Elephant Song

THREE

On the evening of that first day, across the huge lake, into the thin edge of the swamp just visible beyond it, the sun was setting. Packy Dern sat on the dew-weighted grass with his arms wrapped around his knees. The few clouds in the sky were black-red edged with gold placed against a sky as scarlet as blood. And, lordy, there had been plenty of blood.

He closed his eyes and held his head down for a moment. "Hell, yes." He lifted his head and looked at the near shore of the lake. The vee-shaped trough cut by the menagerie shuttle's belly began there. It ended in the trees far to his left. To the right of the trough were rock-capped hills. To the left was a ravine cut by the exiting waters of the lake as they flowed downhill toward the south. Considering the alternatives, Fireball had made a great landing.

A practical landing, too.

Bullhook Willy and the thirty-two other troupers who had died had been laid out in the short stretch of trough a hundred yards from the shore. There weren't any dozers or shovels with which to dig graves. And after the bodies were arranged at the bottom of the trough, all those who weren't injured gathered on the two sides. The boss animal man had stared at the bodies for an instant and then began kicking clods of dirt and grass into the cut. The two hundred and twenty-six troupers standing with him then became animated. With feet, hands, sticks and tears they covered the dead.

Packy shook the image from his mind. Without looking at it, he picked up the mahogany-handled, gold-tipped bullhook that was on the grass next to his own steel and rubber affair. With the warmth of the fine wood against his rough hands, he remembered. Poison Jim Bolger used to carry that hook before his trunk was put on the lot. Poison Jim was a lush, and nobody wants a bullhand with a nose like a fire alarm in control of tons of pachyderm.

So he was fired and the bullhand was swallowed up by that strange, cruel universe that existed outside the lot. Then, fifteen years later, the gold-tipped bullhook returned. It was in the hands of a skinny, eighteen-year-old Johnny-come-lately named Willy Kole. The kid never let that bullhook out of his sight. That's why they called him Bullhook Willy. And only ten years later, Pony Red made Bullhook boss elephant man even though there were other hands older and carrying more years with the bulls. No one ever questioned the boss animal man's decision, because the bullhands knew Bullhook Willy, and Bullhook Willy knew which end of a bull the tail was on.

"Hell." Packy picked up his own bullhook, pushed himself to his feet, and brushed the seat of his trousers. He turned and moved up the gentle incline toward the kraal.

"Poison Jim would say 'Boy, I say, boy, hosses go in a corral. 'Zat look like a damn hoss, boy? 'Zat's a bull, boy, an' bulls go in a kraal.' "

And Bullhook Willy would laugh at his own story.

Packy halted at the crude fence the bullhands had constructed out of rocks and the trunks of trees uprooted by the landing of the Number Three car. The fence formed one side of a rough triangle. The second was formed by a sheer wall of stone that seemed to extend forever upwards. The third side was formed by a cliff.

"You don't have to worry about a bull walking off a cliff, boy. Bull's got more sense'n a man. Don't you, I say, don't you know nothin' ?"

And Bullhook would laugh.

Packy reached the fence and climbed up the rocks and logs until he could look over the top. Ghostly beams of white light in the shadows below the reflected red of the rock wall testified that the show's vet, Mange Ranger, was still working on sewing together Queenie's trunk. Several hands were helping the vet work on the anesthetized pachyderm while two bullhands stood between the operation and the remaining bulls. Just in case.

Packy's bull, Robber, was contentedly yanking up and munching the grass of the compound. Thank the Boolabong for small favors. The grass was edible. Most of the hay and grain feed had been tossed out to lighten ship long before the Baraboo had burned.

Out of seventy-five bulls, thirty-four remained. Most of them had died in the parent ship's bad air, their carcasses tossed out to lighten ship. Nine had died when Number Three went down. Tomorrow would begin the job of hauling the dead bulls and the eighty dead horses from the port carrousel out of the shuttle to join the others in the big ditch. The one hundred and twenty-two surviving horses, Percherons and performing, were strung out at the edge of the trees below the kraal. One hundred and twenty-two horses remaining out of three hundred and fifty. None of the thousand or so other animals—big cats, camels, giraffes, apes, birds, snakes—none of them had made it down.

