Part I
1878 Sumer
JOKO writ to rember
writ story
wake ferst time
sun rocks
big thing on 2 paths
make big snake sounds.
men see jokoo
joko climb rocks.
pain on head
dark
joko in bear box
hate men
men with fire see joko
joko hate fire
johny there
Johnny Tilbury was a coalman on the British Columbia railroad’s daily run from Lytton to Yale. Used primarily for hauling timber, the train also carried mail, supplies, and a few passengers in the caboose. He worked the route after school for two summers and he loved it. But it wasn’t the train that captivated him.
The wilderness enfolded the train the moment it left the station. Soon, Johnny’s worries were behind him; replaced by the music of the engine and the rails; changing tone and timbre as the train rolled over gravel bed, bridge, or through a tunnel.
Shoveling coal into a firebox was hard and dirty work, but it afforded frequent breaks. When he had the chance, Johnny would watch the forest. With each turn of the track, even though Johnny knew it by heart, something unexpected always caught his eye; a deer, a grizzly, a new rock slide, or a fallen pine. This was mountain country, and in spite of the rail line that followed the mighty Fraser River, it was still wild, and anything could happen.
Johnny often thought of the men who had laid the track through the mountains. What must their lives have been like?
The Yale Sentinel sometimes told their stories; tales of giant bears, Indian attacks, mountain men, and legendary monsters. Johnny read them all. When he watched the forest, he would look deep into the shadows for those monsters, imagining they were watching him pass by, as curious about him as he was about them.
But Johnny never saw monsters. He saw all the animals, though; owls and eagles, deer, elk, moose, beaver, and bear.
Occasionally, if luck was on his side, he’d catch sight of an elusive bobcat or cougar, peering out at the iron monster as it cut through its land. Johnny’s sharp eyes had spotted them all and wondered what they thought of him, the intruder in their kingdom. Somehow, Johnny knew that most people feared the wild, and they showed it by calling its animals monsters.
People said the wilderness called to Johnny. Maybe it did.
He often wondered if the fabled sasquatch – the hairy men of the north – weren’t just the usual creatures of the woods seen by frightened people; people who thought nature should be tamed. Johnny thought humans, always hungry for land and riches, were the true monsters in the woods.
Johnny hated cruelty and greed because as a boy he had seen more than enough of both. As soon as he could leave home he did so. Now his mom was gone. Dead of consumption, the doctor had said. Dead of loneliness and disillusionment, said his aunt.
Killed by a monster, thought Johnny. A father and husband who’d been lured by gold.
But on the sunny afternoon, late in June of the year 1876, Johnny wasn’t watching for monsters. He was thinking about vacation. He had two days coming to him and figured to spend it in Yale. The town where his aunt lived was going to have its first Fair with games, celebrations and even fireworks. Some of the locals were surprised at the hoopla.
After all, Yale was a former Gold Rush town whose miners now worked for the expanding railroad.
The train worked its way up the Old Fork grade. The steam locomotive was working hard to make the grade. As it reached the top and turned a bend a steam valve blew and the train slowed.
Ned Austin, the assistant engineer, growled angrily.
“Goddam thing. I knew it would pop again. It happens every cursed time.” He closed the throttle and applied the brake.
Johnny straightened up and put down his shovel. As he quickly scanned the surroundings his eye caught something dark at the foot of a bluff about a hundred feet ahead. “Hey, Ned, what’s that?”
“The damn valve,” answered Ned in disgust.
“No,” said Johnny. “Near the tracks, by the bluff.”
Ned peered in the direction Johnny was pointing. There was no doubt. Something was lying a few feet from the tracks.
“Might have fallen,” said Ned. “A bear or somethin’?”
As the train came to a stop, Ned gave the whistle a couple of quick toots thinking he might wake up whoever or whatever was lying by the tracks. He was going to tell Johnny to run back and tell the conductor about the valve but Johnny was already out of the cab and on the ground trotting toward the thing on the tracks.
