I’ve seen the elephant

By Janet Baldey                                                 

       

I sure didn’t mean to break that winder and I stood starin’ at the black hole that had taken its place, my bat droppin’ from my hands.  Daddy would be so mad.  I looked around for a place to hide but I was too late.  I heard a roar and then next minute I was laying in the dirt like a stricken snake, my body whippin’ from side to side trying to dodge the heavy leather belt with its wicked buckle.

‘Daddy, daddy!  Stop you’ll kill him!’ I saw a flash of blue dress as my sister flung herself at his arm.

         With a slurred curse my pa brushed her aside but doing so bought me time and in a flash, I was up and running for my life.  Half blinded by blood from a gash over one eye;  I didn’t care where I was headed. I knew only one thing, I’d never go back.   Sis was right; sooner or later my daddy would ruin me. He’d always been free with his fists, especially after time spent with the brandy bottle and one day I wouldn’t get up from that dirt. 

         As I ran, tears mingled with the blood streaming down my face but I forced myself on until strength left my legs and I lurched from side to side. I stopped, bent and wrapped my arms around my chest until the flames died down.  When I unfolded there was a scattering of stars and I squinted into the darkness realising I’d made it to the edge of town.  The trail leading away was littered with large, dark shapes, scores of them, looming silently under the night sky. They reminded me of elephants I’d seen in picture books.

         I let out my breath, slapping my head as I remembered; of course, they were wagons headed for California where the ground was ankle deep in gold. Their eyes alight, our neighbours had talked of nothing else for months. I stood gazing at the wagon train thinking of all those forty-niners off to make their fortunes and was filled with longing.       

         I walked down the track. There was no one about; I guessed everyone was spending one last night on soft mattresses between clean sheets. Even so, I trod cautiously and when I heard a soft cough, my heart filled my mouth. There was the hoarse sound of heavy breathing and the shadows started to move. A musky stench filled the air and my held breath released. They were only oxen, tethered in a grove of trees.  I grinned at my fright, the movement of my mouth changing instantly into a jaw-breaking yawn.  A single wagon was tantalisingly close. Slightly smaller, it was away from the main group; perhaps used only for storage. I was so weary I didn’t care:  in any case I’d be up and away at first light.

         My body swayed from side to side and there was the faint sound of creaking.   I snuffled and buried myself deeper into my bed.  I didn’t want to leave my dream; it was peaceful on the high seas and when I woke up there’d be decks to swab and canvas to stitch.  My lids snapped open as I remembered and sat up.  This was no ship – it was a wagon and it was moving. It was also hot as an oven and dripping with sweat, I crawled to the end and peered out. The sun was riding high in the sky and through a haze of dust, I saw a long line of similar wagons but no trace of the town.  

My head swivelled and I saw him for the very first time.  He was striding by the side of a couple of oxen, their reins held loosely in his hands. Maybe, he had second sight because all at once he turned and saw me staring.  His face was tanned and deeply seamed, but his eyes were bright and the colour of summer. He showed no emotion, simply looped the reins over the oxen and walked towards me.  

         ‘Here,’ he handed me a water bottle. ‘You best be out and walkin. It gits a trifle warm inside.’

 

         I stopped and took a mouthful of beer; the memory re-kindling my thirst.  Going over to the camp fire, I kicked a smouldering log into life.  As orange sparks spat into the night, my grandson touched my arm.  I smiled at him and carried on.

        

         ‘Back then, his hair was as black as an eagle’s wing but by the time the journey had finished it was streaked with white.  He never spoke much but later I realised he’d known I was there. Not at first, but when I started screamin’ in my sleep and by then, the wagon train was well on its way.

         ‘Your daddy slapped you around some, didn’t he boy?’  He once said to me. 

         I suppose that was why he never made a fuss about me tagging along; together with the loneliness.  He’d had a wife and son once but the cholera had taken them both.’

 

My grandson fidgeted, he wanted more action.   So I told him about our trials along the way; the endless plains with their seas of shifting grasses and the monotony that turned every day into a year.  I told him about the shining deserts whose fiery winds dried your throat making you crave the very water denied to you and the jagged mountains with pitiless granite faces soaring into the sky.  There were things I didn’t mention, things that I prefer to forget.  The crazed screams of men as they whipped their oxen into the ground, deaf to their panicked bellows as they scrabbled through  gullies filled with snow: the starved faces of the children and the lonely graves marking our passage.

 

We were half dead when we arrived at Sutter’s Mill and never saw any gold, but that hardly mattered. Somewhere along that journey, I found what I had been looking for all my life - a father.  Not of my blood and not for very long. The hardships we’d endured had weakened him and he died a couple of years later.  But he didn’t die alone and ever since I’ve kept him alive in my mind.  He taught me something I never learned from my own kin.   Riches are nothing, it’s love that counts.’

 

Copyright Janet Baldry