The truth was that neither he nor Baho could understand the outcome of that fight, and did not wish the night ape’s unnatural strength to encourage more animosity toward him within the tribe.
But Gazda had made no secret of his victory, and had enjoyed teasing the defeated young blackback and even challenged his friends. For years, the night ape had suffered as the butt of the joke among his peers, and still suffered jibes about his “snakeskin” and “birdlegs,” so he could not resist goading the vanquished.
The silverback watched this, approving of the night ape’s pride. Goro admired strength in any of his apes, and had always rankled to find bullies within the group like those that had teased Gazda since his adoption; but the king’s ruling was in the best interest of the tribe.
The challenges continued, and that scandal faded into the past as the young apes honed their strength. The ongoing competition between the adolescent blackbacks was brought about by their incredible strength and ambition, and was advanced by their boredom with the daily grind as the tribe spent the hours searching for food, eating, sleeping and starting the search again.
So like the other young apes Gazda was driven to distraction and the pursuit of action.
With little to occupy his active mind, Gazda was free to nurse his grudge against Magnuh, whose attack still remained fresh in his memory. So, whenever the giant’s wandering brought him near, the night ape would seek him out, and from overhead hurl insults, branches and stones down on the bull elephant.
When Magnuh found himself unable to reach his tormentor, he took his frustration out on the surrounding jungle, smashing trees and plant life to pulp.
Gazda was sometimes reminded that his adversary should never be underestimated for on more than one occasion the seething beast had retreated into the jungle as the night ape laughed—until a great rock hurtled up at him and severed the branch upon which he had been perched. In each case he’d easily leapt to safety, but it was a caution against overconfidence all the same.
Yet such incidents had intensified Gazda’s desire to torment the beast.
Having learned the type of food that Magnuh most enjoyed and the seasons when they ripened, Gazda once spent an hour collecting up the dung left by the apes, and using big banana leaves had carried the disgusting mass into the high branches of the elephant’s favorite fruit trees.
When the great beast came to fill his belly, Gazda had dropped the stinking waste down upon his head and Magnuh’s furious screams shook the forest for miles.
At still another time, Gazda had followed his enemy, swinging unseen from branch to branch in the high canopy until he found the monster sidling up to a large herd of female elephants that had followed a trail into the forest to dine on succulent herbs.
Gazda and his friend Ooso had often played a game where they copied bird and animal calls with their own voices and long practice had left the night ape an accomplished mimic.
So in his place of hiding, he tipped his head back and gave the terrifying roar of a male lion.
The female elephants had stampeded in terror, pushing their calves before them, which left the amorous Magnuh with no recourse but to glare his frustration at the surrounding trees.
His cold and maleficent eye sought the source of the roar. While it had sounded like a lion, the scolding chatter that soon came from the trees gave authorship to the end of Magnuh’s romantic liaison and focal point for his rage.
It was during those years and long weeks of boredom that old Baho had told the young blackbacks the story of Sip-sip and the flying infant. It was the former silverback’s hope that the tale would instill better behavior and honorable thinking in the young males and show them how a good king always observed tribal law.
Young males should never provoke or disrespect a higher ranking male whether he deserved such abuse or not. And if they did, then they could not count on the king for protection, since it was his duty and theirs to hold the law above all other things.
The apes had wandered east to gorge on fruit that was coming into season, and Omag had been gone from the tribe for many days—many hoped for good. But during a break from the fighting lessons, Baho told the story, warning the young blackbacks to never call the crippled ape “Sip-sip” for it was unseemly to do so, and dangerous.
The former silverback knew that Goro might not like him repeating that name, but Baho had noticed how Omag reserved most of his fury and outrage for the she-apes and the young ones, and thus the story. Looking around at the formidable wall of muscle the adolescent apes presented, Baho doubted whether the crippled ape would take such offense if one of these blackbacks dared to utter the name.
Also, the former silverback did not trust Omag or the old queens, and he thought it best that the young blackbacks shared his apprehension. Some among them he knew were in league with the crippled ape, but then, who better to hear the truth?
Gazda had always loved the stories Baho told, and so he sat with the others and listened, his mind turning the tale into pictures. He was infuriated to hear of the she-ape mother’s pain, and he was disgusted that Omag had killed an infant simply for calling him a name. True, the tribal law said that bull apes deserved respect, but did infants not deserve respect also, and were they not worthy of patience?
Afterwards, as the young blackbacks went to forage, old Baho had recognized the night ape’s dismay. Gazda crouched unmoving in the grass, his eyes focused on the ground until the former silverback rumbled close and touched knuckles with him.
“The poor mother,” the night ape said, and the old bull ape grunted his understanding. He had watched the curious young fellow his entire life, and been impressed by his loyalty to Eeda. The pair were strange, but an excellent example of anthropoid honor.
“The mother in the story is your own,” Baho said, gauging his next words. “Eeda...and the infant was your brother.”
The scar that edged the night ape’s hairline suddenly blazed red, and when a similar furious gleam entered Gazda’s eyes, the former silverback wondered if he should have kept silent.
