A Forest in the Clouds

by John Fowler

  Nani fed for ten minutes before deciding to climb back up to Dian. We all watched and waited in silence. Then seeing the gallium Dian had given me, our little gorilla crawled back up onto me and resumed feeding from the comfort of my arms.

  Sensing movement from the corner of my right eye, I glanced over toward Group 5. Still forty feet away, one gorilla’s upper torso moved into plain view. It was Beethoven, the family’s four-hundred pound patriarch, leader of the group. The giant was seated, facing downhill. A broad silver back and shoulders supported an equally impressive head mounted on a thick neck. His cranium soared to a high sagittal crest: his crown—along with the silver back, these are the adult male gorilla’s emblems of maturity, stature, and might. Beethoven’s powerful jaws idly crushed the last morsel of nettle in his mouth; unfazed by the stinging spines, the muscles in his head flexed underneath the gray hair at his temples. Alpha male, defender of his group, at the moment in repose, he sized up where to lead his family next.

  Watching Beethoven, I was struck with the thought of how out of place I was. In a moment, Beethoven would see me, and then what? I found myself thinking, for the first time, that I didn’t belong there.

  Sure enough, the massive old gorilla shifted his head toward me, suddenly taking in something that shouldn’t be. He knew me, of course, by now, but not this peculiar scene—a baby gorilla in my arms! Whose baby gorilla? Instantly, his repose turned to alarm. I saw it flicker across this massive hominid’s eyes as he fixed his glassy dark gaze on me. Baring his black-stained teeth in a shining flash, Beethoven released a scream to end all screams, AAARRRGH . . . a primal sound, at once human and animal, screeching and voluminous—the horrific noise that only a silverback gorilla can make. It pealed through my body, rattling my inner core with a terror I had never known.

  Now I really don’t belong here. There was no reasoning my way out of this fear, which burned into me the most vivid memory of my time at Karisoke. And so we began what my boss, Dian Fossey, would one day describe as the first time she had “ever been afraid of gorillas.”

  I whispered loudly down to Dian, “Beethoven just saw us,” my throat constricting on the words.

  During the next two minutes in which Beethoven and Nani stared at each other, I saw myself as having made a terrible irreversible mistake. What am I doing here? Up a tree on a mountain in Africa with a baby gorilla in my arms? Thousands of miles and days away from home? The feeling of being completely out of place, and way out of line, overrode any romantic, adventurous spirit I might have had up until that point. I wanted to be gone. Dian remained installed on the sloping tree trunk beneath me, blocking my descent to the ground. Besides, the gorillas were on the ground. I had visions of silverbacks climbing up the tree after the baby . . . and me! Selfishly, I surmised that they would get to Dian first.

  Nani, having not seen other gorillas for over two months, surprised me by breaking free of Beethoven’s stare and, still in my arms, nonchalantly resumed her feeding as if it was going to be just another day. Beethoven stared for a minute longer before Tuck, a young adult female, came strutting out of the brush uphill from him to have look at what caused the commotion. At the sight of Nani, she held her lips tightly pursed, and boldly slapped down a palm-like lobelia before beating her chest in the typical two-hand whack of a cocky gorilla—she was piqued.

  Nani watched intently as Tuck approached the base of our tree and knocked down another lobelia before assuming the stiff four-legged stance of an agitated and indignant gorilla wanting to be noticed. In this posture with her neck held out stiffly, Tuck kept her lips tightly pursed while twitching her head sideways, stealing furtive glances up at Nani in my arms. Her face asked, what is this outrage?

  I thought Nani didn’t read the tension at all. Instead, she loosened her little arms from my torso and began climbing downward. The adult female, Effie, mother of four-year-old Poppy, joined her grown daughter, Tuck, at the base of the tree while our baby climbed down past Dian. In the middle of the action, Kaji kept the camera pointed at our baby when she reached the ground to meet her new acquaintances. Immediately Tuck and Nani touched noses and mouths. As they did this, I could see soft dung come out of Nani, typical of what wild gorillas excrete when they are afraid. Her calm demeanor belied some inner tension in the moment. Effie instantly took an interest in this and began sniffing the little one’s anus and rump area. I was encouraged by the gentle approach these two grown females were showing our little gorilla, and thought Dian must have felt the same optimism then. For a few more minutes, Tuck and Effie inspected the new small stranger among them, sniffing and delicately touching her with their noses and puckered lips. I was struck by how small Nani really was, towered-over by these full-grown gorillas. She was a mere fraction of their bulk, but a sense of relief washed over me with the gentle delicacy of the scene. The fear that Beethoven’s scream had raised in me was fading while I watched what I thought was the first successful reintroduction of a baby gorilla back into a wild group, feeling so proud to be a part of it.

