But Go-lot could not watch all directions at once. Zu-yad had arrived, and he reached out and grabbed Jean by the leg, pulled her from between Go-lot's legs, tugged her behind him. He beat his chest and snarled. Jean lay still on the ground, waiting for a moment in which she might escape.
She watched the apes bark and growl, not knowing that they were speaking a language.
"I am the king," Zu-yad said. "The prize is mine."
Go-lot snarled and bared his fangs. "You are weak. I am to be the king. The female tarmangani is mine!"
"Come and take her," Zu-yad said.
Go-lot charged. The two came together with a great grunt and a slapping of chests, and then they grabbed each other and rolled about in the leaves. Members of the tribe formed a circle, awaiting the outcome.
Go-lot was strong, but Zu-yad was experienced. It wasn't the first time he had defended his leadership. He knew better how to grab Go-lot. How to twist his head down so that he might bite him in the back of the neck.
For a moment, Go-lot felt lost. His neck was aching with Zu-yad's bites. He considered submitting, hoping for mercy. Then he felt Zu-yad weaken, felt his mouth and strength take hold, and that was all it took. Go-lot ducked and grabbed one of Zu-yad's legs and caught him around the neck with the other, lifted him high above his head, and dropped him facedown across his extended knee. Something cracked in Zu-yad's chest.
Go-lot drove his forearm against the back of Zu-yad's neck. Once. Twice. This time, the cracking sound was even louder. Zu-yad rolled off of Go- lot's knee, onto his back. His legs twitched and his mouth frothed blood. The scene held for yet another moment. A fly came out of the jungle and lit on one of Zu-yad's open eyes. The ape did not blink.
Go-lot leapt into the air suddenly, came down on his hind legs beating his chest, bellowing, "I, Go-lot, am king!"
The other apes grunted and clapped.
"I, Go-lot," continued the great ape, straddling Jean again, "am the strongest. The best."
"You are lucky."
Go-lot wheeled. A bronze man with a great lion beside him was pushing back the brush, stepping into the clearing. Jean turned, saw that it was her wild man, but he was barking and snarling like the apes. She thought it might be best if she just carefully crawled off, leaving the whole lot. The world had gone mad.
Go-lot could not believe his eyes. Who was this man who spoke the language of the apes? Who was this man who walked with the jungle's most deadly killer? Go-lot could not decide wha t he felt most. Surprise at the man, or fear of the lion. Surprise finally ruled, then turned to anger, when, again, in the language of the great apes, Tarzan said: "You are lucky to beat an old one who had but a short time to live anyway. I'm surprised he didn't die in your arms before you struck a blow."
Go-lot's jaw dropped. "Who are you? How is it a tarmangani speaks the language of our tribe?"
"I am Tarzan. Tarzan of the Apes."
Go-lot bared his teeth. "I have heard of you. I thought you were but a lie of the elders."
"I am of a people like yours," Tarzan said. "And I tell you now, let the woman go, or I will kill you."
Go-lot snarled. "You mean you and your beast will kill me."
"No," Tarzan said. "I want the pleasure for myself. Stay, Jad-bal ja."
Tarzan pulled his great knife, moved toward the circle of apes. Jad-bal-ja sat on his haunches, waiting. He wondered if Tarzan would let him eat the dead ape, or maybe the one Tarzan was about to kill. He certainly hoped so. The meat of a great ape was very tasty.
Suddenly Tarzan charged. "Kree-gah!" he shouted. 'Tarzan kill." Tarzan's body loosened, and he came forward, bent, running with the backs of his knuckles on the ground, growling, hooting.
Jean was astonished at this display. The man looked more beast than human. She did not know how to feel. Once again, she thought slipping off would be the ticket. But there was no opportunity. No way to get through the circle of apes unnoticed. She could do nothing more than watch, mesmerized.
Go-lot pounded his chest in defiance, then, dropping to his knuckles, Go-lot charged. Go-lot was astonishingly quick. He leapt like a panther, his long arms reaching out for Tarzan's neck, closing on it.
