Poison Ivory

by Tamar Myers

  Mama raised her hand. “Excuse me, Mr. Curly, but—”

  “Mr. Curly’s a busy man, Mama.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Not now, Mama,” I said.

  Mr. Curly was still beaming and shaking his head in amazement. “Do you mean to say that you ladies spent the night on this log?”

  “Indeed we did.”

  “No, we spent it at the Small Hairy Ones’ Hilton,” Mama said, sounding even more peeved than usual. “Now we’re out on our morning constitutional.”

  “Never mind her,” I said. “Her first morning on earth happened to her when she was very young, and she’s never liked mornings since.”

  Mr. Curly stopped beaming. “Say, it really isn’t that far to where I’m parked on a logging road. Would you ladies like me to show you the way?”

  “Do most congressmen enjoy getting perks from lobbyists?” I said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “I think it’s a safe bet,” I said.”

  “Abby’s always been my cynical one,” Mama said. “If the sky really was falling, she’d probably say something negative about that too.”

  “Form a line behind me,” Mr. Curly said, and gallantly led the way through the bracken and gorse.

  Okay, so there really wasn’t bracken and gorse to be found in the Francis Marion National Forest. The local shrubs and weeds undoubtedly possessed far less poetic names, but they were tough and scratchy things and that made progress very slow. I marveled at how far we had managed to come the night before—thanks to adrenaline. It was no wonder we were covered with welts.

  For a while it looked as if Mr. Curly was lost as well. “Don’t worry, ladies, I have a GPS—uh, well, I do own one. I thought I had it with me in my pack.”

  “We’re going to die out here,” Mama wailed.

  I battled some bracken to be at her side and put my arm around her. “No, we’re not.”

  “That’s right, Abby, only I will die; your fate will be a life sentence at the side of a Small Hairy One.”

  “Mrs. Wiggins,” Mr. Curly said sharply, “I resent that remark. I have successfully completed therapy and no longer expose myself.”

  “She’s referring to South Carolina’s answer to Bigfoot,” I said. “Only they don’t have big feet, because they’re very small creatures. Apparently they live out here. When they can’t catch deer, they dine on human flesh—if given the chance. We’re a walking smorgasbord.”

  “And all because of that horrid Lady Bowfrey,” Mama said.” Can we watch you arrest her?”

  “No,” Mr. Curly said curtly. “It’s against regulations.”

  “But Abby was there when you arrested Abby. I don’t even believe in the death penalty, Mr. Curly, but when I think about all those elephants—those magnificent intelligent creatures—being slaughtered so that greedy women like Lady Bowfrey can become even richer, why I’d be tempted to see her put up before a firing squad. Of course they’d only shoot rubber bullets, but I’d really like to see her sweat. Especially after what’s she’s done to us! Do you know that she really wanted to kill us? No, I take that back—I think one of those bullets should be real.”

  “Mama,” I said through gritted teeth. I also tried to make eye contact with her, but to no avail.

  “Then again, maybe a firing squad is too good for her. I’m coming up on my sixtieth birthday—bless my heart—but my poor Abby here has barely had a chance to live. That hideous, self-centered woman with the chopsticks in her hair was going to murder my precious baby right here before her mama’s eyes. I’m telling you, no punishment is too bad for her. Where is Dick Cheney when you need him now? Whatever happened to Donald Rumsfeld? I say get those men out of retirement and set up a new interrogation center. Lady Bowfrey can be the guinea pig upon which the new agents practice their interrogation skills.”

  My heart was in my throat. “You have to forgive her, Mr. Curly, because my mama suffers from a rare brain disorder brought about from inhaling too much dust mite feces. In layman’s terms she’s a nincompoop.”

  “Abby! You see, Mr. Curly, how she talks about her mama?”

  “Yes, and I don’t like it. And I don’t like the way you refer to my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Mama said. “Donald Rumsfeld didn’t turn into one of those intransigents, did he? You know, with the full sex change and everything?”

  “Please forgive her, Mr. Curly. She’s got a big heart, but she gets a little addled when she’s stressed.”

