And despite their rugged lives, the apes were gentle at heart and none wished to compound the poor mother’s difficulties or confront her with the truth. It appeared that Eeda’s foundling was crazy as well as ugly, and for those reasons, was unlikely to live very long.
But Gazda surprised them. As the months passed, the hair on his head grew from a tuft into a sleek black mane that cascaded down his back, and his body darkened considerably with several layers of dirt. The tribe grew optimistic about these improvements but remained cautious.
Despite this slow acceptance, Eeda kept her son away from the others as much as she could, since she would never forget what Omag had done and he was ever lurking about. So, she remained distant when feeding Gazda or preparing for sleep: crouching atop a defensible mound of rock or earth, or building their nest in a safe place high in the trees.
From the ocean on the west, Goro’s territory ran 30 miles inland almost as far as the river on the east, and was the same again in distance between northern mountains and southern swamps.
The apes had lived within this range for generations, and rarely found reason to pass beyond its farthest borders where the territory was guarded by wild lands filled with savage predators and poisonous snakes and plants. It was a dangerous and tangled forest impossible for anything not native to it to navigate.
Goro was not about to challenge the wisdom of his forefathers, and preferred protecting the group against the dangers that he knew, over those that he did not. The silverback like any leader knew success lay in his ability to find food for his tribe, and as long as his territory was bountiful there was no need for change.
He kept his troop moving in a meandering often overlapping, vaguely oval path that led from food source to water and back again with various special places to stop along the way. Because their diet consisted of moisture-rich foods, a water supply was not a necessity, though it was preferred, so their special places usually had access to spring, stream or pond—access but no close proximity since such water sources were watched by predators.
This far to the west the apes had stopped at the Grooming Rock. It was a tall gray block of stone jutting up from the center of a broad, grassy clearing. Goro would climb the rock, as other kings had before him, and watch over his tribe as they fed on thistles, shoots, grains and seeds, fished for termites or indulged in grooming.
Grooming was something that the apes did wherever they pleased, but all felt a special comfort grooming by the rock, under the watchful gaze of their silverback.
They passed Grooming Rock going to or coming from Fur-nose’s lair and the great blue water where they fed on berries, nuts and fruits that came into season bathed by the warm ocean breezes.
The open space around Grooming Rock was bordered by neatly spaced trees that offered low branches for the infants to play upon, and for sentinel blackbacks to climb and stand guard.
The ground in the clearing was flat and offered no holes or humps by which predators could hide, so the tribe would linger there on their way—always if it bore fruit and food enough—as the seasons and their wandering only put them in the grooming place some few times a year.
The tribe would while away the days by the rock for feeding and frolic, and the females brought forth young.
The tribe’s territory was vast, but to a mother and infant the world was a much smaller place bounded by feeding, resting and playing. Baby Gazda’s favorite comfort was to suckle at Eeda’s breast while she combed through his hair with her thick fingers.
He’d lie there in her arms while she groomed him, watching her big brown eyes as he drew the pink mixture of blood and milk from her rough teats. Gazda would wind his small fingers in his adoptive mother’s sideburns and tug on the long fur the whole while, or he would reach out for her long lips and pull at those.
The loving she-ape would only smile at the minor discomfort, gazing upon him with all the love her savage heart could muster, while hoping he’d soon stop being so clumsy with his teeth.
As Gazda grew stronger, he would smile up at his mother with an impish look, before tugging her fur hard enough to make her gasp. This cheeky abuse was not enough to raise her ire, but she always answered with a playful bout of wrestling between mother and son.
They would pant and hoot their satisfaction as they rolled upon the grass or hung from their perches struggling in mock battle until the she-ape tired.
Eeda had not been prepared for how draining adoptive motherhood could be. She was young, just 12, but she was often exhausted by their daily activities, sometimes lying dazed upon the ground after Gazda had fed—napping in fits and starts as the tribe foraged around her.
She did not understand this reaction. It had not been so taxing with her firstborn. Then, like the other mothers she had felt relieved after feeding her infant—of course, none of their babies had been like Gazda.
Gazda had developed quickly in his first six months with his adopted tribe, not so much in size, as in toughness. His body thickened, and his skin coarsened. He remained pale, but there was a dense quality to his flesh that drew a sigh of relief from Eeda for he had been like a baby bird before.
But Gazda grew sturdier, and little wonder: he was always eating. In fact, there had been times his mother tried to stop his suckling when she grew tired, but Gazda had worn her down with his insistent strength. Many times as she drowsed after feeding, she would remember that strength and ponder weaning him early.
He moved well on all fours like the other apes, and he’d become so adept at climbing that she had to keep a careful watch when he played to guard against him joining the older apes in the high branches.
Eeda tried to keep him clean by licking the dirt off him, but exposing the odd little body beneath often stopped her. At least some grime kept him from looking like a grub, a look that was exaggerated by his habit of taking daily naps on the black earth in the shadow of broad-leafed plants.
No doubt fatigued by his sleepless nights, Gazda would crawl into the underbrush as the rising sun cut golden swaths through the canopy. Yawning, he crept under the leaves where he’d cover himself with any dead vegetation he could find before stretching out flat and falling asleep.
