A Forest in the Clouds

by John Fowler

  “Anyone give you trouble, you hit dem mit dat!” Karl proclaimed with a dramatic sweep of his hand in demonstration. “Right on der noggin!”

  I could only laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but agreed to use it if necessary, so beguiled was I by the very eccentricity of the situation I was in.

  I had already told Anna of my interest in attending vet school, and as we traveled down Ngong Road back into Nairobi, I told her I had considered going to the University of Nairobi’s School of Veterinary Medicine, thinking it would be a great way to become a wildlife vet in Africa.

  “Well, I hope you do,” Anna said with enthusiasm. “That would be wonderful for us.” Her unabashed kindness left me nearly speechless for the rest of the way to the airport. It was like I suddenly had an aunt and uncle in Africa.

  Anna’s friend was tired from her long trip across the Indian Ocean, but back at the grand home, the two ladies of similar age chatted energetically, catching up with each other after many years. Anna ended the evening returning to the plight of the black rhino, informing her friend how the species is being wiped out in pursuit of its horn, and so very little is being done.

  The next morning brought my hiatus to an end, and I slipped back into the car with Karl at the wheel. Anna waved heartily from the doorway of her beautiful home, surrounded by her dogs. A passionate fire for conservation burned within her more than I knew. We would become lifelong pen pals. The next time I would see her, two decades later, all this would be long gone from her life, her vibrant and eccentric Karl deceased, her grand estate sold, her finances redirected, the routine of her domesticity undone both willingly and willfully. In its stead would be the world-renowned Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to the north, with her as a founder at the center of its exemplary mission to save the black rhino from extinction.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  DIAN’S FOE

  I returned to Karisoke, expecting the return of Dian’s nemesis, Sandy Harcourt. He was coming on reconnaissance to visit Karisoke and to check in on the Mountain Gorilla Project that he had helped launch and fund. Despite Dian’s reluctance to accept it, she had to concede that Sandy was the most qualified choice as Karisoke’s new overseer in her absence. Indeed, he had been her protégé as one of her earliest students. Anyone else would have been proud, but not Dian. For her, familiarity only bred contempt, and she couldn’t let the transition happen without kicking and screaming and dragging her feet. As the plan came closer to reality for Karisoke to change hands, it was obvious that Dian’s fears grew. Like Bill and Amy, Sandy had become a free-thinking scientist in his own right, beyond the control and influence of Dian. It became increasingly apparent that Dian feared nothing more than losing control of Karisoke, and ultimately being upstaged in the science and salvation of the mountain gorilla. Dian couldn’t share the stage, let alone relinquish it.

  While I was away in Nairobi, Peter fired our camp housekeeper, Basili, when he failed to return to camp as scheduled. He had long suspected Basili of being an accomplice to Dian in the theft of his film, and seemed relieved about his decision. Basili, like others, had already been fired by Dian, only to be rehired in time of need. Unlike other camp staffers, he had always been a little aloof and detached from the others, and the rest of the staff seemed fine with replacing him with the friendly part-time staffer, Nshogoza.

  With his quirky cone-shaped felt hat, and intelligent, soft-spoken demeanor, Nshogoza was well liked and respected by the others, as he was to Peter and me. On occasion, he stopped by my cabin to visit, much as Kanyaragana had, but he knew little Swahili, and no English. This time, it was me teaching a new-comer, and a local, the language of Karisoke. He marveled at my typewriter, and enjoyed watching me type, uttering, intelligence with a French pronunciation while watching the process. His humble praise just embarrassed me, but his wide-eyed curiosity and dignified manner made me think he would have thrived in an opportunity for higher education in an academic setting.

  Bill and Amy had returned to the U.S. for a spell, and the friendly English couple who had replaced them, Conrad and Rosalind Aveling, had taken occupancy of the Mountain Gorilla Project’s humble metal hut at the base of the mountain. The couple came from working at Biruté Galdikas’s orangutan research station in Borneo, and unlike the V-W couple, these two had neither history with, nor personal interest in, Karisoke or Dian Fossey.