Near the edge of the cliff, her form motionless in the shadows, Ming stood away from the other bulls looking toward the darkness. Years before, it had been Ming on her side while Mange Ranger worked to sew up the cuts and the laser burns inflicted by some airfield yahoo at Port Paolito. That was in '27, fifteen years before O'Hara's Greater Shows took to the star road, in the elephant barn at the show's wintering grounds in Arcadia, Florida, North American Union.

Packy looked at Mange and his crew working on Queenie, but what he saw was that night so long ago. Mange had finished working on Ming, and Packy had agreed to sit up in the barn and keep watch. It was very late, and Ming struggled to her feet as the anesthetic wore off. She tested the chains on her feet, snorted, and then bellowed. She fought against her chains for a few minutes, then stood motionless except for her sides, heaving with each hard breath she took.

Packy had picked up an armload of hay and began walking toward Ming, but before he could offer the hay, Ming bellowed, stamped her feet, and began swinging her trunk. That trunk had taken out one bullhand, Buns Bunyoro, as Buns and the new kid, Bullhook Willy, tried to get the pachyderm out of the air-freighter's hold. Ming swung her trunk again and Packy threw the hay down upon the concrete floor of the elephant barn. "To hell with you, lady. I got a wife and a whiskey habit to consider." Packy returned to the stacked haybales and stretched out, waiting for the bull to settle down.

He dozed, then came awake as he sensed another presence in the barn. A number of the bullhands slept in the barn when they were tapped, and Packy prepared to resume his nap. Then he saw the new kid, Bullhook Willy, sitting in the hay a few feet away. His forearms rested upon his knees, the famous bullhook dangling from his right hand tapped steadily against his shoe. Directly across from Bullhook, Ming stood silently, staring back at him. The mountain of gray flesh was a living part of the shadows; then a glint from an eye, the gleam of a tusk. Each detectable motion from the elephant seemed to knot the kid's insides tighter and tighter.

Ming was the only bull without a bullhand; and the kid was the only bullhand short one pachyderm. But besides being a killer, that particular pachyderm was hurting, frightened, and angry. Packy wiped the sleep from his eyes, crawled across the haybales, and deposited himself next to Bullhook Willy.

"If you was smart, you'd wait 'till morning."

Willy turned his head. "Who's that?"

"It's me: Packy."

Willy looked back toward Ming. "If I was smart, Packy, I'd be in the treasury wagon."

"Bullhook, in the morning we can get her chained up on a cross and her head tethered down so she can't swing those tusks so wide. You need at least a couple of extra hands to bring that bull in line."

"Ming's already scared and confused, Packy. I want her to know that I'm the one she's supposed to mind." Willy looked up at the darkness. "It's quiet now and she's calm. I figure it's now or never." He looked back at Packy. "Ming is mine. She's got to know that."

"Buns was a good hand, Bullhook. And that pachyderm exed him."

A snort came from the shadows, then the clank of a leg testing the strength of, a chain. Bullhook studied the shadows. He pointed his bullhook toward the animal. "If I don't get her to toe the line, she'll be meat for the cats."

Packy placed a hand on Bullhook's shoulder. "Ming is still scared. Wait until morning."

"No."

Packy removed his hand. "That joy juice Mange Ranger shot in her rump's all wore off by now. She's hurtin'."

"She won't hurt any less in the morning."

Packy sighed and leaned back in the straw. "Bullhook, you and Buns have a lot in common."

"Thanks."

"Yessir, pig-headed, bull-happy, and dead."

Bullhook's head snapped toward the other bullhand. "Packy..."

"What?"

