Larger Than Life Read online

  Anger flares in my belly. He's not a bush vet or a zoologist; who is he to judge me? "I know a lot," I fire back. "But I guess I was absent the day my Harvard neurobiology prof covered how to raise a goddamned baby elephant."

  Ignoring me, Neo kneels to stroke the calf's brow. "Where did you find her?"

  "Near the mopane tree, past the bend in the river where the wildebeest cross."

  "She was with the five that were poached?"

  I nod. "I couldn't leave her behind."

  He doesn't comment, just scrutinizes the calf. "She's dehydrated," Neo pronounces. "Her cheeks should be plump, like a toddler's." He reaches for the bottle I've improvised. I can tell he is impressed by the engineering as he pulls the rubber glove off the top and rinses out the glass container. "Please tell me you didn't give her the cabernet."

  I shake my head. "Just the milk."

  "How much has she drunk?"

  "Gallons," I say. "But it passes right through." I hesitate. "Does anyone else ... do the others ...?"

  "Know about her? No." He glances up and sees the question in my eyes. "I saw you walking into camp with her, like she was a pet on a leash. I watched you tie her to the porch last night." He grins. "How'd that work out for you?"

  Neo slips a jar from the pocket of his jacket: The label reads "Coconut Oil." "This should help with the diarrhea. Different animals need different fat and protein to survive. The coconut oil, it's a substitute for the fat that would be in her mother's milk, and it won't upset her stomach."

  "How do you know all this?"

  He shrugs. "I grew up in the bush, and my grandmother was a healer. She knew to use resin from the corkwood tree to treat a wound; she boiled roots from the bush willow to cure infertility; she knew that chewing the root of the mothakolana tree helped with a toothache. Once, when an elephant calf wandered into our village, she kept him alive for two weeks. Milk went right through him, so she tried adding banana, and rice, and butter, but the calf got sicker. She experimented with everything and finally figured out that if she added coconut oil to fat-free baby formula, he would keep it down."

  "What happened to the calf?"

  "His herd came back for him," Neo said. "But he would return to our village every year at least once, looking for my grandmother."

  "That's amazing!"

  "It was amazing when he was tiny. It was terrifying when he was a ten-thousand-pound bull."

  I watch him open the jar. "You just happened to have coconut oil lying around?"

  "No. One of the other rangers, his wife uses it in her hair. He keeps a jar here for her."

  The elephant struggles to her feet, bumping against Neo as he stands at the sink. He dips his fingers into the coconut oil and slips them into her mouth; I hear her slurping. I realize that he is no longer wearing his bandage. The scrapes on his hand are red and raw, but they are already healing.

  "If you want to help," he suggests, "you can clean up a bit. No offense, but this place looks like a sty."

  I open my mouth to argue but realize he is joking. Neo's strong hand supports the elephant as she greedily devours this new cocktail. "Don't worry, little miss," he croons. "We'll figure this out."

  Suddenly, my eyes are swimming with tears. I think of Anya, whispering about me to the other researchers. Of my former boss, yelling as he said there was no place for me at Madikwe. Of the injured calf I sat with all night there, whose last breath rattled through me like a shiver. Of his mother, who abandoned him.

  Neo tilts his head, a silent question.

  "We," I repeat. My voice breaks on the rocks of relief. "You said we."

  When the door of my cottage flies open at 5:00 A.M. the calf is sleeping on Neo's lap and I am sprawled facedown on the bed.

  My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep, and my mouth is dry as bone. I squint at the doorway, at the silhouette framed by the blaze of the early sun, but it isn't until Grant starts yelling at me that I realize the figure standing before me is my boss. "Good God," he says, staring at the calf. "I thought Anya was crazy when she told me what she'd heard. What the hell are you thinking, Alice?"

  His booming accusation wakes the calf, who pulls on the hem of my shirt as I scramble upright. "Grant, hear me out. She's a newborn. Her mother was slaughtered by poachers. She was going to die if I didn't do something."

  "Exactly. You're here to observe nature, not to change it."

  As Grant's voice escalates in volume, the calf leans against my hip as if she is giving moral support, or maybe because she needs it. "If she'd been shot and was suffering, we'd be allowed to call in someone from the wildlife department to put her out of her misery. So why shouldn't we be allowed to intervene to save her if the opportunity presents itself?"

  But Grant is hardly listening to my impassioned rant. He has folded his arms and is frowning at Neo, who looks like he's trying to sink through the floorboards.

  For a man who came here unannounced last night and took charge--briskly mixing up a concoction that actually nourished the calf, rolling up the soiled blankets and sheets and setting them out back to be washed--Neo seems to be suddenly, surprisingly timid. Like he could make himself invisible if he tried hard enough.

  Then I realize why: Neo knows he doesn't belong in the cottage of a researcher. Fraternization between the rangers and the researchers simply doesn't occur. It is why the rangers have their own village; it is why we never invite Neo or the others to join us for cards or a bottle of wine. It is why they are expected to get up and scout the reserve at 3:30 A.M. while we sleep in till 5:00. We are the foreigners, and they are locals. We have PhDs and book knowledge; they have grown up tracking animals from remarkable distances and surviving in the bush. True, we are all part of the same team, but there are invisible lines between us, and they are not meant to be crossed.

  "Neo," Grant says tightly. "I expected more from you."

  I bite my lip. It is one thing for Grant to reprimand me, but I can't stand the thought that I might have cost Neo his job.

  I step forward, blocking Grant's view of Neo. "With all due respect, Grant, I came to Botswana to study elephant cognition as it is affected by trauma. This calf certainly qualifies as a subject. In fact, given the money that's been provided to me by the university for my research, it would have been negligent for me to leave this calf to die in the field without first examining the behavioral effects of having her mother and aunts killed in front of her."

  I am blowing smoke. Obviously, if I'd truly been doing what I described, I would have been observing the calf in the field, not bringing her to my cottage. And the truth is, I would have rescued this baby even if my field of study had been migratory patterns and watering holes. But Grant doesn't have to know that. "I'm the one who asked Neo for assistance," I lie. "I wasn't trying to break the rules, honestly. I was just doing my job."

  Grant narrows his eyes. "The folks down in Madikwe warned me that you aren't a team player. You're not going to get three strikes here before you're out. Just two. Consider this the first."

  As he speaks, the calf wobbles toward him. Her trunk pinches at the air, as if she's trying to catch a mosquito. She rifles through the front pocket of Grant's khaki shirt and pulls out his reading glasses.

  Whatever vitriol Grant was about to hurl at me dissipates in a sigh. It is a fact universally acknowledged that it's impossible to stay furious in close proximity to a newborn elephant.

  Grant points at me. "You are solely responsible for this elephant."

  "Yes, sir," I murmur.

  "And you will release her into the wild to join a herd at some point in the next month. If the herd rejects the calf, you will not intervene."

  I nod.

  When Grant leaves, I collapse onto the bed. The calf begins to root beneath the covers. "My mother was right. I should have studied primates," I murmur.

  "I doubt Lesego would agree with you," Neo says.

  "Lesego?"

  "Don't you think it's time she had a name?" He walks toward t