Jade

Dawn in the Serengeti was no casual affair. The night fought the day in a bloody duel that slashed reds and golds over a vast canvas of indigo. By the time the sun kicked the moon out of the sky, the horizon was ablaze with the golden light that made the Serengeti a photographer’s dream. The creatures of the plains came out to celebrate the triumph of light over darkness. I did too. Rattling over the rough roads in Matthias’s Land Rover, sitting in the passenger’s seat next to him, my camera’s viewfinder was as full as my heart and my shutter worked non-stop.

I gave the camera a rest and glanced over at Matthias. The light edged his profile with a radiant glow that highlighted the smooth line running down from his forehead, over the tiny bump of his sunglasses’ nosepiece, and down the length of his nose. The glow dipped over his septum, rose over the defining lift of his lips, and delineated the rough edges of his closely-cropped stubble, before it turned at an angle to showcase his well-constructed jaw and his strong neck. He was aglow in a way that dazzled my eyes. I didn’t know what to make of the joy and the terror fighting the duel inside of me.

Earlier, with my emotions in a state of chaos, I’d had no idea what to expect in the crisp darkness of the early morning when I stepped out of my bungalow. Not even the monkeys were awake yet. But Matthias had been waiting for me, sitting on the walkway’s wooden railing, dressed in a black fleece and his usual cargos, sipping from a travel mug. The sight of him sent my heart galloping. He looked solid and imposing against the starred sky, like Kilimanjaro in the flesh.

“Got any good sleep?” he asked, holding up a second travel mug wafting with the scent of fresh coffee, an irresistible lure.

“Not much,” I mumbled.

I felt awkward as we faced each other. It probably had something to do with the turmoil in my head, not to mention those triple X dreams I’d had last night. Memories of his kisses had fed my imagination as my mind traveled from one elaborate sexual fantasy to the next. Once again, I’d had to change my panties this morning.

I didn’t want to risk getting too close to him, for fear of igniting the heat within. But the coffee was tempting. I took a step toward him and then another. He waited patiently while I tested my own boundaries. When I didn’t self-combust, I accepted the coffee. The smile felt clumsy on my lips, but I hoped it conveyed gratitude.

“I didn’t sleep much either,” he said. “Are you ready for this?”

I wasn’t ready for him, if that’s what he meant. I wasn’t ready for us either. In fact, the word “us” sent frissons up my spine. My defenses were back up. My fears were all over the map. I had my resolutions to uphold and even if I got up my nerve to consider what he wanted, disaster was guaranteed.

The biochemical exchange between us was hard to manage, but Matthias’s aplomb as he sat on the railing gave me hope I could work through this. I took a deep breath. I was ready for the day and work always centered me in the present. So off we went, taming our impulses, testing the integrity of the universe’s fabric around us.

The day out in the reserve proved to be a bonanza for the photographer in me. Matthias’s Land Rover carried a full load: two armed rangers and Doctor Valdez and his elephant team, including Sarah. It was amazing. I captured footage of a tribe of baboons taking over the road and took pictures of five different types of gazelles, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests and hyenas. Much to Sarah’s disappointment, we didn’t find the elephants, but we did track them along a trampled path of bark-stripped acacias that reminded me that elephants were a lot like humans. They transformed their environment as they went.

Doctor Valdez, Sarah and the rest of their team spent a lot of time fidgeting with their GPS, mapping this particular herd’s track, and trying to estimate how many individuals traveled together. Matthias’s radio buzzed with reports from all over the reserve. His day was busy, and he spent a great deal of time radioing out instructions. Sometime after lunch, we came across a water hole near the reserve’s western boundaries.

“Stop!” Doctor Valdez shouted excitedly from his perch in the middle seat. “They were here and not too long ago.”

Matthias stepped on the brakes and the truck screeched to a stop, his gaze scanning the place. “You know how I feel about water holes. They’re ambushes waiting to happen. Predators of all kind, including humans, love to hang out around them.”

“We’ll be careful,” Doctor Valdez said.

Matthias engaged the hand break. “Wait here.”