  They knew Sandy Harcourt, and diplomatically tried to prepare me for his arrival. “He’s all science,” Conrad explained after I told them about Dian’s fears. “Some people think he’s kind of stuffy . . .” Rosalind assured me not to worry and all would be fine.

  Just about everyone else who knew him, including Peter and Jean-Pierre, echoed the sentiments about his dry formality. But all I could think was: hallelujah! The idea of an organized, science-minded researcher taking the reins at Karisoke seemed like nothing short of salvation, and I happily volunteered to time my next trip to Kigali with his arrival, and give him a lift back to camp.

  Peter had good reason to be a little uneasy about the prospect of Harcourt’s arrival, considering the research value of Group 5, Karisoke’s most habituated and stable gorilla family group, the best resource for studying natural gorillas in the wild. No matter how difficult Fossey had been, she had become to him at least, a known quantity. And setting aside her stealing his film and treating him badly, she did let him get on with his research with unlimited access to Group 5. She owed him that. Besides, he must have taken great pride knowing that she thought his notes were the best ever, at least in describing the day-to-day lives of the gorillas Dian needed to keep up with. Peter had no way of knowing how Harcourt might intend to run things. And with past students who had claim on Group 5 long since out of the way, Peter had grown accustomed to the autonomy he had gained.

  I, on the other hand, was intrigued by the notion of there being an archnemesis for Fossey. The anti-Dian? Hmm . . . is this a bad thing? I had to go back into Kigali anyway, to renew my three-month visa for the last time, and staying at Judy’s Joint was always a nice break, with our unofficial official hostess being ever generous and hospitable on our forays into Rwanda’s capital.

  On this trip, too, I was happy to finally meet Rosamund Carr, an old friend of Dian’s and others in Kigali who had emigrated from the U.S. and up the Congo River decades earlier in a steamer. She had come by Judy’s to enjoy lunch with her and Ann Yancey. People had always remarked about how the elder Mrs. Carr, despite making the dusty trek into the city from her remote flower farm above Gisenyi, was always elegantly attired and perfectly coiffed, with nary a silver hair out of place. She had become the stuff of legend, and as I shook her hand I could see they were right. This elegant lady in a seemingly fresh-pressed floral sheath dress looked as if she had just stepped out of a limousine in Manhattan, from whence she’d come so long ago. She would go on to survive Rwanda’s genocide with the same grace she approached everything, only to start an orphanage for the children left in the wake. With her niece Ann Howard Halsey, she would go on to write her loving memoir, Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda.

  When Harcourt arrived at last, Rosalind was in Kigali as well, and introduced us. Of a medium build and stature, with neatly trimmed dark blond hair, he was a rather dapper guy, his English accent was clipped with an almost Gaelic brogue to my ear. But despite his disciplined and orderly appearance, in his green military surplus sweater, replete with gun patch at the shoulder, I didn’t find him intimidating at all. If anything, I was rather amused by what I saw as the archetypal British explorer-adventurer. This ought to be fun, I thought. As for gorilla research and conservation, having some order brought into the wildly dysfunctional workplace that was Karisoke could only be a good thing.

  In camp, Sandy maintained the staid demeanor others predicted—his greeting with Peter was short and businesslike—but most of this I passed off as simply cultural differences. Besides, he had to be at least a little uptight, given the auspices of his visit, here among D
ian’s handpicked students. While Peter made his usual hike to Group 5, I guided Sandy to Group 4 and Nunkie’s Group in order to reacquaint him with new individuals and youngsters who had been born since his time here years ago. He expressed his amazement at how big some had grown.

  Unable to contain my curiosity, I ventured a pointed question as we hiked. “When you were here before . . . was Dian . . . uh, in any way . . . like she is now?”

  “Well,” he said, very much the behaviourist making a careful assessment. “There were signs of it.” He didn’t crack a smile, but I burst out laughing at this tactful yet telling response—signs of it! It, indeed! I could certainly imagine.

  After four hours of contact with Nunkie’s elusive group on the far side of Mount Visoke, Sandy understood the quickest route back to camp would be over the top. Watching Sandy trudge ahead of me, huffing and puffing as he climbed Visoke for the first time in years, I was reminded of my first climb. When we paused to rest, I saw that his face was as flushed as mine must have been on that first hike nine months earlier, and I paused to rest with him. I found it reassuring that he was as human as the rest of us.