  “I’m not addled, Abby; I’m merely confused.”

  “My wife is Lady Bowfrey,” Mr. Curly said. He reached into his safari vest and withdrew a snub-nosed .38 revolver.

  There was no drum roll from me. The Department of the Prevention of Illegal Imports, my fanny. Mr. Curly had come to finish off a job that Thugs Numbers One and Two had botched. Just how he’d managed to arrest me at the dock was a story that could wait until Mama was safe. At the moment nothing else mattered.

  “Miss Timberlake,” he said, sounding disappointed, “you don’t look surprised.”

  I sighed. “Don’t you have a conscience, sir?”

  He laughed. “Sir! I love it how you Southerners are always so polite! The proper form of address in my case, however, is Your Lordship—or Lord Bowfrey—take your pick. But the answer to your question is, ‘No, I don’t have a conscience.’ And I’ll tell you something, Miss Timberlake, that’s something I thank my creator for every week when I go to church.”

  Mama’s eyes blazed. “That’s a sacrilege!”

  “Oh, don’t be so self-righteous, you old bat. It’s because of judgmental environmentalists like you that my wife and I have to attend separate churches in order to keep our connection secret. Not to mention the fact that I have temporarily suspended using my title, and that alone is causing me severe emotional distress.”

  Mama blinked. “A bat? Abby, he called me a bat; do something!”

  “You just mentioned what you weren’t going to mention,” I said to Mr. Curly. “As for your title, we don’t recognize titles in America.”

  “Sure you do. When Queen Elizabeth II comes over to visit, she’s not addressed as Mrs. Mount-batten, is she?”

  “Yes, but you had to give up your title when you became an American citizen.”

  “Ah, but I never became one,” he said, and in the space of just that one sentence switched from a California accent to the one I’ve heard used by native English speakers from South Africa.

  “Even better, Mr. Curly,” I said, “it should be easier to deport you.”

  “Miss Timberlake, you might think differently about me if you had a chance to hear a bit about my background.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to you; I was born and raised in Africa. Although my father was the eldest son of an earl, he left all that behind to become a game warden in a small country that you’ve probably never even heard of. When I wasn’t away at boarding school, I used to ride with my father on his rounds of the reserve.”

  “I’m sure you have a fascinating backstory, but you’ll have plenty of time in Hell to tell it, so please save it for there.”

  “Good one, Abby,” Mama said.

  “Shut the hell up,” Mr. Curly said.

  “I won’t have you swearing in my presence!” Mama snapped.

  Mr. Curly brought the gun up level with Mama’s head.

  “Then again,” Mama said, “a word is just sound, and since Abby just used it in a nonswearing context, who am I to judge?”

  “As I was saying,” Mr. Curly growled, “I got to know the animals on our reserve very well. My father had a first-rate team of black Africans working for him—sharpshooters all—and since Dad was committed to wipe out poaching, by golly, they were able to do it. But there were consequences.”

  “I need to sit down,” Mama whined. “I’m getting a blister on my heel.”

  “There’s a log up ahead,” I inter
ceded. “If you’re going to kill her anyway, can you at least let her get comfortable for a minute?”

  “Okay,” he said, “but only until I’m done with my story.”

  But poor Mama was suddenly limping so bad that I asked for, and obtained, permission to step out of line a few yards and fetch a walking stick for her. It was more of a walking club actually: a sun-bleached segment of a broken limb, one no doubt fashioned by Hurricane Hugo some twenty years ago. Much to my relief, Mama quit complaining and gamely struggled along until she got to the log. Now there, I thought, was the prime example of a true Southern lady.

  Meanwhile, of course, our raconteur had resumed his spellbinding narrative. “The elephant population exploded,” he said. “They can eat as much as two hundred pounds of grass and foliage a day and drink ten gallons of water. We had only one spring-fed watering hole on the entire reserve, and one year, during a particularly severe drought, it couldn’t replenish itself fast enough.”

  “Oh my,” Mama said, a look of genuine concern on her face.

