The challenges continued, and that scandal faded into the past as the young apes honed their strength. The ongoing competition between the adolescent blackbacks was brought about by their incredible strength and ambition, and was advanced by their boredom with the daily grind as the tribe spent the hours searching for food, eating, sleeping and starting the search again.
So like the other young apes Gazda was driven to distraction and the pursuit of action.
With little to occupy his active mind, Gazda was free to nurse his grudge against Magnuh, whose attack still remained fresh in his memory. So, whenever the giant’s wandering brought him near, the night ape would seek him out, and from overhead hurl insults, branches and stones down on the bull elephant.
When Magnuh found himself unable to reach his tormentor, he took his frustration out on the surrounding jungle, smashing trees and plant life to pulp.
Gazda was sometimes reminded that his adversary should never be underestimated for on more than one occasion the seething beast had retreated into the jungle as the night ape laughed—until a great rock hurtled up at him and severed the branch upon which he had been perched. In each case he’d easily leapt to safety, but it was a caution against overconfidence all the same.
Yet such incidents had intensified Gazda’s desire to torment the beast.
Having learned the type of food that Magnuh most enjoyed and the seasons when they ripened, Gazda once spent an hour collecting up the dung left by the apes, and using big banana leaves had carried the disgusting mass into the high branches of the elephant’s favorite fruit trees.
When the great beast came to fill his belly, Gazda had dropped the stinking waste down upon his head and Magnuh’s furious screams shook the forest for miles.
At still another time, Gazda had followed his enemy, swinging unseen from branch to branch in the high canopy until he found the monster sidling up to a large herd of female elephants that had followed a trail into the forest to dine on succulent herbs.
Gazda and his friend Ooso had often played a game where they copied bird and animal calls with their own voices and long practice had left the night ape an accomplished mimic.
So in his place of hiding, he tipped his head back and gave the terrifying roar of a male lion.
The female elephants had stampeded in terror, pushing their calves before them, which left the amorous Magnuh with no recourse but to glare his frustration at the surrounding trees.
His cold and maleficent eye sought the source of the roar. While it had sounded like a lion, the scolding chatter that soon came from the trees gave authorship to the end of Magnuh’s romantic liaison and focal point for his rage.
It was during those years and long weeks of boredom that old Baho had told the young blackbacks the story of Sip-sip and the flying infant. It was the former silverback’s hope that the tale would instill better behavior and honorable thinking in the young males and show them how a good king always observed tribal law.
Young males should never provoke or disrespect a higher ranking male whether he deserved such abuse or not. And if they did, then they could not count on the king for protection, since it was his duty and theirs to hold the law above all other things.
The apes had wandered east to gorge on fruit that was coming into season, and Omag had been gone from the tribe for many days—many hoped for good. But during a break from the fighting lessons, Baho told the story, warning the young blackbacks to never call the crippled ape “Sip-sip” for it was unseemly to do so, and dangerous.
The former silverback knew that Goro might not like him repeating that name, but Baho had noticed how Omag reserved most of his fury and outrage for the she-apes and the young ones, and thus the story. Looking around at the formidable wall of muscle the adolescent apes presented, Baho doubted whether the crippled ape would take such offense if one of these blackbacks dared to utter the name.
Also, the former silverback did not trust Omag or the old queens, and he thought it best that the young blackbacks shared his apprehension. Some among them he knew were in league with the crippled ape, but then, who better to hear the truth?
Gazda had always loved the stories Baho told, and so he sat with the others and listened, his mind turning the tale into pictures. He was infuriated to hear of the she-ape mother’s pain, and he was disgusted that Omag had killed an infant simply for calling him a name. True, the tribal law said that bull apes deserved respect, but did infants not deserve respect also, and were they not worthy of patience?
Afterwards, as the young blackbacks went to forage, old Baho had recognized the night ape’s dismay. Gazda crouched unmoving in the grass, his eyes focused on the ground until the former silverback rumbled close and touched knuckles with him.
“The poor mother,” the night ape said, and the old bull ape grunted his understanding. He had watched the curious young fellow his entire life, and been impressed by his loyalty to Eeda. The pair were strange, but an excellent example of anthropoid honor.
“The mother in the story is your own,” Baho said, gauging his next words. “Eeda...and the infant was your brother.”
The scar that edged the night ape’s hairline suddenly blazed red, and when a similar furious gleam entered Gazda’s eyes, the former silverback wondered if he should have kept silent.
“A blackback does not seek revenge, Gazda,” Baho reminded, as he reached out to affectionately thump the night