  “Wouldn’t it . . . be great . . .” he muttered between breaths, “if there were a table and chairs at the top . . . with a white tablecloth . . . and two cold Primus set out for us.”

  “That’s Sandy for you,” Conrad Aveling responded later, when I mentioned this to him. “Anyone else would have just been happy with a cold beer, but Sandy wanted the white tablecloth.”

  The trip down Visoke’s other side was much easier, but on the far side of the camp’s meadow, smoke was billowing from inside a large hollow hagenia tree. While we were out, the Rwandan military had been here on a drill and clearly set the hollow tree on fire with their campfire at the base of the trunk.

  By then the fire was simply smoldering in the damp live wood, and I thought we could just let it die out, but Sandy sounded the alarm, rushing into camp to get buckets. Together we scooped water from the bogs and doused the cinders until they were thoroughly soaked.

  “I’m going to write a letter to the army’s office in Kigali,” Sandy snapped as we trudged wearily back to camp.

  Sandy, having taken residence in the camp’s Guest Cabin, invited me to dinner. I was surprised that Peter hadn’t been included. Still I enjoyed myself, joking around with this very proper fellow.

  “If you’re from Georgia,” Sandy ventured at one point, “and that’s in the South, why don’t you talk . . .” He paused to phrase the rest of his question. “I mean, in the southern U.S., don’t they . . . ?”

  “You mean ‘Waah down’t Ah tawk lack thiyas?’” I said, in the most exaggerated hillbilly drawl I had in my repertoire. Breaking from his rigid posture, Sandy busted out laughing, nearly spitting out his food. I enjoyed seeing this formal Brit crack his crusty exterior. I could work with this guy, I thought.

  “Yes. Precisely,” Sandy replied after regaining composure. “I thought that’s how they talk.”

  He listened with the interest of an anthropologist as I went on to explain the subtle differences in accents found throughout the Southeast, explaining to him that I’m originally from Northern Virginia, where the speech patterns represent more of a national norm. He listened patiently while I described the clipped country twang of the Virginia mountains with the slower drawl of the Deep South. Sandy busted out laughing again at each of the examples I dredged up.

  “I see,” he said finally. “Still, some of it can sound a bit . . .”

  “Lower class?”

  “Uh . . . well, yes.”

  Watching Sandy shift uneasily, and knowing he didn’t mean any harm, I laughed at his crusty perspective and candor. His wife, Kelly, is American after all, the daughter of the actor Jimmy Stewart. I enjoyed Sandy’s funny perspective of my homeland, and his curiosity about it. What exposure could he have had to the southern U.S. other than stereotypes generated by Hollywood? I chalked it all up to different customs from different worlds, and in part because I clearly wasn’t put off by Sandy’s mien, we enjoyed a good rapport and I would even say mutual respect.

  Conrad and Rosalind were working diligently to keep the tourist groups habituated, as well as hosting the sporadic groups of visitors arriving to see wild gorillas, in line with the plan of the Mountain Gorilla Project, and the initial efforts of Bill and Amy. Group 11, one of these groups, had a juvenile male named Nshuti who recently had gotten trapped in a snare. Although he had broken free, the wire was still cinched tightly around his wrist, cutting off nerve impulse and circulation to his hand.

  It was almost as painful for them to watch the suffering this brought to Nshuti himself, and they wanted to do something other than watch irreversible damage to this youngster’s hand. Peter knew of a blow dart kit Dian had stored in her cabin, which looked like it had never been used. To retrieve it, we entered the locked storage room of Dian’s large cabin. It was the first time I had entered that room, and I was astonished to see the mountain of students’ notes that had accumulated over the years. One quarter of the twelve-by-fourteen-foot room had paper stacks and boxes up to my chest. I thought about these rotting away in the dark and musty dampness there.

  The Avelings came up to camp to look over the equipment. The kit had an air pistol, and a few unused CO2 cartridges. It also had a few expired vials of ketamine, a potent tranquilizer that produced agitation and hallucinations as side effects.

