I stood on the creaking porch of my old weather-beaten wooden guard hut and looked out over the oil rig and the rock quarry beside it. The sun was setting behind the column of dunes which dipped and rolled along the horizon. There was a different scent in the air. The usual red dust on my lips tasted of dirt and some sort of metal like aluminium, an effect of the air surrounding the mine. It was mixed with the smell of fresh sawn timber and crushed eucalyptus leaves – so fresh and close they could have been in my hand. But there was something else, animal and brutal, like polluted smoke out past the shadows reverberating with the evening coolness.
I had guarded this drilling site for three years now, hewing out a living in a wooden hut. In the kerosene-lit evenings I worked my way through piles of yellowing paperbacks. I subsisted on the provisions from the weekly supply truck. Nothing glamorous, it was a simple life.
The oil company had taken me on as a guard after environmental protesters had tried to vandalise the rig. The axe scars in the wooden posts of the blasting station were still visible and their spray-painted words ringing the concrete feet were luminescent even after being covered over in black paint. ‘End the drilling now’ they said.
The protesters returned last month, protesting the opening of another rig in the desert to the south. Their message this time was more ominous: ‘Stop the drilling before the desert fights back’. I had been forced to fire a warning shot from my rifle that night and a scuffle had broken out between me and their leader.
‘Soon you’ll realise the damage you’re perpetrating here,’ he had shouted. ‘You’ll be called to account for the damage that’s been done. One day you’ll be called to witness.’
With a lucky punch I had broken his jaw and smashed in his front teeth. The authorities arrived from the border town ten minutes away and the fight was broken up. The protesters, whom had chained themselves to the hydraulics of the rig were cut free, arrested and dragged away.
Last week the clouds over the oil rig had taken on a different hue. The tangerine orange and spring apple hues had deepened. Tonight the sky was a bushfire red, all fire and sparks across the horizon, malevolent colours that made the hairs on my arms prickle like pins. I pondered the painted words, yet to be painted over: ‘…before the desert fights back’. The thought chilled me. ‘One day you’ll be called to witness…’ I broke out in a cold sweat.
I pulled off my shirt and trousers, slung them over the old wooden chair and climbed into bed. Turning off the kerosene lamp, I heard sirens out past the hills that skirted the desert dunes. They sounded far away but their source disturbed me. I lay awake for hours before slipping into a restless sleep.
‘Get your skates on. You’re not going to believe this.’ Walt was the site’s foreman and keen supporter of the drilling and the employment it brought to the local community. Walt had a way about him, a tone which was not used to being ignored. It was strange to see him on a Saturday night when the mine was closed.
‘Coming,’ I said.
Pulling on a singlet, I met him at the door to the hut. Walt was silhouetted against the red desert sky, charred black where it met the horizon and tinged with a brown like dried blood. Walt took me down the narrow track that led into the quarry. The oil rig stood off to our left. Like a skeleton of some deformed giant its shadow cut across the quarry. I heard the siren wail again, but it was closer this time. The sound echoed and shook the walls of the quarry and rocks tumbled from the lip above us, trailing piles of dust. Walt grabbed my shoulder pulling me to a stop.
‘Look at that,’ he said. Awe and disbelief was in his voice.
Twenty metres further down the trail there stood a giant grey elephant as tall as a house. An elephant calf appeared from behind a rock outcrop and huddled near its mother for protection. The elephant must have heard us for it leaned back on its hind legs and let out an incredible wail, sending ripples of sound around the confines of the quarry, causing rocks and pebbles to loosen and trickle and tumble down to the dirt at our feet. I was in shock, my legs rubbery, powerless. I stood frozen.
The elephant wailed again and started towards us.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Walt shouted.
Suddenly I was caught, my feet stuck in a sticky black molasses. The ground of the quarry was giving way, crumbling into a giant tar pit. It was burping and swelling around my feet. I looked at Walt and he had fallen to his knees which were black and sticky with the tar. It clung to his hands.
‘Help me!’ he pleaded, his eyes wide with terror.
He pulled at his left boot trying to free himself from the tar and his foot came away. The boot was sucked under and a moment later it vanished. He stepped backwards and fell. The tar splashed up around him threatening to pull him under.
‘Help!’ He reached up at me, tugging at my trousers. I gripped his hand and pulled as hard as I could, my arm muscles burning with the strain and my tendons popping.
The tar was up to Walt’s chest now, submerging him into the thick, dark, repulsive ooze. A terrible smell of methane gas like sour rotten eggs was all around me. Walt’s neck was black and sticky with the stuff.
The last thing I saw was his cold grey-blue eyes, and then he was gone, lost under the stinking sticky blackness.
I heard another elephant’s trumpeting wail. I looked up and saw two of them stampeding towards the lonely spectre of the oil rig. There was a crash as their tusks struck its steel pylons sending shudders through the structure. The elephant’s’ tusks tore at the concrete feet into which the metal legs of the rig were set. There was a terrific cracking sound, as the concrete fractured, releasing its metal burden. The rig began to topple. The legs bent as though they were made of molten metal. There was an agonising metallic scream as they gave way under the weight of the rig. Then it fell, end over end, all 40 tonnes of it, crashing over the cliff’s edge, down into the quarry.
