Summer of the Monkeys

by Wilson Rawls

  Daisy had me so shaken up by now, I hardly knew what to believe. Just to be on the safe side, I said, “When will you see this old man again?”

  “Oh, I never know when I’ll see him,” she said. “He just comes around any time he wants to.”

  “Well, the next time you see him,” I said, getting to my feet, “you tell him that I’d like to meet him and shake hands with him.”

  Along about then, I would have shaken hands with a centipede if I had thought that it would help me catch a monkey.

  Shaking her head and looking very sad, Daisy said, “Jay Berry, I don’t know if the Old Man of the Mountains would see you or not. You’ve been a pretty bad boy, you know. You’re all the time catching the little animals. The Old Man of the Mountains doesn’t like anyone who does things like that.”

  “But every boy in the hills catches things,” I said. “Why, the way you make it sound, this old man never could like a boy—just girls.”

  “Oh, he could like boys, too,” Daisy said. “He could like boys just about as much as he does girls but they’d have to leave the little animals alone, or he wouldn’t.”

  Well, I didn’t know what to do. Daisy had me pretty well convinced that there was an old man of the mountains. Now, if he didn’t like boys who caught animals and could cause them to have bad luck, I was just in for it. That’s all there was to it.

  four

  For all the sleep I got that night, I may as well have stayed up with the hoot owls. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d start seeing monkeys. They would come by in a long line, one behind the other, leaping and squealing. Each monkey had a price tag hanging from his neck, telling how much he was worth.

  I wouldn’t get too excited until that hundred dollar monkey came leaping by. Every time he passed he would stop and laugh at me, I’d wake up wringing wet with sweat and having an upside-down fit. When I finally did fall asleep, I had a wonderful dream about owning a beautiful paint pony and a brand-new .22. I was riding like the wind, shooting right and left.

  I was the first one up the next morning. In fact, I even beat our old red rooster—and that was getting up early. I was out at the woodpile, splitting kindling, when he came sailing out of the henhouse. Ruffling his feathers, he hopped upon the rail fence, threw his head back, and told everything within hearing distance that it was a beautiful Ozark morning and it was time to start stirring.

  Papa came out of the house with a milk bucket in his hand. Yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he looked at me and said, “You’re up kind of early, aren’t you?”

  “I guess I am, Papa,” I said. “I wanted to get my chores done so I’d have a good day at those monkeys. I believe I can have a sack full of them before sundown.”

  Looking concerned, Papa said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about this monkey-catching business of yours. I still think there’s more to it than you think there is. Those monkeys may be too smart for you.”

  “Papa,” I said, “surely monkeys couldn’t be any smarter than coons are, and I’ve caught all kinds of coons. Why, I’ve even caught a couple of red foxes, and you know how smart they are.”

  “I know,” Papa said, “but it might be a little different catching monkeys. I just hope you haven’t overloaded your wagon. It’s not good for a boy to want something with all his heart and then be disappointed. Things like that can hurt for a long time.”

  The way Papa was carrying on had me a little worried. Then I remembered what my grandpa had told me.

  “Papa,” I said, “Grandpa says that there never was an animal that couldn’t be caught.”

  “Well, I hope your grandpa knows what he’s talking about,” Papa said, walking off toward the barn.

  I thought Mama never would get breakfast ready, but she finally did and I set a new record for the time it takes a fourteen-year-old boy to eat a meal.

  While I was out in our cellar getting some apples, Mama fixed a lunch for me and put it in a paper bag. After putting my traps, lunch, and apples in a gunny sack, I called Rowdy and lit out for the bottoms to make my fortune.

  Just as we walked out of our fields into the thick timber of the bottoms, a big fat swamp rabbit popped out of a brush pile and tore down a game trail. Old Rowdy saw the rabbit about the same time as I did. He lunged and let out one of his famous catch-a-rabbit bawls.

