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When I Found You (A Box Set)

Page 60

by Webb, Peggy


  She had shaken the entire world out of its smug complacency. Once the barrier of speech was removed between man and the lower animals, what other astonishing revelations were in store?

  Brett wanted to go beyond the studies done with KoKo. His vision was so sweeping that he was awed by the possibilities, awed and sometimes frightened.

  More and more his studies with Cee Cee concentrated on delving into her thought processes, in getting her to express her feelings rather than merely to learn new words. Long ago her vocabulary had surpassed his expectations, and daily she added to it, both with words he taught her and words she coined to meet her needs.

  “Stinkpot” and “dirty stink” were her terms for people who displeased her. Only the week before she’d delighted him by asking to ride in the “wheels move,” her term for Jeep.

  Since she would never have need of a vehicle, he had not bothered to point out that particular object and teach her the word. But she had stood at her fence and seen him drive away too often not to have some curiosity about the Jeep.

  “Cee Cee go wheels move,” she’d demanded when he’d returned from a quick overnight trip to Ruhengeri to see Lorena. At first he hadn’t known what she was talking about. But she had been adamant. “Brett go wheels move. Leave Cee Cee sad, go ‘bye, wheels move.”

  “Cee Cee want to go with Brett?” he’d signed.

  “Yes. Go wheels move.”

  It was then he’d understood she was talking about the Jeep. Since then he’d started explaining his absences.

  “Brett go see Malone,” he signed to explain his latest absence.

  “Malone stinkpot.”

  “No. Malone is good.”

  “Not good. Take Brett. Cee Cee sad.”

  She made such an exaggeratedly sad face that Brett had a hard time keeping from laughing. But he knew better. Above all things, Cee Cee liked to be taken seriously.

  “Food will make Cee Cee happy. Does Cee Cee want a banana?”

  “No. Stink fruit. Not make happy.”

  “What will make Cee Cee happy?”

  She looked at him with such a doleful expression that he got tickled all over again.

  “What will make Cee Cee happy?” he asked once more. Repetition was often necessary to emphasize the importance of a question.

  “Brett,” she signed.

  “Brett what?”

  “Brett make happy. Cee Cee love Brett.” She covered her eyes with her hands, then peered between her fingers with a coy expression on her face.

  Instantly Brett was alert. This was new behavior for Cee Cee. Always when she’d expressed her love, she’d done it openly, like a child, coming to him with tight hugs and big gorilla kisses.

  “Brett loves Cee Cee too. Cee Cee fine animal gorilla.”

  “No!” She bared her teeth to show emphatic disagreement.

  “Yes. Cee Cee fine animal gorilla.”

  This time she stuck out her tongue then huffed to the corner of her outdoor enclosure. On the way she lost her hair bow. With a yelp of rage she snatched it up then tried to fasten it back onto her head. It kept slipping off, for she had no skill with mechanical things such as barrettes.

  Eleanor had given the pink bow to Cee Cee on her eighth birthday. It was now bedraggled beyond repair, but it was one of Cee Cee’s favorite possessions. The mere suggestion that it be replaced with a new bow brought howls of rage from her.

  Brett picked up the ribbon and fastened it back into Cee Cee’s fur. Looking deep into his eyes, she solemnly pronounced, “Cee Cee not gorilla. Cee Cee fine female woman.”

  Fine female woman. Terms she always applied to Eleanor.

  The look Cee Cee gave him was filled with such conviction that he dared not argue. Instead he took her hand and led her into the compound to prepare for bed. As she curled her blankets into a nest, she regarded him with the same intense scrutiny she’d used outside.

  The look was intelligent, almost human. How much did she understand about what he was trying to do with her? She’d been removed from her habitat when she was merely an orphaned infant, but on some deep primeval level did she long for the old ways?

  “Good night, Cee Cee,” he signed after she’d settled on her blankets.

  She gave her head a sad shake and refused to talk to him.

