There was still much to repair, and he couldn’t return to the tribe until he was healed or they would learn his secret, if secret it was, and be amazed, frightened or threatened.
He was swooning and exhausted, and his breath was coming raggedly. He needed more blood, but he wanted this panther’s skin. It would show the others what he had learned.
Gazda would not be caught unaware again, and he would hone his hunting skills until all the jungle trembled when he roared.
CHAPTER 17 – A Great Killer
Gazda made good on his word, and ever after, he was hunting.
From that first great kill, he had the panther’s skin as trophy; but being dead flesh, the hide would soon draw flies and decay like any lifeless thing in the jungle. Unless...
...he remembered the pile of hides in the tree-nest. These had been dried and prepared in a way that he did not understand, but the notion fed the desire to preserve his prize.
So back at the tree-nest he copied the dried skins of Fur-nose by scraping the flesh and blood from inside the hide and laying it flat on the boards outside the door to dry.
The night ape examined the two skins that Fur-nose had kept flat within the looped sticks, but after a couple of attempts to repeat the procedure, Gazda had given up with plans to try another time. His panther skin was beginning to smell in the jungle heat so would not tolerate much delay.
While he waited for the hide to dry, Gazda studied the coverings on Fur-nose’s corpse. It was evident to him that the strange creature had hidden his naked skin. He wore a bag made of fur on his head, and he had disguised his limbs behind the strange woven material.
The thought of wearing the prized panther skin in a similar fashion thrilled the night ape.
So Gazda searched the lair and found other coverings of similar shape and construction to the rotten things draped upon the skeleton, and after much struggle, he discovered how some of the dusty garments were worn.
Standing there clothed in Fur-nose’s baggy tunic and pants, Gazda briefly considered wearing them with his panther skin while on the hunt. However, after moving on all fours while wrapped in the confining clothes he rejected the idea. They felt like they were smothering him and he was even briefly panic-stricken when the material clung to his arms and throat, restricting the movements necessary to draw his long knife!
So he tore the coverings off and threw them aside, to stand naked before the corpse of Fur-nose.
The strange garments did not suit Gazda’s requirements, but they inspired him to find the means for covering his body—not out of shame—but in celebration. He was a night ape and a great hunter as Fur-nose seemed to have been.
And night apes covered their skins.
Gazda was too impatient to let the panther hide dry completely, so he took it up and carefully cut a narrow piece from it. This he used as a rough covering for his loins by wrapping it through the belt that held his long knife. From the rest of the big pelt, he made a long mantle that closed at his throat by twisting together the fur that had covered the beast’s forelegs.
That garment fell back over his shoulders like a cape that would keep the sun off his back if he hunted outside the forest, or when the tribe gathered around the Grooming Rock. At night it would hide his pale skin from his enemies and his prey.
He did another thing too. Gazda used the skin from the dead beast’s tail and twisted it into a fuzzy loop that ran around his head to keep his hair away from his eyes. He had been reckless to let it hang into his face before—so reckless, yet this the black panther had taught him too.
In time the uncured leather would begin to stink and grow hard as it rotted, but Gazda had no regrets for the rank odor hid his true scent, and might strike fear into the hearts of other carnivores.
And he could always find another beast to skin.
The panther had taught Gazda more than the dangers of sleeping while on the hunt. The creature’s black fur stood out in stark contrast to his own pale coloration, a handicap that made stealth almost impossible for the night ape in the dark jungle shadows.
Which reminded him of something. One day while skirting a stream, he had been shocked to see a knobby log on the bank open its eyes and slide into the water. A crocodile had been lying there made indistinguishable from its surroundings by the dark brown mud that covered it.
A lethal piece of wood.
Remembering this, Gazda saw the sense in the crocodile’s choice, and he decided to cover his own body with mud, at least those parts that protruded from beneath the panther skin.
He was pleased to find that unlike the rotting hide at his waist and upon his back, the mud hid the night ape’s flesh, and disguised his scent with a neutral smell.
He came to think of the slippery addition as his “mud-skin.”
The apes in Goro’s tribe did not know what to think of these developments.
When Gazda returned with black panther fur at his waist and its skin draped over his back, some found it hard to believe that he had slain the beast by himself. No group of hunting blackbacks had ever dared such formidable prey, so how could one skinny freak accomplish the feat.
Other than the hide, there was no proof that there had ever been a panther, and since there were no scars on his body save the mysterious one across his brow—well, this made them doubt the more, for how could any ape kill a black panther and come away without scars?
Of the mud covering his own skin? The apes generally regarded this as
