Merrian cried over the body of Broken Tusk, as she would for any old friend.
For the next few days, she found some measure of solace by drowning herself in a backlog of paperwork. Hartwick-Corning took his friend on a field trip to interview some of the local tribal elders, but when the two returned they had no new ideas. The situation seemed unsalvageable from any quarter, and Merrian could not conceal her frustration and bitter disappointment. Falconer's gaunt figure haunted her office, riffling through her files at odd hours with particular interest to photo references of the elephants that had been slaughtered in Kenyisha. Merrian felt as if he was not only intruding upon her privacy but dredging through what amounted to old family wounds as well. Unmarried and childless, she had no one else. She wished he would just go away. Falconer, however, was not yet ready to quit. He needed more information, he said, and suggested another intimate contact with the spirits to try to find an answer. He was understandably reluctant to face the charging herd again, but asked Merrian about the possibility of an elephant graveyard.
She pointedly informed him that such a concept was the stuff of childish fantasy. Elephants were sometimes known to bury their dead with twigs and leaves, lingering at the makeshift grave site for hours, and she had personally witnessed behavior that could only be interpreted as grieving, but there were no such things as elephant graveyards. Then she remembered the next best thing.
* * * *
This was the absolute last place Merrian would ever want to be, given the desperate state of mind into which she'd recently fallen. The site was just as she remembered it from seven years earlier, a strip of dusty plain in Northern Tanzania, peppered with thorny balanites resting in the misty shadow of Kilimanjaro. The province of Kenyisha. To one side rose a steep escarpment of mountain lava, and perhaps a hundred yards across the plain there was a deadly near-vertical drop into Kraavara Ravine and its thick jumble of sage brush and tamarinds below. This grassy corridor was a perfect place to ambush bull elephants as they migrated through, and had been used for such purpose for hundreds of years. In the past, this approach had required a fair bit of courage on the part of the poachers. If an enraged elephant attacked their vehicle along this passage it could easily knock the car down into the gorge. But of course, with blazing automatic weapons, modern poachers bought themselves a firm measure of security.
They reached the site late in the afternoon of a cloud-haunted and drizzling day. Here between the lava boulders lay the skeletons of six adult elephants, sun-bleached a perfect white, tusks carved out of skulls, feet hacked off. The skeletons remained remarkably intact. Too heavy for lesser scavengers to scatter around, they lay just where they had fallen. The damp weather had left a thin gray mist threading itself along the bones, which had all been picked clean by the hungry plain long ago.
Falconer sat cross-legged beneath the stunted branches of a lone baobab in the center of the strip. Merrian thought she saw an expectant glimmer in his old man's eyes. She watched him for a time, before settling herself beside Hartwick-Corning at the side of the ravine. This place of death fostered a dark, contemplative mood that brooked no conversation. The two of them sat in silence, legs dangling over the edge of the abyss.
When she looked again at where Falconer sat, she saw through her tears that he had arranged some of the loose bones into an intricate circle. He sat as still as some graven jungle totem, completely motionless and in deep concentration.
A distant rumble nearly startled Merrian off her perch. Ian shot her a worried glance, hefting the dart gun to his shoulder.
"Steady, Ian,” she said. It was merely thunder echoing down from the lofty crags of Kilimanjaro, bringing an unwelcome visitor of a different sort. The thin mist that wrapped the base of the mountain rose a little higher, and a light rain came quietly down. A chill clawed at the back of Merrian's neck. Was it just a draft of cool air, she wondered, or something more?
She had noticed no break in the dead calm of the place, when Falconer suddenly leapt up and began hopping about, cursing and spitting profusely.
"That's a nasty habit you're picking up,” she said.
"It's called an aura,” Falconer returned, “which I often experience as a taste in the mouth upon contact with a spirit.” Merrian thought again of Victorian-era charlatans she had read about and the way they preyed upon the grief of hapless believers. She was tempted to grab the dart gun and shoot him herself, except the analogy fell flat. She could not see herself in the role of helpless rube.
