“Sok, Sophie! Sok!” Natalie barked the command to walk backward, her voice as deep and authoritative as she could make it. She touched Sophie’s hip with the pole, a medium push, a flea touch compared to the stinging dig of the ankus. Sophie inched back, taking her time, but following Natalie’s commands.
“Good girl, Sophie.” Natalie’s voice softened. “Good girl.”
Under the heavy weight of her hair, Natalie’s neck and back were soaked with sweat, both from nervousness and the day’s sweltering humidity. Filming would end soon, and she was happy to see it end, though the end of the project also meant that Seth no longer had any reason to stay. They’d talked about it late into the night as they faced each other in her twin-sized bed.
“I can squeeze in a couple more days here,” Seth had whispered as he wiped a curl of her hair from her forehead with a gentle finger. “But we have an assignment in Borneo I need to get to. They’ll understand me needing a couple of days’ break before I start, but no more than that.”
He adjusted his arm beneath her shoulders and slid his leg down hers until their ankles locked. Their bodies fit together perfectly, and when she glanced down at the contrast between them, she was struck by the fact that it was a very subtle difference. Her own skin had become so tanned that she was only a few shades lighter than he was. Mali called them “handsome as movie stars.”
Handsome, Natalie thought. The right word for Seth, but for her? No one had ever called her that.
With the previous evening’s memory still fresh in her thoughts, she eyed him, in his bright white cotton shirt, his black hair curly and shining with the day’s humidity, his mouth straight and serious, intent on getting a good day’s shooting done without incidents.
And so far, Sophie was cooperating perfectly. She backed up a few more feet and was clear of the enclosure.
“How, Sophie!” Natalie gave the order to stop. She leaned toward the elephant and breathed in Sophie’s warm scent, a combination of bananas and dung and sweet potatoes and mud. Earthy. Heavy. Elephant.
Sophie stopped and reached out her trunk to touch the pole, as if reassuring herself of its location since it was behind her and out of sight. To the right side by a grove of palm trees, three mahouts watched from atop their ellies. Natalie and Siriporn had talked about getting the mahouts off the elephants’ backs, but changing their mindset was still a work-in-progress. All of them—humans and elephants alike—watched Sophie intently. None of the mahouts held their ankuses—Natalie had won that argument—and Chanchai, his legs straddling Ali’s neck, finally appeared comfortable without it.
This was the third time they’d all joined together, working the elephants with only their voices and the protected contact pole. As Andrew pointed out, Ali, Thaya, and Pahpao were always well-behaved, as long as Ali wasn’t in mustph. They knew each other well, having spent the past ten years together at the sanctuary. They really didn’t need to be retrained. It was the mahouts who needed an education. They believed using the ankus was the only way to get an elephant to behave, but at least they were trying and that was major considering how ingrained their beliefs were.
Natalie watched the mahouts working their elephants and wished Siriporn was here. He had been a convert to protected contact and was a valuable partner, but he was still missing in action. Andrew had checked with his contacts in the Bangkok military after Natalie talked to him, but he found out nothing. Mali had barely spoken to Andrew after that. It was clear that her son’s well-being came first, and Andrew knew it. The problem was that neither of them would budge when it came to their opinions about how to raise Mali’s oldest child.
Natalie couldn’t blame Mali. No matter what kind of issues Andrew and Siriporn had, the least Andrew could have done was to offer her some comfort. After all, he was her son. But Andrew wasn’t going out of his way to help. Mali called him a wanker, the closest she came to vulgarity.
Seth checked with his production company to get a list of those protestors who’d been shot or arrested. A day later, he received a phone call. Siriporn hadn’t shown up on either list. When Natalie relayed the info to Mali, she wordlessly grasped Natalie’s hand. Still, no word from Siriporn, and the protests throughout the country continued, even though the military had taken control of the government.