Then Tarzan was not there. He ducked low and hit Go-tot in the ribs with his shoulder, brought the knife up quickly, and buried it in Go-lot's belly. Go-lot charged past, wheeled, hurled himself back at Tarzan. Tarzan sidestepped. The knife flashed again. Go-lot made two long steps, stumbled, stood, wheeled, his belly opened up, and his innards began to roll out in a smelly, steamy heap.
Go-lot looked down at his insides. Instinctively, he grabbed at them, as if to gather them up. Then he looked at Tarzan, turned his head to one side quizzically, and fell forward on his face, smashing the oozing contents of his body with a loud squish.
The great apes sat silent. Astonished. They looked at Go-lot, lying in his own guts. They looked at Tarzan, crouched, ready to fight, the great claw in his hand, red with blood from its point to the ape
man's elbow.
While the apes remained amazed, Tarzan slipped the knife in its sheath quickly, darted to where Jean lay, and pulled her to her feet. He said, "Come. Now."
No sooner had Tarzan wheeled with Jean toward the jungle, his arm around her waist, than the apes, frozen for the moment, came undone, let out a bellow and pursued them in mass. When Tarzan darted past Jad-bal ja, the lion snarled.
"Too many," Tarzan told the lion in the language of the apes. He tightened his grip on Jean's waist and took to the trees.
"Hang tight," he said.
This was not a command Jean needed. She clung with all her strength. As they rose into the trees, carried by the arm and leg strength of Tarzan, Jean let out a scream, but a moment later she was silent. There was no air left in her lungs. She was too terrified to scream.
Limbs rushed by, and Tarzan grabbed at them and swung from them. Just when it seemed they would drop to the ground, another limb fortuitously appeared. He moved in such a way that he was sometimes high in the trees, perhaps fifty feet high, then, by dropping great distances, grabbing at a limb with one hand and swinging from it, they were sometimes only ten feet from the ground. It was like a roller coaster until they reached a mass of great trees from which hung thick liana vines. He grabbed those and swung way out, let go, grabbed another, and moved on; the treetops came down to meet them, then the ground grew tall, then the treetops were back again. Monkeys scattered through the trees all around them, scolding, chattering with fear. Birds rustled to flight. Once, Jean saw a great python raise its head from a limb and watch them pass with its cold, dark eyes.
Below, running on the ground, darting between trees, Jean could see the great lion. Once Jean looked back, saw the apes on the ground, looking up, trying to keep sight of them. The next time she looked, the apes had taken to the trees themselves, but even though they were born to the jungle, designed for it, they could not catch her wild man.
As they progressed through the treetops, Jean's confidence increased until she began to enjoy the strange adventure. It wasn't quite what she preferred to be doing this bright and sunny morning, but she presumed it was better than being kidnapped by an ape. And why had that ape wanted her? Was she supposed to feel flattered?
A week ago, life had been a lot less confusing.
Below, she saw her father and the safari. Tarzan let go of the vine they were swinging on, dropped rapidly through the brush. Limbs touched her, tore at her clothes, and just as it looked as if they might dash themselves to pieces at her father's feet, Tarzan snatched at a supple branch, swung way out, twisted, grabbed another, then dropped them to the ground next to her father.
When they landed, Hanson leapt back, bringing up both hands to fight. Then he saw who it was. Jean stepped into his arms and Hanson held her. Over her shoulder he spoke to Tarzan. "Thank you ... Whoever you are."
"They call me Tarzan," the ape-man said.
"My God," Hanson said. "I thought you were a legend."
Jean turned from her father then, smiled at her rescuer. 'Thank you, Tarzan."
"Can you believe this, Jean?" Hanson said. "I came to Africa to prove the existence of the man-apes, and they kidnapped you. Then you were rescued by a legend I didn't believe existed. Tarzan, the ape-man."
"Will the apes come after us?" Jean asked Tarzan.
"No," Tarzan said. "There are rifles here. They know what rifles do. They lose interest rather quickly, as well. They will be fighting amongst themselves to establish a new king."
Jean considered what Tarzan had said. She began to understand what all the fighting had been about. One ruler had been usurped, only to be defeated by Tarzan.
