The Ape Man's Brother Read online

  We watched as they ate from their supplies and went to bed. When we could hear them breathing deep in sleep, we climbed down and made our way cautiously on all fours toward where their packs were. We silently went at unfastening them, looking through them. Another trait of our kind is we’re dadburn thieves.

  What we found were cans of food, though we didn’t know that, and we tossed those aside in favor of dried meat and fruits; the kind of drying used for keeping something way past the time it ought to be kept.

  They had also, stupidly, left a number of their pots and pans they had prepared their meals in unwashed. It was just the sort of thing that could call up a beast or one of us Jungle Folk. I found a kind of goo in one of the pans with chunks of vegetables I didn’t recognize. I scooped it out on my finger and tasted it. I was suddenly aware—except for that one really swell meal after the plane crash—that what we had been eating was nothing more than grass and worms and ticks and stolen bird eggs and raw meat and such. This whole cooking thing was all right. You see, we Jungle Folk, smart as we were—and this is embarrassing to say—had yet to discover fire. And I might as well mention that we hadn’t found out about the wheel either, or the missionary position.

  So, me and The Big Guy are licking pans, and all of a sudden, The Woman is standing there. Next thing I know she’s jabbering in a language that at that point in time I didn’t understand. But I knew enough from her tone to know what she had to say wasn’t pleasant and had something to do with us.

  Next thing I know The Big Guy is walking up to her. He had a look on his face like he had just been born and was seeing the world for the first time. He reached out to touch her, and she gave him a kick in the old melons that would have made an elephant go to its knees. Damn sure made The Big Guy drop. Strangely, he had a smile on his face when he looked up at her.

  Frankly, she had me feeling a might warm and contented myself. I wasn’t sure why a non-hairy, clothed female should make me feel that way, but she did. And to reiterate, I never was quite the same for the hairy women folk of my tribe after that. One look at the woman had spoiled me.

  I had seen gold and I no longer wanted silver.

  [6]

  I have to go backwards a little, because as I said before, I tend to wander. But I should say that where we lived in that deep jungle was a kind of bowl. It dipped deep down on the sides and went wide, and as far as we knew, there was no way out. It was miles and miles across, in all directions. If we climbed up any one of the sides, moving through the trees, eventually, the trees played out. When that happened there were some rocks to climb, and caves, if you were willing to go up that high. There were nasty things that roosted in those caves and they had lots of teeth and could fly, so we were extra careful. Finally, above that, there were straight slick walls, all around, and way up for miles. And when I say slick, I mean slick. The stone that made up the walls was like glass, and often damp. It wouldn’t even hold moss that you could grab onto. There was no way to climb. For us, that deep bowl of jungle, and all it contained, was it. A plane flying over might not even know what it was looking at, with all that jungle hiding what was down below, and the fact that a mist rolled high and over most of it much of the time like a roof of sun-leaking cotton.

  At one time, Dr. Rice (and you will soon know who he is) in his zeppelin, exploring, saw our world. He had made an aerial expedition all the way from New York City, based on old records written by an Italian sailing captain and navigator who claimed to have found a large island, possibly a continent, rising out of the ocean. It was thought for centuries to be a myth, or an incorrect sighting of some known land, but Dr. Rice had taken it seriously and flown over our world by zeppelin, feeling sure that through the mist he had seen a flash of green, lush land. He told his colleagues, The Big Guy’s parents, and they thought they could follow Dr. Rice’s navigational information, fly out of Greenland, but the navigational charts were off, or they misread them. It was a longer trip than they expected. Even though they wouldn’t have had enough fuel to return, they made it to our world, had seen the ruins of our civilization, and were most likely looking for some place to land when the accident happened that turned them from archeologist to well-done with no sides.

  I learned all this later, of course. Dr. Rice’s guilty feelings about his report leading to The Big Guy’s parents trying to come to our world and losing their lives, led to his coming back on a possible rescue expedition, something it took him years to finance. He had hopes they and their baby son might have survived, some nineteen years later by the way they calculated time.

