“Drop it! Turn! Do as I say! Quick!”
Run-Run gave the white elephant a couple of kicks under the ears. He was aware that the road was bringing the prince closer by the moment.
“Listen! Sahib! If you love me, you will turn sharply. You will stand beside Walking Mountain. Please, closer than a shadow!”
Now Sahib lifted his head as if to peer at the noisy mahout on his neck. Then he gave a heavy blow through his trunk and moved. He turned. He rubbed his side against Walking Mountain’s and stopped, largely hidden. Run-Run gave him a pat.
“Ten thousand blessings on you, elephant of elephants.”
Run-Run was sure that the prince had given them a long glance. There was no white-as-a-cloud elephant in plain sight. Then the summer shower of rain sent the hunting party back along the road to the palace.
“Why stand here in the rain, eh, Sahib? Come, Walking Mountain. Home. And let me have a look at your hurting leg.”
It seemed an eternity before Run-Run’s heart stopped drumming.
CHAPTER 11
In the privacy of the stable, he hand-rubbed Walking Mountain with flour until he looked white.
Rice Flour
Out of the rain under the stable roof, Run-Run had a close look at Walking Mountain’s morning limp. There were no thorns or split toenails this time. Perhaps it was only old age announcing itself. And look at his four teeth, grown so big! He had outgrown five earlier sets of molars, and these were the last he could expect. Once they fell out, he’d no longer be able to chew. He would slowly starve and die before Run-Run’s weepy eyes. It was the way of elephants.
When the roads dried, Run-Run felt emboldened enough to take Sahib, mudded over, back into the fields. But what of the neighboring villagers who still came to see the white elephant and would find the stable empty? Would they guess that Run-Run was working the noble beast?
Run-Run slapped his hands together. He knew exactly what to do. At the plantation warehouse, he traded his elephant’s labors for a heavy sack of rice flour. In the privacy of the stable, he hand-rubbed Walking Mountain with flour until he looked white. Not as white as Sahib, but close enough.
During the following days, Run-Run allowed Walking Mountain to remain behind in the comfort and shadows of the stable. Let anyone come and look, even the prince’s men. They’d need torches to tell the difference.
While Run-Run and Sahib worked in the fields, wise old Bangrak realized what the boy had done and put himself in charge of the stable. Within a few days, he confessed his happy mischief. He had collected several bronze coins and one silver from those curious to see the famous white elephant.
“But it is only Walking Mountain!” Run-Run protested when he learned what old Bangrak had done.
“And are you not working the white elephant. Eh? True? But look how your old elephant enjoys the attention and the bananas and the frangipani flowers to wear around his neck. And some come hoping a touch of the white elephant will cure them of backache and runny noses. So everyone is content!”
“But we are cheating!”
“Doesn’t everyone cheat the ignorant? It makes them so happy!”
Was this true, Run-Run wondered? Was he to be equal only to crafty men like Fish Eyes? “No,” he said. “Turn everyone away from my rice-powdered elephant. Sahib works fast, and we will be able to provide Walking Mountain all the bananas and frangipanis he wishes.”
CHAPTER 12
Without a weapon he was facing death.
The Attack
Run-Run was ready when the dry season finally blew away and the monsoon rains came with a roar. He stored hay and grain and sugarcane to the leafy roof of the stable. Day by day, the dark skies blew wet and rowdy until only a fish could plod along the roads. The visitors stopped coming to see Run-Run’s white elephant.
On the worst days, the boy and his animals confined themselves to the stable, with plenty to eat. When Run-Run looked at how well Sahib’s tiger wounds had healed, he felt a certain pride. Could he learn more and one day have a certificate to show how clever he was? After all, old Bangrak had sent his son away to school and to poke his nose into the world beyond the teak mountains.
Run-Run wondered what a school looked like. He’d heard of the world, too, but couldn’t imagine anyplace so full of people. But why dream about such things? His teeth would grow old, like Walking Mountain’s. He would go lame and spend his last days still sleeping on a pile of hay. All was clear to see. It was the fate of Run-Run to be Run-Run, the mahout.
