An Inconvenient Elephant Read Online Free PDF Page A

glow. “I’ll talk to the warden at first light,” she said, lingering at the door to look up at the stars, “and it comes very early, so you’d better get some sleep.”
    I followed her in.
    â€œTake the bed,” she said, dropping to the floor.
    â€œWe can share,” I said, trying not to sound as doubtful as I felt.
    She just stuffed her rucksack under her head and yawned. “Sweet dreams, Neelie Sterling. Dream of your Tom.”
    I lay down on the bed and rolled the thin pillow under my head and stretched out on the hard mattress. “I hope I don’t,” I said truthfully.
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    I wasn’t sure what had awakened me. Several sharp reports, then a great noise, a crash, someone shouting, and the familiar trumpeting of an elephant. I jumped from the bed. Diamond was already out the door, the camera swinging from her wrist.
    We followed a rush of campers and guides across the dark compound, toward a path where the lights had been turned on. There was a jumble of loud voices ahead, and my stomach tightened with anticipation. I was certain that an elephant had come into the camp. I missed my elephants, and I was eager to see one. I let myself get carried along in the surge toward a campsite about a quarter of a mile away.
    â€œIt’s probably Tusker,” someone said behind me. “He comes here almost every night.”
    I turned around to see a thin man running with a camera. “Who?” I asked.
    â€œThat big bull elephant,” he said. “Breaks into camp here around dinnertime. He’s famous for it. Practically a mascot. I’ve snapped quite a few photos of him.”
    No one seemed fearful. There was a contagion of high spirits and laughter and several comments about Tusker’s frequent visits. Some even proudly mentioned they had old videos of him, as though he were a star.
    There was a loud trumpet, and my heart jumped inside my chest. For all the hundreds of elephants I had seen by now, the sight of one still sent a thrill through me.
    He was just ahead. I could hear him, smell him.
    I ran with the others, anticipating him. Exhilarated. He was here. He was here!
    I hadn’t known what to expect. A camp attraction? Something to amuse the tourists? Some semicomical version of an elephant, not so very large, certainly not truly as wild as the country around us?
    And then suddenly he was right in front of me.
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    In the night stood a colossus of an animal, thirteen feet at the shoulder, at least. His great gray body swayed as he left the shadows and moved into the light, each step slow and deliberate and majestic, until he stood there, illuminated like a god, the gold light falling upon him like a mantle, his ears held out like great capes, his trunk lifted over our heads like an arm held out to bless us. He stood wild and glorious, the god of wild hearts.
    The shadows played against his giant head, his ears seemed to fan away the darkness as he approached the crowd of people playing flashlights on his corrugated face. He stopped walking and stood over us, expectant, yet expecting nothing. It was all contained within him, his own splendor, his own personal dignity. He needed nothing from us to complete him.
    I could only stare. I wanted to pay him homage. Drop to my knees in reverence. In an instant, I was utterly his.
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    His one tusk curved delicately inward toward his uplifted trunk like a musical instrument ready to summon other gods to his side. He looked around, turning his attention from one to the other, and we stood before him, chastened, like subjects to a king, as though waiting to be summoned into his glorious presence for a holy convocation.
    A large tent had been knocked over, the refrigerator lying on its side and broken apart, cots and equipment strewn across the ground.
    â€œGet your elephant under control,” a British-accented voice angrily rang out at one of the guides who had raced over to help. “The