Tua and the Elephant (8 page)

“We need a boat,” she said. As she scanned the river for a boat or barge big enough to accommodate an elephant, Tua felt the log roll beneath her.

Pohn-Pohn’s foot was on it.

“Not now, Pohn-Pohn.”

Pohn-Pohn rolled the log again.

“What is it?” Tua looked Pohn-Pohn in the eye. “What’s the matter?”

Then she looked over her shoulder to where Pohn-Pohn’s trunk was pointing … and saw a sagging tent, a spent fire, and a chain attached to a stake in the ground.

The log she was sitting on was the very same log she had hidden behind the night before last.

They were back at the mahouts’ camp.

Pohn-Pohn didn’t wait for Tua to speak; she lifted her off the log and pulled her to the river’s edge.

Tua planted her heels in the sand and pulled back on the trunk.

“We can’t swim across the river,” Tua said. “It’s too far. It’s too fast. It’s too deep.”

Pohn-Pohn waded into the swirling current up to her neck and, looking back over her shoulder, flapped her ears as if to say, “Come.”

Tua looked up and down the river one more time, hoping for a boat to come to their rescue. There were none to be seen. So she waded into the muddy water, climbed onto Pohn-Pohn’s back, clamped her arms around the elephant’s thick neck, pinched her legs tight, and closed her eyes.

“Okay, Pohn-Pohn,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Pohn-Pohn launched herself into the swift current with her trunk rising out of the water like a snorkel.

No sooner had Tua and Pohn-Pohn slipped over the embankment than the two mahouts came panting up to the intersection behind them. Nak stared up and down both lanes of traffic.

“Where could they be?”

“Move on, move on,” said a gravelly voice. “This isn’t a tourist attraction.”

Nak turned around and glared down at a wrinkled old man sitting on a footstool behind a folding table. He was selling charms, medallions, amulets, and talismans. Bare-chested and wrapped in a faded sarong, he leaned over and spit betel nut juice on the ground between his feet.

Nak removed the scowl from his face. “Good day to you, grandfather,” he smiled. “You didn’t happen to see a little girl with an elephant go by here recently, did you?”

“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t,” said the old fossil. “What’s it worth to you?”

“Worth to me?” Nak asked.

“Maybe you’d like to buy a charm, to change your luck.”

“I’m not a superstitious man,” Nak assured the old creature and laughed.

“Of course not. We live in the modern world. An amulet, perhaps, to ward off evil spirits?”

Nang reached under his shirt, clutched the medallion dangling from his neck, and whispered an incantation.

“What about your friend there?” The ancient nodded at Nang. “Would he like some … protection?”

Nang gulped.

Ignoring the questions, Nak pulled a twenty-
baht
note out of his pocket and waved it in the air.

“What will this buy me?” he asked.

“All that you desire,” the old man cackled. He snatched the note out of Nak’s hand, and pointed a bony finger across the street. “They went thataway.”

Nak darted into the road, waving back the cars and cursing their horns, while Nang scurried after. When they reached the embankment on the other side, Nak scanned the shoreline from the bend in the river above to the bridge below.

“I don’t see them anywhere,” Nak frowned.

Nang saw something bobbing up and down in the middle of the river like a capsized boat. There seemed to be someone clinging to the keel. He looked back over his shoulder. The old man had folded up his table and was gone.

“What’s that there?” Nak pointed to the middle of the river.

A wave washed over Tua and she lifted her head, gasped for breath, and opened her eyes. A swift current was plunging them downstream. Whirlpools swirled around them in fits. And they were only halfway across the river. She pinched her legs together and locked her arms tighter around Pohn-Pohn.

When they reached the deepest part of the river, Pohn-Pohn rolled over with the current, and they slowly sank below the surface.

First Tua’s legs, and then her arms were torn free. She kicked and paddled through the dark, muddy water; popped to the surface and gulped
a mouthful of air; but was quickly sent spinning under the waves again. Just when she thought her lungs would burst, something grasped her ankle and pulled. She lurched through the water, leaving a trail of bubbles behind her. Tua closed her eyes—and was suddenly bathed in sunlight.

