The Will of Heaven

PROLOGUE: Final Court Appearance

What would Eleanor do? I thought, contemplating the mess I’d made of my life. She had faced insurmountable odds just to survive, including the death of her mother, killed right in front of her, and had gone on to save hundreds of others in similar circumstances. Yet even now there were people who wished her dead.

Eleanor, along with about four hundred others, were wild elephants in Kenya I’d followed since I was eight years old−the age when it all began. Eleanor possessed an incredible amount of courage. God, I needed that courage now.

Sitting in the courthouse parking lot, I looked down at the 7-Eleven Big Gulp in the cup holder before me. I wish I could drink it now. But I couldn’t. Another judge was waiting. They would smell the alcohol on my breath as soon as I entered the courtroom, and I would be doomed for sure. It was almost time. With a wave of nausea, I got out of the car and walked into what had by now become all too familiar surroundings.
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INTRODUCTION: The Beginning

I was only eight years old when I met Eleanor. She was one of the first known cases of an elephant successfully released back into the wild after being raised in captivity. I first learned about her story on a nature show on PBS, an episode which made time stand still for me. As if a door I didn’t even know existed, suddenly opened. A seed was planted that night, and a lifelong obsession took hold.
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CHAPTER 1: Eleanor

I actually have no memory of my first experience with an elephant. My grandmother Pearl took me to visit the elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle when I was two years old. I was perched on top of her shoulders to get a better look when she got distracted by something. She didn’t notice as one of the elephants approached us from behind.

The elephant stepped up on a curb inside the enclosure so she could reach over the short fence. She gently wrapped her trunk around my waist and began to lift.
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CHAPTER 2: An Alcoholic Admission

Getting sober was never my intention. It just sort of happened that way. Trouble kept finding me everywhere I went, and my luck was running thin. One day a new therapist asked me the same question so many had before−only this time I answered it with absolute honesty, though I have no idea why.

“Debbie, how often do you drink and use drugs?”

Before I could stop myself, it just came out, “Every. Single. Day.”
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ChAPTER 3: Eleanor and the Tusks

The river must have looked like a spectacle to anyone who witnessed it. There was Eleanor standing on the bank, watching a menagerie of animals frolicking and playing in the muddy water. There were younger elephants playing with young rhinos. There was a zebra, several ostriches, a few buffalo, and a peacock, all of which had been rescued by David and brought to Daphne.

Suddenly Eleanor lifted her trunk, catching a scent in the wind. An elephant’s sense of smell is incredibly powerful, five times greater than that of a bloodhound.
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Followed by 28 more chapters and an Epilogue