  But, there we were, me and The Big Guy, The Woman having caught us in their pans. She was mad, surprised, and there was sweat on her forehead, her hair coming loose from being tied back, falling on her cheeks and neck, one leg bent forward, the back leg ready for another kick.

  The Big Guy, the most powerful being I have ever seen, was on the ground holding his melons like he was testing them to see how ripe they were. Me, I’m just standing there grinning. My race is like that. We grin. It may look friendly, and sometimes it is, but it’s a grin that can mean a lot of different things. From, how about you and me go over in the bushes, to I’m about to bite your face off, or how about we share that dead snake. Even we have trouble sorting out meanings from time to time, and mistakes are sometimes made.

  So, there we stood.

  That’s when one of the men, a tall, flame-headed one, came running up, pointing one of those clubs at me. I’m thinking he can’t do much business with it, the way he’s holding it, part of it tucked against his shoulder and all. And then The Woman hits the end of it and the club goes up and barks, and fire comes out of the tip of it, and something rattles off in the bushes, like a rock has been thrown, and an suspecting monkey falls dead out of a tree without so much as a squeak.

  I shit all over the place. It’s not an unnatural reaction to fear, I might add. It’s just I didn’t know it was unseemly or might even be thought of as cowardly by those of your race, so I just let it fly. There’s a comfort in it, and I want to add promptly that though I had this problem for quite some time, and the chimpanzee that played me in the movies certainly had some similarities, I was quickly civilized on the matter. I know. I’ve brought this up before, but I’m bothered by it, and I want people to know I’ve moved on from my primitive state, and though I’m a little embarrassed by the subject, I feel it is only fair that I trudge ahead and be honest and stress my developmental growth.

  Next thing I knew, The Big Guy was up, and stirring. He could always recover from something bad quicker than anyone I have ever known. He grabbed that banging club and jerked it out of that man’s hands and hit him in the head with it, knocked him down. Then he held it by what I now know to be the stock of the rifle, and grabbed the barrel, and he bent that barrel like it was a green vine. Bent it and tossed it into the greenery. Damn if he didn’t bang another monkey. It fell out of the undergrowth and into the moonlight and thrashed around on the ground, then sort of crawled off to cover inside a flowered bush and quivered for awhile before it went still. It was not a good day for monkeys.

  All the others of The Woman’s group came running up then. They all had the same kind of clubs. They were pointing them at us. During all this action, I had rushed up beside The Big Guy. I thought it was going to be a fight to the death, and I was more than willing, maybe even a little anxious to try it out, see how we’d fare against all those men. I had no idea about the guns, then. I had heard one, and I had seen it spit fire, but I didn’t know they threw bullets. I thought that first monkey had just fainted at the sound of the shot. I thought it would be us against them, arms against arms, legs against legs, fists against fists, skulls against skulls, and their clubs against us. But, of course, that isn’t how it would have been. That many armed men, no matter how strong and quick The Big Guy was, no matter how savage the both of us were, we’d have lasted just about long enough for our balls to swing once between our legs before we hit the gr
ound, torn apart by bullets. What saved us was The Woman raised her hand and yelled at the others. Everything stopped. She stood staring at The Big Guy, and he stood staring at her.

  The Big Guy had never seen anything like her, all curved up in the right places, wet, red lips and shiny blue eyes. And she was looking at a very big man with dark hair and a body that was all long, lean muscle, dirt and scars and deep suntan; from the way her face relaxed, I had a pretty good idea she liked what she was looking at as much as he liked what he was looking at.

  It was while they were looking at one another, The Woman with her arm raised, holding back action from those behind her, that there was a screech loud enough to make my backbone shift. A great shadow flowed across the moon and a flying, feathered lizard as big as one of your air planes, swooped down and grabbed The Woman by hooking its claws in her shoulder.