On the ground it was hard for Johnny to see the outline of the animal and the bright sun made it even harder. Johnny squinted at the dark lump as he stepped carefully forward trying hard to step quietly on the gravel bed. Johnny mumbled quietly to himself, “What are you?”
“Careful, Johnny,” Ned called out, still in the engine cab.
“Bears are mean if they’re hurt.”
It wasn’t a bear. It was shaped more like a man. It lay fa ce down in the sand by the tracks, its head obscured by a patch of weeds. The body was covered with short black fur.
Johnny had seen pictures of apes, and he knew this was no ape. He could see the animal’s chest rise and fall as it breathed.
Johnny heard footsteps approaching from behind. It was Ned and three crewmen trudging noisily forward. He noticed the conductor, J. C. Craig, carried a rifle at the ready.
Johnny put a finger to his mouth. “Quiet. You’ll spook it.”
“What the hell is it? Some kind of ape?” asked Ned, peering past Johnny. Ned’s eyes widened and he grabbed Johnny’s arm and pulled him away from the animal. “Look out,” Ned whispered. “I think it’s awake!”
Johnny turned to see the animal crouched on all fours looking at him, its strangely human face looking bewildered and in pain. It turned its head and looked up the bluff while rubbing the side of its head. Then, with great effort, it rose up and stood on its hind legs. It remained standing twenty yards away from Johnny, swaying slightly, apparently not sure of what to do.
It was half man and half ape. The face seemed almost human.
And behind the eyes, thought Johnny, there was definitely somebody home. Johnny was sure they had before them a bonafide original – a new animal.
Although it swayed in apparent pain, it stood solidly on two legs, like a man.
It stood over five feet tall and its coarse black fur glistened with red highlights. The short hair covered its body completely like a thin suit of clothes, except for its face, which looked almost comical. Ned said it looked like a man in a gorilla suit.
Suddenly, the race was on. The creature bolted up the bluff and in an amazingly short time was halfway to the top.
But as it desperately scrambled up the loose rocks, a cloud of dirt and rock tore loose under it and the animal fell over backward. With astonishing agility it flipped in the air and managed to cling to the cliff face.
Bill Costerson, a railroad agent, had positioned himself near the edge of the rock outcropping and was quick to react when the creature began its climb. Costerson had an easier path to the top of the bluff, and in a few seconds he was at the top, looking down at the creature, a pistol in his hand.
Below him the creature squatted, trapped. There was no way up the bluff. Considering a retreat, it looked down at Johnny. Again, Johnny looked into the animal’s eyes, and again came the feeling he was looking at a human. Suddenly he became more concerned for its welfare.
As Johnny feared, Craig had his rifle aimed and was about to shoot. Johnny shouted at him, waving his arms frantically. “No! We should take it alive! Don’t fire, J. C.”
Craig lowered his gun. “Yeah? Who’s gonna do that?”
But before Johnny could answer he noticed Costerson poised twenty feet above the creature holding a large rock.
Without hesitation he let the rock fall.
The frightened beast never saw Costerson. The rock hit him squarely on the back of the head and he slid back down the bluff, ending up almost exactly where Johnny had first spotted him.
“Bagged him!” called Costerson in triumph.
Before the train pulled into Yale, the four men had a meeting over the trussed and bound creature they had stowed in the mail car. They had decided to keep everything quiet for a while. In a town as small as Yale it’s nearly impossible to hide anything. News of ‘Jocko’, as Costerson had taken to calling the creature, would spread quickly. Ned, the engineer, was quick to point out they were ahead of schedule when they stopped at the bluff so when they arrived in Yale they would be right on time. They all grinned.
“That should give us an edge,” said Craig.
Johnny remained quiet through the meeting. He was the youngest of the group and held no rank. The other three did most of the talking.
“Then it’s agreed,” said Cos terson. “As soon as we get to Yale we wrap ol’ Jocko, here, in a tarp and take him to Doc Hannington’s.”
It had been almost an hour since Jocko had been hit by the rock. As far as Johnny knew the beast might never wake up. He had watched helplessly, nearly calling out, when the rock fell; stood by uselessly as the other men tied their catch up and dumped it among the mailbags.
