This was the largest beast that the night ape had ever slain; truly he would be accepted as a blackback now. Might it also cause him to rise in his place within the tribe, or earn him some long absent respect?
Giddy with his own success, Gazda cut the mottled skin away from the creature’s flesh, and with skull still attached, he balanced the python’s head atop his own while its empty hide hung down his back like a hood and cape.
He roared again like a victorious bull ape and then laughed as an exciting thought struck him.
Gazda started through the trees, chuckling as he went, as his gory prize slid over the branches behind him. He laughed outright when he dropped silently from the overhead branches to land nearly center to his tribe that sat grooming in a great contented circle around their king.
When Gazda hit the ground he crouched low and hissed to hide his laughter, and all of his brethren, even Goro, turned to see a great python in their midst—and they screamed in terror! Rolling and jumping away the apes cringed in the undergrowth, or climbed shrieking into the high branches.
As Gazda got to his knees, and panted joyfully, the silverback recognized the small, bloody figure beneath the tattered snakeskin laughing happily at Goro, his king—his joke! The great silverback roared and bared his fighting fangs, and then pounded the ground with mighty fists.
He charged out of the undergrowth directly at the night ape.
Gazda realized the foolishness of his joke where he cringed in the grass as the bull ape thundered closer, thinking Goro yet mistook him for a snake and was set to kill him.
But at the last minute, the big silverback reached out with a powerful hand as he charged past and plucked the awful snake head and skin from Gazda’s gory back.
Wheeling away, the silverback dragged the snakeskin over the grass and dirt, and soon the entire tribe had taken to the trees while Goro screamed his great fury as he tore the dead snake’s hide to ribbons.
Gazda had run for the safety of the trees but was met halfway by his mother. He leapt for her open arms, and when well within her grasp, she bit him.
The night ape rolled away, crying out at the pain, as his mother charged after him beating his legs and back until he surrendered completely, crouching low in the grass with an open hand offered to her—but she slapped it away.
Rubbing at his injured shoulder, all thoughts of Gazda’s wounded pride were dispelled by his mother’s angry look. In the trees around them other apes hung from branches or clung together, all of them agitated and scowling at the night ape, slowing coming to understand what had occurred.
What had Gazda done?
“Gazda be different without shaming Goro or scaring tribe,” Eeda scolded, snapping her fangs to silence her son when he tried to speak. “The king treats Gazda like ape. The tribe treats Gazda like ape. So be ape not a snake!”
Gazda slumped in the grass before his mother as Goro continued to drag what remained of the dead and tattered snakeskin through the undergrowth.
Near the king, Omag had crept out of the trees with his blackback allies, intent upon the skin. The crippled ape’s astonishment was plain, and his realization was evident. Hooting excitedly he looked back and forth between the tangled snakeskin, and the dense brush that hid Gazda.
The night ape coughed and sat upright as the rest of the tribe continued to climb down from the trees. He was glad of the long grass and the bushes that grew about and hid his embarrassment.
He absently lifted the shiny stone disk that hung around his neck to show it to his mother, to remind her...but she looked away without giving the prize a glance.
Instead, Eeda tore strips of green bark from a nearby bush that she chewed upon while her embarrassed son leaned in beside her.
She ignored the pale and upturned palm he offered.
Gazda studied the shining disk and tried to smile but his mood only darkened further. His snakeskin trick had been funny, but it had come at a price—reminding everyone how different he was.
And with that thought, he remembered how the snake had hissed as it fought him, and how the night ape also hissed when he fought. This made Gazda think of the dead beast’s hairless skin, so much like his own in texture.
Gazda was like a snake and an ape!
He wrapped his arms around his knees and brooded for some time before his spirits rose again as he thought of the kill and the blood.
And if Gazda was like a snake? Did that matter if his differences gave him knowledge of the long knife? If it gave him the strength to kill a python that his entire tribe—even Goro—had run screaming from.
But would his trick make them afraid of Gazda too? Many in the tribe had no love for him already. That was the warning in his mother’s words.
He cheered up considerably when Eeda finally relented, panting her forgiveness before she started grooming the thick hair atop his head.
Gazda crooned with pleasure as the day sleep came upon him, but his mind still toyed with another notion. Perhaps the night ape would look for a skin that had fur on it, and like Fur-nose wear it to cover his own, so that he would not be so different.
Then Goro and the tribe could not complain.
CHAPTER 15 – The Call of Dreams
As young Gazda was growing into his 11th year, he had become more and more impatient with the boring day-to-day lives of the tribe. He was tired of grazing, chewing food, breaking nuts and shells and termite-fishing, fruit picking and ape grooming—and he found that his discontent could