  For a second, I was so excited I almost forgot myself and was just about to urge Rowdy on, when I thought of that Old Man of the Mountains. By this time, Rowdy was right on that swamp rabbit’s tail, bawling every time his feet touched the ground.

  “No, Rowdy, no,” I yelled, “let him go.”

  Rowdy threw on the brakes, turned, and looked at me as if he knew that I had lost my mind. That was the first time I had ever called him back from chasing something and he couldn’t understand it at all. He just stood there in the middle of the trail, looking very surprised.

  “Come here, boy,” I said, slapping my leg with my hand. “I see right now that if I don’t have a talk with you, you’re going to mess everything up.”

  Rowdy came to me, but not willingly. He couldn’t understand what had come over me. Kneeling down, I put my arms around him and said, “Look, boy, we’re not hunting for anything today but monkeys; and whatever you do, don’t catch anything else. I don’t care if something runs over you, just let on like you didn’t even see it. Now I know this sounds crazy, but I mean it. You see, there might be an old man sneaking around in these woods looking out for all the animals; and if we catch anything, he’ll cause us to have bad luck. All he has to do is point a stick at us, and we’ll have all kinds of bad luck. We couldn’t catch a June bug, much less a monkey.”

  Even though I tried my best to explain to Rowdy that I didn’t want him to catch anything, I don’t think he understood why. It’s hard to explain things like that to a rabbit-hunting hound.

  Side by side, and walking as quietly as tomcats on the prowl, we moved on into monkey country. It was so still in the bottoms I could hear my heart thumping. Every nerve in my body was as tight as the iron bands around a rain barrel.

  I went right back to the bur oak tree where Rowdy had treed the monkey and started looking it over. I looked on every limb, and in each dark shadow. Not being able to see anything that even looked like a monkey, I was beginning to get a little discouraged when all at once, from somewhere close by, something let out a cry that rang through the bottoms like a blacksmith’s anvil. The cry didn’t sound scary. It was more like a warning cry.

  Not being able to identify what had made the racket scared me a little. My old heart started flopping around. It seemed like every time I got scared a little, my old heart was the first one to know about it. I never could understand why it acted that way. To make things worse, Old Rowdy growled way down deep, and started walking around stiff-legged, like when he was getting ready for a fight.

  In a quavering voice, I whispered to Rowdy, “What in the world was that? It couldn’t have been a monkey. Monkeys are little bitty things. Whatever made that racket must have been as big as a barn.”

  That one loud cry was all I heard, and again the silence closed in around us. I sent Rowdy to do a little sniffing around. This was an old game to me, and one I never grew tired of playing. I could follow every movement my old dog made by ear.

  Over on my left a twig snapped and there was a padding of soft feet. Then ahead of me a small bush wavered as his ghostly shadow passed beneath. He moved on to my right, and I heard the scratching of his claws on bark as he walked a log. Ending up behind me, I heard his loud snuffings and a rustling in the leaves.

  Old Rowdy had made a complete circle around me, and I knew that if the tracks of anything dangerous had crossed the line of that circle, he would have let me know about it.

  Rowdy was gone for about five minutes. When he came back, he didn’t act like he had seen anything more than a grasshopper. As if he didn’t have a worry in the world, he sat down on his rear and started digging at a flea that wasn’t ev
en there.

  Feeling much better, I started setting my traps like Grandpa had told me. All around the bur oak, about three feet out from the trunk, I dug six small holes in the soft soil. Then one by one, I mashed the trap springs down with my foot and set the triggers. Very carefully I placed a trap in each hole and covered it with leaves. I didn’t tie the trap chains to anything because I didn’t figure that a little monkey could do much climbing with a trap on his foot.

  Then I took six apples and punched a nail down deep in each one. Tying short pieces of string to the heads of the nails, I hung an apple to the underbrush above each trap. When I was finished I had a complete circle of traps around the trunk of the bur oak tree.

  Backing off to one side, I took a good look at my trap setting. It looked like a pretty good job to me. In fact, at that moment I felt sure that Daniel Boone would have been proud of me. The traps were completely hidden. All I could see was those big red apples hanging there. They looked so good I kind of wanted to take a bite out of one myself.

