“Hou!” The Thai command for ‘stop’ and the gritty way she had to pronounce it razor-scraped against the sides of her throat. She’d been hoarse for days but determined to get this language down. Now Sophie watched Natalie intently whenever she raised her voice. Natalie had to admit it made her proud to see Sophie responding as well as she did without the need to lift the training baton she used in protected contact.The long pole had made Sophie nervous at first, but Natalie had rubbed the rounded cotton tip with some banana and left it where Sophie could smell it. Eventually, Sophie’s fears eased, then Natalie got her used to being touched with the pole. Hours of that training before Natalie coupled some commands with the pole. Then she was able to back Sophie up to get her medicine or to be examined. It had been going well. But no matter how well the training went, Sophie would never like dogs, and since the dogs at the sanctuary were used to roaming freely, Natalie felt fairly certain she’d always have to ensure that Sophie had a human escort nearby. Right now, that human escort was Natalie.
“Sok,” she told Sophie, and the elephant backed out of the pen. One more command—Phae—to come, and Sophie followed Natalie freely, peacefully.
They rewarded her—and Ali—with a visit to the mud pits. Siriporn and Natalie sat on the cement fence posts, giggling as their charges rolled and splashed mud on themselves and each other, so happy in the mud pit that they trumpeted with pure pleasure. Natalie and Siriporn chatted, as they often did, about the other elephants, about the weather, and about the people they knew. Siriporn gossiped nonstop, Natalie had discovered, and because he delighted in shocking her, she now knew that Chanchai dated Jabari’s sister and that Jabari had been caught drunk at least three times in the past month on rice whiskey that he made and sold to the other mahouts (and that his mother had thrown him out).
But what Siriporn liked to talk about more than anything else was politics. During the past couple of months, his English had improved by leaps and bounds. Now when he told Natalie about his beliefs and asked her about the United States’ democratic system, he added new words to his vocabulary every time they talked.
“If the Thai government run in democratic way like U.S., we vote on laws, yes?” Siriporn asked.
She nodded. It was hot, and they’d had this conversation before, so she was only half interested. She had never been a political person, and truth be told, she’d rather hear the latest gossip, but Siriporn was such an earnest young man and had taught her so much that discussing the political system in the States seemed a fair way to repay him.
“And military? They ruled by president?”
“Ultimately. But there are military leaders and they listen to the secretary of defense who listens to the president.”
Siriporn took a stick and started drawing a pseudo pyramid on the ground. He pointed to the pinnacle. “This the president?”
She nodded, already seeing where he was heading with his organizational chart. Ten minutes later, they had written it all out on the ground: the executive branch, the legislative, and the judicial.
He nodded and looked at the diagram one last time as if memorizing it, then he dusted his sandals over it, wiping it out.
They called the elephants back, and as the lumbering mud-covered beasts reluctantly left the pit and began walking back to Sophie’s enclosure, Siriporn turned to her. “Andrew come back, you know.”
She was surprised. “I thought he wasn’t coming until next week.”
Siriporn shrugged his shoulders. “He come tonight.”
Sophie touched Natalie’s arm with the wet tip of her trunk and rumbled gently as if sensing Natalie’s concern. She had hoped she’d be able to give Andrew another report on Sophie before Hatcher got to him. Now she wondered how much poison Hatcher had already poured into Andrew’s ear. Surely Andrew would talk to her directly. Surely, he’d come to see Sophie himself and would be able to figure out that she wasn’t the same elephant she’d been when he left. Surely, he’d give her another chance.
Or not. He’d known Hatcher longer than he’d known her, probably trusted him, and he had a history with Sophie.
They arrived at the enclosure and got Sophie into her pen. She didn’t even need to be led in anymore. The pen was like a security blanket for her, and she knew when she stepped into it that she would be fed. Sophie would do anything for food.
As Natalie shoved her hands into the large bucket full of sticky rice mixed with a calcium supplement, some sweet potatoes and squash, she thought about what she’d say to Andrew. She wished she could be completely honest and warn him about Hatcher’s tendency to be cruel to the volunteers, workers, and to her, but she was fairly certain Mali had already done that for her. Mali had phone conversations of her own with Andrew and had shared the details of some of them with Natalie. Mali had had several run-ins with Hatcher in the past couple of weeks, and though she didn’t have it in her to be nasty, she also didn’t let others bulldoze her. And she wouldn’t hesitate to share the truth with Andrew.
Siriporn called for Ali, commanded the bull to lower his head and then scrambled astride to sit with his legs behind Ali’s ears. He’d already taught the other mahouts that the only way they could ride their elephants was on the strongest part of their necks. Personally, Natalie would rather they not be ridden at all (she refused to get on Sophie’s neck), but she didn’t push the issue. At least, not yet. If she’d learned one thing while being at the sanctuary, it was that it wasn’t home, and she had to respect the Thai way of doing things, no matter how much she disagreed. Siriporn silently watched Natalie for a few moments as she fed Sophie, then told her he’d see her at dinner.
As Siriporn and Ali ambled down the road, Natalie realized he was probably headed back to the big enclosure to drop Ali off before he left the sanctuary for another of his Red Shirt meetings tonight. She wondered whether she should say something to Mali, but as she handed another sticky ball to Sophie, she decided not to. No, if Siriporn wanted to tell his mother, he would. In the meantime, she wouldn’t get in the middle.