Forest of the Pygmies(17)
"It has a baby!" Alexander cried.
The gorilla's offspring was tiny—it couldn't have been more than a few weeks old—and it was clinging desperately to its mother's shaggy coat.
"We need to go get help. We're going to have to cut the net," Nadia decided.
They hurried back to the river as quickly as the terrain allowed and told the rest of the party what they had found.
"That animal could attack us," Brother Fernando warned. "Gorillas are peaceful, but females with young are always dangerous."
Nadia, however, had already laid her hands on a knife and started back, so everyone followed her. Joel could scarcely believe his good fortune: He was going to photograph a gorilla after all. Brother Fernando armed himself with his machete and a long stick. Angie carried the revolver and the rifle. Borobá led them straight to the trap, but when the gorilla saw herself surrounded by human faces she became frantic.
"This is a time when Mushaha's tranquilizer gun would come in very handy," Angie observed.
"She's terribly afraid. I'll try to get near her; you wait back there," Nadia directed.
Everyone stepped back several feet and crouched down among the ferns as Nadia and Alexander moved forward inch by inch, pausing, waiting, creeping a little closer. Nadia kept up a constant, soothing monologue, which seemed to calm the poor trapped animal, because after several minutes, the grunting stopped.
"Jaguar, look up there," Nadia whispered into her friend's ear.
Alexander looked up and high in the treetop saw a black, shiny face with close-set eyes and flattened nose observing them attentively.
"It's another gorilla. And it's much bigger than this one!" Alexander replied, also in a murmur.
"Don't look it in the eye. That's a threat to them; it might get angry," she counseled.
The other members of the group also saw the great ape, but no one moved. Joel's hands were tickling to focus his camera, but Kate dissuaded him with a sharp glance. The opportunity to be at such close proximity to these large creatures was so rare that they couldn't ruin it with a false move. A half hour passed and nothing happened; the gorilla in the tree did not move from its observation post, and the figure entangled in the net below was silent. Only her agitated breathing and the way she was holding her baby close betrayed her anguish.
Nadia began to crawl toward the trap, watched by the terrified female from the pit and by the male overhead. Alexander followed with the knife in his teeth, feeling vaguely ridiculous, as if he were in some Tarzan movie. When Nadia reached out to touch the netted animal, the tree branches where the larger gorilla sat swayed ominously.
"If he attacks my grandson, kill him right where he sits," Kate breathed to Angie.
Angie didn't respond. She was afraid that even if the animal were only three feet away she wouldn't be able to shoot it: The rifle was trembling in her hands.
The female never took her eyes off Nadia and Alexander as they crawled toward her, but she seemed a little more calm, as if she had understood the reassurances that Nadia repeated over and over that those humans were not the same ones who had set the trap.
"Easy, easy, we're going to get you out," Nadia kept murmuring, like a litany.
Finally the girl's hand touched the black pelt of the gorilla, which shrank away from the contact and showed her teeth. Nadia, however, did not remove her hand, and gradually the animal relaxed. At a sign from Nadia, Alexander began cautiously to drag himself toward her on his elbows. Very slowly, so as not to startle the frightened creature, he, too, began to stroke the gorilla's back, until she was comfortable with his presence. He filled his lungs with a deep breath, rubbed the amulet on his chest to give himself courage, and gripped the knife to cut some of the rope. The animal's reaction when she felt the metal blade so close to her hide was to draw up into a ball, protecting the baby with her body. Nadia's voice came from somewhere far away, penetrating her terrified mind, calming her; at her back she felt the friction of the knife and the tugging at the net. Cutting the rope turned out to take longer than expected, but finally Alexander succeeded in opening a hole large enough to free the prisoner. He signaled Nadia, and they both scooted back a few feet.
"Out! You can get out now!" she ordered.
Brother Fernando squirmed close to Alexander and handed him his stick, which the youth used to delicately prod the huddled form beneath the net. That had the desired effect. The gorilla raised her head, sniffed the air, and looked around her with curiosity. It took her some minutes to comprehend that she could move, and then she stood up and shook free of the net. When Alexander and Nadia saw her standing up with her baby at her breast, they had to cover their mouths to keep from yelling with excitement. They didn't move a hair. The gorilla crouched down, clutching her baby to her chest with one hand, and sat staring at the two young people with deep concentration.
Alexander shivered when it dawned on him how close the animal was. He felt the warmth of her body, and a black, wrinkled face swam only three or four inches from his own. He closed his eyes, sweating. When he opened them again, he saw a blurred, rosy muzzle filled with yellow teeth. His glasses were fogged over, but he didn't take them off. The gorilla's breath struck him square in the nose; it had the agreeable scent of freshly mowed grass. Suddenly the curious hand of the baby gripped a lock of his hair and tugged. Alexander, choking with happiness, stretched out one finger and the baby gorilla grabbed it as a human child would. The mother was not pleased with that show of confidence, however, and she gave Alexander a shove that knocked him flat, though she wasn't being aggressive. She uttered one emphatic grunt, in the tone of someone asking a question, and with two leaps bounded off to the tree in which the male was watching, and all three faded into the foliage. Nadia helped her friend to his feet.