Such visits left Gazda torn because they made him long for the tribe when he was away, yet their plodding lives always drove him back into isolation.
He remained a member of his adoptive tribe and would forever hold to that group, but he was a night ape, too—and without others of his kind, he was alone.
Gazda had continued to use the tree-nest as his lair and there he displayed his hunting trophies as Fur-nose had hanging skulls, horns and furs upon the wall. There he also kept oddities from his travels like the Bakwaniri bone-face, and there he had still more souvenirs that were a mystery to him: objects of transparent stone and other flotsam from the beach.
Still other treasures he had buried in graves behind the tree-nest at the jungle’s edge.
Gazda had surprised himself when on that awful night of his coronation, he’d been unable to leave little Ooso’s body to the flies, and instead had carried it back to bury alongside Kagoon.
They had been important apes in his life, and with the loss of his mother, then Goro, his great loneliness was sometimes soothed by the mere proximity of dead friends.
In good weather, Gazda slept in the shadows near them.
CHAPTER 6 – Weight of the Crown
The night ape had continued to develop and mature in the months following Goro’s death, with the weight of new responsibilities seemingly exercising his muscular and mental abilities.
Gazda’s long, strong limbs swelled with layers of knotted muscle and sinew, just as the flexible pillar formed of his torso, chest and neck had thickened into a solid, near impenetrable mass.
Despite his many frustrations, he had embraced his role of king if he did not love his duties. Gazda reveled in his stature among the other apes, and at the strength that surged through his body, and made him master of all he looked upon.
And there was no lack of respect and admiration from the tribe.
Gazda was King of the Apes and none would dare challenge his power, nor would they choose to for he had brought peace and harmony after the usurpation of Goro and Ulok.
The surviving blackbacks had healed from their injuries, and many were returning to their competitive and boastful ways. These were able creatures to support old Baho, who had been charged with leading the tribe during Gazda’s absences.
Gazda found his basic silverback responsibilities rather simple. He was to protect the tribe from predators and danger, lead them to feeding grounds and water, and select safe sleeping trees.
Being a creature of the night, Gazda traveled ahead of the tribe while they slept using his enhanced senses and speed to locate the best fruits and plants, and to select the simplest routes to them. He would then give these directions to Baho at dawn, before finding a secluded place to sleep.
On occasion, he would give this information along with a gift of flesh, the remains of any beast that had fallen to the night ape’s fangs, and was of a size large enough to feed the tribe.
This extra protein had been pivotal to the injured blackbacks’ rapid healing, and the other apes’ gradual return to their daily lives.
Which remained, for the most part, boring to their sovereign’s active mind.
Chief among his responsibilities was to act as the judge and advisor in all disputes within the tribe of apes. Gazda would sit at Two Trees or other place along the trail and administer tribal law, applying it to one case after another...and another.
In one instance, the blackback Kulo wished to mate with Eecha but she had refused him because she cared for another younger blackback Taba who all within the tribe understood to favor other males.
Gazda had pointed out that it was Eecha’s choice, though it would be wise for her to understand Taba’s nature if she wished to mate with him, reminding the she-ape of her duty as a female to bring strong infants into the tribe.
Kulo had departed the court bristling and quite angry, but Gazda did not worry that this would grow into violence for he knew there were other beautiful females, and if Taba continued to favor males, Eecha might come around to Kulo’s way of thinking given time.
There were many such domestic conflicts. In fact, they crowded the docket.
In one dispute a female had complained about another she-ape’s carelessness with her offspring and other infants. She fed them well enough but was neglectful of their health in other ways: sleeping when they played, and allowing them to roam the high branches unattended.
Already, she’d lost a little babe to a hungry male chimpanzee.
Gazda remembered the incident, and how he had turned it into an adventure by personally stalking the big chimp that slew the infant. After killing the beast, the night ape had indulged himself, and left the bloodless body hanging in a tree for the other chimpanzees to see.
With that neglectful she-ape standing before him again, the king had had no choice but to scold her roundly, reminding her that “mothers make the tribe. Their vigilance and care protected more than did the strength of blackbacks.”
Like Goro, Gazda was loath to bite or beat the she-apes, knowing that violence within the tribe only begat more violence.
While those cases occasionally provided some distraction from the day to day, Gazda’s administrative duties involved little more than ironing out simple squabbles between apes and resolving basic issues of tribal law.
So to avoid resenting those duties, Gazda made sure he spent the same amount of time or longer away fulfilling his obligation to protect the tribe by hunting leopards, hyenas, and anything that preyed upon apes—or by seeking the peace and quiet of his lair.
After all, the King of the Apes was himself one of the many mysteries in the land. He used the lair for turning the puzzle of his origins over in his mind for purely philosophical reasons, and to ponder other important issues that would inevitably require solutions.
Gazda
