Many of the other young blackbacks had followed the action, and ambled out of the jungle to recount the mock battle and boast of the fights that were yet to come.
Goro tensed as they crowded around, and gave a powerful shout that caused them all to cower and offer their open hands in friendship. The king panted at his joke and soon the younger apes hooted their merriment in turn, some dropping to their backs as Goro pretended to savage their throats with his fearsome teeth.
Some of these were his sons, all were of his tribe.
The silverback was first to hear Eeda’s cries.
He climbed to his feet and stood erect; the action and his stance immediately copied by his underlings. Then Goro stood listening; interpreting the voice he’d heard. A female, but it was not the call made to describe any of the fanged cats or choking snakes that hunted apes.
Also, the riot of noise from the thick jungle continued unabated. If it were a carnivore, it would be silent. Instead, the jungle’s inhabitants squawked and screeched at trespassers.
A chase through the treetops, it seemed. There, Goro heard more birds cry out, swooping and dodging to protect their nests.
The danger had not come from outside of the tribe.
Some female was unhappy with her mate, or had refused him and punishment was being meted out—perhaps...
He grunted powerfully, and started moving, leaning forward on his thick arms, strutting on all fours toward the tribe with a force of blackbacks at his heels.
A king’s work was never done.
But he would arrive too late, for Omag had chased Eeda far into the high canopy where the trees stretched for the sunlight. In her fear and desperation the female had chosen the tallest tree, and this lapse of judgment meant she soon found herself scrambling upward through the thinnest branches with the treetop shaking.
Omag bellowed, driving her upwards, his rage blinding him to all danger. The branches under him were already cracking from his great weight, but he pushed on, gripping the ever-thinning trunk with his powerful hands and feet as Eeda screamed above him
He shook the tree as he lunged and snapped at the female’s legs, as she made a desperate leap for a tree that grew near...
...and fell. For Omag’s contortions upon the swaying trunk had caused her to misgauge the distance of her jump.
Branches slashed at her as Eeda hurtled earthward, grabbing for them, seeking anxiously for any purchase; until she caught hold of one that held her weight. But the sudden jolt of her body’s deceleration caused Kado’s little fingers to slip through her glossy fur, and without a grip, he fell.
She made a desperate grab for him, but her fingers only brushed his coat.
Eeda watched, horrified, as her son plunged a hundred feet to the jungle floor.
Goro charged out of the forest roaring and pounding his mighty chest as Eeda crouched over her dead infant. The jungle behind the king shook and rumbled as his escort of noisy blackbacks arrived and spread out to take protective positions around the anxious tribe.
Omag dropped out of a tree and squatted by Eeda’s side.
The king flashed his fangs as he charged, his momentum causing him to surge against his old challenger, wedging Omag against the tree with his heaving chest.
The crippled ape lowered his head and extended an open hand of friendship and submission.
Stepping back, Goro snarled at Omag’s gesture, but brushed the fingers with his own knuckles before he turned to Eeda who knelt whimpering and keening over her son.
The silverback grumbled and leveled a fierce look at Omag as the series of events was described to him. Goro glared at the rest of the tribe who had begun inching closer, reaching out and sniffing the air near the dead infant.
The jealous old queens Oluza and Akaki came forward, moaning and panting with sympathy, but generally approving of Omag’s fury at the glossy-haired young female’s son. Eeda should have taken better care of her little one and kept him out of Omag’s reach.
They scornfully suggested she’d do a better job with her next son for both older females knew that unlike themselves, Eeda was well-favored by the males, and coveted by all.
Their harsh message was: There will be other offspring—mourn this one quickly and move on.
After bending low to sniff the dead infant, Goro looked at Eeda with sadness, and then lumbered away with only a quick glance at Omag.
Whatever the insult, as a bull ape Omag had a right to demand respect from the females and the young whether crippled or not. Goro felt the big male had overreacted, but he would refrain from judgment, lest the other mature blackbacks felt their king did not respect tribal law.
Eeda should have let Omag punish her son, or taken the punishment upon herself. Fleeing from him into the high branches had been rash and only invited the calamity. She should not have been so careless with her child.
The silverback or another male would give her an infant to fill the little one’s place after an appropriate period of grieving was observed. Goro paced away, his sadness lifting. He was certain that the apes of his tribe would support the young mother in her anguish. Life would go on as was the way.
But Eeda was incapable of being practical.
She ignored the generous offers of grooming and comfort from the other females and then further their curious snorts as she lifted the dead babe, and carried it with her, cradling him as if he were still alive.
CHAPTER 3 – Eeda
Goro’s tribe had been on the march for a day, and was now getting close to the berry patch that surrounded Fur-nose’s lair; yet one member of the troop lagged behind. She stumbled along after the others, her head low and her eyes haunted. She moved awkwardly, using only one arm to support her forward-leaning gait while the other was folded over her chest to cradle the body of her dead son.
But now
