They were especially fond of the berries that grew so densely around the Gypsy Horvat’s yurt, and their passion for the fruit had caused their many unpleasant clashes with the unusual ape-like creature in the strange tree-nest. He had come to be an object of curiosity to them, as the apes or “wild men” had been an object of terror to the Gypsy.
“Fur-nose” was what the apes called the otherwise hairless creature that lived in the tree-nest because instead of having hair covering his body he had sprouted long fur all around his nose for a purpose the apes were unable to comprehend. That oddity and his peculiar habit of wearing the skins of other animals over his own pale flesh caused an outrage among the apes that would be remembered for generations.
None knew where Fur-nose had come from for he had only appeared one cycle of wandering past, and he had resisted all challenges to this invasion. Being dubious possessors of some degree of sentience, these apes knew this was not his territory, but his thunder-hand had won in each challenge to its ownership.
So far, only one of the apes, an adolescent blackback male, had died from an infection that came on after the thunder-hand had put a hole in his arm. Others touched by Fur-nose were more fortunate and had suffered painful wounds but escaped with their lives.
After their initial terror at the sight and sound of the thunder-hand, and understanding the danger it represented as evidenced by the scars that many bore afterward, the apes had studied Fur-nose and learned his behavior.
It was simple. He stayed under cover to work the thunder-hand, but he could only reach so far with it.
So long as he was closed in the tree-nest and the apes kept a respectful distance, they would be safe from his power, though knowledge of this did not diminish the fright they felt when the thunder-hand roared, nor diminish the terrifying disruption it caused in their routine.
Only the bravest or most foolish ape dared to leave the berry bushes and cross the broad clearing toward the tree-nest. Displaying their courage in front of Fur-nose became a frequent occurrence as the tribe’s blackback males challenged each other.
The last time the group had visited that place, the silverback Goro, king of the tribe, had led them into the berry patch that circled Fur-nose’s lair but held them at a safe distance to forage.
Before long a huge blackback male named Tobog, worked up by the admiration of his lesser blackback brothers, had led several charges toward the strange nest only to be met by thunder-hand’s ferocious howl. None were slain or injured, and Fur-nose seemed reluctant to use his power, so the blackbacks had made several more charges without receiving injuries.
Goro had watched this series of challenges somewhat bemused, for he knew that a challenge for his crown would one day come from Tobog; and he had already seen the vest of silver hairs starting to grow across the younger bull ape’s shoulders and hips.
The silverback had been made uneasy by Tobog’s successful charges against Fur-nose because it was also a show of strength meant to challenge Goro’s authority. The king wasn’t jealous of the praise given by the young blackbacks to the future challenger, but Goro had been wise enough to flex his own considerable muscle by casually ordering the troop away from the area while Tobog hurled rocks at the tree-nest and thunder-hand barked.
The silverback had been pleased to see Tobog bristle at the command before submitting as was demanded by tribal law. The younger male had to learn patience if he hoped to lead the group one day, for Goro would not be defeated by muscle alone.
But Tobog’s reason for testing Fur-nose’s defenses and power was unknown to Goro. He had been convinced by the other males to kill the strange creature, and take the thunder-hand so that he could use it to take the kingship away from Goro. All the apes expected Tobog to some day dethrone the silverback, so were easily convinced that the destruction of Fur-nose would speed up the succession.
These young blackbacks possessed more brawn than brains, and forever dreamt of being kings themselves, so they had been easily manipulated by a sly ape named Omag who told them challenging Fur-nose would result in either Tobog’s death or his succession and either outcome would shorten the distance to the throne for each of the blackbacks that remained.
In truth, Omag had also been jealous of Fur-nose’s power, and he very much wanted it for himself. He could tell—just as Goro the silverback knew—that the thunder-hand was a tool that the creature Fur-nose carried, like a rock used for opening nuts or a stick for spearing monkeys and bushbabies, though Fur-nose’s tool was far more powerful and threw painful injuries and death greater distances with its invisible but noisy touch.
Omag was a cripple by ape standards, but his mind was fleet and supple, far more able than any of the others.
Of course, all of the apes in Goro’s tribe were beyond the expectations of apes that are now left in the world, and so, such machinations could be expected, if unforgiven.
Cousin to the more familiar lowland gorilla and all but extinct from the world, these were like the apes known to the greater biological sciences, but also like humans in ways hypothesized by the philosopher Darwin who conjectured that humanity’s branch on the tree of life grew from a place on the trunk none too far from whence our many hairy cousins’ had sprouted.
It was a garden rich with fossils that had spawned Goro’s tribe of 62 apes, whose members were a molecule or two more like human than their lowly cousins, and possessors of a rudimentary language and understanding of the world because of it. A study of them would have made a fascinating contribution to evolutionary