When the train stopped in Yale, Costerson and Craig kept prying eyes from the baggage car while Johnny and Ned toted Jocko into a s hed full of sacks of potatoes.
Following orders, Johnny ran to fetch Dr Hannington. It took no more than fifteen minutes for Johnny to locate the doctor having lunch at Mitzie’s Saloon and Eatery.
The doctor recognized Johnny instantly. “Johnny Tilbury.
Some trouble on the train or a more personal malady?”
“Not exactly,” said Johnny quietly. “I need to talk to you.”
“Well,” said the doctor with a broad smile, “no fee for a consultation, but can’t this wait ’till I’m done eating?” he pointed a fork toward the kitchen. “Mitzie promised me some salmonberry cobbler.”
“Sorry to disturb you like this, Doctor Hannington, but you’re needed right away.”
The doctor took a napkin from his collar and tossed it next to his dinner plate. “Well now,” he said sternly. “An emergency? Why didn’t you say so? Mitzie,” he called out toward the kitchen. “Hold my cobbler for later, if you don’t mind. I’ve got to see to young Tilbury’s needs.”
Mitzie’s melodious voice acknowledged the doctor as he and Johnny left the cafe. The doctor made a quick stop at his office to pick up his bag then he and Johnny headed toward the rail yard.
By the time they got to the shed Johnny had told the doctor all about the mysterious creature. Johnny opened the weathered wooden door and Ned’s voice invited the doctor inside.
The shed was very dark and streamers of white light spilled into it. “There’s no light in here, gents,” said the doctor.
“How do you expect a body to see?”
Ned, Costerson, and Craig were standing in a half circle with a dark figure lying at their feet.
“What have you got there, Ned?” Doc Hannington stepped forward and nodded politely to each of the men, though his attention remained focused on the animal. Johnny stood close behind Hannington, eager to see what the doctor would make of the creature. Ned didn’t answer. He seemed a little sad as watched the unconscious animal.
“What, indeed.” The doctor took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It looks like you gents might need a veterinarian, not a doctor.”
“Maybe so,” said Costerson. “But right now you’re all we got.”
“What do you make of it, Doc?” asked Ned.
The doctor knelt beside the figure and cautiously reached out to touch it. He could feel blood caked in the fur on the back of the beast’s head. He was quiet for several seconds as he continued his examination of the creature. Then he stood up, his back creaking a bit as he rose. The doctor looked shaken as he examined the faces of everyone in the room. He knew everyone but Costerson, who stood as far from the creature as possible, trying to look casual as he smoked a cheroot and fingered his sidearm. The doctor squinted at Costerson for a moment.
“Railroad agent,” he said, nodding to the doctor.
“Costerson’s the name. I bagged the thing.”
“Tell me everything,” said Hannington.
Jocko opened his eyes and didn’t understand what he saw.
He was in a cage that had been the recent home of a pregnant grizzly bear. Jocko didn’t know the grizzly by name but he knew the animal and how it smelled. His senses felt it was there, with him in the cage. Its emotions, fear and pain, had leached into the cage, and Jocko felt them with every contact he had with the iron bars and the wooden frame. He tried to remember how he got there. Then his head throbbed with pain and it all came back to him. He recalled the bluff and the men.
Jocko peered at the interior of the shed through a mist of pain and confusion. There were five men in the shed with him and they had put him in the cage. He could smell it as he began examining the human faces that stared at him. One by one, he remembered … and looked squarely into Johnny’s eyes.
Jocko looked Johnny over, trying to see details in the darkness of the strange structure that surrounded them. Was he in a human lair? Fear rose in Jocko’s heart as he looked around the cage, then around the room. The last rays of orange light told him that the day had ended. He thought of his family, roaming the deep woods. Where had they gone?
Where they also trapped by men? Then he remembered falling from the bluff.
Jocko remembered falling. Being hit from behind.
