The baby elephant was sinking, and his mother wouldn’t let us save him.
Every time we moved toward the water hole, she stepped into our path.
Behind her, all I could see was a small gray head, one frightened eye, and a trunk reaching above the mud.
Then even the trunk began to drop.
I was an American working with a wildlife rescue team at a reserve in South Africa. My name is Daniel Brooks, and until that afternoon, I thought the hardest part of a rescue was reaching an animal in trouble.
Sometimes, the hardest part is getting past the ones who love it.
We received the call shortly before noon.
An elephant herd had stayed at a water hole much longer than usual. A patrol had noticed the adults gathered tightly around one section of bank, repeatedly reaching toward the ground.
Something was wrong.
My colleague, Ben, drove while I checked the equipment behind our seats: ropes, broad straps, shovels, and the battered boards we carried for unstable ground.