She could breathe! She was floating in air—she was flying! Then she dropped like a coconut and plopped onto Pohn-Pohn’s back. Locking her legs around Pohn-Pohn’s neck, Tua grabbed both of the elephant’s ears. Pohn-Pohn curled her trunk back over her head and hosed Tua down.

“Cheeky
chang,
” she sputtered. Then she looked back over her shoulder. With the better part of the crossing behind them, the river wasn’t as scary as before—not if Pohn-Pohn was swimming with her.

Tua climbed to her feet and, standing on Pohn-Pohn’s head, scanned the shoreline in search of a place to land.

“There.” She pointed to an empty beach, dove into the river, and swam the rest of the way on her own.

The beach was not as empty as Tua originally thought. A committee of ducks had come down to the shore to meet them. They were lined up in a row and clapping their beaks in protest.

“
Kho thot kha,
” Tua bowed, begging their pardon. She started to offer an explanation when Pohn-Pohn emerged from the river behind her. The elephant walked through the middle of the ducks to a shallow puddle up the beach, knelt down, tipped over on her side, and began rolling in the dirt and mud. She scooped up a dripping glob in her trunk and tossed it on her shoulder.

This was more than the ducks could endure. They lifted into the air in a single body and soared out over the river like an arrow.

When Tua turned back around, she saw two men with a fishing net coming over the embankment. She waved to them, but they didn’t respond. They weren’t looking at her. They were looking at Pohn-Pohn.

She was thinking that she might owe them an apology as well, when they broke into a run. Before Tua lowered her arm, the men were on the beach and flinging their net over Pohn-Pohn.

“Look out for the trunk, Krit,” cried the bald fisherman. “Get the net over its head.”

“I’m trying, Prasong,” the scrawny fisherman replied. “It’s as strong as an elephant, you know.”

Pohn-Pohn rocked back and forth and tried to lift her head and trunk—tried to get her legs under her body—but the net held her down in the mud. Then both men fell on top of her, and she screamed for help.

Tua set off like a rocket and, pouncing on the bald fisherman, grabbed both his ears.

“Ai-yee!” he cried, throwing his hands over his head. He scratched at Tua’s arms and rolled off Pohn-Pohn’s back.

Tua dropped to the ground, ran to the river, dove in, and swam away from the shore.

“Help, Prasong, quick!” called Krit. “I can’t hold it by myself.”

As Prasong turned to assist his friend, Tua caught the current and was swept away downstream.

Tua stayed in the current until she rounded a bend. Then she swam to shore, crept back along the embankment, and crouched down in the tall grass above Pohn-Pohn.

“What do we do now?” asked the scrawny fisherman.

“We’ll sell it, of course,” said Prasong. “Pound for pound, an elephant is worth more than a fish.”

“But who do we sell it to?”

“To me,” came an answer from atop the embankment.

Recognizing the voice, Tua flattened herself in the tall grass and caught her breath.

“Congratulations, gentlemen,” said Nak. “Well done, well done. Your talents are entirely wasted on the river. You could be big game hunters.”

Nak and Nang followed a narrow path down to the beach. Nang carried a heavy chain over his shoulder and an ankus in his hand. The sight of the ankus, with its pointed spike and pointed hook, made Tua shudder.

“If you just hold the beast steady while my partner attaches the chain to its foot,” said Nak, “we’ll gladly take it off your hands.”

“Who are you?” Prasong squinted at the strangers.

“I am the owner of that elephant you’re sitting on.”

“What elephant? I don’t see any elephant. We’re fishermen. This is a fish. If you want to buy a fish, it’s twenty
baht
a pound. I reckon this fish weighs, oh … some four hundred pounds … times twenty … that would come to … eight thousand
baht,
” he grinned.

Krit covered his mouth with his hand and snickered.

“Come now, gentlemen,” said Nak, “be reasonable. You’re not exactly in the best bargaining position, are you? How did you plan on getting up? Do you have something to secure it with? Can one of you hold down an enraged ‘fish’ while the other goes off to fetch a chain or a rope? How long were you planning on sitting here … under the sun … with nothing to eat or drink?” He reached for a water bottle from a cloth bag slung over his shoulder, took a long pull from it, gargled, rinsed his teeth, and spat the water in the sand between his feet. “Eh?” he smiled.