by Maurice
Caesar’s Revenge
The start of the war made it easy for Caesar. The humans were all distracted. Outside, men were calling for the Colonel, but he did not come to the window. Caesar wondered why he wasn’t with them.
Caesar told me later that he went into the Colonel’s high house. Ready to fight. Ready to kill.
He passed a table with bullets and other weapons on it. There was a picture there, too, like the picture of him and Will. But this was a picture of a little human boy. The Colonel’s son, maybe, but when he was a child. Before he grew up and became a soldier. Before his father shot him.
Caesar found the Colonel on his bed. He hadn’t heard Caesar come in, and his face was turned away. He was reaching down, trying to pick up a bottle. On a table near the bed was a gun, the one he had shot Percy with. The gun he had placed against Caesar’s head.
Caesar took the gun and pointed it at the Colonel.
The Colonel looked at him. He had blood around his mouth and nose. He didn’t look crazy anymore. He looked terrified and confused. He started making sounds. Like the girl. Like the man back on the mountain. He had the disease.
The Colonel reached out to the gun in Caesar’s hand and cocked it. He pressed it to his head and closed his eyes, waiting for Caesar to pull the trigger.
But Caesar didn’t.
It was like a weight came off of me, Caesar told me later, in the desert. All that hate. It was over. I didn’t have to kill him. It didn’t matter anymore. He couldn’t believe it when I put the gun down and left. Even without words, I knew he was begging me to kill him. I left the gun. Before I left his house, I heard the gun fire.
Outside the war was raging, and from his high vantage Caesar saw the humans on the wall shooting not just at other humans, but at apes. His apes. He also saw a fuel truck inside the base with fuel leaking from it. It was close to the wall where Red was helping humans shoot at the apes.
Caesar grabbed a belt of little bombs from the table, just as a soldier burst in, looking for the Colonel. Caesar leapt out the window and ran across the ground toward the truck.
Just as he thought he was near enough to throw a bomb, an arrow struck him in the side. He collapsed, dropping the bomb. He snapped the arrow but could not rise.
A human came out of the smoke, carrying a crossbow. He recognized him as one of the humans he had released, what now seemed like a long time ago. Now the man was going to kill him. Caesar could see he didn’t really want to, but his finger was closing on the trigger.
Then the man suddenly vanished in a burst of flame.
For a moment, Caesar didn’t understand. A man was there, and then he wasn’t.
But then he looked behind him. Red was there, looking down at him. He held a weapon in his hand, the kind that shoots small missiles. Caesar said Red looked at peace. Like the Red of long ago, before Koba’s rebellion, before he served the humans.
Red had come back to Caesar.
Red didn’t look at the screaming human behind him. He didn’t move when the man came up behind him and pointed a gun at his head. He kept his gaze on Caesar, his king. His ears still ringing from explosion, Caesar didn’t hear the shot. But he saw Red fall almost gently off the wall.
Then the man who killed Red began shooting at Caesar.
Caesar found the strength to jump up. He picked up the grenade and hurled it at the fuel truck. Then he ran away as quickly as his wounded body would take him.
Outside, we saw the explosion. Then another. Then the entire complex turned into a ball of fire that lifted into the air, a red mushroom with a boiling black stem.
I was on the mountain by then, with Nova, Lake, and the children. Rocket, Bad Ape, and a few others were still down there, drawing human fire, hiding from bullets.
It wasn’t over. It was clear no one in the compound could have survived. But the army from the north came on anyway, cheering at their victory. And then they saw Caesar.
We saw him, too. He stood; he later said he felt rather than heard what was coming. The humans began turning toward them, raising their guns to point at him. But he wasn’t concerned with them.
Everything began to shudder. I heard deep, rushing, rumbling sound. Like the mountain was falling. But it wasn’t the mountain. It was the snow. The explosion had broken it loose, high above us. And now it was sweeping down faster than any ape could run. Avalanche is the word for that, I learned. Bad Ape taught it to me.
I saw Caesar running toward us. Then I turned and saw the sliding snow.
We couldn’t outrun it. The only thing we could do was climb. And we did, gathering the children, scrambling from limb to limb even as the trees shuddered under the impact of the crushing snow. I fought to keep my grip. Nova clung to my back. I hoped she wouldn’t let go. I thought it would never end.
But it did. And when the air cleared, I saw Caesar down the slope, clinging to a tree. I saw Rocket and Bad Ape, also safe. I saw you, Cornelius. Safe.
The valley below was completely white. The Colonel’s camp, the army from the north—all buried. All dead.
Our Journey
Caesar was hurt. He had been hurt before, he said, and he would recover. We should begin the journey to our new home immediately, before anything else could happen. Before more humans came.
He wanted to see the place Blue Eyes found. To see his son’s dream of a new, safe home come true.
It was cold. We had no supplies. But our steps took us south, past our home at the waterfall, and there we found some food and tools. Better, we found a few of our horses.
We did not have Blue Eyes’ map, but we had Rocket. He knew the way.
You clung to your father for most of the trip. He never let you stray from his sight again.
I rode close by his side. We talked. He told me things he never told me before. He talked about the Colonel and his madness, and about the madness of vengeance. Things he wanted me to know. Things he wanted you to know. I said he could tell you himself, one day. He nodded in agreement, but after a rest he told me more.
Eventually the forest and mountains were behind us. We came to the desert Blue Eyes spoke of. It was terrible and dry, but Rocket knew where to find water holes. It was hard to believe our new home could be anywhere in that wasteland.
But it was.
At first it just seemed like another mountain we must climb. But when we came to the top, I saw a valley, a lake, and so many green and growing things. A good place. A beautiful place.
A safe place.
Blue Eyes was right. This was the best place for apes.
We dismounted. Apes rushed eagerly into their new home. The children played and looked about in wonder. It was a joy to see.
Caesar and I sat at the top of the valley. You were eager to explore, and Caesar finally let you go from him. He let Nova take you. Nova. My daughter, Nova. He watched her lead you down the slope, ape and human, hand in hand. He must have thought of Will, then. Of his human father, their fingers intertwined like tree roots. Maybe, like me, he thought of what could have been.
As we watched you explore your new home, Caesar groaned. He slumped against the stone.
I saw then. I thought his wound had healed. It hadn’t. He was bleeding again. His skin was hot.
And I realized he was dying.
“Don’t worry, Maurice,” he said. “You are all home now. Apes are strong. With or without me.”
He looked down at his people. At you playing with Bad Ape and Nova.
I was breaking inside. It was always hard for me to speak aloud. I avoided it when I could. But I wanted him to know. To hear it.
“Son will know who father was,” I promised him. “And what Caesar did for us.”
He nodded. He looked back down at you. Then he closed his eyes, and very slowly lay down.
That is how your father died. Knowing you—knowing we—were finally safe.
This is the story of Caesar. Our king. Your father. This is the promise I made him as he drew his last breath.
You might think this is the end of the story, but it is not. As long as your story continues, Cornelius, as long as our story goes on, so, too, does the story of Caesar. We must make it a story worth telling. To your children, tell them to tell theirs, and so on through the generations. We must make ourselves worthy of his sacrifice, and the sacrifice of many others.
Will.
Buck.
Luca.
Malcolm.
Ash.
Cornelia.
Blue Eyes.
Even Red.
We must remember, and we must move forward.
I am Maurice.
I am the teller, not the tale.
And for the moment, this is all I have to say.
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