She was still very protective of him, and would fly into a rage if her son was the object of too much scrutiny. The she-ape could put on a display of strength that would shame a silverback, stamping her feet and tearing at the jungle plants with such fury, that on occasion Goro was brought rumbling from his circle of grooming courtiers determined to show the tribe that he was firmly in charge of the unruly female.
He disliked using violence upon any of the she-apes, but few escaped the dirt, stones and sticks that he’d fire in every direction during his titanic shows of strength.
But with Eeda, the silverback often withheld his judgment, and with the tribe would watch the mother protect Gazda and redefine her offspring’s borders. Goro could see that the female’s wrath would only be fed by his own, and so he held his ground and allowed her rage to dissipate in the display rather than force a dangerous, and possibly lethal, confrontation.
Such outbursts of emotion were not uncommon in a tribe of apes, though they were usually muted when the king made his displeasure known.
“Another sign that his time is coming to an end,” Omag and the aging queens whispered among themselves as they sat grooming young Ulok in a protective circle of loyal blackbacks. “The king respects a she-ape’s display!”
“Goro is a she-ape,” Ulok snapped, and then he screamed as Omag savagely bit into his muscular shoulder.
Slinking aside to rub at the wound, the shamed young male gaped at his crippled mentor.
“Ulok stupid!” Omag snarled. “Dumb monkey cannot be a king.”
Ulok trembled, hanging his head and slumping against his attendants. Akaki and Oluza watched Omag’s cunning, bloodshot eyes study the youth. Then, he grunted loudly, and with a hoot grabbed the young ape and rolled with him on the grass until Ulok was laughing and the tension bled away into the hot day.
“Ulok must not speak of Goro until Omag says,” Omag cautioned quietly, where he lay upon the grass with the adolescent pinned beneath him. “When Ulok is big and strong, then Ulok can call Goro whatever he wants.”
“Please, father. Ulok has much to learn,” the younger ape pleaded, before attempting to shake off Omag’s grip, and surprising the crippled ape when he almost succeeded. Omag was shocked by the show of strength. Perhaps the time was coming sooner than expected.
He panted good-naturedly and rolled off Ulok as the aging queens moved in to groom the young blackback. They crooned and complimented the adolescent, and Ulok’s heart swelled with pride.
Omag sat apart from them, his diseased flesh inflamed by the wrestling and physical contact, but he was very pleased. Ulok was learning quickly. Indeed, Goro was like a she-ape.
Though Omag had to admit that Eeda was a special case, for even he had learned to avoid her anger. Especially, when it concerned her sleeping son.
A sure way to awaken the she-ape’s most concentrated fury was to draw attention to Gazda’s sleeping habits. The entire tribe had always found the night ape’s day-time sleeping odd, and some considered it a sign of laziness, and a few went so far as to say as much.
Those apes Eeda met with her fighting fangs and her powerful arms. They were given a beating and tufts of hair were sure to fly.
Fewer still took it upon themselves to find the places where her son would hide and sleep, and there attempt to wake him on their own.
Any who so provoked Gazda soon regretted the action for then the night ape’s mother became an incarnation of maternal retribution. She viciously attacked whoever or whatever dared to molest her son and rarely stopped before blood flowed.
Indeed, Omag had learned that lesson himself one day when his curiosity over Gazda’s napping had caused him to search the sleeping creature out.
He did not find him, but he must have wandered near his hiding place for out of the trees came Eeda in full fury. She had been guarding the night ape from behind some elevated blind.
The she-ape had landed on Omag’s blistered back like a leopard and tore at him with her claws and teeth. Indeed, so severe had been the initial mauling that the crippled ape had imagined that very thing was occurring and like a little infant had run shrieking in terror.
When Goro and the blackbacks later investigated Omag’s claims and found “the big cat” to be a she-ape, many panted in humor and others with disrespect at the crippled bull ape as he huddled on a high branch with the old queen’s gingerly tending his wounds.