  I was jarred from my optimism when, without warning, as if jealous of her mother’s interest in this newcomer baby, Tuck grabbed Nani by a handful of hair. Clutching the baby, Tuck galloped downhill, deliberately dragging the little one away from Effie in a rough tumble. Nani pig-grunted in helpless protest of the upset and pain this inflicted. My boss crouched in a tense posture, leaning over to observe the scene below, and now behind, us.

  Not to be outdone, Effie pursued the tumbling baby, grabbing her by the hair on her tiny back. Tuck grabbed another hank of Nani’s hair from the opposite side and mother/daughter began a vicious tug-of-war with the baby as rope. Nani screamed and grunted in desperation, but the larger females pulled at her like a mere object, dragging our orphan farther downslope. I feared they would drag her into the thickets beyond our view, leaving only the horrific sounds of this cruel game. What would we do then? While Nani excreted more fear dung, Tuck sniffed at it as before. But the larger gorilla’s investigation returned to overt aggression and she brutally bit into Nani’s backside. By a mouthful of Nani’s rump hair, Tuck viciously dragged her backward, farther across the slope in the direction of the other members of Group 5, who still remained mostly out of view.

  Despite Nani’s plaintive screams, Effie grabbed the helpless infant by her hair again, pulling against the grip of Tuck’s teeth. For us humans, the scene had become a vivid nightmare. It looked like Tuck and Effie were fighting to be the one who dragged Nani, by any means, toward the other members of Group 5—to show them this intruder. The other gorillas were still dispersed widely through the undergrowth, and mostly unaware of what was taking place.

  Kaji kept one eye pressed against his camera’s viewfinder and moved downhill into the very middle of the scene. Taka followed dutifully, hauling the bulky sound equipment. Kaji didn’t flinch, even with these angry gorillas just inches away from the camera’s lens. At one point, Tuck was nearly in his lap. Peter, shifting for a better view, remained calm in the fray, dutifully observing and making notes for Dian on his clipboard. Finally, in a break in the melee, Nani tried to crawl away from her assailants. As the little gorilla neared the base of our tree, Dian eased down its trunk and grabbed her furry arms. But Tuck would not be outdone, and just as Dian tried to hoist our orphan back, the grown female grabbed Nani’s leg. A new tug-of-war ensued, this one between human and ape. My God, Dian’s having a tug-of-war with a gorilla! Both primatologist and primate pulled aggressively at our foster baby who grunted and screamed helplessly. In one direction, lay rescue, in the other, who knew what.

  I feared the worst for Dian, now in a brawl with these gorillas. Would Tuck and Effie pounce on Dian? What if one of the silverbacks comes charging in? I looked around for Beethoven, but could no longer see him. And where was mighty Icarus? In the moment, I had nothing but respect for Dian. Up until this day, I had not seen my boss interact with the very gorillas that had brought her international recognition. Now she was in their mid
st, in what seemed a battle of life and death. In my turmoil of fear and confusion, I then saw what must have been the original courage and tenacity of this woman, and was grateful for it.

  Dian maneuvered baby—with Tuck still attached—closer to the base of our tree, and . . . in a final yank, little Nani broke free from the bigger gorilla’s clutches. I slid myself lower as Dian stumbled and slipped in the wet undergrowth to hoist Nani up to me. Her strength nearly spent, my boss struggled to hand the baby up to me as I reached downward to grasp Nani’s outstretched arms, and draw her up to my chest. Nani clung tightly to me as I repositioned myself, while an exhausted Dian maneuvered herself back to her position on the tree trunk below me.

