Then after a few cautious shakes of the hand, they’d slowly draw their sticks out again with many plump warrior termites clinging to them. There’d be a celebratory pant and hoot, before the she-apes plucked the insects off with their dexterous lips.
Eeda joined in, grunting several times for Gazda to come closer for she wished to teach him this method of collecting food. He resisted her though. Having been bitten by the insects during previous lessons, he had grown shy of eating the aggressive delicacies.
Eeda knew the sting well herself, but termites were delicious.
Surprisingly, as Gazda had aged, he often refused to do more than mouth any of the foods that the other apes ate. He’d chew up the bugs, nuts and fruits—even monkey meat—but he wouldn’t swallow, seemingly content to spit them out, and return to feeding at his mother’s breast. He was not the only young one that still suckled—many stayed at the breast past their fifth year—so she was pleased that he tried the solid foods at all.
His mother was already preparing to wean him, and had taken to shortening his time at her breast. This led to disputes, but as Gazda had grown, Eeda no longer feared being firm with him. Despite his fragile look, he was sturdily built, and could take all of her strength to repulse if he insisted on milk.
In time he would learn, and begin to accept other foods.
Eeda sat with the other mothers fishing for termites as her strange white infant rough-housed with his young friends: Ooso, a little she-ape that everyone had thought too sickly and small to survive; and Kagoon, a gangly young male who had fallen from a tree and onto his head and still showed no sign of recovering his wits.
Eeda approved of these playmates for few in the tribe had friendly dealings with her child. These ones he counted close were also outsiders and in ways were different, too. Still, she knew that Gazda could learn much from such interactions, and like any ape he needed to know where he fit in with the tribe.
The little ones wrestled and picked up sticks and beat them on the trees. Ooso panted happily while Gazda and Kagoon drummed on their chests.
Some distance from them, a large group of youngsters played and watched the adolescents who crowded around some blackbacks. Each group coveted the powers of the apes higher in the chain, mimicking and making heroes of those they wished to be.
The mothers enjoyed the break. Nuklo, who sat closest to Eeda, suddenly pushed at the round copper-tinged head that fed at her breast. It was her youngster Poomak’s reddish hair that had caused his mother’s social undoing, for he was suspected to have come from a union between Nuklo and a wandering red-capped blackback who had haunted the borders of Goro’s territory for months until the king and his lieutenants chased him away.
Nuklo had told the king she had not mated with the stranger, but when Poomak was born the she-ape had been unable to explain his red crest, and the fact that it did not match the thick black fur on the males in Goro’s tribe.
The other apes had looked down on her after that, and she was eventually forced to take up with Wogo, an unpopular blackback whose relative small size made him no threat to the king, or other ambitious apes.
This shift in social station had left Nuklo and Eeda in like status because of the dubious parentage of their offspring—even though Eeda was still considered one of Goro’s mates should he wish to claim her.
CHAPTER 6 – Mates and Playmates
Attracted by the loud shrieks of horseplay, Goro turned from dining on juicy leaves to watch the little ones play. He had climbed down from his place atop the Grooming Rock to eat. His enormous body required constant feeding, and the plants with the circular leaves that grew in abundance beneath the rock were his favorite.
As they often did, the silverback’s eyes slid over to where Eeda sat fishing for termites with a handful of females. Goro as king had mated the most beautiful she-apes in the tribe and was father to many of the young that gamboled about in the high grasses. He undertook his duties as master of his mates, though some among them he favored and from them he would eventually name is own queens.
Females so honored carried the title for all their lives, and so the aging queens of Baho were still extant within the tribe: Oluza and Akaki, though they were almost past their mating time.
Goro had no interest in the dour Oluza the eldest, but had sired a young male Ulok and a female with the latter. Despite her age, Akaki still cut a fine figure among the other females and she was persuasive.
The blackbacks accepted Goro’s leadership and his rules of engagement under tribal law. The silverback had the right to any female in the tribe but rarely took the mates of others because that caused unnecessary tension—except when it came to his kingship. It was well known that challengers to Goro’s leadership often found their mates in his embrace.
Males were free to take mates that did not belong to Goro and would accept them. They could also leave with their females and start their own bands and be king if there was unoccupied territory available.
However, the tribe was important to all its members and most when given the chance would stay under Goro’s protection for a larger group was a safer place in the dangerous jungle.
Many males enjoyed this arrangement and would support Goro’s leadership if a potential challenger for the crown was not to their liking. These trusted lieutenants would also go with the king to protect the borders.
At other times these males would go singly or in groups to search for females from other tribes that they could steal as mates and return as victors. Goro would rarely challenge them for their new brides.
Goro had always thought Eeda a fine-looking creature that would make a good mother. It hadn’t surprised him that she’d adopted Gazda to replace the infant she’d lost. The fact that she’d done so well with what was obviously a sickly waif only encouraged his admiration of her.
It was good for the tribe to have females such as Eeda.
He had mated with her long ago as had other males, before any had wanted to lay claim to her. Those couplings had resulted in her first child’s birth, but he had died before any had recognized his father in him.