It hit the tar pool with a giant splash, sending waves of tar rippling against the walls of the quarry. I was caught by a wave and thrown towards the elephants and the bottom of the quarry. A bitter taste of tar filled my mouth. I blacked out.
I came to. I opened my eyes and watched as the horizon dipped and fell rhythmically like I was on a boat at sea. The waves rising and falling. It soothed me and my eyes soon felt heavy again.
I woke up some time later. My legs and arms were heavy, hardened with dried tar. My fingers were brittle; my nails were black. The taste in my mouth was rotten and caustic. I was lying on a rug made of dank coarse brown knotted hair. It smelled of mould. I rubbed at my eyes, the tar flaked from my face and I could see through the mask of tar and with a start I found myself straddled over the back of one of the elephants.
In a panic I pulled myself upright. My heart was hurting in my chest; I quelled an involuntary scream. I was riding with a herd. There were 12 elephants in all. I was covered in tar, which had hardened and caked to my clothes and skin. I was like a tar baby compared to the majestic size of the elephants. It was too far to jump down – I would break my leg or be trampled under their feet. I was trapped. I had no choice but to hang on and wait for a chance to escape.
The herd came to a water hole and the one I was on kneeled down. Scooping great amounts of water up with its trunk, it twisted its trunk up and sprayed me with water. The first burst caught me by surprise; it was so strong I nearly slid off the elephant’s back. With the next burst I opened my mouth catching some of the water, quenching my thirst. The water softened the tar and I was able to peel and scrape it from my skin. The tar was the oil company’s grim toxic legacy; a real reminder of the damage done to the desert, home to these elephants. The tar had also taken Walt, but spared me. I wondered why the elephant had helped cleanse the tar from me.
My back was warmed by the hot sun climbing behind us as we set off across the desert dunes. Soon though the sun was too hot to continue and the elephants laboured under the heat. The little one with us was stumbling. We took shelter in the shade of a steep dune, topped by a lone boab tree. In the far distance I thought I saw a camel, its long legs and hump silhouetted on a dune in the sun.
As the evening came I decided to escape. Carefully I inched my body away from the curve of the elephant’s back and crawled to the edge of the dune. Looking back I saw that none of the elephants had stirred and I started walking away. Under the light of the moon the desert looked like a moonscape.
I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. Looking at my watch I could see that I had been walking for over an hour, which turned to two and then three. The desert was cold, and my thin singlet did little to keep me warm. I believed I had been walking in a straight line, but then I came to another dune with the same boab on its brow. I stopped short. I began to panic. In front of me were my tracks which I had made over an hour ago. I was walking in circles. I was going to die out here in the desert.
‘Help!’ I shouted. ‘Someone help me!’
Then I heard the trumpet of an elephant’s call, and another echoing back in the far distance. Peering into the darkness I suddenly saw an elephant cresting a dune, followed by another, as they bounded towards me. Fearing I’d be crushed, I fell to the ground, prostrate, crying. Looking up I was surrounded. A trunk reached out and clasped me around the waist. Instead of crushing me, it hefted me into the air and placed me onto its back and then it trumpeted loudly. ‘I’ve found him!’ It seemed to say. That would be the last time I tried to escape from the herd. Better to exist as their prisoner than die of thirst and hunger alone in the desert.
The next day the herd arrived at an oasis. A water hole glistened in the sun, its water a deep emerald green. It looked so different from the water holes near the drilling station. Around it were banana palms and tea trees. The elephant reached out with its trunk and tore off a bunch of fruit, like bananas only they were smaller and their skin was a reddish brown. I watched as the elephants gorged themselves on this fruit. Clambering into the depths of the water hole, they bathed themselves, splashing water on their haunches and spraying each other with the water, trumpeting with glee. The elephant I was on lowered itself to the ground and I slid from its back. I nestled under the shade of a tea tree and picked at the fruit tenderly. I was starving but unsure if the fruit was safe, I ate only a small portion and watched the elephants in the pool and waited. I was too afraid of being crushed under foot to join them.
I had an uneasy sleep that night under the bows of a cluster of boab trees. I experienced a recurring dream about my old friend Walt. We would wake together in my old miner’s hut. Opening the door to greet the new day we would find that the tar pit had crept up at night and surrounded the hut. There was no escape, everything the tar touched was sucked under and never seen again. At last in desperation Walt would try to leap across to the hut opposite mine, but the gap was too wide and he would fall and quickly be sucked away from me. No matter what I tried I could not save him. The dream repeated again and again.
I woke in the morning, the sun already high in the sky. I grabbed for the bunch of fruit. I bit into the peel and tore it from the fruit and stuffed myself with it until I felt sick and thirsty. The elephant hefted me up onto its back and we joined the herd already out across the plain.
That evening I noticed a reddish glow on the horizon, glimmering faintly. It worried me. But at the same time it seemed that that was where we were heading. I nodded off as the sun set, lighting up the dunes in a brilliant pink reminding me of the flesh of a watermelon, which I dreamt of as I slept.
