by Maurice
Almost everyone knew sign by then, but more children were born, and thanks to the midwives, more of them survived. As a result, my talking hands were full. Others helped, of course. We started a school.
Koba once mentioned to me that he had learned to talk not just with sign but also with pictures. I asked him what he meant, and he said that he had been given a board full of pictures, and he would touch different ones to mean different things. One picture might mean banana and another give. It reminded me of things I saw humans doing when I was in the circus—of pictures and symbols that meant things. I remembered letters, which stood for sound in human language, and began trying to recover those, too.
That was when I began writing this story, in a way. I started developing pictures that mean things, to draw our story on the stone face of the mountain where I taught sign, and other things. The school.
Caesar had his own ideas about the school. He thought we shouldn’t just teach sign. We should also teach ideas about the right way for apes to live together. Ideas that would help us move into the future.
The Ape Council was growing larger, and we often discussed what these principles—these laws—should be. But at that time, there was only one we completely agreed upon.
Many of us had been killed by humans. We killed a few humans ourselves. But we had also seen humans kill each other.
Caesar was determined that we would be different from humans. Better.
Ape would not kill ape.
That was our first law.
The foundation of our society.
Another winter passed. Caesar sent scouting parties farther and farther afield. Usually these were small groups, one or two. Koba was often the leader. He grew restless in the village. Even though he understood the need for the wall, any enclosed space reminded him of a cage. He loved the freedom of the forest, and even open land.
Koba often took Grey or Stone with him. Mostly they searched toward sunrise or up along the coast. Nobody was allowed across the Orange Bridge, so that way remained unexplored. Caesar almost never went on these trips; he remained with us, to govern the colony.
But when you were two, your father felt a little restless, and he went with Koba on one of these exploring journeys, along with a young orangutan from the zoo named Barbar. He is now an old orangutan, and he remembers what happened this way.
How We Tamed the Horses: Barbar’s Tale
(Barbar is still among us as I write this. He recited this to me.)
We went toward the sun, through the Valley of the Grapes. In a grassland, we saw a herd of something, and at first thought it was deer or elk.
We should kill one, Koba said. We can eat our fill and take what we can carry to the colony.
It was a problem we had, hunting far from the colony. How to get the food home? Apes could only carry so much.
No, Caesar said. This animal we do not kill. These are horses.
Humans had ridden on their backs, Caesar said. Caesar had once ridden one, during the battle on the Orange Bridge.
If we had horses, we could travel farther, faster, Caesar said. Carry much more.
How do we ride them? Koba asked. How did you ride the one on the bridge?
I did what the humans did, Caesar said. I got on its back. It had strings to tell it how to go.
Koba peered down at the herd.
Koba doesn’t see any strings, he said.
We can make strings, Caesar said. He started walking toward the horse.
Koba hooted. Caesar, he said. Let me try. Caesar should stay here. There might be giant cat or wolves watching herd.
Koba had encountered both on his trips. Once he and Grey had been caught without their spears by one of the big cats. It chased them up a tree, and they had to stay there for a long time before it gave up and left. Wolves and wild dogs were even worse, because they hunted in packs.
Caesar and I watched Koba go down.
Koba crept through the grass and bushes until he was close enough to reach one of the horses. Then he ran and jumped on its back.
A breath later, Koba flew up into the air like a great, hairy, heavy bird and then came crashing down.
Koba did not give up easily. The second time he managed to wrap his arms around the horse’s neck. He was able to stay that way for a few more breaths before he was bucked off.
Finally, bruised and defeated, he straggled back up the hill.
Must be a different kind of horse than the one Caesar rode, Koba said.
But Caesar had been thinking.
The horse I rode must have been tame, he said. The way dogs were tame. Different from wild.
Maybe we should just eat them, then, Koba said, rubbing his aching ribs.
No, Caesar said. Humans tamed them. We can, too.
Humans tamed us, Koba said. Tamed Koba with pain and fear.
We’ll do it a different way, Caesar said. We won’t hurt them.
Caesar tried talking to the horses. Tried to be strong, but without making sudden movements. But no horse would let him on its back.
He finally got frustrated and jumped on one, like Koba had. We watched Caesar fly up in the air.
Maybe we should eat them, Caesar said, when he came back up the hill.
By then, it was nearly dark. We made camp and slept.
I was on watch when the sun came up. The horses were still there. Everything seemed fine, so I went down to see them. They didn’t seem scared of me until I got very close.
I was wondering if I should try to ride one when I noticed something at the edge of the woods. I froze, but it had already seen me.
It was a human, sitting on top of a horse. And it was looking right at me.
Slowly, the horse with the human on it walked toward me. I had my spear, but still I was afraid. What if it had a gun? What if there were more?
As it got nearer, I saw it was a small human, not full-sized. A male, I thought.
And then it spoke.
“You’re an ape, aren’t you?” he said.
Yes, I signed back.
“Are you going to kill me?”