Since then, Eeda had been busy with the special requirements of raising an ape like Gazda, and so she had not offered Goro mating overtures or reciprocated any of his own.
That was no matter. There were several females that the king regularly mated with. He would give Eeda the time she needed.
Goro watched the ferns and bushes shaking at the edge of the forest, and saw her little foundling’s white flesh flash behind some leaves in the undergrowth. The silverback was pleased that Gazda had survived, and he was impressed by the youngster’s spirit, who was quick to play at hunting games, fast and strong when required; and he seemed intelligent.
Then the silverback’s attention was drawn to the simple, noisy shambling of Kagoon, and he sighed. If Gazda’s friend did not start learning faster, he might be a drain upon the tribe. The king could not resist a glance at Omag who had gone off by himself to sit with his arms wrapped around his mangy chest. He knew the crippled ape would think that, too. That Kagoon might be a luxury the group could not afford.
“But Kagoon will make an excellent blackback, so long as he does not have political ambitions,” Goro grunted quietly before thinking. Then again, the damage to his head might serve him well in both cases. The king smiled and panted mischievously at his own jest before rolling from elbow to elbow casting about the long grass for Baho. The old silverback would appreciate the joke.
Poomak screeched wildly as he bowled Gazda and his friends over. The four apes rolled in the underbrush before leaping up and grappling; the three males making joyful coughing sounds as little Ooso escaped the crush. Some distance from them, she stamped her feet and barked before darting into the thick brush that edged the clearing where their mothers fished for termites.
The little males panted happily as they quickly picked up sticks, and shook them in their fists, shrieking and hooting as they chased after Ooso.
“Little Ooso is the monkey today,” Eeda said, savoring a mouthful of insects before leaning over and grooming the thick fur on her friend’s back.
“Better than Kagoon,” Nuklo answered, moaning with pleasure as Eeda scraped dried skin from between her shoulders. “He’s not smart enough...”
“To be a monkey!” Eeda laughed, and the pair panted in good humor.
Meanwhile, the three young males had come to a halt just inside the thick brush. Gazda was crouched in the lead, holding a sharp stick in his hand. He looked to his friends and nodded quickly, before pointing to his left and right.
All of the apes in Goro’s tribe enjoyed eating monkey meat, and the hunt was an important part of their lives. Everyone of age could take part, but it was the blackback males who made the most of it, often teaming up and using their techniques for cornering and killing prey on larger animals.
However, such projects met with varied success. On one occasion, a reckless young blackback had been killed when a “bushbuck” he chased into a thick grove of saplings had turned out to be a leopard.
Hunting and killing were skills the apes learned and used to fetch meat, but also to protect the borders. There were other tribes of apes, and there were gorilla territories in the south and the smaller but vicious chimpanzee bands that ranged the north. Those border skirmishes reinforced Goro’s dominion over his lands but often produced meat for the tribe.
So, Gazda and the other little apes played at hunting, with one of their number performing the role of prey. Ooso was smallest and no match for the strength of her male friends but she was very nimble and quick, and her mind was fleeter than theirs also.
Except for Gazda’s. He was a very intelligent ape, deformed though he was, but it was this meeting of minds that had made them such fast friends.
Poomak crept forward on Gazda’s left when the night ape nodded, and Kagoon panted happily before rushing off to his right.
Gazda knelt low then with his stick-spear ready, knowing that Poomak and Kagoon would flush their prey out of the thick vegetation and chase it toward Gazda and into the waiting trap.
He sniffed the air and caught a scent, but he did not have time to react.
Something hard struck him in the back of the head, and he tumbled forward; his senses reeling. But Gazda came up quickly to see Ooso standing just back of where he had been, a thick branch gripped in her little hands like a club.
“Gazda is the monkey now!” she cried, and then panted happily, crouching low and mimicking Gazda’s surprised face.
“Ooso tricked Gazda!” he said, rushing forward and leaping onto his little friend. The pair wrestled until Poomak and Kagoon crept out of the thick verdure.
“Ooso caught the night monkey!” the she-ape teased from where Gazda held her against the ground.
He nipped at her arm and she shrieked playfully as they got to their feet.
“Ooso is smarter than you!” She beat her hands against the earth and the young males growled, turning their noses up disdainfully at the little she-ape’s disrespect.
The jungle went quiet...
Gazda looked to Ooso, who glanced at Poomak and Kagoon.
A deafening roar shook the trees around them, caused the earth to tremble underfoot as the youngsters sprinted toward their mothers. The she-apes were already speeding to collect them in their arms.
The others in the tribe had also abandoned the termite mound or foraging, and were climbing the surrounding trees to get away from the ground, for they had recognized the sound, and knew the rule: The jungle belonged to “Magnuh” if his wandering brought him near.
Gazda leapt into his mother’s arms and she swung up into the trees with the other apes.
Magnuh roared again, and the sound crashed through the forest, echoing in the maze of trees like a thunderstorm.