At that moment, Jad-bal-ja entered the campsite. He padded over to Tarzan and lay down at his feet, and put his great head between his paws.
"He looks mopey," Jean said.
"He wanted to fight the great apes," Tarzan said. "That and eat one. He is hungry."
"Then it would not be a good idea to pet him right now," Jean said.
"It is never a good idea," Tarzan said. "He is a lion, and a lion is always a lion."
"I've never seen anything like it," Jean said. "You were actually communicating with those apes, weren't you?"
"Yes," said Tarzan. "I was raised by a tribe not unlike them."
"You're kidding," said Hanson.
"No," said Tarzan. "I am not kidding."
Hanson studied Tarzan a moment. "No. I can see you aren't.
"You communicate with the lion, too," Jean said. "Do you think he fully understands you?"
"I know he does," Tarzan said. "I speak to him in the language of the great apes. My first language."
Hanson thought that explained Tarzan's stiff almost formal use of English. His strange accent-the accent of the beasts.
Jean was warming to the subject, excited. "What about other animals?" she asked. "Can you speak with them? Are they ... your friends?"
"Animals in their native state," replied Tarzan, "make few friends in the sense that humans do, even among their own kind. But I have friends among them." Tarzan waved a hand at the golden lion. "Jad-bal-ja here would fight to the death to protect me. And I him. Tantor the elephant is my friend, as is Nkima."
"Nkima?" Jean asked.
"A small monkey that is usually with me," Tarzan said. "Where he is now, I can't say. He often wanders off. But when he gets in trouble, or is afraid, he often comes racing to me for protection. He is a coward, and an outrageous braggart, but I'm fond of him."
"You seem to prefer animals to humans," Jean said.
"I do."
"But that's because you've had unpleasant experiences with men," Hanson said. "Am I right?"
"You are," Tarzan said. "But let me remind you that you, as of recent, have had some very unpleasant experiences with men."
"That's true," Jean said. "But I wouldn't call my experience with the apes a picnic."
Tarzan smiled. "Ultimately, man and beast are not all that different."
Hanson said, "It's amazing. Everything they say about you ... the legends ... they're true."
Tarzan smiled, and this time it was a true smile. "Nothing is ever completely true about a legend," he said.
WILSON LAID THE bundle on the ground in front of Gromvitch and Cannon and removed the oilcloth from the rifles, ammunition, and supplies. There were four rifles, two handguns, a limited supply of ammunition, some basic rations, and a canteen of water.
"We do some hunting, find some water, there's enough ammunition
there to get us to the coast," Gromvitch said.
"I'm not going to the coast," Wilson said. "You do what you want. I'm going after this guy that kicked my butt. I don't take kindly to it. I was a heavyweight contender. I figure I can give him a little more for his money next time."
"I don't know," Gromvitch said. "Way I look at it is, what the hell? We got some guns, some food. We didn't desert the Legion post just to hike around in the jungle."
Wilson said, "We were going to check out that story Blomberg told us, remember? Make some dough, pool our resources. That way, when we left Africa, it would be with more than what's left of our uniforms."
"Yeah," Cannon said, "and now we don't got to split nothing with Talent."
Wilson glared at him. "That makes you pretty happy."
"Well, we won't," Cannon said. "I didn't kill him. It's just he's dead and now we get everything. We split three ways. I didn't like him anyway. Way he held his head and stuff, kind of gave me the creeps."
"I say we're splittin' nothing," Gromvitch said. "We haven't got anything to prove Blomberg wasn't nothin' more than wind. That talk sounded pretty good back at the Legion post, but now, with him dead and just having general directions, and us being in the actual jungle, I don't know."
"He got himself killed 'cause he was a fool," Cannon said.
"He got himself killed 'cause Talent killed him," Gromvitch said. "Carved him like a turkey."
"That was unfortunate," Wilson said. "But I still believe Blomberg's story."
And he did. Wilson had listened to Blomberg talk about the lost city at the Legion post. Blomberg claimed to have been there before becoming a Legionnaire. He wanted to desert and go back there, plunder the place, and become rich. He claimed there were people living there, mining gold, and had been for well over a couple hundred years. Blomberg said he had been on an ivory-hunting safari, and had gotten lost and stumbled upon the city, had been taken captive by the natives who were mining it, but escaped. He had a handful of gold nuggets to prove it.