It seemed weeks before the sun boldly returned and, like a wizard’s trick, dried up the muddy roads and fields. Soon Run-Run and Sahib were back at their occupation. But always the boy’s eye was on the sky, for the monsoon season was long and roguish.
One midday Run-Run was scrubbing Sahib clean in the river and examining him for small cuts and bruises. The blare of a hunting trumpet froze him to the spot. The prince was approaching! And there stood Sahib, a work elephant, bare and white as chalk!
There was no place to run. There was no place to hide, for bursting from the trees came Prince Noi. He rode alone in the wicker howdah while his mahout sat on the neck of his hunting elephant. They began crossing the river.
Run-Run froze. He felt caught. Didn’t the prince have anything to do with his days but hunt beasts?
The mahout in his blazing red coat already had Run-Run pinned down with his raven’s eyes. He stopped in the center of the narrow river. “There! You, boy! What have you been up to? Do you see him, Excellency? The white elephant has been abused! Look at his forehead! His tusks! They are the scratches of field labor!”
The prince scowled. “So! So, elephant brat, you have disobeyed me.”
“No, fine Excellency,” said Run-Run. “Sahib commands himself. I but followed his own wishes. It amuses him to pull stumps and carry logs!”
“Amuses!”
“Allow me to show you.”
“I am hunting tigers. I have no time for insolent stories.” Prince Noi picked up a rifle. “You have legs. Run, boy! It will amuse me to hunt you like a tiger. Run! You may be quick-witted enough to escape!”
“No, kind prince,” said Run-Run. “I was not born to be hunted like jungle game.”
Run-Run was surprised by his own fit of dignity. He saw rifles stored in the howdah like chopsticks. Was there time to tell Sahib that he had come to love him like Walking Mountain? Yes, before the prince’s foolish temper ended Run-Run’s insignificant life?
He was sufficiently distracted by these thoughts that he failed to become aware of Sahib’s ears. They swung forward, flaring in alarm. But when the elephant lifted its trunk to trumpet, Run-Run awoke to the rush of danger. He stiffened.
A tiger? Another?
Yes, a yellow tiger!
Run-Run saw it, bursting out of the trees as if through breaking glass.
He stiffened. Hadn’t a tiger more sense than to attack a huge and dangerous elephant?
The animal made a powerful leap, his glare attaching itself to the prince. Was he remembering the tiger hunter from some past encounter? The wicker howdah overturned.
Thrown into midair, Prince Noi discharged his rifle as it fell from his hands. He missed everything but the Siamese sky.
The tiger recovered his legs. The prince, too, was now on his legs. Without a weapon he was facing death.
The tiger sprang.
In that split second Run-Run saw that the big cat had lost an ear. The left ear! There, before his eyes, leaped the murderer who had tried to drag off his mother.
Run-Run felt Sahib’s silver ankus in his fist. He heaved it at the tiger.
CHAPTER 13
The white elephant was trumpeting to shatter the sky.
Sahib’s Fate
The white elephant was trumpeting to shatter the sky. Had he taken Run-Run’s flight of the prod as a command to charge? When Run-Run looked up again, he saw Sahib thundering forward.
The tiger made a quick change of direction and mi
ght have leaped safely into the lower limbs of the trees. But he failed to clear the advancing tusks, sharp as crescent moons.
With a great toss of his head, as he had watched Walking Mountain do, Sahib pitched the tiger into the air. When the bleeding cat found his feet, Sahib gored him again.
Now there was a shot in the air as the mahout picked up the rifle and finished off the beast. From the tiger’s first leap to Sahib’s triumphant blast, the moments had followed one another in a long breath. Run-Run’s heart was still racing up in his throat.
Sahib returned to the boy’s side, almost pushing him over. Run-Run wrapped his arms around his white trunk and caught a look from the prince.