Suddenly, he knew he was alone and at the mercy of humans. He let out a moan. And it grew louder and louder until the boards of the shed began to shake.
“Damnation!” cried Costerson. “That heathen sound. I’ve heard it before … long ago.”
“Well, shut it up,” shouted Craig. “We don’t want the whole town comin’ here!”
Jocko closed his eyes and tears rolled down his cheeks.
He curled into a ball and seemed to vanish in the shadows of the cage.
Overwhelmed with emotion, Johnny turned and left the shed. The doctor and the other three men watched him leave.
“Jocko the ape-boy,” said Ned, laughing. “Hootin’ it up!”
The doctor looked at Ned blankly, and then he too left the cabin.
Outside, Johnny stood breathing deeply. The doctor told Johnny they would all need to have a sit down on the matter and assured him he wouldn’t let anything happen to the animal.
“I don’t know what we’re dealing with here, John. That thing in there is a local myth turned real. There’s lookin’ to be some money in this thing for everyone, especially you.” He put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and squeezed. “Think about that, Johnny.” The doctor looked into Johnny’s sad eyes.
“Whatever we do, the important thing is we just don’t want to jump before we see how deep the pond is. This is a once in a lifetime moment, I think.” He glanced around and paused for a deep breath. Then he took out a cigar and slowly, methodically, went through a cigar lighting ritual that ended in a great smoke ring that dissipated in the breeze.
Yale was a town whose mayor thought he ruled a piece of New York City despite a population of only a hundred fifty permanent citizens and perhaps five times that many loggers, pioneers, trappers, farmers, and mountaineers living on the outskirts and supporting the local economy. As a railroad depot, Yale was a thriving establishment. To its mayor, Judge Clarence V. Hayes, the town was as upstanding as its name would imply.
Most of the permanent residents respected nature and enjoyed their life on the edge of civilization, but every winter brought a cold reminder of how vulnerable they were to being cut off and out of the human chain. Everyone knew that without the rail line the forest could consume Yale.
The wilderness could kill; by avalanche or biting cold; through adventure and misadventure; so most of the locals of Yale, British Columbia owed Doc Hannington a lot. He’d been trying to keep them alive for over thirty years.
“Whatever you or I may think about this,” said the doctor gravely, “well, I think we have to try to put it aside and think again. Hell, Johnny, you know what I’m trying to say, don’t you? This is important.”
“I guess I do,” said Johnny, and he returned with the doctor to the shed.
When they reentered the cabin they found the three other men standing pretty much where they’d left them. Someone had lit a lantern so there was more light inside.
Johnny looked back at the ape-boy. He was holding a potato.
Ned looked over at Johnny and grinned out of the side of his face.
“Gave him the spud, Johnny, but I don’t think he figured out what it is, yet!” Ned laughed nervously.
Johnny could see the creature wasn’t thinking about the potato. It rolled the thing over in its hands as it stared at the faces of the men.
“That’s good, Ned,” said the doctor.
“Yeah. Good,” said Johnny.
From his first moments with Jocko, Johnny had been feeling that things were not really good, as the doctor had said. He didn’t know when exactly it had happened, but Johnny found himself caring for the foundling as though it were somehow his responsibility. He had, after all, been the one to first see it lying beside the tracks. Since Johnny had the next two days off, and no plans for the weekend, he was the logical caretaker for Jocko until the others could figure out their next step.
Johnny listened to the men discuss the creature’s fate as he watched the animal crouching inside its cage. Every time he looked into the ape-boy’s eyes he found them looking right back at him. The eyes spoke to him, like a person; appealed to him. Johnny realized he had to act on Jocko’s behalf.
Trouble was, he didn’t know why he felt compelled to do so.
To Ned, the doctor, and the others, Johnny had always been a harmless gangly kid, listening on the sidelines, easy to overlook because of his retiring ways. People liked Johnny and trusted him for reasons he’d never fully understood. They also took him for granted.