Disrespect, Omag remembered overhearing from the blackbacks who had joked with Goro and old Baho beneath the tree, and somewhere in the laughter he had heard someone quietly make the Sip-sip noise.
SIP-SIP! Despite the fury that slander always stirred in him, and the suffocating shame that Oluza and Akaki had tried to groom away, Omag had yet to launch any reprisal against Eeda—though he had vowed he would. But Omag was patient...
Eeda shielded her son from the other apes as she always had because their curiosity was annoying, and their accusations of his laziness unfounded.
They did not know that Gazda slept in the day because he was becoming a great hunter at night. Not long after she had started weaning him, he had begun returning from his nocturnal wandering smelling of flesh and blood and sometimes bearing gifts for her.
The night ape, as all the others in the tribe now called him, was a hunter and he did not fear the dark.
Small things he brought to share: frogs and toads and snakes, and furry things that leapt from tree to tree and from that flesh had his mother grown strong.
The tribe, even Goro, hunted in the day for only then could they see their prey; but also it was because they feared the beasts that roamed the night.
Eeda would always fret over her son even though he limited his stalking to the sleeping trees, but how could she be anything but proud?
After all, why did the apes sleep in the branches of trees at night? Because they feared the carnivores that sniffed around the roots.
And the tribe only rested on the ground in the morning and when the day was at its hottest because they knew the hunters were asleep—asleep like her son—and resting for the night to come.
One day in his sixth year, Gazda and his friends Ooso, Kagoon and Poomak were swinging in the branches that hung low over the tribe. The apes had stopped in their southern-trending migration to break apart a gigantic fallen tree that was rotten and filled with tasty grubs.
The sun was directly overhead in an azure sky, but was lost to the dining anthropoids, as barely a glimmer of its burning rays could make it past the thick green canopy that grew upward in successive layers of dense foliage.
After the night ape’s playmates had eaten their fill of the squirming delicacy, Gazda had endured a round of taunts for passing on the tasty treats.
The teasing faded quickly since all were young, and his friends knew Gazda had a powerful bite that his mother had taught him to use freely in his own defense. Also, they were all outsiders to the tribe, and had themselves been objects of scorn, so they rarely bullied one another in a prolonged or mean-spirited way.
The youngsters had climbed into the trees for a game of tag, and they were soon a quarter mile from the others, leaping from branch to branch until they came upon a line of tall moss-covered rocks that rose up from a misty profusion of ferns growing around a circular pool that was 20 feet across.
They dropped silently to the black earth by the pond, and started wrestling to determine who would be the first allowed to drink.
In the end, they broke from their play and all but Gazda crouched at the water’s edge to slurp up the cool, clear liquid. Their friend, the night ape, had never been comfortable around such an abundance of water, and as an infant had run screaming whenever his mother had tried to get him to drink.
Gazda did not know why he disliked the open water, but approaching it had always caused his heart to race, and made him anxious and feel smothered. This was a strange response when considering that unlike the tribe, he enjoyed the rain when it came and the mists that it produced.
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The other apes were miserable in such circumstances, and would grimly endure the precipitation crowded beneath crude umbrellas they fashioned from the large leaves of the elephant plant.
Gazda was not bothered if the raindrops ran over his slick body when he was out at night. In fact, the fog and rain helped obscure his white skin while he was at his hunting games.
But for some reason silent pools like the one by which his companions knelt always sucked at him, always seeming to draw him toward their darkest depths—even there where he crouched well back upon an earthy bank.
“Drink!” Ooso peeped, and the others chimed in, leaning forward to lap at the pool.
“Drink, Gazda,” Poomak encouraged. “You are thirsty...”
“Look at Kagoon!” Kagoon said, rising up on his fingertips and toes to stare at the reflections in the water’s surface.
“Kagoon is a bushbaby!” Ooso chortled. “Gazda too! Come see your face!” And she slapped the water, sending a spray into Kagoon and Poomak’s eyes. Immediately, all three were rolling and wrestling again.