  I hoped that was the end, but we were still up a tree. Tuck planted herself with vigilance at the base looking up at the baby in my arms. I envisioned Tuck clambering up the tree to snatch Nani from me, and again was relieved that Dian was between me and the ground. I wondered what Dian wanted to do next, but she didn’t speak. In the cold, soaking rain, she stared at Tuck who remained fixated on the baby in my arms. I suppose Dian was wondering, just like me, what we would do next.

  Within minutes of this standoff, Nani surprised us by releasing her grip on me, fixated again on the gorillas below. I allowed her to climb down to Dian, but was baffled when Dian didn’t stop the baby from climbing past her. Onward, the little one ambled, hand over foot to the ground.

  “She wants to be a gorilla . . .” Dian whispered.

  We all watched in renewed anxiety as our brave and determined little baby rejoined her fellow species on the ground. To welcome her back, Tuck grabbed Nani by the hair and once again dragged her brutally downhill as if she were nothing more than a sack of stones. And as before, Effie joined in another cruel tug-of-war with her daughter, while our baby screamed helplessly in the middle. Hope for the little one only came in the form of Beethoven who burst from the foliage with another horrific scream, AAARGH . . . At that, Effie and Tuck released Nani in startled retreat, lurching backward and averting their eyes from their alpha male’s steely glare. I looked at Kaji seated in the middle of the ensuing standoff, baffled by his courage and worried for his safety as he sat glued to his camera’s viewfinder. Nani squatted, dazed and forlorn in the middle of the trio of towering adult apes, her dark eyes wide and glassy in a blank catatonic stare. The cold drizzle turned to a hard pelting rain that rattled on our rain gear and the leaves around us, drowning out all other sound, numbing the aftermath of our trauma. Beethoven, riled and disgruntled, turned his back on Effie, Tuck, and the baby to assume the Buddha-like huddle of a gorilla in the rain. Nani, as if insisting on acceptance in the group, roused herself and shifted close to the alpha male’s broad backside, adopting his same position as if to say I’m yours now, just another gorilla in the group.

  When the downpour let up, Effie’s four-year-old daughter Poppy ambled into the clearing that had been beaten down during the struggle. The adult female Pantsy soon followed with her three-year-old daughter, Muraha. I then noticed that the young male Pablo had arrived directly beneath me, and was swinging on a vine hanging from where I sat. He directed his attention at Nani and beat his chest repeatedly as if trying to elicit a reaction. The young females, Poppy and Muraha, approached to within one meter of Nani, staring down at her with curiosity, while Pablo continued taunting with alternate chest-beating and strutting on all fours. Even these youngsters of Group 5 were two and three times the size of Nani.

  Five minutes later, as the rain slackened, Beethoven rose and moved downhill. Nani started to follow him, but stopped as he disappeared ahead of her into a thicket of undergrowth. Nani looked small and lonely in the center of the four-meter clearing. Pablo, Poppy, and Muraha immediately closed in on Nani, sniffing and peering at her impishly. As the three larger youngsters crowded around her, Nani picked a spindly nettle stalk and began to nibble at its crumpled leaves that had been trampled and bruised under the feet of the other gorillas.

  “She’s eating!” I whispered to Dian, leaning over so she could hear me.

  “That’s displacement behavior,” Dian whispered back, without taking her eyes off the scene below. “They do that when they want to avert attention away from themselves.”

  Nani was trying to fit in, acting like she was intent on feeding while the three gorilla juveniles beat their leathery chests with small fists and strutted around the newcomer among them. This sight was the saddest moment for me. Nani had been brutally traumatized by Tuck and Effie before Dian rescued her from Tuck’s clutches, and yet she climbed back down the tree to join this family of her own kind. Then, being taunted by the kids of the group in the cold rain, Nani sat chewing on a nettle as if she was home at last—as if to say: See? I’m one of you.

  With their smaller size and childlike antics, the juveniles looked much less menacing than the adult females had become. Pablo, Poppy, and Muraha were trying to get a play response from Nani, and I thought that if she had it in her to reciprocate, this might help integrate her into the group and make her acceptable to the adults.

  Tuck and Effie had moved away several meters to the periphery of the clearing that they had beaten down in their skirmish. They were no longer focusing on Nani as the three youngsters now vied for her attention. The minutes passed as Dian and I watched expectantly from our perches, trying to be optimistic about Nani’s desire to integrate herself with her fellow apes despite what had just transpired.