Bullhook took a deep breath, exhaled, then looked back toward Ming. "Like I said: if I was smart, I'd be in the treasury wagon." He looked back toward the shadows and pushed himself to his feet. "I got to go, and see my elephant."

Packy sat up. "Talk to her. All the time; talk to her. Keep your voice quiet, but let 'er know you mean business."

"Right." Bullhook bent over, picked up a handful of hay, and stood.

"Remember, kid: all you have to do is chicken once and it's all over."

Bullhook nodded and walked from the straw onto the concrete in front of Ming's stall. "All right, girl. Easy now." Ming studied Willy, first with one eye, then the next. He stopped before her, just out of reach. "You don't hurt much now, girl. You're nothing but scared." He reached out the hay. "You haven't eaten for a long time, baby. Come on, now." He shook the hay.

Packy saw the elephant study the interior of the bull pen, then examine the scrap of flesh standing in front of her. No bullhand ever looked so small; nor any bull so large.

Ming reached out her trunk and took the offering. As she stuffed the hay into her mouth, she kept an eye on Bullhook. As she chewed, Bullhook Willy moved closer. Ming brought up her head, then lowered it. Willy reached out a hand and stroked Ming's trunk. The bull swung her trunk, caught Bullhook in his middle, and sent him tumbling across the floor.

Packy sighed and shook his head. "Are you still alive?"

The boy got up on one elbow, reached two fingers into his mouth, and withdrew a tooth. Bullhook Willy laughed. "Packy, I'll be damned if we don't have a dentist in the show now."

Willy pushed himself up from the floor, picked up his bull-hook, and walked until he stood directly in front of Ming. He swatted her cheek with the bullhook and commanded: "No." He reached out a hand and stroked her trunk. "This is what we should be doing, babe. I don't want to hit you. But you have to behave. If we don't get along, you'll be cut up and fed to the cats. Let's go."

Ming again swung her trunk, bowling Bullhook across the floor and into a wall. Again, Packy shook his head. When the kid stood his face dripped red. He returned, stood before the pachyderm, wiped the blood on his sleeve, lifted his stick, and swatted her cheek with it. "No, babe. Don't do that."

The pachyderm stood quietly. Willy turned away then came back carrying another load of hay. Ming studied it, then reached out her trunk. She took the hay and allowed Bullhook to stroke her trunk as she ate. After stuffing in a load of hay, she slowly raised her trunk and wrapped it around Bullhook's shoulders, then his waist.

Packy got to his feet. A trunk around his waist, then the bull pulls you between its front legs, then it begins to work on you with the ivory. But this bull was not preparing for a gore job; she was sniffing her new master. The kid didn't tremble, and he kept his gold-tipped bullhook in plain view. Ming eyed the stick, then let her trunk drop to pick up some of the hay that was in front of her.

Bullhook Willy went back to get some more hay. As he stooped down, Packy let out his breath. "She's yours, Bullhook. She's all yours."

"Yeah." There was a glistening of tears on the kid's cheeks. "Yeah." Bullhook Willy picked up the hay and returned to his elephant.

But that was a lot of years ago.

And the first sunset was dying on a strange planet.

And Madman Mulligan was Ming's bullhand, now.

The survivors were setting up housekeeping in grass shacks and caves. Packy felt a chill, climbed down from the fence, and looked toward the rough long house that had been put up as a makeshift infirmary to house the injured. Somewhere in there, fighting for her life, was Little Will, Bullhook's twelve-year-old daughter. Footsteps came from the direction of the still-smoldering shuttle. It was Pony Red Miira, the boss animal man.

"Packy?"

"Yeah?"

"You're boss elephant man."

"I don't want the job, Pony."

"Who asked you?" Pony Red climbed the fence, went over the top, down the other side, and continued toward the white lights. Mange was still working on Queenie.

Packy glanced at the final red of the sun against the sky, then looked down at the gold-tipped bullhook in his hands.

"Yessir, pig-headed, bull-happy, and dead,"

He began walking toward the infirmary.