No, I shook my head.
“I figure what they say about you guys is probably all wrong,” the human said. “That stuff about the plague, and all. Grandpa says it’s nonsense.”
I shrugged.
“I watched those other two yesterday,” the human said. “It was pretty funny, so I came back to see if you guys were gonna try it again.”
How do we ride them? I asked, using the hand language.
“I don’t know what all that waving means,” he said. “But I can tell you this. You’re doing it all wrong. You have to be nice to them. Lie down with one. Give it good things to eat. Stroke it, talk to it. Let it get used to you. Take your time. Some of these are half-tame already, or remember being tame. It’s easier than with the completely wild ones.”
I looked back at the horses. A few of them were lying down. I picked out a small one and sidled up to it. I lay down next to it and began to groom it. It shivered a little at first, but it let me.
“Like that,” the human said. He watched me a little longer. “Just be kind. Horses want love the same as us. The same as you, I bet.”
He watched me for a little longer, until he seemed satisfied.
Then turned his horse and walked back into the woods.
When the horse stood up a little later, I made soft noise, as I might to a child. I went and picked sweet leaves for it. By this time, Caesar and Koba were awake, watching me.
I didn’t try to get on it.
Waste of time, Koba said, later, when I went back up the hill.
Caesar shook his head.
We’ll let Barbar try.
It could take a while, I said. Maybe you two should explore. I’ll stay here.
Caesar agreed.
We’ll be back this way in ten days, he said.
The human boy came back to watch me. He showed me how to teach the horse things with treats. I wanted to try to ride i
t, but he said it wasn’t time yet. One day he brought me a rope. First, we just laid it across the horse’s neck, until she got used to it. Later we made a loop and put it around her neck.
Nine days passed. It wasn’t enough. They boy didn’t know sign, so I had been learning to speak with my throat. It wasn’t easy. I told the boy to be careful, that an ape was coming that might not like him.
Caesar and Koba returned that afternoon, a day early. It was good I talked to the boy.
I still couldn’t ride the horse, but I could lead it around with the rope. I showed Caesar and Koba.
I need more time, I told Caesar.
How much time? he asked.
As long as it takes, I said. When I’m done, I’ll ride her home.
Caesar agreed to that, too. He liked the idea of having horses.
The boy came back a few days later.
“You’re still here,” he said.
“Want to finish,” I managed to croak out.
He looked surprised. Then he laughed.
“What about your friends?” he asked.
“Go home,” I said.
He looked thoughtful.
“My name is Colin,” he said. “Do you have a name?”
“Barbar,” I said.
“Stay here, Barbar,” the boy said. “I’ll get you some things.”
Colin returned with a saddle and bridle. He taught me the words for them.
“The saddle is important,” he said. “It’s more comfortable than riding bareback-for you and for the horse. It distributes your weight.”
The bridle was to signal the horse which way the rider wanted to go. Already we had taught her to go this or that way by patting her on the cheek and giving her a dried fruit. The boy said the bridle would work like that, but not to yank on it, just gently lay it on her neck. He showed me on his own horse.
“You want to ride her?” he asked.
I learned to ride on Colin’s horse. Summer passed, autumn arrived. The boy did not come for five days, and I began to think I wouldn’t see him again. But he did return. He watched me as I worked with my horse. I had named her White, for the color of her nose.
“I think she’s ready,” Colin said.
Moving very slowly, murmuring soothing sounds, I got on White. She stamped a little. She was nervous. But she let me ride her.
Colin and I rode together through the fields and in the woods. I liked him, even though he was a human. I stayed two more days, and then told him I was leaving.
“Me too,” Colin said.
“Why?” I asked.
“My grandfather died a few days ago,” he said. “Now it’s just me. I need to find some other people.”
“Why not tell me?” I said, aloud.
“I just did,” he said.
“You live with ape,” I suggested.
“No,” he said. “I’m not sure that would work out. A guy came through last year, headed south. He said he’d heard there were people down there.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Teaching me.”
“Well, okay,” the human said. “It was fun.”
He waved at the herd.
“Take care of them,” he said. “They need someone to watch over them. The Earth’s going back to the animals, Grandpa said. He said it might be better that way.”
He rode south, and I rode west. I rode White into our town. You’ve never seen so many surprised apes.
I came back, later, and tamed more horses. I took other apes with me. In about a year we had ten we could ride without worry. We used the saddle and bridle the boy gave me as models to make more. Then we could drive herds using our own horses. We got pretty good at it. Our own herd grew, just like our ape family.
By the seventh winter, the City across the bridge was always dark. On a moonless night, it couldn’t be seen at all. When we first moved to the forest, in any direction we looked a sort of pale glow dulled the light of the stars. Now the night descended to the horizons. It had been more than a year since any of us had heard a human sound. No cars, no flying machines, no distant gunfire or screams of pain.
But toward the end of the following summer, Furaha spotted someone coming down the road from the coast. Caesar and I went to watch them from the cover of the trees.
