Elephant Speak: A Devoted Keeper's Life Among the Herd Interior Layout

Prologue
Thursday, March 20, 1997
The Oregon Zoo began to settle down as the last of the day’s
visitors departed. The metal gates were swung closed and
locked for the night. Staff completed their duties and prepared
to head home. Nocturnal creatures stirred, ready to forage,
while those who held to a daylight schedule bedded down
and prepared to sleep. Animal keepers, those members of the
zoo family most envied by visitors, took a final stroll through
exhibits to ensure that each animal was safe and where it was
meant to be, every latch secure, every door locked.
Inside the elephant barn, sixty-year-old Roger Henneous
walked from room to room, boot soles almost silent against
the concrete floor, his close-cut, graying beard and canny eyes
shadowed by the water-stained brim of his trademark campaign
hat. A veteran employee of nearly thirty years, most
of them spent as senior keeper to the elephants, Roger knew
every inch of the building, every sound and sigh made by the
animals around which he’d built his life. The smell of timothy
hay, grain, and the dense, somewhat sweet musk of the elephants
washed over him, a mélange of odors so familiar as to
go unnoticed. Confident his crew had handled the afternoon
Melissa Crandall ◆ 17