He stepped out, climbed on the Land Rover and stood on the roof with his weapon slung over his shoulder. Taking the lead watch position, he scanned the surroundings with his binoculars. After a few minutes, he tapped his boot on the roof. His rangers got out and scouted the area. Only after they sounded the all clear, were we allowed to get out of the truck. His thorough security procedures impressed the marine in me.

I was disappointed when we didn’t find any elephants, but Doctor Valdez and his team found lots of fresh piles of elephant dung in the vicinity of the water hole. He, Sarah, and the rest gloved up to their elbows to take samples. I followed the research team, taking pictures and footage of their not-so-pleasant work.

“You don’t mind having to sift through all that shit?” I asked.

“Heavens, no!” Sarah grinned, shin deep in a fresh pile. “Imagine everything we’ll learn from these samples.”

Yep. Those shit-loving folks were my friends. No wonder Sarah liked me.

I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, because Doctor Valdez got snippy with nosy photojournalists who encroached on his precious fieldwork time. After I took enough dung pictures to document the herd’s diet in gross detail, I focused on the flock of gray crowned cranes hanging out by the water hole. I followed those fancy dinosaur relics as they moved downstream, a couple hundred yards away from the truck. The distance must have been beyond Matthias’s comfort zone, because his loud, sharp whistle caught my attention.

He cased his hands around his mouth and called out. “Jade! Back this way!”

I raised my hand up in the air, sticking up one finger. “One minute?”

One minute, he signaled, mirroring my finger.

I took a deep breath and asked God for patience. I was very much aware of my surroundings. I’d studied the threats and dangers of the African bush. I was a marine, for Christ’s sake. I could take care of myself. But I saw no sense in defying Matthias during my first day of restricted freedom, so I hurried, finished photographing the cranes, and turned around.

On my way back, I jumped over a wet ravine and spotted human footprints in the mud. They were several different sizes. I took pictures then surveyed the elephant team. They were working the opposite bank, closer to the truck. I was pretty sure they hadn’t come this way.

A soft rumble caught my attention, an almost imperceptible sound, an intriguing, vibrating noise. I followed the sound and the tracks through the deepening, down-sloping ravine. The ravine opened up to a copse of acacias at the bottom of the hill. I came to a dead stop. Standing among the acacias, not ten feet away, perfectly camouflaged among the reedy branches, stood a single, gigantic elephant.

Uh-oh. I almost peed my pants. It was a huge elephant, at least twelve or thirteen feet tall, with long tusks and large ears fanned forward in my direction. Holy crap. I fought the urge to bolt. Running was always a bad idea. But the animal’s full attention was on me.

“Easy does it,” I mumbled and took a step back in slow motion. “I was just leaving.”

The elephant flapped its ears. I froze in my tracks. The animal eyed me closely, but it didn’t charge. The look in its eyes echoed the words streaming in my head. Assess. Adapt. Overcome. The elephant came to its own conclusions faster than I did, because its ears relaxed.

I studied the elephant in return. She was a female with full breasts hanging between her front legs. She was close enough that I could see the details in her scarred, corrugated gray hide, the notch in her right ear and the slashed scar she bore on her wrinkled forehead. Her long, bushy lashes cased a pair of alert caramel eyes.

The cow took a few slow, ponderous steps and, leaving the shade of the trees, came out into the open to stand before me. My feet grew roots. I couldn’t move. It took all I had not to whimper like an incoherent madwoman. The elephant’s trunk coiled up in the air, nostrils quivering as she sniffed in my direction. Her trunk stretched toward me, close, closer still, like a brawny tentacle with a life of its own, reaching for me, the little nostrils expanding and contracting, hovering close to my face. I shut my eyes and prayed.

A touch, so light and delicate; a ruffling of my hair that sent tingles all over my scalp; a warm leathery stroke sliding over my temple and down toward the side of my head. The clink of my earring as the elephant fingered it delicately with the tip of her flexible trunk. The earring, swinging from my lobe as she let go. A puff of air right to my face. Oh, God. More praying on my part, teeth gritted, nails dug into my camera’s frame.

And then…nothing.

I opened my eyes slowly. The elephant was still there, standing just a few feet from me, silent and immobile. Her little eyes scoured me thoroughly, the way women often do when another female arrives on the scene, shoes, dress, purse, hair. It was unreal, but the elephant totally checked me out.

