Sophie hadn’t been that riled up in a long time, and the way she had reacted to the mahout made Natalie rethink her training techniques. What would happen when she left the sanctuary? Sophie would need to work with another mahout, and Siriporn probably wasn’t an option. She’d hardly seen him during the past couple of days and suspected he and his group of Red Shirts might be planning a demonstration or rally. During the last one, twelve people were injured or killed in political rallies in Bangkok. If he didn’t get himself hurt, she would be willing to bet he’d be moving into the city to take a more active role in politics. No. He wouldn’t be around to take care of Sophie.
What were the options? Chanchai? Hell, no.
Chanchai was pretty typical of most mahouts who relied on brute strength and the ankus to control his feisty female, Mai. He’d told Natalie early on that he didn’t think protected contact would work.
In his broken English, he’d said, “Elephant too big for woman. Ankus, Dr. Natalie! Ankus!”
The ankus set Sophie on fire, but without it, most mahouts or elephant handlers would not take the chance working with her.
Natalie wanted to tear her hair out. Somehow, in some way, she needed to get it across to everyone at the sanctuary that Sophie only needed the soft pole she used in protected contact. A slight touch on the leg and Sophie would move. She knew the commands for walking and turning and backing up and bending. She was smart. Responsive. Nothing else was necessary but the commands and the pole. Unfortunately, the mahouts didn’t understand.
Even before Natalie approached the stairs to the administration building’s platform, she heard arguing. At the back of the building near the kitchen entrance, the camera crew sat, talking to Mali. Rob and Sidecar glanced over at Natalie but continued their conversation. Mali waved and smiled at Natalie. She raised her eyebrows, an unspoken question about the raised voices coming from the other side of the platform. Mali shook her head. Unsure what that meant, Natalie stood at the base of the stairs for a moment, debating about whether to enter the lion’s den.
The men who were arguing sat on the platform. She couldn’t see the three of them clearly, but one of them sounded like Hatcher. He had a full head of steam. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be anywhere near him. The other two: Andrew was one; the third hadn’t said anything, but she would bet her last buck it was Seth. Yes, she was about to enter the lion’s den and began questioning her own sanity for doing so.
As she mounted the stairs, the voices became clearer. She heard her name and froze.
“And I can’t be everywhere on the compound, but damned if I haven’t been accused of bugging you folks when the truth of the matter is that certain people are ruining it for the rest of us,” Hatcher said, his voice rushed and uneven.
“Peter, that’s enough.” Andrew’s strong baritone struggled to maintain control.
Natalie wondered how long he would be able to remain that way. The thought flew through her mind that she should leave, but curiosity kept her feet planted on the stairs.
“Why? Why do I need to stay quiet? What have I done wrong?” Peter said. “Andrew, tell me. What in God’s name have I done wrong?”
A hot breeze swept along the tree line and stole Andrew’s response. The banana fronds rattled.
“And if his people don’t stay out of my way, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Andrew boomed.
She moved a few feet, stood in full view of them now, but nobody noticed her.
Hatcher stood at one end of the center table, his shoulders pushed forward, fists clenched by his sides, his normally-pale cheeks flushed. At the opposite end of the table, Andrew leaned forward, his beefy hands balanced on the table as if ready to launch himself. And Seth stood in the middle, one foot propped up on the seat, elbow on his knee and his face leaning against his hand. A casual stance but Natalie could tell, even from where she stood, that the conversation was far from casual.
“Andrew, listen to me,” Hatcher said.
His voice had that soft, even-pitched tone she remembered hearing in her own voice the night Parker announced he wanted to leave. Quiet desperation. A plea. She had tried to appear reasonable but rapidly lost control. She remembered the cold tightening of her own larynx the night she fought the urge to plead with her husband. It was the sound of someone who’d become terrified about what they might lose.
“I’m sorry,” Parker had told her that night. He leaned against the kitchen counter, caught in the corner, trapped. By her.
She stood in front of him, a dish towel in her hands, snapping it. Her stance was wide, unmoving.
“I’m not doing a good job at this.” He looked at the kitchen floor.