Falconer spat again into the tall grass. “Tastes like what you'd scrape off the bottom of your boot after a walk through a circus tent."
"So, you made contact with the spirits, I take it?” asked Ian.
Falconer nodded, still a bit distracted.
"Do you know what it is they want?"
"Yes.” He sighed. “It's not the ivory or the poachers, I'm afraid. It's something even more impossible."
"What do you mean?"
"It seems they don't want to go silently into that great good night."
"What?"
"They know what's happening. They've figured it out. They know they're being driven to extinction, and they don't like it."
"But they aren't going to become extinct, Nick,” said Ian. “Not if we can help it."
"Can you?” Falconer shot back. Merrian recognized the skepticism in his voice.
"I think so,” said Ian, with an indignant snap of his head. “We've come a long way toward an understanding of the problem. The endangered list, the moratorium on hunting, steps to preserve their habitat...the National Parks and game preserves...the African Wildlife Foundation...."
Merrian might have chimed in and touted her own research and efforts, but she had now come to a different realization. “It's no use, Ian."
"It's a chance,” he returned sharply, annoyed at suddenly having to defend wildlife conservation to the head of the Amboseli Elephant Project. “The only one I can see. Say, there's an idea—if only we could communicate that to them somehow, convince them we're going to keep them from extinction—"
"But we aren't,” she said softly. She gazed down along the narrow mountain corridor at the shattered bodies of elephants cut down in their prime, and saw it all. The destruction of their habitat, the encroachments of human agriculture on their already diminishing ranges, the poachers, the ivory trade, the steady downward trend. The doom of the elephants was a juggernaut that had been in motion for three hundred years. Her cause was hopeless, and the situation with the phantom herd even more so.
"Let's get out of here,” she said to Falconer. “This place gives me the creeps."
* * * *
Two days later, their Jeep's diesel engine crunched and complained as it hauled them up the steep incline of the narrow road to Nyahururu. Lush, cool, green forest hung silently on either side of the road's cratered surface, a coarse macadam so rutted and pocked with hidden sinkholes that it crumbled beneath the Jeep's tires with a sickening slushy murmur. Merrian and Falconer had flown the Cessna a hundred and forty miles north to Kisumu, rented the Jeep, and begun the long, dusty drive to the province of Nyahururu above the Great Rift Valley. At two thousand feet above sea level Nyahururu was the highest town in Kenya, composed mostly of ramshackle marketplaces and small farming communities scratching out a living against the mountain.
They intended to see a man who lived in a town called Ursai, whom Falconer believed to be their only chance to lay the ghost elephants to rest.
Falconer supposed Hartwick-Corning's idea was on the right track, though running in an opposite direction. For better or worse, they would have to show the spirits the future, not in the service of false promises but instead to reconcile them to their inevitable fate. In order to do that, he had contended, they would require the services of a powerful psychic.
"But no one can see into the future,” Merrian had said.
"Don't be ridiculous. I've done it myself on any number of occasions. The future is accessible
. It's right there,” exclaimed Falconer, clutching with a clawed hand at the air just in front of his face, “if one only knows how to grasp it.” His grand gesture lost all dramatic tension as it transformed into a panicked swatting of a huge metallic-green beetle that was dive-bombing his face. “Bugger off! Good Lord, what an abomination."
"Psammodes sulcicollis. You were saying?"
"As I was saying, it's all a matter of the proper delta waves. Certain individuals generate a freak bioelectric wave that carries over into the temporal field."
To Merrian Aprilwood, this statement had seemed utterly preposterous. At first. But as she had recently come to believe in ghosts, she ultimately felt constrained to allow for the possibility that someone with a special talent might be able to predict the future.
"Well, if you can do it, why do you need the psychic?” she had asked.
"I've only been able to do it on a limited scale—just small distances—the outcome of a coin toss or a horse race, if it's a short one."
"That sounds like a hunch."
"Just so. We'll be needing much more than that. Someone who can see a lot farther up the timestream. Our psychic must also be able to reveal his vision to the spirits. We need a channeler."
