Part 4
The loose length of cable trembled against the pole. Beth watched it settle before telling the nearest technician to move farther from Poppy. She directed the others back with the same small hand motions she had used when they first entered.
Ruth retreated a pace from the tilted panel. Dust drifted off her feet, but her ears remained spread. Daniel kept his eyes on the gap she had nearly opened.
The deputy started toward the damaged section. Beth stopped him.
“Don’t try to make her back down. Give her a clear view of us.”
“I’m not used to explaining myself to somebody that size.”
“Then enjoy the chance to be brief.”
The deputy let out a breath that might have become a laugh somewhere else. He returned toward the outer gate while Beth resumed her examination. Poppy stretched toward her mother, reaching farther than her body could comfortably follow.
They waited for the medication Beth judged she could safely give. Gradually the calf’s eyelids moved more slowly, and she stopped shifting her feet so often. Daniel tried stepping aside to let a technician pass; Poppy followed, and Beth immediately asked him to return to her head.
“She knows where you are. Keep that predictable.”
He put a hand against the calf’s cheek. The skin felt dry and warm, with sparse bristles catching on his palm. He had come to document a rescue if one could be arranged. Now the useful part of him was the hand she could locate without looking.
Beth made him meet her eyes before continuing.
“If she goes down, you get out of the way. Don’t try to catch her. Understand?”
“I understand.”
She waited a beat longer, making sure he did.
The team couldn’t begin with cutting. Debris had hardened beneath the tire, and they had to clear enough to see where the rubber ended and the calf began. Beth and one technician worked from opposite sides while the other kept supplies within reach.
Dry clumps landed on a folded cloth. Under those came damp, compressed grass and old feed, and an odor that made Abby turn toward the gate. Poppy shivered whenever the tools disturbed a tender place.
Daniel talked to her about nothing in particular. He told her where he was standing, that the woman at her side was coming back, that she could keep her trunk against his hand. His voice sounded ordinary enough to borrow some steadiness from.
Abby disappeared through the gate and returned with water and an awkward bundle of hay. Bell called angrily from the lane. Before he could come closer, the deputy stepped into his path and remained there until Abby had carried her load inside.
She set the bucket down near the divider. Ruth extended her trunk toward the familiar blue strip on the girl’s wrist and brushed it with the tip.
Abby stood very still. “She remembers me.”
Beth didn’t look away from her work. “Let her hear you.”
“What should I say?”
“Whatever you say when you feed them.”
Abby moved to the sheltered edge near the gate, where she could address both elephants without crowding either. At first Daniel could barely hear her. Then her voice acquired the patient cadence of somebody explaining a task while doing it.
“We’re getting the dirt out, Poppy. That’s what they’re doing down there. Ruth, you stay where she can see you. You’re coming with her. Both of you, okay? Nobody’s leaving one behind.”
Ruth’s ears eased closer to her head. Poppy stopped trying to turn toward every movement at her side. Daniel kept talking too, careful not to let relief make him louder.
Nearly half an hour passed before Beth could test whether clearing the packed material had created enough room. She supported a section of rubber and raised it slightly. Poppy cried out before it had moved far enough to free even a finger’s width.
Ruth hit the panel again.
Beth let the tire settle immediately. “That’s enough. No more pulling.”
The calf’s trunk curled around Daniel’s wrist. He could feel it trembling there, a loose hold that tightened whenever someone moved. He leaned near enough to speak without raising his voice.
“I’m staying. You can feel me right here.”
Beth crouched lower, examining the damaged inner edge of the tire. Steel reinforcement had become exposed and was catching against the injured tissue. Sliding the ring over the calf’s body would cause more damage, however much they tried to ease its passage.
“It has to come apart,” she told the technicians.
One looked toward the equipment cases. “Powered cutter?”
She nodded. He fetched the saw and the protective equipment while she checked the narrow areas where they could work. Daniel watched her arrange a shield between the cutting area and Poppy’s skin, then stop and reconsider the angle.
“We need her to hold this position,” Beth told him. “If she turns when she hears it, we stop. Don’t fight her to keep her here.”
“And Ruth?”
Beth looked at the mother. For once, she took time before answering.
“That’s the part I can’t arrange.”
Abby went a little closer to the divider, leaving her hands open at her sides. She spoke to Ruth in the same feeding-time voice, though Daniel could hear the effort it cost her.
“I know. You don’t like any of this. But we can’t leave it on her. Please stay with us.”
Ruth reached through the broken section. Her trunk settled along Poppy’s back, behind the tire. The calf stopped moving beneath it.
Beth watched for several breaths. Then she signaled to the technician.
The saw started. Poppy recoiled, scraping Daniel’s forearm as her trunk jerked away. He felt the sting a moment before Ruth trumpeted. The remaining cable slipped free, and the panel fell inward with a crash that drowned the motor. Ruth stepped over it into the pasture…
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