That's why Wilson had been eager to leave the Legion post. Blomberg was going to lead them there and they were all going to become rich together. But then Talent and Blomberg had gotten into it over a can of beans-a can of beans! And Talent, in a moment of mindless savagery, had cut Blomberg from gut to gill. Their living map had bled out his knowledge on the jungle floor.
"You got to think about it," Gromvitch said. "That story of his. A lost city of gold, mined by natives. How many times you heard that one? How come we got to believe this story? Blomberg, he didn't strike me as a man that got his feelings hurt when he told a lie."
"What about them nuggets?" Cannon said.
"Man can come by gold lots of ways," Gromvitch said.
"I believe him," Wilson said again. "I got nothing outside, or inside Africa 'less I come out of here with some jack. I don't find any city, I can maybe hunt some ivory. Make enough to get to the States, maybe have a little in the kitty when I get there. I go out now, all I got is the rags on my back. I might as well go back to the Legion post."
"Since I figure they'll hang me if I do go back," Gromvitch said, "that's an option I'm rulin' out. But the way I see it, we got nothin'. Don't know there's nothin' out there, and nothin' split four ways or three or two, it's all the same. It comes up nothin'. Nothin' plus nothin' times three, that's nothin'. Right now, we got a little food, and guns to get some more, and I say we head for the coast."
"It's not just the gold," Wilson said. "I want this guy who kicked
my face. And I want to kick his face. Maybe stomp it a little."
"No offense," Gromvitch said, "but havin' been there, I'd just as soon we not see that guy again. He tore us apart like paper, and I don't even think he was good and mad."
"I'm with Wilson," Cannon said. "That damn wild man and his lion. Who does he think he is, ordering us out of Africa like he owned it? Besides, I don't like no guy in his underwear beatin' me up. Somehow that ain't decent, you know?"
Wilson took some dried meat from the oilcloth wrapping, passed it around to the others. He said, "What I know is this. All the landmarks Blomberg talked about... Ones I remember. We've come to 'em. And the land's slopin' like he said. It's such a gradual drop, unless you're lookin' for it, you might not notice it right away. It's just like Blomberg said."
"Maybe," Gromvitch said.
"Other night," Wilson said, "before all this bad business, I climbed a tree and looked, and I t
ell you, the land's slopin'. It's fallin' in the north. That makes me think Blomberg wasn't just tellin' us a windy. And I don't think he'd have stumbled around out here with us all that time if he hadn't been tellin' the truth."
"I don't know," Gromvitch said.
"Here's the deal," Wilson said. "It's not subject to discussion. You want to go your own way, Gromvitch, we give you a rifle, some ammo, but we keep the bulk of the ammo and all the grub. We feed you, you take the rifle and go. And good luck."
Gromvitch considered the suggestion. He wondered if Wilson really meant it. And if he did, he wondered if Cannon would honor it. What if he agreed, and then Cannon got to thinking nothing divided by two was even better than nothing divided by three?
No. Gromvitch figured he ought not chance it. And besides, Wilson was right. What was there for him on the coast-if he made it to the coast by himself? And he wasn't sure he could. Wilson was, if nothing else, a good leader.
"I'll stick," Gromvitch said. Wilson nodded, and so did Cannon, but Gromvitch thought the look on Cannon's face was one of disappointment.
Tarzan and Hanson's party, after a moment of reunion, started to move. They moved briskly, making good time, heading north. Tarzan decided to stay with them until he felt they had left the great apes far behind. Not that he thought they would pursue, not with the smell of guns in the camp, but insurance was a good policy. And he and Jad-bal-ja were good insurance.
After a time, they stopped to rest. Tarzan squatted on the ground and Jean came over to join him. She said: "Where is your lion?"
"He's his own master," Tarzan said. "He's gone off to hunt. One of the great apes, most likely. He had the thought of their flesh on his mind. He likes it. He says it is very tasty."