Tua and the Elephant by R. P. Harris Read Free Book Online

his hand as if from a flame.
    Nang stepped away and rubbed his throbbing ear. Then, reaching for the medallion under his shirt, he mumbled an incantation.
    “What’s that? Speak up.”
    “That hurt,” Nang said.
    “Of course it hurt, you superstitious clod. It was supposed to hurt. How else do I maintain discipline? Now come on, if you’re coming. I’ve got a score to settle with that brat.”
    Anger spread across Nak’s face like a bloodstain, and Nang took two paces back.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Concrete Island
    After glancing over her shoulder at the empty
soi,
Tua turned back to face the bustling street ahead. Motorbikes darted past like wasps,
tuk-tuks
trolled for fares, and red
songthaew
trucks pulled up to the curbside, unloaded their passengers, and gobbled up new ones. Cars and vans bullied each other, honking insults, gunning engines, and spewing exhaust.
    “We’ll have to walk in the street, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said.
    Pohn-Pohn raised her head and rolled back her eyes. The street roared at her like a waterfall.
    “Don’t worry,” Tua said. “I’ll walk on the outsideand protect you from the cars. Just look straight ahead and follow me.”
    The moment they stepped into the street, the observers became the observed. But they didn’t stop traffic so much as congest it, for every car, van, motorcycle,
tuk-tuk,
and
songthaew
veered in their direction to get a better look at the unusual pair. They screeched, honked, skidded, and gawked, while Tua, walking on the outside and cradling Pohn-Pohn’s trunk in her arm, stared straight ahead. As Pohn-Pohn lumbered past, every parked car cried out an alarm until the whole block was shrieking like babies in an orphanage. When they reached the intersection, Tua guided Pohn-Pohn across a lull in the traffic to a concrete island in the middle.
    As Pohn-Pohn teetered on the narrow divider, spilling over into the lanes on both sides, Tua looked around her—and into the tinted windshield of a tour bus roaring down on them like a rogue wave.
    A flash of sunlight reflected off the dark glass, blinding Pohn-Pohn.
    “Look out, Pohn-Pohn!” Tua leapt onto Pohn-Pohn’s trunk as if expecting to pull her out of the way.
    Pohn-Pohn opened her eyes and, seeing Tua dangling from her trunk, tossed her head out of the lane. Her ear flapped over her eye as the bus roared past in a blur. She set Tua down on the narrow island and began inspecting her.
    “I’m alright, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said, and hugged her trunk. “That was a close one.” When a gap opened up in the traffic, she led Pohn-Pohn across the empty lanes and down the embankment to the riverside.

    As Tua gazed across the River Ping and down to the bridge below, she wondered how she would ever get Pohn-Pohn onto a busy street again. She sat down on a hollow log to collect her thoughts and make a plan. They had to cross the river somehow, or they’d never reach the
wat.
    “We need a boat,” she said. As she scanned the river for a boat or barge big enough to accommodate an elephant, Tua felt the log roll beneath her.
    Pohn-Pohn’s foot was on it.
    “Not now, Pohn-Pohn.”
    Pohn-Pohn rolled the log again.
    “What is it?” Tua looked Pohn-Pohn in the eye. “What’s the matter?”
    Then she looked over her shoulder to where Pohn-Pohn’s trunk was pointing … and saw a sagging tent, a spent fire, and a chain attached to a stake in the ground.
    The log she was sitting on was the very same log she had hidden behind the night before last.
    They were back at the mahouts’ camp.
    Pohn-Pohn didn’t wait for Tua to speak; she lifted her off the log and pulled her to the river’s edge.
    Tua planted her heels in the sand and pulled back on the trunk.
    “We can’t swim across the river,” Tua said. “It’s too far. It’s too fast. It’s too deep.”
    Pohn-Pohn waded into the swirling current up to her neck and, looking back over her shoulder, flapped her ears as if to say, “Come.”
    Tua looked up and down the