Eeda reached a safe height and then found a shady hollow against the trunk where she pressed her back. Gazda watched the other clambering apes in the trees around them, and saw Ooso’s little face peering over her mother, Amak’s, shoulder where they climbed even higher.
None dared to challenge the bull elephant Magnuh—not even Goro, though no one within the tribe could say what would happen if those powerful beasts were to battle.
Goro refused to speculate knowing that there was nothing to gain from such a fight, and if any ape in the tribe wished to challenge the elephant, he would be only too happy to watch. The silverback did not see the monster as a rival for his power but instead viewed encounters with Magnuh as something to be avoided or endured like a thunderstorm.
Magnuh and his kind followed an ancient elephant trail that cut a wandering path through Goro’s land, entering on the east and meandering the thick jungle forest before exiting again back the way they had come near the river. They lived on the grassy plateau that swept up into the mountains, and only returned to the jungle when certain fruits and trees were ripe.
Magnuh was a giant. The bull elephant stood some 13 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed 6 tons. The creature had terrorized the landscape for 20 years and without any natural enemies to prey upon him, promised to terrorize for decades to come.
The bull elephant roamed the jungle in search of fruit and lush vegetation, raking and thrashing at the undergrowth with his ten-foot tusks, or knocking over the thickest of trees with the brow of his mountainous head—all while crushing the life out of anything dull-witted or slow enough to get in his way.
Magnuh was a rogue, and a curse to others of his kind, wounding and killing any bull elephant that challenged him for the females of the various herds that traveled the inland plateau. Once he’d finally driven off all other competition, Magnuh would take supremacy over the herds as the cows came into heat.
He would go mad with desire and follow them as they traveled migratory patterns leading east to the grassy plains inland and back again to the jungle as the seasons dictated.
Magnuh protected the herd more by reputation than intent, and so his harsh rule was rarely challenged. The very sight of him in a rage protected the females and their calves from the fiercest of predators.
Few of the apes had done more than catch a glimpse of him—a deafening mountain of flesh hurtling through the dense jungle.
Old Baho, as the tribe’s former silverback could have been more accurately called a “whiteback” since in the years following his kingship the thick covering of silver hairs on his shoulders and hips that denoted his authority had gone as white as the long sideburns that trailed to either side of his scarred and wrinkled face.
But there was no such term since a dethroned king was traditionally exiled or killed, and any aging male to have worn the mantle would not give up the name “silverback” without a fight.
So the old silverback Baho would often sit and share his wisdom with the younger apes, telling stories of his time as king, and he had always warned them of Magnuh.
“The beast hates apes,” Baho said later, chewing a mouthful of worms as Gazda and the other young apes now well past their fourth year sat raptly listening. “He has legs like tree trunks, and his body is made of stone—and he has one long arm that stretches out from between his eyes.” Baho used his own arm to illustrate and frighten the youngest listeners. “And he has fangs so long you will be dead before he can taste you.”
The young apes listening to Baho shivered as he spoke.
“If you see him first, you will know, Magnuh,” Baho said, crushing a nut between his cracked molars. “If he sees you first...” The old silverback intoned matter-of-factly, “You will be dead.”
The youngsters squawked and ran shrieking back to their mothers, who in turn chattered angrily, scolding Baho for telling such tales to their little ones.
Was life in the jungle not terrifying enough?
1900-1902
Six to eight years of age.
CHAPTER 7 – Friends and Ene
mies
Time passed and Gazda grew, but at the core he remained a puzzle to his adoptive tribe, and a mystery to himself. He knew he was different, but no one—least of all him—understood why.
In his fifth year, many of the other apes remarked how much he’d changed. He was still ugly, but all remembered how he had looked when he’d first been brought into the tribe. Then, his flesh had been like white overripe melon, and his facial features soft and undefined. He had been like a dead tree frog then, better for eating than raising as an ape.
Over the years, his features and flesh had refined and grown firm. He still had a puny nose, eyes and mouth, freakishly small compared to the expansive features on the apes around him, and the same disparity applied to his limbs that were stick-like and spindly when contrasted with the muscular arms and legs of the apes.
But he seemed more tangible and distinct to his anthropoid companions.
As his hair had grown in long and black on his head, it was joined by two horizontal tufts over his eyes, and few in the tribe could miss the night ape’s similarity to their old enemy Fur-nose and so they began to watch Gazda’s nose and mouth expectantly—waiting for the characteristic hair to sprout.
As his fifth year came to an end, still nothing had grown there, but the apes waited and watched.
One odd thing had stood out to Eeda, for only a mother could notice such a development, but a scar had appeared that ran across Gazda’s forehead just up by the hairline. It stood out to her for neither she nor her son could remember an injury that would account for such a scar.
She noticed it during one of her weaning sessions. The dark red line had blazed angrily against his white skin as he fought for access to her milk.
The mark had faded with the strong emotion; but the scar remained ever after, and Eeda always pondered it when she groomed him, or at other times when it flared up again with his passions.
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