“A blackback does not seek revenge, Gazda,” Baho reminded, as he reached out to affectionately thump the night ape’s head with his massive hand. “And a king only looks for justice.”
The truth had angered Gazda because at first he felt betrayed by his mother, since she had never told him. Did the entire tribe know? Why did she not trust him?
And yet, though his thoughts and blood had boiled within him, his heart relented finally, as he remembered her long unwavering devotion, and he chastised himself for being callous. He knew how much his mother loved him, so for her to lose a son would have hurt her beyond all injuries.
He eventually resolved to never question her about it. It was her past, not Gazda’s.
However, the night ape determined to do something about the ape that had caused her pain when he returned. And he did return.
Omag dropped out of the trees late one day when the tribe had gathered by a mango grove, and the old queens quickly fell to grooming him. The crippled ape’s disease had continued to deform his flesh in his absence, but all could see that his travels had led him to good fare, for a thick layer of fat was slung about his waist and his muscles bulged like ripe fruit.
He smelled of blood and putrefying flesh, and there was a look on his disfigured face also, of cunning, satisfaction and calm that set many of his enemies grinding their teeth.
Gazda was furious, but not so much that he would challenge Omag to a battle of honor—though he childishly dreamed of such a thing. The crippled ape was a bull ape still, and was many hundreds of pounds of muscle and ferocity.
And so while Gazda imagined fighting the failed silverback, he had no illusions about who would win a battle tooth by tooth and muscle to muscle.
However this was not the night ape’s first such grudge.
From that point forward, Gazda employed the same methods he had used so effectively against his nemesis Magnuh. When Goro called a halt
to the group’s wandering, when food was found or suitable sleeping trees were near, Gazda would slip quietly into the forest as the other apes began foraging or building nests.
The tribe had grown used to Gazda lurking in the jungle at night, or keeping to the shadows, and there was his contentious habit of seeking daytime sleeping places, and so his disappearances rarely drew much attention anymore.
But now, goaded by this pursuit of vengeance, Gazda would use the cover of the dense foliage to search about for suitable missiles before moving into a guarded position. He had always been an accomplished aim during throwing games with his friends, and he rarely missed.
From these impromptu blinds he would launch his attacks at the crippled ape. Whether it was a stone, rotten fruit or animal dung, Gazda always targeted Omag’s bony brow.
The night ape was no fool, and always took a position well away from his victim, since he knew that should he ever be discovered, he would suffer punishment not unlike that Omag had meted out to his dead brother. Moreover, he risked arousing Goro’s ire as well for disrespecting his elder.
Gazda always lobbed each missile at a steep angle so that it would complete its flight on a sharp downward path that would maximize the impact while obscuring its trajectory.
After making the throw, he would crouch in the underbrush with a hand clamped over his mouth. A heartbeat and a breath would pass and down would come the missile to crack against Omag’s mangy skull.
Gazda would grit his teeth to keep from panting or hooting at the joke as the crippled ape reacted to the throw. Omag would let fly a thunderous growl while leaping up, red eyes glaring as he cast about his fellows.
Any ape that lounged or foraged near would regret laughing at the incident, for he would immediately become the object of the offended anthropoid’s wrath, and in fact some few incidents occurred where lesser apes were savaged by Omag’s teeth and claws.
The tribe quickly learned to keep their enjoyment of the joke on Sip-sip to themselves, and save it to share later with the others.
And so, Omag was left to puzzle out these seemingly random acts for himself. In the thick jungle with covering leaf and creeper at all sides, he could not conceive of any reason for these flying objects.
The falling missiles came unpredictably after the first time. When they came—and they kept coming—the intensity and duration of the attacks were uncertain. Some days when three had hurtled down Omag’s furious response would grow to apocalyptic proportions.
He did not understand where the missiles came from, but he could not dispute the fact that they always seemed destined for his head. The crippled ape was worked into a terrible rage at times, in which he charged about in bristling anger, biting and mauling, until the terrified she-apes climbed into the trees with their infants to wait for Goro to come forth and silence Omag with a fearsome display of his own.
The night ape would break from his campaign of bombardment when such severe disturbances resulted, and he might not take up the cause again for weeks or months after.
He did not wish to anger his king.
So Gazda would put away the stones until boredom or Omag’s bullying drove him back to it, and he wasn’t the only member of the tribe to lament that these strange missiles had only drawn blood once.
CHAPTER 11 – The Lair of Fur-nose
Eventually, Gazda’s boredom led him to Fur-nose’s lair. He had heard stories about the strange creature that had lived within the tree-nest. The night ape knew the place and had seen its vine-covered exterior many times on seasonal trips the tribe took to the coast. The apes craved the berries that grew in great profusion around the clearing where the lair sat up in a group of old trees.
The odd creature had been killed, but the few apes that had seen inside Fur-nose’s lair did not remember enough to say how. Still others had attempted but failed to describe the strange sights they’d glimpsed when entry was possible.
In fact, most apes in the tribe had little memory of those times or seemed eager to put the events behind them. However, one thing they all recalled was how Fur-nose had wounded apes merely by pointing at them with his “thunder-hand.”