  “Is Cee Cee sick?”

  Again, the head shake.

  “Sad?”

  Slowly she lifted her eyes to his and began to sign.

  “Want Brett stay.”

  “I’m not leaving, Cee Cee. I’ll be down the hall in my bed.”

  “No.” She emphasized her sign with an adamant shake of her head. “Brett stay.” She patted the blanket beside her. “Sleep Cee Cee here.”

  Sometimes he could tease her out of her moods with humor.

  “No. Cee Cee snore.”

  “Cee Cee fine female woman not snore.” She lowered her eyes in the same coy manner she had earlier. “Lonely sad lonely, heart bad.” Looking mournful, she pounded her chest for emphasis.

  Man was not meant to be alone. Male and female He had created them. Two by two they went into the ark. Even a gorilla knew that.

  Cee Cee’s longings touched some deep, empty core within him, and suddenly he saw his entire life’s work in a different light. In taking her out of her habitat, had he taken away the very essence that made her a gorilla? Was he on a mountain playing God?

  After the unsettling encounter, he didn’t have the heart to reduce Cee Cee to an entry in the daily record book. Instead he went outside and stood in the deep-blue twilight, trying to recapture the sense of euphoria he always felt when he was alone with nature in the country he loved.

  Tonight, though, he felt nothing but uncertainty and gut-wrenching loneliness.

  Chapter 23

  She filled all the rooms with flowers of exotic colors and smells, and with lush ferns, dripping dew, that grew wild on the floor of the jungle. Hoping to make her house a home.

  “What are these called, Malone?” Ruth bent over a particularly lovely flower, neither vermilion nor pink but some shade in between.

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t care. I’ve always hated the jungle.”

  She propped her elbows on the windowsill and leaned out the open window.

  “I love it. I want to explore every inch of it.” She turned back to her husband. “Do you have any guidebooks I can use, something to help me identify the trees and flowers and birds?”

  “You don’t need a guidebook. Brett will take you. He’s crazy about all that shit. Knows the jungle like the back of his hand.”

  At the mention of his brother’s name, Ruth’s heart gave a little lurch. Thinking of Brett somewhere in the jungle filled her with an excitement she hadn’t felt in years.

  “I should be up there with him,” she said before she thought.

  “What?”

  “Working, I mean. My dissertation is still at the bottom of my suitcase. Professor Hicks is going to retire this year, and if I don’t finish my dissertation, I’ll have to be assigned to somebody else.”

  “I know how much you admire him, honey, but what would it hurt if you had to have somebody else? Relax and enjoy being a bride.”

  Enjoy that nightly pawing? She suppressed a shiver.

  “Professor Hicks is the best, Malone. And if I’m going to work with the Corday family, I want to be well-grounded in my field. Besides, he’s the only one who knows both primatology and anthropology.” He had his back up. It hadn’t taken her more than three days with Malone to learn that when things didn’t go his way, he could get as stubborn and puffed up as a toad. As much as she hated resorting to feminine wiles, she’d learned that they worked with him. Turning from the window, she smiled. “Besides, you’re the one who lured me here with the promise that I could study with your brother.”

  He melted.

  “Look at you, all flushed. You need to get
used to this climate before you go traipsing all over the jungle. And that’s what will happen when you go to Brett’s camp. He’ll drag you all over the jungle looking for gorillas.”

  “I’m okay. It’s just excitement over studying at the feet of the master.” She wanted desperately to believe that what she’d said was the truth, but she’d become such a liar that it was hard to know whether she could even tell the truth to herself anymore.

  “Honey, what’s the rush? We’ve only been here two weeks.”

  She’d spent two weeks in the white room with Max. Trapped, with no way out. Her pulse beat hard against her temples, and her breath came in short spurts. Smothering. She was smothering. Leaning far out the window, she sucked in air.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  What was wrong? Malone was a wonderful, dear man who did everything he could to please her. He brought her breakfast in bed, massaged her feet, told her funny stories that made her laugh. He even loved her cat. Still, she felt not the faintest stirrings of love. Maybe there was no such thing. At least not for damaged people like her.