“At what? Good job at what?” she’d said, though she knew exactly what he meant. “Doing a good job at being a father? A good husband? Good at being a man?” Ironically, in that moment, she had felt a rolling surge of pity for Parker. It must have been a heavy and painful burden to find you weren’t good at the very basic of basics. How could you not be good at being a person?
Now, standing on the platform, she felt the same type of pity for Hatcher that she’d felt for her husband. The back of her neck prickled with sweat. She lifted her heavy braid and swung it over her shoulder. That movement caught Andrew’s eye, and he registered surprise at seeing her, an emotion Hatcher must have discerned because he turned, and all of his anger shot through his eyes and pierced her like a well-placed javelin.
“If it wasn’t for you,” Hatcher began, directing his comment toward her.
Andrew rose. “Peter, that’s enough. You’re not making sense anymore, old boy. She had nothing to do with any of this. Listen, why don’t you sleep it off, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow morning when we’re all rational? You’ve had a bit too much scotch. That’s all.”
“No, damnit. I’ve kept my bloody mouth shut long enough.” He swung back to point a finger at Andrew. “I’ve given you years of my life, Andrew. Nine fucking years. I’ve been here when there was no damn electricity. I’ve held down this place when you were gallivanting across the ocean, and I’ve made sure the animals were cared for and that the people were fed. I did a good job. I know I did.”
“Yes, you did, Peter. I never said you didn’t . . .”
“We worked well together. Then all of a sudden, you go off on one of your trips and you come back with bright and shiny new ideas without even consulting me.” Hatcher’s mouth scrunched up. “Without talking to me about them! Without sharing anything at all . . . without giving me credit for what I’ve done. Without offering the respect of asking for my opinion, for God’s sake! I told you before you left that I needed an assistant, and I knew exactly who would fit the bill. Why the hell didn’t you listen to me? Christ, man, training her has made my life ten times more difficult!” He shot Natalie another scathing glance. “And to make matters worse, she focuses on one animal. One goddamn elephant! I could have gone without her . . . without her help.” Hatcher curled his lip back like a comic book villain.
She almost laughed, but he hadn’t finished.
“For all the good she’s been to me, you could’ve saved yourself a bunch of money, Andrew, but no . . . not only does she concentrate solely on Sophie, but she concocts some hare-brained scheme for special training that brings the sanctuary to a standstill to do her bidding, and—I want to underline that word—and it costs us a cool sixty thousand dollars to build the enclosure and buy new equipment.”
He paused for a breath, and in that two seconds, Natalie registered Seth’s discomfort and Andrew’s growing rage. She wished she had turned around and run when she’d first heard the men arguing, but she could no longer stand by dumbly. “I raised part of that money. I found several grants . . .” she said in a weak voice that made her hate herself.
“Shut. The. Hell. Up.” Hatcher took a menacing step toward her.
Both Andrew and Seth reached out to stop him, but he backed up, both hands in the air as if to say they needn’t worry, but he kept talking.
“Then, as if more salt in the wound is necessary,” he continued. “She’s now the darling of Thailand and this damn TV crew is following her every move as if she’s a dyed-in-the-wool movie star.” He swished his hips, mocking her. “Now I can’t move more than two steps without a camera up my ass and Mr. Jungle Jim here parading around like he owns the bloody place.”
“Hold on.” Natalie held up her hand.
Before she could protest further, Seth rounded the table and grabbed Hatcher’s collar. “That’s enough,” he said, lifting Hatcher a little, as he would a misbehaving dog.
“Andrew asked you nicely to quit a few moments ago,” Seth continued, his lips a mere inch from Hatcher’s ear. “I’m not going to be so nice. Shut up now or I’m going to make sure you don’t speak clearly for a couple of weeks.”
“Take your hands off me,” Hatcher said through gritted teeth.
Seth didn’t move. A standoff. Between two strong dogs.
One more breath, and Hatcher erupted. His fist caught Seth’s jaw with a resounding thwack. Seth stumbled, then rose halfway to stumble once again, this time against Hatcher.