  “The elephants were hungry and thirsty, and despite my father’s best efforts, they began to wander off the reserve into neighboring farms. One farm was particularly attractive, because it had lush banana groves. Banana plants, as you know, are about ninety percent water.”

  “I did not know that,” Mama said.

  “One night the elephants got into the banana grove and totally destroyed it—I mean nothing was left. Dad was aware it had happened; he and his men had tried to head them off, but were afraid of starting a stampede through a nearby village. The kicker is that the owner of the banana farm didn’t complain; even though he was wiped out, he didn’t say one word.”

  “Maybe he loved elephants and felt sorry for them.”

  “Hardly,” Mr. Curly snarled. “He was a white man, fairly well off, with a swimming pool. It was something the elephants had overlooked on their first foray onto the farm. On their second visit to the farm, now that the banana plants were gone, the pool became their destination. Unfortunately the owner was ready and waiting: the water was laced with strychnine.”

  “How awful!” Mama cried.

  “Indeed. The herd was decimated. Many of them died agonizing deaths right there on the farm. Legally, by the laws of the country, the banana farmer was able to claim the ivory of any elephant that died on his land.”

  “But he murdered them!”

  “Yes, but we never able to prove it. We did autopsies on the few that were able to make it back onto the reserve before collapsing, but by then the pool had been drained and cleaned. Besides—and more important—this fellow had friends in high places. Of course he had a problem disposing of the corpses, but the ivory more than made up for his banana crop. He even bragged about it in a letter to the editor of Our African Republic. His ‘poison ivory,’ he called it. Get it?”

  “I’d like to ‘get’ him,” Mama said. “With my cudgel.”

  “On second thought, you’re quite a woman, Mrs. Wiggins. It’s too bad I have to ‘off’ you.”

  “Must you?” said Mama. She removed her grimy spectacles and batted her unadorned eyelashes at her soon-to-be executioner.

  “Yes, and I abhor whiners. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the banana farmer who made all the money on the poison ivory was to become my father-in-law. He became my idol, you know. Just look at how much smarter than my father he was.”

  “Since you’re dumber than a post, bless your heart,” Mama said, “we can hardly take your word for it.”

  26

  Ha! Such moxie! If you were about fifty years younger, then perhaps you could be my Lady Bowfrey. After all, you do seem to possess a fine pair of breeding hips.”

  Mama spat on the leaves at her feet. “I’d rather be a serving wench.” she said.

  “A literal spitfire,” Mr. Curly said.

  “What happened to your poor father?” I said.

  “He got fired from his post, of course. Took up a series of low-paying clerical jobs—of the kind suitable for a white man—but totally unsuitable for a man of his rank. He died ten years ago, a broken man. But the point I’m trying to make is that there is no future for elephants in the wild. In one hundred years mankind will marvel that their great-grandparents were able to see them roaming wild in the bush. No, make that fifty years.”

  “Because people like you kill them,” Mama said. “If I had a hairbrush and was fifty years younger, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week, young man.”

  “You’re going too far, old woman. And it has nothing to do with greed; despite AIDS, famine, and constant turmoil over much of the area, the population of Africa keeps exploding. There simply isn’t enough room for large animals like elephants and people both to exist. The same thing goes for Asia. The kind thing, the decent thing, is to euthanize the elephants now, rather than let them starve, or terrorize some native village.

  “Back then—when I was a lad—it was an Englishman’s banana plantation that was destroyed, and three hundred workers temporarily lost their jobs. But human lives could have been lost. Is that what you prefer to see happen?”

  “Harrumph,” Mama said. “Evil men can always justify their ways. It’s not like you care; you already said that you don’t have a conscience.”

  “Get up, you old crone! You’ve had your five minutes of rest. I’ve got two properly dug graves waiting for the pair of you. I had to use a backhoe, since I couldn’t count on you ladies to do the job. By the way, I hope you’re not averse to sharing. Remember the fellows you met yesterday? You’ll each get one in your grave—I hope you’re not particular about who gets whom.”