Her stare touched something inside of me. With a swipe and a stomp, she could’ve trampled me. In two steps, she could’ve easily pinned me to the ground with her head and made a mash of my internal organs. But she didn’t do any of that. She just stared at me like an old woman, teaching me with her restraint that I was in the presence of wisdom.

I recognized her for the intelligent, self-aware creature she was. I know you, her gaze acknowledged before she turned around to display her huge flank. I thought she was leaving. I let out the breath I’d been holding. She was so close to the waterhole and yet invisible to Matthias, Sarah, and the researchers who would’ve given an arm and a leg to be part of this incredible encounter.

But I was wrong. She wasn’t leaving. She swung her enormous head my way and swiped the ground with her trunk, stirring the dust, waving her long trunk back and forth several times, as if saying…follow me?

Jesus. It didn’t sound like my brightest idea. If I took off after the elephant, Matthias would have a cow, no pun intended. The elephant took a few steps and repeated her actions, slowly, patiently, deliberately, like Granny Romo did when she taught me her secret recipes. When she repeated her motions exactly for a third time, I was pretty sure she wanted me to follow her.

“Okay.” I gulped down a swallow of pure adrenaline. I stepped lightly, trailing the cow at a safe distance. Was there such a thing as a safe distance when David hung out with Goliath?

She didn’t go very far. She edged around the hill, up a small knoll and then, a minute later, she stopped. She uttered that low rumbling sound again and eyed me, as if making sure I was paying attention. She stepped into another copse of acacias. I followed her with no small amount of trepidation and my heart booming in my chest. When I looked beneath the shadow of the trees, she stood next to a tall pile of yellow grass.

At first, my eyes couldn’t make sense of what I saw. I tilted my head and realized that the object before me was not a random pile, but rather a man-made grass shack, hidden in the brush, a simple construction of reeds, roped together at the top with a small, round hole that served as a door.

“Jade!” Matthias’s shout startled me out of the trance, loud and not necessarily friendly.

I blinked hard and looked again. The shack was still there, but the elephant was gone, and I mean, disappeared, vanished. One moment she’d been standing there, right next to the shack and then…

I scanned the brush again. No trace of the huge cow, as if she’d never been there. I scratched my head. How could a fifteen thousand pound giant disappear like that?

Matthias came trotting down the hill, clutching his rifle against his chest, boots crunching on the ground. He skidded to a stop when he saw me, then stomped over, mouth twisted into a fearsome scowl.

“Goddamn it, Jade,” he ground out and not kindly. “What the hell did I tell you? When I said stick with the group, I mean stick with the goddamn group, within my line of sight, at all times…”

“Matthias?” My knees shook and my bladder was still iffy.

He barked. “What?”

“Um…there was this elephant—”

“An elephant?” His fingers tightened around his weapon and his eyes scoured the ravine as he turned around in a circle, scouting our surroundings. “Here? Now?”

“Unh-huh.”

“I don’t see any elephants,” he muttered, but he kept looking.

“She…um…she was…really big…”

“How big?”

“Um…tall, maybe fourteen, fifteen feet? Full breasts, notched right ear, slashed scar on the forehead.”

He frowned, casing me with his shades. “Bibi was here?”

“Bibi?” I repeated numbly.

“You’re describing the matriarch of the Eastland’s herd very specifically.”

“Oh…well…Bibi…” She had a name. “Bibi told me…”

“Jade?” Matthias stepped up and pressed his palm against my forehead. “Are you feverish?”

“I’m fine.” I leaned into his touch, rooting myself to the moment. “But Bibi…”

“Jesus, Jade,” Matthias interrupted me. “Please tell me you didn’t get close to the elephant, did you?”

“Um…no, not really.” Technically, it was Bibi who’d gotten close to me, but I decided to skip that part. “Um…Bibi…” I continued, trying to digest my very own, implausible story, “she was here and she told me…well…not told me…showed me…brought me…here.” I stretched out my arm and pointed at the acacia cluster.

Matthias’s gaze shifted to the trees. He pushed up his sunglasses. His eyes widened as they fell on the grass shack. “Oh, shit.”

My stomach squeezed. “Is that a…?”

“The killers were here.” Matthias swore under his breath. “That’s a poacher’s shed.”