  “Is anything wrong?” he asked once more, coming up behind her and putting his hand on her shoulder.

  She was what was wrong.

  “Nothing. Just breathing all this good fresh air.”

  She wrapped her arms around Malone’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You are such a good man,” she said, meaning it.

  He kissed the top of her head, then the side of her neck.

  “Why don’t you give yourself a little more time before thinking about work, sweetheart? After all, we’re still on our honeymoon.”

  How could she tell him it felt more like a prison to her?

  “I know. But I really must get started.” His hands were on her buttons. And all she felt was a sense of dread. She caught one of his hands and brought it to her lips, hoping to distract him, but his breathing was already labored, his eyes hooded.

  “I was thinking an afternoon walk would be nice ... Malone.”

  He didn’t even hear her.

  He’d promised to be patient with her, and gentle. But there was no gentleness in him now. Her thin white cotton blouse ripped as he shoved it aside. But they were not shivers of anticipation.

  “I can’t get enough of you.”

  She wished he could. She wished she could wave a magic wand and satisfy his sexual appetites so that she never again had to do this with him, this terrible pretense, this damnable lie that further blackened her soul.

  She stood like something that had taken root in the rug, but he didn’t seem to notice. Her breath left her as he jerked her onto her back and shoved her skirt over her legs. His breathing was labored as he ripped her panties aside.

  Maybe he had noticed, after all. Maybe this was her punishment for not responding.

  She felt a sharp sting as the nap burned her shoulders. She clenched her jaw to hold back her scream. Outrage? Revulsion? Surely not with her husband. Not dear, sweet Malone.

  But this time he was neither dear nor sweet: She bit down hard on her lips, enduring. Fortunately, it was over quickly. Malone adjusted his clothes, and she lay against the rug with her eyes closed.

  “Ruth?”

  She wanted to shrink away when he touched her shoulder. To scream. To run and never stop.

  “Are you okay, honey?” There was concern in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “That’s all right.” She made herself look at him, forced her mouth into a smile. “I guess these things happen.”

  “Yeah. I looked at you there at the window, the sun on your skin, that thin blouse. Then, when I touched you, it was like taking that first bite of ice cream. I just couldn’t stop.”

  “I’m a married woman now. I’ll get used to it.”

  The minute the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d said the wrong thing, but it was too late to take them back. Malone got a funny look on his face, then turned his back on her and walked away.

  She could hear ice tinkling against glass, then the slosh of liquid.

  “Can I fix you a drink, Ruth?”

  At two in the afternoon?

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’re sure? It might help you relax.”

  Relax? Slowly she gathered her clothes about her and got off the rug. She felt a hundred years old.

  Malone was watching her. There was a puzzled look on his face, like a child who’d broken the cookie jar when all he ever intended was to take one cookie. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

  “It’s all right, Malone. Really it is.”

  He set his drink on the bar and squeezed her tightly against his chest.

  “God, Ruth. You’re my life. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you.”

  “You’ll never lose me.”

  “Promise?”

  He looked so innocent with his limp hair hanging over his forehead and the hangdog expression on his face that it was impossible to be upset with him.

  “Promise?” he asked once more, as if he couldn’t bear to trust a silence between them.

  She brushed his hair back and kissed his damp forehead.

  “I already did. ‘Till death do us part.’ Remember?”

  “Yeah. I sure do.” When he grinned, he was the old Malone, the sweet man she trusted. “Look, I’m going to make this up to you. I’ll go walking with you. Heck, I’ll even explore the whole damned jungle.”

  “That’s sweet of you.”

  “Sweet, heck. It’s selfish. I can’t bear to have you out of my sight.”