And neither Karina nor Hatcher had contacted Andrew. No one knew where they’d gone nor had anyone heard from them. The mahouts gossiped that Dr. Peter and Mr. Andrew’s sister had run away together for a romantic tryst, but Natalie highly doubted it. It was more likely that Hatcher figured his disappearance might remind everyone of how much he did at the sanctuary. Andrew growled more often than he spoke these days.
He did that now, as the elephants moved together in a tight little pod with her on the ground amidst them. She peered up at Pahpao. Khalan sat atop the middle-aged female’s neck, wearing a Yankees baseball cap that Seth had given him last week. Rumor had it he didn’t remove the hat even when he took a shower, that’s how much he loved it.
The elephants parted, and for a moment, Natalie saw Rob and Sidecar pointing their cameras right at her as she commanded Sophie to move forward. She smiled contentedly when Sophie did exactly as she was told.
“I’m proud of you, ol’ girl,” she whispered and patted the elephant’s wide foreleg. Sophie flapped her ears and lay her trunk against Natalie’s arm as she always did when she knew she was going to get a treat.
As Natalie fed her some bananas, she heard a familiar sound: the clicking of a camera lens close to her ear. She froze and glanced up, half-expecting to see a gaggle of news photographers and journalists, yelling questions about her sons and gun control and demanding to know whether she even thought of the other parents who’d lost children. She was prepared to bolt, but the knee-jerk reaction receded when Seth lowered his camera and said, “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you two girls.”
Natalie ducked her head, embarrassed at the emotion welling in her eyes, but Sophie shifted, forcing herself into Natalie’s view. Sophie’s big brown eye stared right into Natalie’s, then the long fringed lashes closed and opened as if Sophie had just winked.
__________
The bull they call Ali pushes his way to Sophie’s side. He is taller than all of the elephants and wider than most, but he doesn’t cause problems and is respected for that. He’s mild and quietly confident. Noble.
Sophie lifts her trunk and touches the inside of his mouth in greeting, then stands with him, quietly eating. He is the only elephant she recognizes from long ago. Everyone else is gone, but the big bull is part of that old memory.
Long ago, he led the trail of logging elephants up and down the rocky, jungle mountain road every day. She followed behind, smelling his scent in the dirt and on the small trees they uprooted as the herd traveled single file up and back, up and back. Every day for many seasons, she followed him up the mountain, then back down. Together always, the elephants were attached to each other by a chain that wound through the iron ring encircling each elephant’s ankle. It was that ring that created the pain Sophie has endured for so long.
She did not share Ali’s food pile or even the same grazing area when they were in the logging camp, because females were always separated from males, but she knew him. He became the patriarch of their logging family, taking the place of the large matriarchs that normally led the herd. Nothing in their captivity was normal, nothing was the way nature intended. Mothers and calves were separated. Large bull elephants who hadn’t yet mated worked side by side with females whose scent drove the bulls wild. Every season, at least one of them had to be killed. Some charged right off the skinny mountain roads, pulling several other elephants with them.
Sophie was in her thirtieth year when Ali vanished in a big truck that usually arrived to remove one of the fallen members of the herd. Another bull took his place on the line the next day, another bull left his scent on the trail and the trees.
One season later, the big truck came for Sophie. The iron ring remained on her ankle. Another chain was attached to it, and the pain stole Sophie’s memory of the following couple years. She now remembers only pain. No sounds. No family. No delicious mouthfuls like the zucchinis the woman had given Sophie earlier. There was no memory of life between the truck and this moment.
Throughout the long time between the days she’d worked with Ali and her arrival here, she had not thought of him, yet she searched constantly for the family she’d known long ago. She yearned for the day she would find one of them. Then she arrived here, and when she caught the scent of her long-ago friend, she recognized him immediately. He represents family for her.
He bumps her now, rubbing his hip against hers, finally bumping her out of the way so he can steal some of her food. He chews loudly, and from the crunch, he is eating some palm fronds. Relishing them. Sophie presses her hip back against him, feeling his solidness, and she sighs with the contentment of an aging grandmother.