"Not at all," admitted Spence. "I thought all elephants were named Simba. I found her just up the road. She's been hurt."
Gita, hearing the commotion, rose up slowly, rubbing his eyes. He took one look at the great creature and let out a shriek. "Save us!" he cried, throwing his hands in the air. But seeing that everything seemed to be in order, and that the elephant was munching proffered grass, not attacking Adjani, he got up and joined his friends.
"A real elephant!" he said proudly over and over as he looked at it from every angle. "I knew there were still some of these magnificent animals in the north country, but I never dreamed I'd see one."
"Are they so rare then?" wondered Spence.
"Oh, yes, very rare indeed. No one is allowed to own one but the high government officials. They are much protected and used as official vehicles by the regional governors-just as in the time of the Maharajahs. Better than a motor car."
"Well, this one wasn't protected enough," said Spence. "She's been shot. Go get your bundle of medicine and we'll see what we can do for her."
At this Gita threw up his hands once more. "Shot? Oh, merciful heaven! Who would shoot a governor's elephant? Who would do such a thing?"
"Goondas is my guess."
"If that's true," said Adjani, "we might find the rest of the Party up the road at the scene of the ambush."
"I hadn't thought of that. Do you think any goondas are still around?"
"Not if they attacked a government carrier. They'd have hit and run pretty fast. They'd be far away from here by now. Reprisals in such instances are fairly swift and bloody."
Gita came back with his medical sack and laid it on the ground. "I don't have enough medicine to treat an elephant," he lamented.
"Don't worry; I don't think she's hurt very bad. Here, take a look yourself."
Spence pointed out the torn ear and the wound in the shoulder behind it. Gita probed the wound with his fingers while Adjani kept her busy with bunches of grass.
"The bullet did not enter the flesh," announced Doctor City after his inspection. "It was deflected off the hide, probably due to the angle of the shot and an inferior bullet-they often load them from used casings, you know. We will rub some sulfa into the wound and smear on some mud to keep the flies out of it and keep it from getting infected. In a few days she'll be beautiful again."
"Will she trust us to ride her, do you think?"
Gita's eyes grew round. "You intend to ride this animal?"
"Certainly. All the way to Darjeeling. You shouldn't act so surprised. I said we'd need some transportation and here it is."
Gita went away muttering to himself in an incomprehensible babble. Adjani laughed and Spence patted the animal on the jaw and looked into Simba's calm blue-brown eye and said, "You'll have to help us, girl. This is our first time. Show us what to do when the time comes. All right?"
The elephant seemed to wink at him and encircled his neck with her trunk.
"Good girl. Good Simba. We're going to be all right."
Gita came back with a pile of mud on a large leaf. He sprinkled sulfa from a brown bottle into his hand and gently worked it into the wound in the elephant's side. That done, he smeared the mud over it as a bandage. "Well, we have done what we can."
"Then let's go."
"Do you know how to drive this thing?" asked Adjani.
"No, but it can't be too hard. I've seen it in old movies. Let's see." Spence walked to the head of the elephant and said, "Down, girl. Down, Simba."
Nothing happened.
"Mehrbani se, Simba," said Adjani.
The elephant lifted its trunk and nodded, sinking down on its knees laboriously.
"I thought you didn't know anything about elephants," said Spence.
"He doesn't," Gita quipped. "It just means please in Hindi."
Adjani smiled and spread his hands. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Well, who first?" asked Spence.
"It is your elephant, sahib. You go first." Adjani patted him on the shoulder.
"All right, cowards. I will. All you do is grab an ear and…" Spence stepped up on the elephant's knee and took hold of its right ear and swung himself up behind the head. "Nothing to it."
Adjani followed and climbed into the howdah. Then it was Gita's turn. He stood trembling on the ground. "Well, come on. You can't walk all the way with us and we can't leave you behind for the goondas. You might as well get it over with."
"It is easy for you, Spencer Reston. But I have a wife and five beautiful daughters. A man must think of his family."
"Come on, Gita, we're wasting time." Already the shadows of the forest were moving across the road and in among the trees, deepening in shades of blue.
Spence reached down his hand. "Come on; your people have been doing this for a million years at least."
Gita bit his lower lip and handed up his bundles. Then he clasped Spence's hand and scrambled up. He did not stop scrambling until he was in the howdah, clutching the sides.
"All aboard?" called Spence. "Here we go. What's the word, Adjani?"
"Mehrhani se. "
At the command the elephant rose up and began walking. Spence found that she was easily steered with a gentle kick behind the ear-with the right foot to turn right, with the left foot for left. A kick with both feet simultaneously made the elephant go faster.
Off they trundled, swaying like kings of old aboard their fabled mounts with tusks sheathed in gold. Spence found the ride exciting.
"This is what I call going in style!" he shouted over his shoulder to his passengers.
"Now do you believe?" Adjani yelled back.
"I'm beginning to," Spence said to himself. "I think I'm beginning to."
15
… TOWARD MORNING SPENCE WAS awakened by the sound of thunder in the hills. As the sun came up, a leaden rain started leaning out of low murky clouds. The three stirred themselves and sat huddled under the banyan tree that had sheltered them through the night. They munched soft overripe mm goes and sweet pears Gita had bought for them in the let marketplace and waited for the rain to stop.
"It might go all day," remarked Gita sagely. "It often does this time of year. We are nearing the rainy season."
"If it doesn't stop soon we'll have to go on anyway," said Spence. He had begun feeling more and more uncomfortable about Ari-a feeling somehow connected with his fainting speIl the day before. He had a strong sense of danger where she was concerned, and this sense made him impatient to reach hers soon as possible.
They waited half an hour more; Spence, leaning first against one of the trees' trunks and then another, was soon pacing like+ caged bear. "It isn't going to stop," he announced, arriving at the end of his patience. "Let's go on."
Gita made a face like a man smelling rotten eggs. He heaved his round shoulders and shuffled to his feet. "Don't worry, Gita," remarked Adjani. "The bath will do us all good."
They stepped out into the sullen rain and untethered Simba who also had been crushing the pulpy pears in her massive jaws. The elephant greeted her new masters with a rousing trump and examined each one and his pockets as she knelt and let them board her. Then they were off, heading northward, climbing slowly upward toward the mountains.
Spence saw the land through the hanging white mists and noted that it had changed a great deal since Calcutta. The jungle had become forest of a different type; the greens were deeper tending more toward blue in the misty rain. Sown in among lower trees he spotted tall pines shooting up out of the foliage around them and he could smell their scent in the air. Spence tough used they had risen several thousand feet in altitude already, the climb had been so gradual as not to be noticed. Nevertheless, he sensed a difference in the air-it seemed hasher and last night had been a little cooler than he remembered since coming to India.