Gazda was very curious about this strange phenomenon that allowed the others to see themselves, and he had often been challenged to look at his own face upon the water’s surface. He knew that water reflected the jungle trees and plants that grew around it, and he’d seen curious inverted apes running in reflections, but he’d never gone close enough to see his own face.
He was curious to know what he looked like because so many had said he was ugly, and he already knew his body was different from the other apes.
Perhaps he was afraid to see just how different he was from the others in his adoptive tribe.
But the thought brought back his anxiety and the water pulled at him again. His heart pounded, and he gasped, caught between his burning curiosity and fear.
When his friends broke from their play to kneel by the pond and drink again, Gazda took a deep breath and crept closer with jaw clenched.
He set his trembling hands on Ooso’s furry back and on Kagoon’s, and grinding his teeth against his racing heart; he rose up and peered over his friends’ shoulders. There they were, each of them, the faces of Poomak, Ooso and Kagoon floating on the pond like in a dream.
But where was Gazda’s face?
Ooso whistled, craning her neck to look up at her friend, realizing what he was doing and she turned back to the water, tilting her head as she squinted at the reflections.
“Where is Gazda?” Ooso asked, and the others also leaned forward on their arms to search the pond’s surface.
“Gazda! Lean over more and look,” Ooso scolded, as Gazda crawled forward on shaking limbs until he was perched entirely upon her back and on Kagoon’s.
There was nothing on the water but his friends’ puzzled faces.
“Where is Gazda?” Poomak blurted, nudging Ooso.
A sudden shrill scream rent the jungle and the young apes by the pond tensed every muscle...and then moved!
Gazda leapt forward away from the sound and over the water, as Ooso and Kagoon broke to the right and Poomak bolted to the left.
What happened next was lost in part to Gazda for his mind was paralyzed by fear. He saw the water there beneath him, a great flat reflection of the high trees above him—behind.
But still there was no Gazda mirrored there.
Another vicious roar froze his heart—a leopard! NO!
Then came a shriek of pain and a great fear gripped him.
His friends!
A strange sensation came over him that dispelled the instant terror of the carnivore’s cry—and his panicked sense of sinking was replaced by another. Surging outward from his heart a heat rose up to buoy him, and Gazda did not fall!
He moved through the air! His vision flickered and his ears echoed uncannily—noises were everywhere beset by a sharp clicking noise—and over this came the splashing, and growling as a beast attacked its prey.
Gazda’s friends.
The night ape burned with anger, but he could not turn or look back or help. For a moment, it was like he had no substance, as if he were made of drifting mist, and then for a fleeting second it appeared that his hands had changed; his fingers had grown long and spindly with shadows of dark skin between them.
And just as suddenly his vision and hearing returned to normal.
The night ape glanced back across the water, and saw a yellow and black-spotted leopard dragging poor Poomak into the undergrowth.
Gazda gripped the thin branches of a tree that grew on the far side of the pool some 25 feet from where he had last crouched with his friends. His heart was racing and a clammy sweat covered his naked limbs, but his breath was slowing.
He cast about fearfully for his other friends and was relieved to see that Ooso and Kagoon had leapt over the rocks and into the trees by the ferns, and there they clung in the heights noisily scolding the leopard.
The night ape scurried along the branches to where they grew thicker near the tree trunk as his friends screamed angrily at the beast.
Gazda studied his hands, opening and closing them, holding them to his face with the fingers spread wide as he sniffed the nails and skin—normal now, but he was remembering—and when he looked up again, he saw that Ooso was watching him from across the pond.
Her eyes were shining with emotion.
CHAPTER 8 – Mystery and Danger
Months passed and the tribe rarely spoke of the red-headed ape, though some of the mothers used Poomak’s story as a warning to their little ones. The jungle was unforgiving to careless creatures.