  Prickles stood up on the back of her neck. She wanted her marriage to work. Wanted it desperately. But not at the cost of her independence.

  “I think I’ll go by myself. I would really like to do some exploring on my own.”

  “It’s a jungle out there.”

  This time she wouldn’t be cajoled by his humor.

  “I’ll take a map. How hard can it be to get around? I’ve seen the trails.”

  He wasn’t convinced. “You might get lost.”

  “I learned survival skills as a Girl Scout. Besides, I never get lost.”

  “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  “Malone, I really need to do this by myself.”

  “I understand.”

  He didn’t look understanding; he looked crestfallen. Ordinarily she would have relented, but at the moment she had nothing left of herself to give.

  “This is my home now, Malone. I can’t be dependent on you to show me every little thing.”

  “I guess you’re right. Look, I think there is a book or two around here that will help you.” He began to rummage in the bookshelves. “We used to have visitors staying here all the time when the foundation was young. They were always wanting to know the name of everything they saw. Thought it made them sound smart, as if they’d lived here for years. Ah, here it is.”

  The book was a fat, slick volume complete with color photographs. Malone whipped a sheet of paper out of the desk and drew a map of the compound.

  “You can take the Jeep. Follow any of these trails. They all lead back to the compound here. And this one goes to Brett’s camp.”

  She tucked the map into her skirt pocket.

  “I’ll miss you every minute you’re gone, honey.”

  She squeezed his hand and patted his cheek, wishing she could tell him the same thing. In the bathroom she ripped off her clothes and scrubbed until her skin squeaked. If she could invent a way to make her insides as squeaky clean, she’d make a million dollars and retire to some mountaintop retreat with her own gorilla group. Living a dream. Just like Brett.

  Outside, Malone waited on the front porch with Miranda.

  “’Bye, darling.” He reached for her. “Be back before dark.”

  She squeezed him extra tight, waiting for a sign, a small stirring of warmth, a little tug at her
heart, anything ... waiting and waiting. Finally she let go.

  “I promise,” she said.

  With a little wave of her hand, she was off.

  o0o

  It was quiet in the jungle—no traffic, no people, no pollution, just Ruth and the giant trees that dipped and swayed in the soft winds that blew down from the mountains. When she was out of sight of the cabin, she stopped at a bend in the road and sat at the wheel, soaking up the peace. The smells of the earth were good, rich and full of promise. The land itself was wild, exotic, different from anything she’d ever known, the kind of place that would begin to grow inside her, filling her up until there was no room left for the steamy nights in the white bedroom filled with white roses and horror.

  A carefree exuberance overtook her, and she shook her fist in the general direction of New Orleans.

  “Damn you, Max. I won’t let you win.”

  She set the Jeep back in motion, and it seemed natural, somehow, to gravitate up the mountain toward the man who had exerted such a mysterious magnetism on her since she was fifteen years old.

  Besides, Malone himself had suggested it. Hadn’t he said Brett knew everything there was to know about the jungle?

  Chapter 24

  He wasn’t expecting company.

  Brett left the field notes he was translating and looked down the mountain. It was Malone’s Jeep ... with Ruth at the wheel.

  He’d known she would come sooner or later. Hadn’t she said she wanted to meet Cee Cee? But somehow he wasn’t prepared for this invasion, either physically or mentally. In the two weeks since she’d come to Africa, he’d buried himself so deep in his work that it was almost as if she didn’t exist.

  Foolish pretense. She existed not only as vibrant matter that took up space on his mountain but as undaunted spirit in the subterranean levels of his mind.

  And now she was coming to him.

  He had been out all day with Doby’s group and probably smelled like a gorilla. Would he have time to change clothes?

  No, the Jeep was too close. She’d be at his door any minute now. At least he would comb his hair.

  In the bathroom he splashed water on his face and grabbed a comb. Leaves and bits of bamboo clung to his hair. He looked like a battered one-eyed bug.

 

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