There were three males and two females. One of the males was old. His beard was silver, and he had very little hair on his head. One of the females had silver in her hair, but it was mostly black. The rest were young.
They weren’t walking very fast. In fact, they were barely moving at all. The old male had to stop, often, and rest. They were thin, and I guessed they were starving. But something seemed to be moving them, as if they had a purpose that kept them going long after their bodies should have given up.
We followed them as they hobbled down the road toward the Orange Bridge. When they came within sight of the City, they began moving a little faster. At least, until they could see it fully. Then they stopped.
The older woman began to cry. It had been a long time since I heard that peculiar human sound. The children joined in. The old man just sat down, staring off at the empty city.
Should we give them food? I asked. Water?
Caesar’s expression was hard to read.
No, he said, after a moment. Let them be. We have nothing to do with them now.
At sundown they were still there, and we left them.
We went back two days later. They were gone but had left behind a pile of rocks marked by some sticks. They had done their best, but it was clear the old man was under the rocks. Nearer the bridge itself we found another grave, one of the young ones. There, the trail ended. They had either crossed the bridge or took the road bordering the sunrise side of the forest.
Two years passed with no signs of humans whatsoever.
And, finally, we began to believe that at last we were alone.
But, as Caesar said, when you believe you’ve won, you’ve begun to lose.
How Blue Eyes Was Wounded
Ten winters after our liberation, you became a part of this story, Cornelius. Your father and brother were out hunting when your mother began to feel the pangs of birth. Tinker and the other midwives gathered around her.
It was your brother’s first hunt. Blue Eyes was eager to prove himself, to show that he was Caesar’s son. To gain his father’s respect, and that of the troop.
The drive began as usual, with one part of the warriors scaring the elk, driving them toward another.
By then, we had come a long way from that first hunt, when Furaha showed Caesar how to capture small game.
As the humans vanished, animals seemed to fill up the world. Elk were few in the woods when we first arrived there. We had to travel far to find them, and then they were often only a few. Now the woods teemed with them, at least at certain times of the year. The days of hunger were long behind us.
But hunting elk and deer needed better weapons than our hands, feet, and teeth. We made our first spears to fight humans, just sharpened sticks. Some still used wooden spears, hardening the points in our fires. But by then, most of us had weapons tipped with metal or bone. We had a new weapon, too, three stones bound together by cord that could be thrown in such a way as to tie up the legs of a running beast. We called them catchers in those days.
More than anything, our hunters had experience.
But Blue Eyes did not. He didn’t have the instincts Caesar had developed over the years. When Caesar took down an elk with a catcher, he and Blue Eyes closed in on it to complete the kill. But as they drew near, Caesar sensed something was wrong. He told Blue Eyes to stay still, as he examined deep scores in a tree trunk.
Blue Eyes didn’t see the point in waiting. He wanted to make the kill. He advanced upon the helpless elk, spear in hand.
And then the bear came crashing from the woods. He struck your brother down in an instant, marking him with its huge claws, and that would have been the end of him if Caesar had not come to his aid. Caesar stood between t
he bear and his wounded son. The beast struck the spear from his hand, but he didn’t back down, despite the size of the beast. It was a fight he knew he would lose. He might have, if he and Blue Eyes had been alone.
But they were not alone.
Koba arrived, leaping from high above, driving his spear in the bear, slaying it in a single stroke.
The Monsters Arrive: River’s Tale
(River sat with me and gave me his story.)
Blue Eyes was humiliated. All of us lived in the shadow of our fathers, but Blue Eyes and Ash most of all. They had such deeds to live up to. And on his first hunt, Blue Eyes not only made a stupid mistake, he had nearly gotten his father-our king-killed as well. But when one is young, we tell stories to ourselves. The story Blue Eyes told himself was that it was his father’s fault. That Caesar shouldn’t have kept him so close, as if he were a baby. If he had been with Koba-or me and Ash-away from the smothering presence of his father, then things would have gone better.
I think if everything had gone on normally, it would have made no difference. On his next hunt, Blue Eyes would have made a kill, father and son would have made up. But it wasn’t a normal time, although we didn’t know that yet.
Koba took Blue Eyes aside and told him that it was okay, that scars made you strong.
I liked Koba. We all did. What Blue Eyes felt toward him was close to worship. He was of an age with our fathers but was childless himself. He did not urge caution and restraint. He talked of battles and adventure. Of proving ourselves and becoming strong. And of humans.
Of humans he had nothing good to say. Few of our parents did. But from Koba we learned the very worst things about them. They were pure monsters. Koba had fought them, escaped them, and now they were gone. The world was better.
Looking back on it, I see Koba was grooming us. Putting his ideas in our heads. Getting us ready for something maybe even he didn’t know he was planning.
Caesar’s second child-you, Cornelius-was born that day, and so it was a day of celebration. We ate bear meat and chattered around our fires. For most of us, it was a good day.