  Those damn things were all over our part of the world. A nuisance is what they were. So, it was pretty much over for The Woman, I thought, and then the next thing I know The Big Guy is running. I mean, he is moving. He took to one of the tall trees, and went up it swiftly. Those flying creatures have an odd habit of grabbing something, then circling back, maybe to see if they’ve left part of it on the ground. This habit was something The Big Guy, of course, was fully acquainted with, and he took advantage of it.

  It was circling back, true to from, and The Big Guy having judged its circle had quickly climbed that tree, and as the thing winged by, The Big Guy leaped and effortlessly landed on its back. He wrapped one arm around its neck, went to beating its hard head with his free fist. You could hear him whapping it all the way from where we stood.

  As the thing flew over us, blood sprinkled down on us from the The Big Guy’s blows, that and brains from that thing, and the next thing you know, its crashing into a tree, and letting go of The Woman. The Big Guy, moving faster than a snake can strike, leaped off that flying, twisting, falling wreck, grabbed The Woman’s arm as he went, and swung them both into the leafy boughs of the tree.

  There they were, standing on a limb in a tall tree, her shoulder slightly wet with blood, bleeding through the cloth of her torn shirt, and there he was, standing without clothes, staring into her eyes; his pecker standing up like a snake rising to strike. She moved the short distance between them, took hold of his long, tangled hair, pulled him to her, pressed her mouth against his, and even from where we stood, that kiss sounded like someone pulling their foot out of a deep mud puddle.

  “That son-of-a-bitch,” said the flame-headed guy, who I would later learn was called Red.

  The Big Guy picked her up with one arm, leaped off the limb, grabbed another limb with his free hand, swung them up into the cover of a thick-leafed tree, and they were gone. Let me add as an aside, swinging from limb to limb with one hand while holding a very fine and sturdy female is not a feat that anyone else I know of, other than The Big Guy, could accomplish.

  I took off.

  The men were so shocked to see what had happened, that they didn’t know if they should yell or turn in a circle or draw pictures in the dirt. By the time they looked for me, I was across the clearing and into the trees.

  [7]

  I caught up with The Big Guy and The Woman about nightfall. The Woman had removed her coverings; she was as naked as The Big Guy. There were streaks of blood where the great winged beast had grabbed her, and that attack would leave a scar on her shoulder, three slash marks. The two of them were in the cup of a big limb that had been struck by lightning and hollowed out by it. There were soft leaves laid out in the cup, and they were resting on top of them. What they were doing wouldn’t pass for anything other than what it was; I’ll use a more common English phrase. They were fucking like there was no tomorrow.

  They were so at it I didn’t even announce that I had shown up, though The Big Guy could smell me. As he did his business, her screaming and him grunting, he waved a hand at me that let me know to keep my distance. I did. But I watched. Carefully. I had never seen such goings on. Usually, in the jungle, we jump it and do it and get on with looking for something to eat.

  This was different. He moved her in different positions, and she let him, and it was well midday when they quit cooing and fell asleep in the cup of the limb. I sat around for awhile, then went out and found some fruit to eat. I brought some of it back with me.

  They ate the fruit I brought, and then they went back at it. I think somewhere in all this The Woman realized from the way The Big Guy and myself interacted, that I wasn’t a pet. I didn’t know that’s what she was thinking at the time, but I can look back on events now with acquired knowledge. I think it’s a little different knowing the family dog is watching you go at it, but once you realize that what you thought was a pet is a best friend having secondary thrills, that changes thing.

  When that realization settled down on her, she got downright prudish. I was surprised The Big Guy didn’t just make her do what he wanted, because as I said, we were primitive, but he didn’t. He seemed hurt by her reaction. He pouted. He made hooting noises, clicking noises, and screaming noises for complaint. For her complaint, she slapped him so hard it knocked him off the limb.

  He grabbed another. Climbed rapidly back up. His face had a red mark in the shape of her fingers on it. I thought this was it. Now we were going to kill her and eat her. But no, that didn’t happen.

  When he was back up there with her, he hung his head and whimpered. She looked at him for a long moment, her face softened, and she took him into her arms and held him, looking at me over his shoulder with a glare that was nearly strong enough to kill the fleas in my fur.