It seemed that even Poomak’s mother Nuklo had put his memory behind her. The she-ape was carrying another infant and the sire Wogo was no doubt anxious to see the babe’s black crest upon delivery.
Life was moving on.
However, a silence had grown in Gazda in that time as he brooded over the loss of his friend. Where he had once been a fearless and restless spark, the night ape now had become uncertain and gloomy.
Eeda noticed that he was not clicking as much as he used to. She had learned long before that her son made the sound when he was curious or puzzled, the way some nervous apes chewed their fingernails; and so she hoped that the death of Poomak had not made Gazda aware of his own mortality to the point that he would be afraid of life, or that he would dwell upon each loss.
But Eeda did not know that there was more to her son’s silence than a fear of death. True enough, that had marked him, but the night ape was perplexed. He could not forget or understand how he had escaped the leopard.
Ever since that day by the pool Gazda had pondered the experience. On one hand he wished he could have stayed to help his friend—knowing full well that would have likely cost him his life; while on the other he wondered if staying would have even been possible, for he had had no control over whatever force had worked upon him.
How had he crossed the pond? Even mighty Goro could not have jumped so far. Gazda often stared at his upturned hands remembering how they had seemed to change. Had he floated or flown on the air?
Did it happen to apes when they were frightened? He had never observed such a reaction in anyone but himself. He wanted to ask, but he suspected the others would only think him crazier—he knew the stories. They already thought there was something wrong with his head because he slept in the day and not at night.
If floating in the air did not happen to the other apes, then it would only be another thing that was different about Gazda, and another reason for him not to fit in with the tribe.
He needed to talk to someone about what had happened, but Kagoon could barely recall the incident, and Ooso seemed strangely affected by it.
Gazda had first thought she was just saddened by the loss of Poomak, but there was more. The little she-ape appeared to be frightened and would barely communicate with him.
It was almost half a year before she told him more, but her sidelong glances and fearful looks finally drove him to ask: “Is Ooso afraid of Gazda?”
They were high up in the branches overlooking a wide clearing where the tribe had gorged on berries and now lazed under a clear afternoon sky. Gazda did not like the bright light of the sun on his bare skin, so he kept to the side of the tree that was in shadow.
He had come from his sleeping place to find Ooso on her perch where she had carried a handful of grass seeds to nibble. The she-ape had seemed uncomfortable to have him near and had moved farther into the sunlight to continue her snack.
“Poomak is dead,” she said, her brown eyes moist.
Gazda nodded. He too missed their friend. “But Gazda is sad not frightened.”
“Gazda frightened Poomak!” Ooso said. “No face in pond—no Gazda in pond. When the leopard screamed—Gazda changed!”
“Changed?” Gazda asked, creeping around the tree trunk to the very edge of the shade.
“Poomak was surprised when Gazda changed and the leopard killed him for it,” Ooso said.
“But Gazda only jumped!” the night ape declared.
“Gazda not jump, he flew!” Ooso gave him a glance as she munched the seeds. “Like a bat.”
Gazda thought it was a funny thing that Ooso would say he flew like a bat. There were many types of the strange flying beasts in the jungle, and they were among his favorite prey to hunt. The small creatures had skills in the dark that seemed equal to his own, and they often escaped him because of it.
“Ooso’s a bat!” Gazda countered childishly. He was trying to be serious and yet she seemed to be joking.
But the she-ape shook her head.
Gazda frowned at his friend, annoyed.
“And Ooso saw a bat, too!” She held her hands up before her, flexing the fingers in and out, as she turned toward him. “There was fog and light before the bat and then Ooso saw Gazda in the tree across the pond.”
“No! Ooso teases,” Gazda said, tremulously. He remembered the strange sensations. “Gazda jumped away from the leopard.”
“Ooso not tease and Ooso sees that Gazda knows it too!” The little ape nodded her head, scratching the thick fur by her left ear. “Poomak saw Gazda change, and he was eaten.”
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