An excerpt from The Last Rhino (see following post)
She raised her trunk again and sniffed the air.
Something was not quite right. The
scents of dust and acacia blossoms were normal, but there was something
un-natural. She turned with ears flapping and smelled again. She harumped a danger signal to her family.
They moved smartly off into the brush. The matriarch faced the unknown. In her
anxiety she pawed the ground and shook her massive head from side to side. Her
big feet pushed up clouds of dust. In an
instant she saw, heard and smelled the source of danger. Trumpeting loudly, she
charged, bashing through the acacia grove towards the blurs of blue. All her instincts required that she do her
duty. She must protect her family. As
she had done many times before, she would confront the danger - lions, buffalo
or perhaps a stray rhino - and chase it away. Her size, the awesome spectacle
of an irritated two-ton beast closing rapidly, usually worked. But not this time.
Shots rang out. She was met with a burst of automatic
weapon fire. The noise and the smoke
were terrifying. She stumbled and fell
but was shot yet again, this time from closer range. Bullets fired directly
into her brain. Her body convulsed and
shuttered. She was dead.
Cries of triumph rose around the dead elephant as the
shooters emerged from the trees. Soon
two of them manned axes to chop away the matriarch’s tusks. They were not the great heavy tusks of a
mature bull, but each would weigh about forty pounds - a quite respectable haul
for the poachers. They took nothing but
the tusks, leaving the carcass to scavengers.
The butchers did their work quickly. They wanted to be safely gone
before vultures signaled the murder.
The fleeing herd of terrified elephants ran for miles
before slowing. They waited impatiently
for their boss lady who never came. The
transition to new leadership was befuddling, but someone had to take charge.
One of the older cows sensed it was now her job. She led the group to water.