The next day we were closer. As the evening came the reddish glow was more constant, humming and unnatural. Every now and then an elephant trumpeted loudly, only its trumpet wail sounded forlorn. The pace had picked up. We were covering more distance and the elephants did not stop to rest until it was well after sun set and the night was lit by unusual star constellations. The half-crescent moon left white shadows behind the slopes of the dunes and intermittent trees.
That night I was woken soon after I lay down to sleep in the sand which was cooling down after the heat of the day. The elephant gripped me around the waist and hefted me up onto its back. The rest of the herd rose up onto its feet and in eerie silence we marched across the plain in darkness.
The glow was distinct now. I thought I could see the white flash of lights. The headlights of vehicles up in the distance. Then the herd gave out a collective trumpeting wail, like a war-time klaxon horn echoing out around the dunes. We crested a steep dune, my elephant laboured as we neared the top. Then we were over, and before us was a sweeping bustling city of lights and neon and streets and sirens and vehicles. The clash of noise deafened me after the tranquillity out among the herd in the desert.
I clung to the elephant as the herd picked up its pace, bounding and hurtling towards the city. Sand gave way to a rough dirt road and then asphalt. The elephants’ heavy feet clod into it, cracking it in places. Cars screeched to a halt in front of us, and another smashed into it from behind. A pile-up ensued, horns blared and I saw a smashed windscreen smeared with red as we passed them by.
The elephant to my left launched up over a car. Its foot came crashing down, denting its roof, the side windows bursting outwards. I heard sirens in the distance, echoing down the street, bouncing off the glass of the skyscrapers above us. The herd carried on.
At the end of the street was a brass statue of a man in regal old-fashioned uniform holding a telescope and sextant at his side. We thundered towards it. Smashing into the statue with the full force of its approach, my elephant’s tusk sheared off midway down. Emitting a blood-curdling scream, the elephant reared up. I nearly fell from its back, before it came back down, smashing the statue with its feet. The statue toppled and cracked headfirst into the sidewalk. The elephant then trumpeted, encouraging the rest of the herd to follow.
We bounded up the marbled steps of the great building before us. Past Roman-inspired columns. We passed under a giant brass plaque written in Latin and tore through the giant double wooden doors.
Behind us I heard more sirens and saw red and blue lights flashing back down the street. They were coming for us. I heard voices shouting through loudspeakers. I saw people being evacuated from the area by men in black outfits and rifles. The herd pressed on.
Past the double wooden doors we entered an atrium, and then we burst into a giant open area. Men and women in grey suits were sitting in green leather seats, gesticulating and shouting at one another. They saw us and froze and then they tried to flee, running from the onslaught of the herd, running to the green-lit exits. The elephants blocked their way. Working as a team, they marched over them, crushing them underfoot, the sound of terror; of bones being crushed made me clench my eyes shut. The elephants continued on until no one was left.
The herd grouped together in the centre of the room, surrounded by the carnage and torn and splintered green leather seats. They dropped to their knees and touched one another with their trunks, their stomachs rumbling as though locked in some sort of subconscious communication.
Suddenly the men in black outfits burst into the room surrounding all the exits. They carried rifles and red laser lights flickered everywhere. I noticed one wavering on my stomach, hovering over my heart, another was directed at my eye, making me squint and raise a hand up to shield my vision. Then I heard a shout come through on a loudspeaker. Terrible white sparks flashed from every corner of the room, and I was deafened by gunfire. The elephant I was on reared up for the final time. I fell to the ground and rolled to the corner of the room. I huddled beside some rubble, trying to shield myself from the carnage. I could not bring myself to watch as the elephants were slaughtered.
Bullets hit the elephants in a maelstrom of noise mixed with the elephants’ siren-like screams. One giant elephant launched itself towards a cluster of the men, one of its tusks catching one in his midriff; another skewering a man through the chest, killing him instantly. The elephant lifted the man high above the ground, his body limp, lifeless, before twisting and hurling the man’s body into another group of men who were on their knees, their rifles trained at the elephant. The group went sprawling, rifles clattering to the ground but behind them another squad entered the room. For a moment neither party moved, they seemed motionless, and then the men opened fire. Roses of red burst on the its side and the elephant was felled.
I watched in slow motion as one by one the other elephants fell to their knees and keeled over onto their sides under the force of the men’s bullets. The smell of cordite reached me even where I lay under cover. A cloud of dust covered the floor, obscuring the elephants’ legs like a cloth veneer. Smoke billowed up towards the ceiling of the room, the red laser lights hovered over it like some obscene circus lighting show.
There was no escape, all the exits were barred, the elephants surrounded on all sides. I felt that that was all part of what they expected, as though this was their end as they had already deemed it. They died bravely, proud in the accomplishment of their statement. It was as though their trumpeting cries would reverberate further than just these hollowed carved-out walls. I understood the protester’s statement at that moment - I was being called to witness. The elephants’ cries would reach beyond the walls that now confined them to their death. Through me, people will learn of what had happened this day, and their strange and heroic actions will be remembered for long afterwards. I was witness to the day the herd came to town.
Picture by Rick Amor.