  Mama stood slowly with the aid of her stick. She was trying to communicate something to me with her eyes, but unfortunately I didn’t understand.

  “I want the one in the plaid shirt,” she said.

  What an odd thing for her to say. Clearly she wanted me to respond, but how? Wasn’t there some famous saw about not trying to overthink a problem? Perhaps I should begin by supplying her with the obvious solution, I thought, which was simply by being contrary.

  “You can’t have him,” I said. “He’s mine.”

  “No, mine.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Did you hear that, Mr. Curly?” Mama demanded. “Abby wants my dead body over hers.”

  “Ladies! You two are incorrigible. I don’t usually enjoy offing women—call me sexist, if you like—but this is one occasion where I’ll make an exception.”

  “Mr. Curly,” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go along with whatever you want, easy breezy, if you let this old senile woman go. As a matter of fact, let’s just leave the old bat right here in the woods—that should give the coyotes something to chew on for a day or two—and then you can do whatever you want with me. Turn me into shark chum if you like. I’ve been told that I’m very chummy.”

  “So that’s what you really think of me, is it?” Mama abruptly stopped marching and stomped a pump into the leaf-strewn forest floor. The heel stuck into the accumulated detritus, and she came up shoe-free and even angrier than before. “Just an old bat, like he said, huh? Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake, shame on you!”

  “Stop!” Mr. Curly barked. “I’ve heard enough of you two bickering. I’ll shoot you right here, if I have to.”

  We stumbled after him in silence for a few minutes. Then, sure enough, it was Mama who braved his wrath again.

  “Abby, do you remember those old Borden’s milk commercials with Lizzie the talking cow?”

  I sighed heavily. We were on a death march, and Mama wanted me to waltz down television memory lane with her. What was next? Liberace’s candelabra?

  “It was Elsie,” I said irritably.

  “No, it was Lizzie, dear. Lizzie Borden. Remember? Like before?”

  “Before?” Before what? Oh! I got the picture.

  “Mr. Curly,” I said as I stepped away from him and to the right. “Is that a blimp above that tree?”

&nbs
p; He put his free hand up to shield his eyes from the rising morning sun that sliced through the widely spaced second growth trees. His other hand still held the gun, but my imaginary aircraft held one hundred percent of his attention.

  It took only three seconds for Mama to raise her trusty cudgel and give Mr. Curly a whack across the small of his back. It was enough to send him pitching forward onto the forest floor. Like two hungry Small Hairy Ones, my minimadre and I fell upon him and subdued him—well, with the aid of the snub-nosed.38, which had practically landed at my feet.

  “It was just horrible,” Mama said. She shuddered dramatically, took a long swig of her Bloody Mary, before launching back into her skillfully embellished saga. She’d already been on Good Morning America, The Tonight Show, Entertainment Tonight, and a host of lesser shows. And although my name had only passed her lips once in all the various versions of the tale, that was truly fine with me. A gal deserves a little something extra when she turns seventy-five. Besides, I’d just as soon not have the real customs office breathing down my neck.

  Since I’d not only heard all million-gazillion versions of her story, but lived it, I wandered into the Rob-Bob’s spacious kitchen to see how her birthday dinner was progressing. Although Bob had issued instructions that no one (including the Messiah and the Buddha) should enter his kitchen while his masterpiece dinner was still being prepared, I didn’t think the rules applied to me. After all, I was footing the bill, and I wasn’t one of the thirty-six guests. I was the Guest of Honor’s issue: I was her flesh and blood. Besides, I was Bob’s best friend—after Rob, of course.

  At my expense Bob had hired a team of chiefs to serve under him for the evening, whereas he should have hired merely experienced cooks. The chiefs were not responding well to Bob’s somewhat dictatorial style of direction, which made him all the more stressed, and therefore all the more likely to bark out orders. Clearly, Rob’s calming presence was needed, but the other half of the Rob-Bobs was too busy meeting and greeting and being the suave debonair host, a task at which he excelled. And anyway, at that point Bob would have resented the heck out of him for interfering.