“Elephant boy,” said the monarch, “young mahout! You have trained your animal well.”
“He learns quickly.”
“You and the white elephant have saved your prince from a few tiger scratches. I shall reward you.”
A few scratches? Your life, Prince Noi the Idle! Run-Run said nothing aloud.
“I shall remove the curse from you. I shall take back the white elephant.”
Run-Run gazed hard at the prince. “It will not honor me to return a gift.”
“I will send a mahout for him.”
Then he tossed Run-Run a pouch jingling with coins.
CHAPTER 14
Then he turned away, without a word and without a final wave of the hand.
Run-Run Waits
Run-Run took no interest in emptying the pouch and counting the coins. He threw it in a corner of the stable like something despised. It was as if the prince were buying back the white elephant.
Run-Run slept badly.
Sahib sensed his mahout’s wounded spirit. At the riverbank, he wrapped his trunk around Run-Run’s legs. The boy pulled himself free. “No, Sahib! I don’t feel like playing.”
Moments later, returning to the stable, Run-Run felt the elephant’s trunk at his back. Sahib gave the boy a mischievous push. Run-Run was knocked over as easily as a fence post. He picked himself up and gave Sahib a look. But he said nothing.
Sahib lowered his trunk and playfully shoved him again—and again.
“Enough!” Run-Run called out.
But Sahib wouldn’t stop. Again and again Sahib’s trunk nudged him until the boy couldn’t hold back a grin. “Sahib. I told you. Don’t bother me with games!”
But again, there came Sahib’s playful trunk. Despite himself, Run-Run began to laugh. He clutched his knees while Sahib rolled him like a ball back to the riverbank and prankishly into the water. Run-Run took a gulp of water and spit it out like a stream of sparks in the sun. The sound of his own laughter had surprised him. Now Sahib spread his front legs and gave a satisfied blast of his trumpet.
And the boy said aloud to the flapping of Sahib’s ears, “When you are gone, you must not push the prince. Do you understand, beloved? You must behave!”
The next morning, Run-Run was relieved to notice that Walking Mountain’s limp disappeared as the sun rose above the treetops. Was it just a morning stiffness of the old?
The boy scrubbed Sahib as clean as when the animal had first arrived. He filed the pads of his feet. He wanted to be sure that the palace mahouts would have no contempt for Run-Run’s care.
He washed his own ears and his long hair, and gave it a swing around his neck like a wet towel.
Then he sat on his heels at the stable and waited. His eyes could not ignore the road. At any moment, a mahout would appear to lead Sahib away.
Walking Mountain couldn’t know that his stablemate would soon be gone, but he behaved as if he sensed a bad change in the weather. He made uneasy, soft guttural sounds.
When the palace mahout arrived at midday, Run-Run waited a moment and then rose to his feet. Without a word, he unshackled the white elephant.
“The silver prod, boy.”
When he handed it over, the mahout was commanding Sahib to kneel so that he could mount to the beast’s neck.
The white elephant had become accustomed to Run-Run’s voice. He ignored the mahout’s command.
With a flash of impatience, the mahout turned to Run-Run. “Tell him to kneel and let’s be done with this!”
The boy glared at the mahout. Wasn’t it enough that the man was taking Sahib away? Was Run-Run obliged to help?
With first tears rising to his eyes, the boy gave the command, and Sahib kneeled. The prince’s mahout climbed to his place and gave the elephant a sharp rap with the ankus. “Go!”
Run-Run didn’t want Sahib beaten with the prod. He tried to clear his throat. “Do what he says, beloved Sahib. Go.”
The great elephant moved forward. Run-Run watched for a moment, his eyes swimming. There was no one to see the tears but Walking Mountain. Run-Run wrapped an arm around the old elephant’s trunk. Then he turned away, without a word and without a final wave of the hand.
That night he slept curled up between Walking Mountain’s front legs. There he felt safe from the world.
CHAPTER 15
How could this be Walking Mountain, smelling of blossoms and incense?