Hatcher swung again, his fist coming from his knees, landed another thudding punch against Seth’s cheek, then another. Seth brought up his knee, and the two men fell to the ground in a tangle of fists and angry shouts.
From out of the night, the sanctuary’s dogs stormed the platform, barking and snarling, and surrounded the men scuffling on the floor. Andrew shouted.
Natalie grabbed the dogs’ collars, yelling for everyone to stop. Somehow Andrew got between the two men and separated them, standing like a granite statue, each of his hands holding a man. Still, they fought and clawed at each other. They grunted and spat blood. The sound of the fight brought out the kitchen help and the mahouts. The lady cooks stood near the wall, a safe distance away. Their hands over their mouths, their eyes wide, they watched with a mixture of fear and excitement.
Finally, Andrew’s considerable bulk prevailed, and he released Seth, forcing him to sit on a bench. Andrew held both of Hatcher’s hands in one of his against the small of Hatcher’s back, as tightly as if he’d just clapped on a pair of handcuffs.
“You’re done now,” Andrew wheezed. “This is finished. I won’t have any of this at my place. Sit. Both of you.”
Natalie’s heart pounded as she, too, took a seat, still holding two dogs by their collars. Someone ran for cloths and ice. A small group of women surrounded each man, debating the wounds and how to care for them.
Hatcher seemed oddly relieved and quiet, as if happy to have released his anger. Blood trickled down his face. Seth and Andrew breathed hard and watched Hatcher closely, as if afraid he’d erupt again.
“We could’ve talked about this, you know. Reasonably. It didn’t have to turn into a fight,” Natalie said. She released the dogs and watched them leapfrog over each other before running into the night.
Hatcher stared at her. “No, we couldn’t. You wouldn’t have understood. Probably still don’t.”
Her adrenaline still pumping, Natalie spun on him. “I understand more—much more—about your selfishness and idiocy than I want to, Dr. Hatcher! From the moment you accused me of ruining your life because I critiqued your damn dissertation, you’ve acted like a bratty two-year-old who hasn’t gotten his way, and I, personally, am damn tired of your barbed and often incorrect comments.”
She took a breath, aware that Andrew and Seth had frozen, but she kept staring at Hatcher’s shocked face, and she couldn’t stop. “I worked three jobs with two little kids who needed me when I was reading dissertations like yours. I devoted all my nights and weekends to reading seven-hundred-page manuscripts about cat hernias and gestational cancer in camels, and whatever yours was. I gave up my kids’ childhoods to help people like you, to give you my honest critiques, and to help shape some of the best research I’ve ever read. And I fucking hate you for punishing me for giving you what I thought was positive feedback. For God’s sake, grow a pair of balls and get over it! There are far more important things that we need to take care of.”
She leaned against the table and pointed a shaking finger at him. “I don’t give a good goddamn if you don’t like me, but if you’re going to continue this battle, I will no longer lie down and play dead like some apologetic, weak sissy. Bring it on, Peter Hatcher. Bring it on.”
Hatcher lunged. His face, brilliant red. His eyes, iceberg blue. His hand reached for her as he clattered across the top of the table. Andrew thrust out a beefy arm like an iron gate, stopping Hatcher from going further.
“Seriously, Hatcher? You’d hit a woman?” She thrust her face closer to his. Taunting him, angrier than she’d been in years. “Why does it not surprise me that you’re a bully?”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Andrew shouted as Hatcher struggled to get past him.
Behind her, Seth grabbed her arm. “This isn’t making anything any better,” he said in her ear.
“I don’t give a shit!” she hissed. “This bastard isn’t going to get the best of me.”
“As long as you’re as upset as you are, no one wins.” Seth’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. “You need to give yourself some breathing space. Talk to him when you’re both calm.”
“That’ll be never.”
Andrew pulled Hatcher away, talking to him the whole while. Natalie stood and watched until they were out of sight, then sunk to a squatting position. A wave of anxiety spread over her. She shook. The back of her neck soaked her shirt. Prickles went up the sides of her head. She forced herself to count. Breathe. Breathe.