Eeda had been concerned when this first happened, since he went completely still; but whenever her fears drove her to act; he came awake as her rough hands shook him—sometimes nipping at her in the process. If the tribe was on the move, he would wind his fingers in her fur and sleep where he clung to her back or hung beneath her as she followed the group.
He did not sleep at night at all. Eeda would awaken in her nest with a twitching between her shoulders, and there Gazda would be perched on a nearby branch of the sleeping tree—watching her.
His pale body was plain to see in the dark, and his red eyes flashed when he blinked. She’d scold and he’d scuttle up the tree trunk, his pale torso pressed against the dark bark with his long, thin limbs splayed like a spider’s.
She’d been unsettled at first, but in the time since, like any mother of an unusual child; she simply grumbled at his antics before rolling over and going back to sleep.
The other apes rarely complained about his strange ways anymore, or about Eeda’s, but had started referring to Gazda as a night ape.
Something that only a mother could love.
As Eeda did, so much that the concerns of the tribe were often lost to her. She had Gazda to care for, and she would not lose another infant to chance, or to a wicked ape’s fury.
So her child slept in the day? There were worse things an infant could do, and if the tribe was on the move, she never lagged while carrying him.
CHAPTER 5 – Grooming Rock
As time continued forward and the years passed, Eeda came to relish Gazda’s daily naps beneath the green for they allowed her to turn outward for interaction and share in grooming with the other members of the tribe. The apes would gather in the undergrowth with the blackbacks sharing sentry duties, and there they would communally clean one an
other’s thick coats from head to toe.
So if day-to-day grooming was a simple, shared sigh of relief, then doing it at the Grooming Rock provided a comfort far more spiritual. Under the watchful eye of their king and blackback guards, the anthropoids would pick through each others pelts hair by hair, enjoying the physical contact and the emotional restoration that came from the ritual.
The blackbacks took part in the grooming, too, but often preferred the company of the other males, seeming aloof within their aggressive culture of competition—unless they were at the Grooming Rock. There every member was sure to share in turn.
Even Goro could not resist joining in at such times. He would guard the tribe awhile, until his gruff demeanor softened and then disappeared with a happy hoot, as he climbed down from the Grooming Rock to join in the activity.
Then the day would grow hazy as his thoughts shifted into a blissful state while a trio of she-apes picked his fur clean of insects, dead skin and dirt. But, the grooming was not exclusive to pairs or mating, and was shared by all members of the tribe.
After Goro had been preened by his handmaidens, the other males would often take a turn, giving and receiving a release of calm and comfort as they took up positions around the silverback’s mighty bulk.
Even Omag took a turn, and with his ambitious blackback supporters would join the ritual of cleaning King Goro’s fur. Of course, the crippled ape had other reasons for participating because he did not like to be groomed himself. The disease that was eating a hole in his face, was also causing his fur to fall out and the raw skin beneath to form sensitive lesions that when touched caused him tremendous pain.
Omag could still observe his duty and groom the silverback, though Goro would have been dismayed if he had seen the looks his old challenger shared with the aging queens as they performed their duty.
Akaki and Oluza were both suckling infants at this time, but knew that after these offspring or the next, their milk would dry up and they’d be of no use to Goro.
So, forming alliances with “lesser” males was all they could do to stay ahead of the tribe’s naive young she-apes that were maturing, and easily capturing the interest of the blackbacks and of Goro the king.
Despite his illness, Omag was still a powerful male with silver hairs on his muscular shoulders and back. His face and chest grew more ravaged by the day, but male apes were judged by their strength, not beauty, and it was clear that the crippled ape’s physical deficiencies were compensated by a ruthless mental acuity. So, when Omag was not away hunting and eating the sickly flesh he craved, he’d squat near Akaki and Oluza, and encourage their dreams of power.
They would find a place to talk away from the Grooming Rock and the king. Away from Goro either Akaki or Oluza—or sometimes both would offer to mate with Omag, but the crippled beast had an appetite for something far more subtle and primal than sex.
“Goro is weak,” Oluza said in the grass by the trees. Of the aging queens, she was the most reckless with her words.
“Challenge him Omag,” Akaki would say, nudging his great shoulder, but Sip-sip, for so the queens called him in their thoughts, would only shrug.
They secretly used the name as did others in the tribe because there were few who liked or trusted the crippled ape, and fewer who had not suffered during his rages. Additionally, the queens had long suspected the true nature of his ill-favored cravings, and scorned him for it.
“Not Omag,” he lisped, sputtering as saliva dripped from his ragged mouth, before pointing at the young males at play. Among them, a large sturdy ape of six years led the games. “Ulok son of Goro, child of Akaki must challenge.”
“Ulok is young,” Oluza said jealously, munching a fistful of grass.
“It will take him many years to be so strong,” Akaki added, heart racing to know that her own offspring might hold the key to power. “But he is Goro’s son.”
“He is Goro’s in body,” Omag said, his tongue falling out of the hideous hole in his face to lick at spittle that dribbled from his jaw. “But Omag speaks to Ulok’s head and Ulok eats Omag’s sweet words like fruit. Omag makes him fat with pride.”