None had ever dared to question Goro about what had occurred when he entered the nest or what he had seen, and since the entrance to the lair had disappeared after thunder-hand roared a final time; the tribe had quickly lost interest in the structure. The jungle had grown outward afterward to claim it in layers of leaf and creeper.
Of course, old Baho answered what questions he could, though in this matter he had seemed strangely reticent when in Gazda’s company.
He did say that Fur-nose walked upright and had a naked white skin just like the night ape’s, but he had covered his with the fur and skins of other animals.
The former silverback had said that Fur-nose got his name from the long hairs that grew around his nose and dangled down over his mouth and onto his belly. Baho even pantomimed how the odd creature had looked using a ragged sheet of moss held over his face.
Gazda had seen the tree-nest many times and each time they’d pass, the tribe had instinctively moved with caution, watching and snuffling at the air for scent. Of course most failed to remember why they moved so carefully, and might have grown complacent if some bright-minded one among them had not snorted out Fur-nose’s name or mimicked the action of thunder-hand. It seemed to happen every time.
Then terror would grip the tribe as old memories resurfaced, and soon all the apes were watching warily, ready to bolt for the trees, and wondering if perhaps another of Fur-nose’s kind had come in search for him.
On this visit to the clearing, after an initial panic some blackbacks had grown brave and wished to cross the clearing to investigate the structure, but Goro intervened, telling them that Fur-nose’s lair was no place for apes to go.
Omag eyed the king cautiously then, but submitted to his will with a deep bow, though few who knew the crippled ape could see true obedience in the action. It was a jealous look he cast toward the lair before he moved with the rest of the apes toward the beach.
Gazda had grown more curious with each year, but would never directly disobey the silverback, so he moved with the others close to the strip of sand that ran between the great blue water and the low hills that were home to fruit trees.
The night ape stayed in the shadowed shelter of the forest and kept away from the open beach as the rest of the tribe luxuriated in the sun, either stuffing themselves on fruit, or going with the young ones to play in the small pools of salty water that had been pushed up by the waves and trapped in sandy depressions.
But ever as the day progressed were Gazda’s eyes drawn toward the strange lair that he knew lay beyond the line of trees—and as his eyes were drawn, so were his actions, and before long, he had traveled back east toward the clearing while Goro’s tribe continued to forage southward, the night ape’s mother also caught up as she indulged her sweet-tooth on the ripe fruits and oversized nuts that grew so plentifully in the trees by the water.
Soon, Gazda found that his curiosity had drawn him even farther east until he was swinging through the very trees that ringed Fur-nose’s clearing and his lair. Leaping down from the branches, the night ape gazed across the broad expanse of grasses, poorly lit now as the sun had slipped closer to the trees at Gazda’s back.
The low angle and orangey hue of its rays diminished their effect upon the night ape, and the lengthening shadows filled him with anticipation for the night to come.
A great crescent of darkness shadowed the land closest to him, but still a bright amber glaze lay over the tree-nest and the forest beyond it.
He half-turned toward the distant tribe of apes, but he could not take his eyes away from the odd tree-nest. Wincing, Gazda cast a look at the dark purple sky and then started to jog across the open space with the grasses slapping at his legs.
But he stopped when a strange scent brought him around to face the south. There a peculiar stand of dark trees edged the cleari
ng and grew up the slope away from the long grass.
He moved toward these trees, drawn by the scent; it grew in potency with each step, at once repulsive and intoxicating.
Closer now, he saw that these trees were densely packed, and it was from around their purply trunks that the scent had wafted—an ill smell but a perfume, too, now that he stood before it: decay and flowery sweetness that he could not deny.
Caught between impulses, Gazda crept anxiously toward the thicket, barking and snapping his teeth worriedly as he pondered the trees.
They looked strangely familiar. He had seen others like them with their broad leaves and long seed pods. They were favorite snacks for his tribe. He had never done more than savor the succulent leaves and enjoy their shade while his fellows happily filled themselves to bursting, eating until a green slurry dripped from the corners of their pink mouths.
Yet this grove was different. The trees were similar in shape, but the leaves and seed pods were a darker green with a sickly brown underside. Black branches protruded at odd angles from the distorted trunks that were a purply gray with dusky threads tracing over swollen contours.
Their leaves were large and thick, and allowed little light between the tumorous trunks and none at all near the tangled roots.
Gazda instinctively grunted a warning when he saw that among these black trees were the hulking trunks of other forest giants, but these were of a different kind—all dead or dying with branches free of leaves and bark sloughing off like dead flesh from rotten corpses.
These trees had been overrun by the black ones; their roots starved of water, and leaves robbed of sun by the taller, darker invaders.
Gazda gave a coughing bark, and stood upright to take a tentative swaggering step forward and then another, frightened, but dreadfully tempted to investigate the shadows that hung around the unusual wood—yet something held him back.
His arms hung stiff at his sides as he swung them, a cautious, almost silent growl was rumbling in his chest. He took another step, and then shrank with knees bent.
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