Baho grunted, and scratched the stiff white whiskers on his scarred old jaw. “An ape that fears the source of his feelings fears his own heart and will wander lost upon the bank of that river of which I speak. As he does, the infant he hears wailing comes from his own mouth.”
“Does Goro wander this riverbank?” Gazda wondered, having heard the whispers of the silverback’s essential softness of spirit.
“Goro is strong,” the old bull ape growled curtly, thumping a heavy fist against the ground. “He has been to the source of this river to find the infant ape that once he was. There, Goro gathered up that babe in his great arms and carried him here to our tribe—and now within him is the strength of every ape he has ever been in his life, for he knows the lessons of his days. Only a fool would doubt that strength.”
“Where is this river you speak of, Baho?” Gazda asked, his curiosity aroused.
The old silverback stripped juicy leaves off a celery stalk and chewing said, “It is inside you, Gazda. I hear its waters rising in your throat.” Baho reached out and gently dabbed Gazda’s tears with his heavy knuckles. “It is leaking out, look!”
Baho panted with humor over his damp fingers, and with a sharp hoot, he pushed Gazda back into the leaves where the night ape rolled end over end.
“Gazda will find his answers if he looks,” Baho said, watching the young night ape rise into a crouch, but his old eyes shifted to where Omag brooded on a mound of stone beside the aging queens. The trio sat grooming the growing giant Ulok while the rest of the tribe built their sleeping nests in the branches overhead.
Baho involuntarily bared his fangs at the crippled ape before looking back to Gazda. “Remember your mother’s heart. She gave it to you and to this tribe that is her family—so it is your family. You will never be alone for she is here with us, and she is on the river of which I speak.”
A sudden chill went through Gazda and his pale face flushed as he looked away.
The night ape remembered Baho’s words, and in the days and weeks that followed, Gazda searched inside himself for the river the former silverback had described. As he tracked this thing, his mind shifted away from anger and revenge, and within, he remembered the days of his mother’s love, and the many warm places she still existed in his heart, and within the tribe.
In fact, he was pleased to find that signs of her were everywhere.
But great pain and shame always accompanied her spoor, and while his search for her heart kept him from the path of vengeance; it did not quiet his knowledge of those who had shared in his sin.
While upon her trail he came to accept his part in her death as accidental and he knew that his mother would agree.
But he could never forgive himself as she surely would have.
Still, the hunt helped him heal in the seasons that followed, though the strength that returned was destined for violence.
Halfway through Gazda’s 14th year, a pair of starving female lions entered the jungle to hunt in Goro’s land. It had been a dry spring in the highland plateau and many of the larger prides had broken up as they were forced to compete among themselves for scarcer game. The herds of zebra, wildebeest and gazelle had gone far to look for water and had not yet returned.
Those lions that had not followed the game were starving.
The jungle canopy held great reserves of water and from its stores grew food for the animals it nourished. The dense forest could pass the dry months with little change, and only a long drought would drastically impact the life there.
So the lionesses came looking for prey under the trees, and stalked the water trails where passing game would not expect the big predators.
Omag and the aging queens approached Goro to demand that the king do something about this, for there had been an incident involving one of the she-apes.
The crippled ape leaned heavily upon a strange thing he now used as a crutch to help him walk. His disease had twisted the bones in his right arm, shortening the limb, so this tool helped him move upon the ground, though in the trees he still swung with the swiftness of any ape.
The failed silverback had only recently returned from one of his absences and had brought the curious thing home with him.
On one end of a stout wooden stick, a broad, leaf-shaped shining stone was held by strips of hide, while on the other end this stick tapered to a sharp point. The crippled ape used the shining stone as a handle around which he’d wrap his long fingers, and lean upon the 20-inch wooden shaft with its splintered point driven into the ground to brace it.
For Omag it was a welcome aid to his shambling gait, while to its previous owner it was the iron blade, and splintered haft of an axe he had used to defend himself.
The crippled ape had finally satisfied his jealous yearning for Gazda’s shining fang by ambushing a bone-faced hunter by the river, killing him and stealing the axe he carried.
Omag had quickly understood the “walking stick” had other uses that only he could perceive.
Gazda and the other apes recognized the handle on Omag’s crutch as being made of a similar material to the night ape’s long knife, and many wondered at its origin.
The apes shrank back in huddled groups as Sip-sip swaggered and bristled before the king with the aging queens bowing low behind him. Omag reported that hunting lions had almost caught Amak, mother of Ooso, as she made her way to a nearby drinking pond. The she-ape had only survived by a lucky jump and catch at vines draped near the trail.
“A king will do something to protect
