Just now, Gazda had opened his senses to his surrounds, scanning the jungle trail below for evidence of his favorite food, a small antelope or bushbuck. The short-horned beasts had tasty red blood that would appeal to a leopard too, so he had decided to catch one of the creatures for a meal, and then set its flesh out afterwards to serve as bait. He knew that no jungle predator would pass up such an offering of fresh meat.
The moon moved behind the clouds, and in the descending night a familiar glowing shape gleamed brightly against the sudden darkness that opened up below. It was moving quickly along the path, the incandescent spark flickering as it passed beneath the underbrush, so Gazda circled through the branches, before dropping swiftly earthwards while clinging tightly to a vine.
With a single swinging motion, the night ape flew close to the ground while reaching out to snatch the bushbuck from the trail before the vine began its arcing upward climb toward the trees, where he came to rest on a twisted bough.
Gazda wasted no time slashing the bushbuck’s jugular with his fangs and hungrily lapping at the blood that flowed from the dying creature, but he pulled away suddenly near the end so that he did not completely drain the beast.
The remaining blood-scent would bring a leopard. Gazda’s short meal had invigorated him while leaving room for the carnivore’s blood he planned to feast upon later.
The night ape clamped the bushbuck’s neck between his teeth and climbed down to the jungle path where he laid the warm carcass on the earth under the low-hanging branches of an ironwood tree.
Gazda positioned himself on a thick limb some 15 feet over the bait where he stretched out on his belly, arms and legs ready to coil and leap at the first sign.
The trap was set.
Thunder rumbled and interrupted the incessant calls of the creatures that filled the trees around the night ape.
Gazda frowned up at the first light patter of raindrops upon the leaves. Then, as the rain picked up, the normal night sounds ceased altogether and were replaced by the rushing roar of the growing downpour.
The night ape took it without complaint since the high canopy broke up the worst of the rain, absorbing and scattering the deluge, and he believed the sound from it could cover any unintentional noises he might make, which would give him and his long knife an edge when a leopard came.
He waited, watching and listening to the rainfall, as droplets ran over his back and legs. He saw several small creatures scurry across the jungle floor, some halting to sniff the dead bushbuck; others simply flitted from one terrifying shadow to the next.
The jungle was dangerous at night.
The rain continued, and Gazda’s long hair was soon soaked and hanging down around his face where it dripped onto the path below. He pushed it back over his shoulders, and wedged it behind his pointed ears but the weight of rainwater soon had it falling forward again.
The night ape shifted his position as time crawled by, and soon Gazda was bored, as if he was watching old Baho snore in his nest of elephant plant leaves.
Gazda’s thoughts drifted from there toward the general coarseness of his adoptive tribe. Their lives were a constant struggle against the elements, but the rewards they received were so simple and plain.
Grooming, fruit and grubs—family, certainly—but the night ape could never be satisfied with such an end. Family then? He cared for Ooso, but he did not think of her, or any of the other she-apes, in a way suggestive of mating or offspring.
He grunted to himself acknowledging that even the meager prize of tribal contentment that the apes often experienced in the idyllic green jungle could so easily become a chaotic display of madness as Omag or some young blackback lost control of his brutish emotions and terrorized the tribe.
Dramatic, but it led nowhere, and came to nothing.
And yet, the others in the tribe were content, not as restless as he. Was this just another difference between him and the other apes? He found them boring, but did that make him better? Sometimes it felt that way to him, when chaos disrupted the calm, when his fellows became lost in their passions. Then he quietly admired the differences that made him what he was.
At those times, Gazda was pleased to be a night ape.
Thunder startled him from his reverie, and the branch shook beneath him as he caught his balance. Yawning, he raised his head.
Gazda had never imagined that hunting meat eaters would be boring. Like many young animals he craved action, even if it came with the possibility of death. He panted quietly to himself, thinking it a fine joke that dying might be better than listening to Baho’s snoring...
He opened his eyes on a jungle that was silent except for the incessant drip of raindrops. The downpour must have ceased while he drowsed. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the sky flickered behind the canopy.
Asleep? Gazda pushed the hair out of his face, and drew his legs and arms under him, coiled to spring. Holding his breath as his pulse flared, he felt the hairs along the back of his neck prickle.
So stupid to doze off—boredom and the bushbuck blood had caused it, made him drowsy and distracted.
He cast about the night with his senses, the action dropping his lank hair into his face again. Hooking the long locks behind his ears, he wondered why the animals were still silent. Did they know the rain would return, or had the other beasts noticed his presence?
A blood-curdling scream came close behind him, and Gazda leapt from the branch; but not quickly enough to escape a wide, black paw that struck at him as he fell; its long claws sunk into the flesh of