"And where could we possibly find someone like that?"
"Kenya, of course. The Africans may lag in technology but their knowledge of the mystic arts predates any other culture on Earth. I know a fellow who could probably manage it. He lives near Nyahururu."
And so to Ursai, a grubby little town centered around a cement factory and quarry, and composed of a crumbling jumble of mud and straw buildings in the tradition of the Maasai manyatta. The landscape was a dull brown and treeless plain, in sharp contrast to the lush conifer-laden hills of Nyahururu, but Merrian found the high mountain air delightfully crisp and clear.
With great difficulty they came to M'Bengai's house, as it lay on an unmarked dirt road several miles removed from what passed for Ursai's main street. There was a man on the veranda dressed in modern khaki shirt and trousers, dark green bush jacket, and knee-length jackboots, brandishing a traditional Maasai spear. Falconer asked Merrian to remain in the car and approached the veranda, patting away the thin layer of white volcanic dust that had settled on his clothes during the drive. By his threatening expression she could tell the sentry did not recognize Falconer, and when he began gesticulating that Falconer should leave, Merrian found herself hoping the spear was merely for effect.
For his part Falconer appeared relaxed, and kept talking cordially even at the point of the spear. He produced a sizeable roll of banknotes, but the guard did not seem willing to soften his posture even in the face of such a generous show of cash and swatted them away. Falconer kept talking, his hands making gentle circling motions in the air that suggested to Merrian she might have to add mesmerism to her mental list of his talents, especially when the guard eventually cracked a vacant smile and led them around to the back of the main house.
They found the man they had come to see on the rear porch, beneath a canopy of thick mosquito netting rigged up in the shade of a gardenia tree. There were at least three hundred pounds of him, stuffed into an enormous white chambray shirt and soiled linen trousers. He sat on a bench overlooking the plain behind the house, where a woman wearing only loose sandals and a flimsy khanga tended a good-sized garden. The huge man was idly watching a pet mongoose as it ferreted grasshoppers out of the long grass and bit off their heads. On a small table next to him rested a bottle of beer, in his massive hands a newspaper. Falconer approached him, grinning.
"Nice setup."
M'Bengai lowered his paper, the broad lines of his dark face arranged into a distinct air of surprise as he saw Falconer, surprise which quickly melted into distaste. He said nothing.
"Good to see you, old friend. You're looking well,” said Falconer.
M'Bengai's massive head allowed a slight nod, but no smile crossed his thick, down-turned lips.
"Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we need your help."
M'Bengai remained impassive. Merrian noticed a sizeable collection of desiccated hides and bones of small plains mammals under the gardenia tree, and she spotted at least one elephant skull among them.
"Oh, come on,” said Falconer caustically. “When was the last time I asked you for something...?"
M'Bengai rolled his eyes.
"Listen,” said Falconer, “You really ought to help me. No heavy hitters, or anything. I'm just talking about a couple of wayward ghosts. You owe me, Raymond."
M'Bengai's eyes widened more than a little. His gaze darted toward the woman in the garden.
"Yeah, that's right,” said Falconer. “I know you don't want to get involved. But this nice lady is involved. Lady in distress and all that. I know how you like that sort of thing. Besides, if you'd seen what I've seen—hell, you must have some inkling of the disturbances in Kenyisha."
Falconer turned abruptly and began ushering Merrian back to the car. “Let's make some room in the Jeep. He'll do it."
"He said that?” Merrian asked, thinking she must have missed something.
"Oh no, he never talks. He can't chance it. He's seen too much."
* * * *
They returned to Kenyisha, and its mists and bones. M'Bengai's technique appeared to be a more elaborate version of Falconer's basic method, making use of a complex and carefully crafted octagonal pattern of the elephant bones. He lit a pair of small silver braziers he had brought along, adding streamers of foul-smelling incense to the arrangement. M'Bengai went shirtless, and Merrian marveled at the intricate patterns of scarification etched along his voluminous arms, shoulders, and the great expanse of his chest. His skin was literally crawling with keratinous snakes, his entire body a magnificent ouroboros.