  Together, we pondered the risk—outdated tranquilizer or permanently disabled hand and arm, possibly leading to infection and death. No mountain gorilla had ever been darted and tranquilized. This would be a first. We all agreed the risk was worth taking, over watching Nshuti continue to suffer or die from infection. They estimated Nshuti to be about sixty pounds and Rosalind determined the appropriate dosage of ketamine.

  Excited by the break from my own routine work, I joined Conrad, Rosalind, with Sandy at their request to help them with what would be the first darting of a mountain gorilla. The tourist groups had been habituated relatively recently compared to Karisoke’s research groups, and proved to be a bit of a challenge to our efforts. Our first day’s attempt was thwarted by the group’s evasiveness, preventing us a clear view, and shot at Nshuti. The second day, to our disappointment, was the same. It was during this time that I realized how fast I could clamber back up to camp on the Porter Trail from its base. That grueling first climb that had taken me nearly two hours nine months earlier, I had become able to hike at a near-jog in almost fifteen minutes.

  On the third day, we were able to get close enough to Group 11 on Visoke’s northern slopes, not far from tranquil Lake Ngezi. Nshuti provided a perfect opportunity as he moved into a small clearing. The moment was tense as Conrad readied the pistol.

  “You want to have the honor?” he asked, offering the pistol to me.

  Knowing this could be a one-shot deal, with the group fleeing from us at the first failed shot, I politely declined. After waiting days for this moment, I was happy to leave that moment of truth to someone else.

  With the group foraging in blissful ignorance of what was about to take place, Nshuti lingered a little behind in the center of their trampled clearing, doing his best to feed himself with one hand. He held the injured right hand awkwardly inward to his torso, clearly disabled. Conrad raised and fired. Pshewt! It was a great shot, right into Nshuti’s thigh. He screamed, sprang, and ran. The rest of the group hoot-barked their alarms at the upset and scattered in all directions away from us. This presented our first not-fully-anticipated hurdle, finding our drugged gorilla.

  None of us were experts at this, nor was anyone in this first darting of a gorilla. Conrad found the steel dart not far uphill from where Nshuti had been shot. It was a good sign that the ketamine had been expelled as hoped, but we could not be certain of it fully injecting, nor the dosage, especially considering it was well expired.

  We had to spread out, following the scattered trails of individuals in all directions up
Visoke. Scattered gorilla trails are much harder to follow than the large trail of a group moving in unison. We had to consider every broken plant stalk and the direction in which it was bent for clues as to who had gone where. Ten minutes of frantic searching had passed, then twenty, as our worry grew. What if we didn’t find him?

  A long and worrisome half hour after Conrad had made his heroic shot, I stumbled upon our quarry, lying motionless in a crumpled heap. I could see the wire snare, bound tightly around his right wrist, surrounded by swelling. The hand was gnarled in a loose fist.

  “Over here!” I shouted, and Conrad, Rosalind, and Sandy came rushing in to join me.

  I lifted the arm, showing the snare. The poor young gorilla had pulled it tight in his efforts to escape the trap, pulling hard enough to break the strong wire. The skin, inflamed and swollen, had torn and begun to grow into the ligature.

  “Go ahead,” Conrad said, and I pushed at the wire’s broken end, jiggling it through the loop that kept it snug. The wire was imbedded deeply into the skin, but gave way with my maneuvering. It was with a feeling of great honor that I drew the loosened snare over and off his hand. The moment symbolized effective collaboration among the camps of Karisoke and the Mountain Gorilla Project, sharing the resources of staff, equipment, and skills. And I couldn’t tell Dian about it.

  The tight snare had imbedded a deep pit around Nshuti’s wrist, but then at least it was free to resolve and heal properly. Rosalind examined the hand, flexing the black leathery fingers, which all seemed to have a blood supply.

  “Time will tell,” she surmised, “if he’ll have use of that hand again.”

  It was only then that we realized our project was far from over. In a way, it had just begun. We had a knocked out gorilla member of Group 11, but the group was nowhere in sight or sound. They couldn’t have understood that one of their own would not have been able to flee with them, and they had vanished, leaving us with their sixty-pound male.