“There,” the tribe would whisper, “is the ape who will challenge Goro.” But he was still young, and had not yet grown into his full power. When that happened, then the tribe would tread softly whenever visiting the Two Trees.
Omag’s illness had continued to worsen, twisting the bones in his right arm, and consuming the flesh on his left cheek from the top of his muscled crest and down the jaw to the shoulder, and breast. The exposed flesh and veins had scabbed over in places, but would open up when the crippled ape moved about. Then they would ooze pus and dark fluids that collected by his ruined mouth and dripped from the hole in his face.
The lips on that side no longer stayed closed and remained barely under his control. He still managed to communicate articulately enough to be understood, though he was helped enormously by the ape-language’s reliance upon gestures.
The sip-sip sounds that accompanied his distorted mouth’s many failings had grown more pronounced, as had his indignation and violence toward anyone drawing attention to it.
His disease helped drive his ambition now, the crippled ape aware that as his handicaps grew worse, so would his ability to provide for himself. He needed power and influence to survive.
Sip-sip, as many still called him in whispers, continued to leave the tribe from time to time and while the other apes wondered about this, they did not care. As a “failed” silverback, it was normal for such surviving males to leave the tribe to start groups of their own.
However, Omag could be such a repulsive character that even his loyal blackbacks resisted the notion of starting a separate tribe with him, and many believed his disease would kill him before that could happen.
Luckily, their loyalty had yet to be tested, because Omag always returned to Goro’s tribe.
When Gazda wasn’t testing his muscles against the other young males, he was prowling about the jungle hunting animals, ever in search of a greater prize. He was a powerful fighter and enjoyed stalking the black panthers and spotted leopards, and as a result, he had begun keeping trophies at the tree-nest: skulls, and skins from which he cut replacements for his loincloths and capes as those he wore decayed.
In later years after he’d taken to using the mud-skin, he mainly used the capes under a full moon because carrying the garment between uses was cumbersome, and so he began hiding replacements high in the trees along the common ape trails.
Gazda had developed an appetite for the succulent bushpigs that charged along the game trails winding through the jungle, and he usually satisfied that craving on his own to avoid the mad rush that accompanied the larger cooperative ape hunts. Those affairs often degenerated into violent exchanges when the kill was made, blood spilled and the tribe tried to dine en masse while observing primitive rules of hierarchy.
Going solo meant the night ape could enjoy the hunt and drink his fill of blood without the drama, and yet he still participated with the others because like all apes he valued his membership in the tribe—and it was during those competitions for food that each member’s place within it was diminished, reinforced or advanced.
If Gazda’s hunt and kill produced a very large bushpig, he would shoulder its corpse and bring it back through the trees to the tribe. The other apes would scream in anticipation for this fleshy windfall, but could only feed after Goro and his lieutenants had stuffed their guts.
In those cases, Gazda tore off hunks of meat before the rest, and made his way through the riot of struggling anthropoids to find a quiet place where he could dine in his own fashion.
Just as the younger apes had hounded him for chewed mouthfuls of berries, nuts and maggots, one of his friends had remembered this peculiarity and capitalized upon it by snatching up and devouring the hunks of meat that he spat out.
Being a female of small stature, Ooso was often muscled out of the feast that followed tribal hunts, so in times past would wait while Gazda forced his way through the feeding apes to come away with meat.
It was Ooso’s good fortune that her friend enjoyed sharing his prize. Now that she had an infant on the way, the rich food was of great importance. She still had not chosen a mate for herself, or identified the baby’s father from among her suitors.
“Ooso is greedy,” Gazda teased. “Wants many mates.”
“Gazda is foolish,” Ooso said, dining on a chunk of pre-chewed pig he’d thrown away. “Wants to be small as Ooso without any meat!”
Gazda hunted every night to feed his thirst, while the tribe only staged their hunting rituals during the fertile season when there was plenty of fruit, nuts and grasses available to fuel their bodies for the exhausting work involved in catching monkeys and other small game. In the dry season when their usual foods were not in abundance, they could not afford the energetic chase.
But Gazda hunted for blood whenever he required it.
His skills improved at every outing, and his vigorous nocturnal activities left him growing in strength and speed, if it did leave him exhausted during the day.
While traveling with the tribe Gazda knew his naps still drew disdain, and now that he had so many personal scores to settle among the blackbacks; he was concerned with what would happen should they search him out while he slept alone and exposed, or on the rare occasion with only his mother in place for protection.
With those thoughts in mind, he began to search for more remote places to sleep, where neither the blackbacks nor his mother might ferret him out.
So after returning from a night’s hunt with the jungle growing light around him, he would