The aging queens nodded before Akaki yelped when her drowsing infant bit her nipple. She dealt a heavy slap with her leathery hand and the little she-ape squeaked.
“So Omag is like Ulok’s father,” Oluza grunted, her lips rolled away from her monstrous canines as she nodded her head up and down panting rapidly.
“Ulok is weak of heart, and strong in body like Goro,” Omag said, climbing to his feet. He leaned forward on his powerful fists. “Ulok will be king for Omag—sip! Sip!” The disfigured ape slurped, and his deformed lips writhed. He turned and scowled at Akaki and Oluza, daring them to tease him. “Tell Ulok to love Omag and you will be Ulok’s queens.”
Omag flinched when the sickly white foundling, Gazda, suddenly appeared from behind a nearby tree. He was clinging to the rough bark by his fingers and toes, and making a repetitive clicking noise.
Omag glared up at the young one and bared his fighting fangs as Akaki and Oluza rose beside him, the long fur on their necks and shoulders bristling.
While the group had grown to accept the foundling, his appearance was still unnerving. This was Goro’s work again; the king should not have allowed the weakling into the tribe.
Omag leaned toward Gazda and barked up at where the strange creature perched, his eyes burning from under his thick brow ridge.
But, Eeda swung out of the branches overhead and picked the little white ape up in her arms. She glared at Omag before snatching at a hanging vine and swinging away with her son.
Omag watched them go, his lips wrinkling over sharp yellow teeth. He had seen the hatred in the she-ape’s eyes—the disrespect. The old queens had seen it too.
“Gazda is sick! Sleeps in day and chases the moon at night,” Akaki said, reaching over to groom Oluza’s shoulder. Oluza was some years older and had a higher ranking in the group. “He is a night ape!”
“Did the night ape hear us talk?” Oluza asked, glancing up at Sip-sip. “Or his mother?”
“The night ape is too young,” panted Omag, appreciating Akaki’s humor. He’d also seen Gazda sleep in the day when the tribe was picking fruit and living life, and had seen him up in the night, sitting in the dark, or like a white frog on a tree trunk. Night ape. “Eeda hates Omag, but only thinks of Gazda.”
The crippled ape hated Eeda’s foundling, but like all of his kind, Omag was plagued with curiosity that sometimes overwhelmed all other instincts. It had not taken long for him to discover the night ape’s strange day-weakness.
Omag had pondered the orphan many times before, and had fantasized about hunting him, and eating his flesh. The night ape’s pale body reminded him of the bone-faces that lived across the river. They were hairless and pale, and similar to Gazda behind their masks and beneath their strange coverings of other animals’ skins.
Omag relished the flesh of their females so much that he often awoke from passionate dreams of devouring them. He had been hunting them for years now, at any opportunity.
Their lair lay days of travel from the Grooming Rock, past the eastern border of Goro’s land where they lived in many huts within a large ring of sharp sticks. Omag went there when the craving for the flesh grew too strong to deny, though he could not stay long so far from his own tribe.
It was easier to satisfy his appetites when Goro’s group foraged eastward for bananas, shortening his journey to the bone-faces. If the tribe ever lingered near, then Omag could make the trip so often that he could grow fat on the mottled pink flesh before the other apes resumed their trek.
Omag caught the bone-faced females at the river where they’d kneel by the low water to drink. Always their eyes would glance this way and that as they trembled in sickness and fear. They smelled of decay and in places their skin had opened and wriggled with tasty maggots.
Man and woman, all would come to the river, and while the males dabbed mud on
their wounds and kept watch, the females sank in the brown running water and scraped at their damaged skins with their fingers.
Omag liked to wait until they came up on the muddy bank, where they’d look around in fear coming closer to the thick bushes in which he hid. Their wounds would be clean and red in dappled hides of shiny scar tissue and decay.
Omag would catch the slowest of them in his powerful arms and the rest would run away in terror to hide behind their wall of sticks. The crippled ape would carry his prey to a stone lair he kept nearby where he could eat them at his leisure. Their flesh was succulent around the rosy mounds of purple rot, and their cries of terror and pain pleased him as he gorged.
A sudden yearning for the taste of such raw pink flesh caused his heart to race and his muscles to swell with desire. Omag turned to the aging queens and then rising upright on his legs, for a second the ravaging disease melted away from him and with arching back he pounded upon his chest.
The aging queens cowered before him as he drummed, until the sudden outburst ended.
Eeda carried Gazda away from Omag and the aging queens. She hated the crippled beast and did not like the burning looks that he and the old females gave her son.
Gazda had wound his fingers in the hair on her shoulders as the she-ape swung hand over hand through the trees until she spotted a group of her contemporaries at the north side of the clearing. The females were crouched in the high grass and leafy underbrush, huddled around a tall, hard mound of earth.
She landed near them with a thump and set Gazda at her side. He quickly scrambled over and tackled a pair of youngsters that were playing by the mound.
The other females grunted and extended their open hands in greeting before Eeda left to search in the brush for a termite stick. She quickly selected a long, rigid stem that she carried over to the mound where the other mothers were carefully inserting their own sticks into small holes in the hard-packed dirt.
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