At the center of his circle of bones, M'Bengai lit a thick, solitary candle of pink wax that had a disgustingly oily, almost fleshy appearance. It smelled even worse than the incense.
Merrian wrinkled her nose. “I can't see what all that stink has to do with tapping into this so-called temporal field of yours."
"It's a state of mind sort of thing,” replied Falconer. “It's all in the delta waves. Besides, you have to expect a certain amount of showboating with this guy. It's just the way he is. Aside from that, I'm in favor of anything that stands a chance of keeping these wretched mosquitoes at bay."
"I just hope he can do what you've promised,” she returned.
As the dusk settled about them, M'Bengai began to mutter rhythmically in a deep, sonorous voice. Merrian could not determine the language; the words were clipped and guttural. His skin covered with a pale sheen of sweat, M'Bengai took on a monumental appearance in the failing light, a bodhisattva of chiseled basalt. He motioned to Falconer and Merrian to sit in the dirt beside him.
Slowly, Merrian felt a tension building up. She was painfully aware of how vulnerable they were, sitting out in the open, so near to dark, when the real monsters of the serengeti came out to play. And then there was something else, the air around them crackling with static electricity. It was hard to see anything clearly in the gathering gloom, but she began to make out large hulking shapes moving toward them from between the acacias. The dark outlines drew closer, slowly and ponderously, bearing with them the reassuring musky scent of elephant. M'Bengai's pitch rose higher, in a cadence grown unnaturally shrill and quick, his bulky arms raised up over his head, hands waving pointedly as they grabbed great handfuls of the dark African sky.
Merrian strained her eyes by the flickering light of the lone candle, trying to pick out detail among the looming forms now joining a huge circle around them. She felt very, very small. She was reminded how easy it would be for one of these giants to crush them in a heartbeat, even by mistake. And she was afraid.
The elephants made no sound. Merrian recognized the massive silhouette of Big Ben outlined against the indigo dusk. His head was swaying from side to side, a nervous habit he had displayed all his life.
<
br /> "Space-time echoes, my ass,” she whispered. And then, “I'm sorry, Ben. I'm so sorry."
She could hardly bear the sight of his majestic shadow, his head gently rolling between gigantic shoulders. She let out a long, weary breath and all the fight went out of her with it. She didn't feel she had wasted her time here, she could not regret one moment of the last twenty years. But it was over. She would see these tortured souls laid to rest, and then she would leave Africa. It was time. There was a studio in San Francisco waiting on her to put together the documentaries she'd been filming over the years. And when the wild African elephants were finally gone it would be her research that stood to tell their tale.
As M'Bengai's song reached its crescendo—for song it was, the song of the far future—the phantoms began to stir and rustle. And then, to disappear. The figures faded softly, with only a snort or a timid grumble as farewell. One shape in particular stamped its huge feet and let out a final truculent blast from a waving trunk before it dissolved into the mists. Merrian could have sworn she recognized that blast as the familiar jovial bellow of Broken Tusk.
The candle blew out.
They sat in silence, as the elephant smell was whisked away on a light mountain breeze. It's over, she thought, they're gone. She heard Falconer's voice.
"Come on, Raymond. Just this once. I have to know. What did you show them?"
It was too dark to see anything. Merrian was groping for her flashlight when she first heard M'Bengai's deep, sepulchral voice.
"The far future. No elephants."
"Yes, but there had to be more to it than just that,” pressed Falconer. “What else?"
"No people."
"How far?” asked Falconer. “Just how far are we talking about here?” His question went unanswered by the enigmatic M'Bengai who lowered his eyes and solemnly mimed turning a key across his locked lips.
Falconer huffed. “Oh, come on, Raymond!"
M'Bengai tossed the imaginary key away.
Merrian didn't turn on the flashlight, staring instead into the darkness at the now empty ring where the spirits of the elephants had stood, moments before. They had been, briefly, and were gone. Forever.
FSF, July-August 2010 Page 24