  “She wants to be a gorilla,” Dian repeated under her breath.

  After five minutes, the younger silverback Icarus bolted through the undergrowth into the clearing. Equally the size of his father, Beethoven, the giant moved his legs in the characteristically stiff, mechanical strut of a piqued silverback, chin held high and hairs erect, flashing the bright gleam of his white mantle with every jarring step. The posture made the ape appear even larger than his four-hundred-pound frame. In a showy gallop, Icarus bolted without warning past Nani, snatching her up like a football with a sideways sweep of his massive arm. He dragged the tiny newcomer downhill by a hank of her hair, and flung her with another violent swing of his arm, as if tossing out a tub of dishwater. In a rough tumble over trampled weeds, the baby landed in a heap near Effie, who immediately approached the little one. Nani righted herself and moved forward to meet Effie halfway. But the adult female greeted the baby with a hard swing of her arm, knocking the little one onto her back again.

  I wanted to ask Dian what we should do, but knew she must have felt as baffled and helpless as me. We were stymied by Nani’s apparent will to integrate herself into this group after her first encounter, and paralyzed by these group members’ resultant aggression. Our orphan, bedraggled and wan of energy, pulled herself up to a seated position, and I wanted her back with me. She sat quietly as Puck entered the clearing with her two-year-old, Cantsbee, riding on her back. Cantsbee was the only one smaller than Nani. Both mother and son peered down quizzically at the newcomer while circling in a loop around her. Nani just hung her head pathetically and huddled in the drizzle, staring blankly at the wet ground.

  Taka and Kaji dutifully loaded another roll of film into their camera. Each reel was the size of a pizza and had to be pried out of a wide silver canister while dodging the rain. Taka carefully held a plastic tarp over the opened film to keep it dry while Kaji deftly maneuvered it into the camera. Once the new roll was installed, Kaji quickly resumed filming. An hour had elapsed since Dian and I, with Nani, had taken our positions in our tree.

  A loud shrill scream pealed from below us, and I jolted around to see Icarus running downhill in a bold dash. Nani was gone from her spot. The scream was hers. She was in the silverback’s mouth! Like a dog with a rabbit, Icarus carried the baby as if he was going to eat her alive! Beethoven protested the disruption with pig grunts from downhill, eh . . . eh . . . EH . . . his massive shoulders bouncing in disdain with each grunt. Poppy, Muraha, and Pablo grunted too, and chased after Icarus. As if Nani were a trophy of conquest in his m
outh, Icarus rushed back uphill with her before dropping the baby just downhill from the base of our tree.

  “We’ve got to get her back,” Dian said, craning her neck to see the baby beneath us. My heart pounded thinking about what this meant now that a silverback was involved. Could we even save her now?

  We watched in torment as Nani used her remaining energy to crawl toward our tree. Pablo resumed his display of chest beats at Nani as Poppy and Muraha followed suit, strutting behind him. Nani struggled uphill, and I could see her eyes were wide and glassy, her hair wet and matted from the rain . . . and was there blood?

  When she reached the base of our tree, our tiny orphan sat huddled and unmoving. With her arms folded in close to her body, so tiny compared to the others looming around her. Pablo, Poppy, and Muraha continued their jeering displays, but retreated and paused when Icarus began a series of foreboding hoot vocalizations. These hoots, typical of an agitated silverback, are usually followed by a rapid-fire chest-beat, but Icarus rose to his feet and swept past Nani, knocking her over while he tried to grab her. This time Nani just remained on her side, huddled and spent in a catatonic ball of matted fur.

  Then Tuck showed renewed interest and moved in on Nani. As she did, Dian slid down the tree and grabbed a woody stem of senecio. When Tuck grabbed for Nani, Dian swung the leafy stalk with a loud swish, causing Tuck to flinch and miss. Tuck tried again, and Dian followed suit with another swipe of her switch. While Dian continued to thwart Tuck’s ongoing attempts to grab the baby, Icarus rose up repeatedly just one meter away, hooting and beating his chest in a manner more tense and strained than I had seen before. I worried for Dian now, as much as for our baby. Then Icarus paused his brash displays. And, in a move that defies easy explanation, Nani roused herself, and instead of crawling to human safety in our tree, she hobbled over to Icarus and huddled against his back.