula for the baby and bring it to you. I have bottles we can use, and Seth is going to the clinic to get some rubber gloves,” Mali said. Her voice reminded Natalie of the present, and she raised her eyes, faced the task at hand.