  I was still standing there admiring my work when, from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a movement in the branches of a sycamore tree. It was just a flash and I didn’t see it again, but I was pretty sure that I had seen something.

  Picking up my gunny sack, I whispered to Rowdy, “I’m not sure, boy, but I think I saw something. It could have been a monkey. Come on, let’s hide and see what happens.”

  About thirty-five yards away, but still in view of my traps, I found a small opening in a thick stand of elders. It was a dandy hiding place, and I proceeded to make myself comfortable. Taking my lunch and apples from the gunny sack, I laid them to one side and sat down on the empty sack.

  Now, I never did like to wait for anything. It seemed that half of my life had been wasted away waiting for things. I had to wait for Christmas, and Thanksgiving. Then there was a long spell of waiting for spring and fishing time. Now I was waiting for a monkey.

  The longer I sat there, the more uncomfortable I became. First I got hungry, then I got thirsty. The sack I was sitting on got hard as a rock and my tail bone started hurting. I got hot and began to sweat. Deer flies and mosquitoes came and started gnawing on me. Just about the time that I had convinced myself that there wasn’t a living thing within a hundred miles of me, up popped a monkey, and out popped my eyes.

  I never did know where the monkey came from. One instant there wasn’t as much as a jaybird around my traps; then as quick as Mama was with a peach tree switch, there was a monkey. I could have sworn that he just popped up out of the ground. Anyhow, there he was, standing on his spindly legs, staring at those big red apples.

  I held my breath, watched, and waited.

  For several seconds, the monkey just stood, staring at the apples and twisting his head, as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. Then he started jumping around and squealing and making all kinds of noises.

  The next thing that happened all but caused me to have a jerking spell. It started raining monkeys. They seemed to come from everywhere: down from the branches of the bur oak tree, from out of the underbrush, and everywhere else. There were big monkeys and little monkeys, fat monkeys and skinny monkeys.

  I was paralyzed. It looked like ten jillion monkeys, leaping and squealing. They bunched up about ten feet from my traps and started chattering as if they were talking something over.

  Before the monkeys showed up, Rowdy had been lying at my side. Growling and showing his teeth, he started getting to his feet. He was getting ready to tie into those monkeys and I knew it. I laid my hand on his back and I could feel his rock-hard muscles knotting and quivering.

  “Rowdy,” I whispered, “for heaven’s sake, don’t do anything now. Those monkeys are worth more money than we’ll ever see the rest of our lives. If you make any noise and scare them away, I’ll tie you in the corn crib for a year, and I won’t even give you a drink of water.”

  Of course, I didn’t mean that, but Rowdy thought I did. He lay down again and kept his mouth shut.

  One little monkey, bolder than the others, left the bunch and started over toward my traps. I reached for my gunny sack and got ready.

  Just when I thought for sure that the monkey was going to walk right into my trap, the same loud cry that I had heard before rang out through the bottoms. As if the cry were some kind of signal, the monkeys stopped chattering and stood still. The one that I had thought was going to get in my trap hurried back to the bunch.

  I could tell that whatever had made the cry was much closer now than it had been before, and I didn’t feel too good about it.

  “Rowdy,” I whispered, “you keep your eyes open and whatever it is that’s squalling like that, don’t let it get too close to us.”

  The way Old Rowdy was sniffing and looking, I couldn’t tell whether he was mad or scared. This didn’t help me at all. I put a lot of confidence in Old Rowdy; and if he was scared, then it was time for me to be getting away from there.

  I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I heard the cry again. This time it was so close it made my eardrums ring. My hair flew straight up and felt as if it was pushing the top out of my old straw hat.

  The noise was coming from above me. I started looking around in the treetops. On the limb of a big sycamore, I saw something. At first I thought it was a boy. It looked just like a small boy, standing there on a limb. I wondered what he was doing up in a tree, screaming his head off. Maybe he had climbed the tree and couldn’t get down. I had done that several times and Papa had had to come and help me down. Then again he might be a crazy boy. Daisy had told me that crazy people did all kinds of things like that.