  Me, I went hunting.

  [8]

  Now, I could go into a blow by blow recreation of what happened next, but frankly, that part is not all that interesting. Simply put, The Woman, having covered herself in her coverings again, took the The Big Guy back to the camp with her, or to be more precise, nearby, and I went along with them. She had somehow developed a way of making the The Big Guy understand what she wanted, mostly with hand motions, and I believe this was possible because they were so naturally attracted to one another.

  Anyway, she went into camp and did some talking while we watched from hiding, tucked back in the bush. There was some yelling from the flame-headed man, who had tried to shoot The Big Guy, and there was a lot of conversation from the others, but finally she came to collect us and led us into camp. The Big Guy went without hesitation, being so caught up in The Woman’s spell. I on the other hand was nervous. The flamed-headed man, Red, who had tried to shoot The Big Guy, was eyeing us and then looking toward his rifle which was stacked against a tree nearby. He wanted that thing as bad as a worm wants a corpse.

  We walked for a ways with them for no other reason than we were invited and wanted to, and in time, just before the sun melted down into the jungle and the ground, we came to a long, dark thing that looked like some kind of giant vegetable. It bobbed in the air on ropes. It was not high off the ground, and underneath it was a kind of box-shape with what to me then looked like eyes that went all the way around, but were in fact glass housed in the frames of a cabin. I know now that it was a zeppelin. There was wooden ramp that led up from the ground to the opening of the cabin. We were easily convinced to go up that ramp and inside, and then the ramp came up and became our door, and we were closed in.

  There wasn’t any panic. We had not been forced, and in fact, it was something we wanted to do. For uncivilized wild men, we proved to be putty in the hands of the woman. A smile and a laugh and everyone was inside and the ropes that were looped through metal pegs on the ground, were let loose with a crank and a groan of machinery. The ropes threaded through the pegs and the pegs were left, and we were aloft. We rose quickly and smoothly, into the mist that covered our world, and then we lifted up through that roof of mist into clearer air. Up there I saw a great winged lizard flying. I never knew they came this high, because I never knew how high was high. It flapped its wings and the crew o
f the zeppelin oohed and ahhed, and on we went, high and then wide, over the tops of the slick walls that contained our world. We stood by the glass and watched as that world moved away from us and the world below turned blue. It was water, but we had never seen so much water. It went on forever, and we sailed across it, rising higher and higher, moving quickly away from our home.

  We were in a way captured specimens, but we didn’t know it. The old bearded man was ecstatic. I don’t know what he truly thought about his daughter’s escapades with The Big Guy, not what he was thinking down inside of him, but he seemed fine with it. I didn’t think about that then, of course, because as I said, our ideas about what is proper and improper varied considerably from those of the civilized, of which I am now one, but later I would think on it and decide either the old man was very progressive about such matters, or the idea that his daughter had lured in such unique specimens as The Big Guy and myself surpassed any sort of fatherly propriety he may have possessed. At this late date, and it’s still only a guess, I am going with the former view instead of the latter.

  So there we were, as stunned as if we had been run over by a water buffalo, looking out the window glass of the cabin as the zeppelin rose up and our world became a dark line in the distance capped with fog, resting there in the great blue water in such a way it seemed the sky had been turned upside down and the dark line of our home was a wound in the fallen sky, blanketed by a cloud.

  Inside the cabin there was plenty of space. There was a man in a funny hat standing at the wheel beside the captain, a position I learned of later. The captain’s name was Zeppner and he worked for Dr. Rice. There were many other crew members, and there were a number of jobs they did. During the time we were aloft, and that was a goodly time, we would find out that the cabin branched out through a door and there was a place where the cook prepared meals and there was a mess, and there were rooms off of it. One of these rooms we shared with The Woman’s father, so perhaps his propriety was wider and deeper than I would think, but it may have been merely a polite custom to separate a man without clothes from his daughter, as well as myself. I think it took a few days for them to decide if I was man or animal. I think the final decision was somewhere in-between.