Run-Run Awakens
The monsoon rains returned with howling snorts and the clatter of fallen trees. Run-Run ventured out only when the wet winds tired of Chattershee and whisked themselves away.
The boy had fallen silent as stone. He parted his lips only to mutter a command to Walking Mountain. He hadn’t a word to say aloud when he heard that Fish Eyes had been banished weeks before from the Siamese hillsides.
The cunning mahout had ridden to the palace. Confidently he had offered his hand to invite a reward for spying on the boy mahout, Run-Run. The white elephant, said he, was clearly put to work at forbidden labor.
“Was the sun in your eyes?” The prince had exploded. “The white elephant is in my stable!”
Fish Eyes hadn’t heard.
The king had folded his arms as tight as a knot. “What kind of spying is this? You cannot plant weeds and harvest rice! Liar! You are banished!”
When old Bangrak brought him the news, Run-Run shrugged and walked away. What did it matter if Fish Eyes had set a mousetrap and caught himself? Run-Run chose not to be freshly reminded of his days riding as happy as a songbird on Sahib’s broad neck.
Once again the roads were drying out, leaving rain puddles as bright as broken mirrors. The silent boy returned with Walking Mountain to their plantation labors. Despite himself, Run-Run couldn’t keep flashes of handsome Sahib from intruding across his mind. The elephant must be again accustomed to being served like a sacred guest. He would soon forget Run-Run and Walking Mountain.
One night, Run-Run awoke with Walking Mountain’s trunk at his ear and neck. The boy pushed the animal away and turned over to sleep again.
But there again came the trunk sniffing him. Run-Run rose to an elbow. “Don’t be a pest, big brother! It’s not time to get up!”
Once more, Run-Run turned over. Once more the elephant trunk was a nuisance at his ear.
The boy lay there. A question rose in a flash. How could this be Walking Mountain, smelling of blossoms and incense?
Run-Run sat up sharply.
Sahib? Impossible!
The boy peered into the darkness. Was that a moon cloud beside him?
“Sahib!”
He leaped to his feet and clutched that great white trunk. “Look, do you see, big brother? It is Sahib!”
Walking Mountain had already swung his head and was rubbing his side against his old stablemate. He began to chatter deep in his throat.
When Run-Run backed off to gaze at the visitor, he said in an amazed whisper, “What are you doing here? Shall I guess? Have you run away?”
Run-Run didn’t know his eyes were full of tears until he had to wipe them.
“Would you like a piece of sugarcane, eh? So you have come home to us!”
Now Run-Run gave his nose a big wipe. Was there ever a nose in all Siam to be so wet?
He fed each elephant chunks of sugarcane out
of his hands.
Was this a punishment, to be so happy? he wondered sharply. A shadow was falling across his mind. How can I keep the prince’s white elephant? Sahib has only declared himself a holiday. I must return him.
Yes, I must.
Indeed, I must.
But if I don’t?
You are not a prince, to do as you please.
But what of Sahib? He, too, may do as he pleases.
True.
A white elephant must be obeyed.
Mustn’t the prince, also, be obeyed?
True.
And he will be furious.
But isn’t the prince always furious?
Wipe your nose.
I am.
Well?
I am thinking.
So?
I think I must disobey the prince.
And obey the white elephant?
It is settled.
Look. See how happy Sahib looks?
I see!
And the prince will look as if he choked on a fish bone!
CHAPTER 16
“Bring us luck, white elephant!”
The Vagabonds
“Ten thousand pardons, prince,” Run-Run said aloud, as if saying lines in a bazaar shadow play. “You declared that the white elephant commands his own life. He must be obeyed in his every wish. And isn’t it clear that he wishes to belong to Run-Run, not to you, excellent prince?” And then the boy added softly, “May you not choke on a fish bone!”
The sun was rising, like a bloodshot eye. The boy unshackled Walking Mountain and watered the two elephants. Then, with quick decision, he covered the white elephant with red mud.
The White Elephant Page 3