  I forgot about being scared and got kind of mad.

  “Rowdy,” I whispered, “I don’t know if that’s a boy or not, but if it is, he’s sure messing things up for us. If he keeps on screaming like that, and scares the monkeys away, I’m going to wear him out.”

  Just then the thing moved out on the limb into some sunlight and I got a better look at it. I could see then that it wasn’t a boy but was some kind of black, hairy animal. It had short stubby legs, and long arms that hung down almost to the limb it was standing on. When I discovered that it didn’t have a tail, I didn’t know what to think. I had never seen an animal that didn’t have a tail of some kind.

  It was too far away to tell what color its eyes were, but I could have sworn that they were as red as our old red rooster. Anything that had red eyes always did scare me. Goose pimples jumped out all over me. My old heart started running around inside me like a scared lizard.

  “Rowdy,” I whispered, in a shaky voice, “that’s an animal all right, but I’ve never laid eyes on anything that looked like that before, and I don’t like the looks of it.”

  I had just about decided that my monkey-catching days were over, and was getting ready to get away from there, when I remembered what my grandpa had told me about that hundred dollar monkey. He had said that it was different than the other monkeys, and that thing I was looking at sure didn’t look like those other monkeys.

  Just then the big monkey let out another cry, and running to the end of the limb, he leaped high in the air. I was so startled by this I stood up. I thought sure that he had sprouted wings and was flying away. Instead, he lit in the branches of the bur oak tree; and using those long arms, he started dropping down from limb to limb and landed on the ground between the little monkeys and my traps.

  This all happened so fast it left me a little bit breathless. I thought squirrels could move around in the timber, but they couldn’t do anything that monkey couldn’t do. Every move he made was as sure as Daniel Boone’s musket, and as smooth as the dasher in Mama’s old churn.

  All the time this had been going on, the little monkeys hadn’t made a sound. They just stood there in a bunch, watching every move the big monkey made.

  About that time one of them decided that as long as there were some apples around, he may as well have one. He left the bunch and with hi
s skinny tail sticking straight in the air, he started toward my traps.

  The big monkey saw this and went all to pieces. He started jumping up and down, and making deep grunting noises as if he were talking to the little monkey. The little monkey seemed to understand what the big monkey was saying. He squealed like someone had stepped on his tail and scurried back to the others.

  It was hard for me to believe what I had seen. Yet it was as plain as the stripes in a rainbow. That big monkey had known that the little monkey was in danger, and in his monkey talk, he had simply told him so.

  “Rowdy,” I whispered, “did you see what the monkey was doing? He was talking to that little monkey, that’s what he was doing. Grandpa didn’t tell me that they could talk to each other.”

  As if he were proud of the fact that he had knocked me out of a two dollar reward, the big monkey then did something that all but caused me to swallow my Adam’s apple. Looking straight at my hiding place, he peeled his lips back, opened his mouth, and let out another one of those squalls. When he did, I got a good look at his fighting tools.

  I had thought that our old mules had big mouths and teeth, but they were nothing compared to what that monkey had. To me, it looked as if you could have thrown a pumpkin straight down his throat and never scratched the peeling on one of his long teeth.

  “Holy smokes, Rowdy,” I whispered, “did you see those teeth? You’d better think twice before you jump on him. He could eat you up—collar and all.”

  Old Rowdy didn’t seem to be the least bit scared. If I had said “Sick ’em!” he would have torn out of those elders like a cyclone. He may have taken a whipping, but there would have been a lot of monkey hair flying around while it was going on.

  I didn’t have to worry about the big monkey jumping on us. Instead, he turned, and still making those deep grunting noises, he walked up within two feet of a trap and stopped. For several seconds, he just stood there, looking at the apple and all around at the ground. He kept making funny little noises, as if he were talking to himself.