Once, Ludlow Hawkins, the biggest bully in school, had told him about a girl he secretly loved. Right out of the blue,
“The Lud” just blurted it out to him one day after school. He wanted Johnny to tell him how to handle the girl; what to say to her to make her like him. Johnny was dumfounded, but somehow found the courage to tell Ludlow to ‘just be nice’ to the girl. As it happened Ludlow got the girl. From that moment on Johnny never had to worry about the bullies at school as long as Ludlow was around.
But Johnny wasn’t the kind to take advantage. He had more important things on his mind than school politics. He always seemed to know what was important and what wasn’t.
Johnny knew that the world was about to leap into a new era. The signs were everywhere. Industry was expanding in the cities and new fangled machinery was everywhere you looked. Empires were forming and sending ripples into the wilderness.
Now, listening to the men talking in the doctor’s parlor, he kept thinking of Jocko and how this hapless animal would react when he fully confronted mankind. He was reminded of the mayor. They had all agreed earlier that for the moment they would keep a lid on the presence of the ape-boy for the sake of all concerned, but each of them knew the person they didn’t want to find out about Jocko was Mayor Hayes.
“… sideshows …”
Costerson and Craig were talking to Dr Hannington about Barnum and his ‘big circus sideshows ’. The words called Johnny from his musings back into the conversation.
Costerson looked at the doctor.
“Doc, do you think this thing is some kind of native animal?” he said with some scorn in his voice. “How do we know it ain’t some Indian thing? I mean you know how them Indians can be, Doc. It looks like ya crossed an Indian with some animal!”
But the doctor just shrugged his shoulders without comment.
Craig looked around. “Let’s keep it down, gents.”
“Oh, pshaw, J.C., ain’t nobody gonna hear us.”
Ned looked at this watch. “It’s nigh to eight thirty. If the train is late back to Lytton … well, that will cause some notice.
I suspect the lumber’s loaded by now. We’d best get back to it.”
It had been two hours since they had brought their strange baggage to town and dropped it in the railroad shed.
Walking back to the railroad yard, they paused. “Look, Johnny, Doc.” Costerson leaned toward them. “It’s agreed, then. We don’t tell anybody, ’specially the mayor. We don’t do anything until tomorrow. We’ll be back on the a.m. run.”
Doc and Johnny nodded.
“In the meantime I’m going to see to that wound on its head,” Doc said. With that the men split up, the three railroad men toward the train and Doc and Johnny toward the shed.
As Johnny and the doctor approached the door to the shed they paused.
“I don’t know what we should do, Johnny. I suspect you’re as confused as I am. I’m going to skip over to my house and pick up some things to fix this boy’s head. Why don’t you go in and see to Jocko? He seems to like you. We don’t want him makin’ more noises. Go ahead and, well, try to keep him quiet. We gotta find out what it eats.” With that, the doctor headed down the path.
Johnny undid the lock on the shed. He looked back at the doctor, pacing resolutely a hundred yards down the road.
Doc Hannington was a good soul, but Johnny knew the doctor cared more about people than animals. He seemed to care about Jocko, but that could change.
Johnny had planned to stay at his aunt’s place west of Yale, as he often did when he had to take the morning run. Or now, during summer, when he worked odd shifts at the firebox while the regular coalman, Scott Yerlich, was having episodes of gout brought on by the heat. This was the case this weekend, so he wasn’t due back to Lytton for two days.
Pausing at the door, Johnny considered going over to his aunt’s but realized that would take the better part of an hour to get there and back. Plus, he didn’t want to explain his being out all night to her. Johnny felt duty-bound to watch over Jocko, so he went back inside the railroad shed.
The lantern hung near Jocko’s cage, and Johnny could see the animal was squatting uncomfortably on the thick wire mesh floor of the cage. The mesh was roughly nailed to the flooring and many of the sharp nail heads protruded. Tufts of bear fur still clung to a nail head that stuck straight up a quarter inch in the middle of the cage. Jocko was managing to avoid it.
Without hesitation Johnny picked up handfuls of straw and began putting it into the cage, trying to cover the nail. Jocko’s eyes followed Johnny’s movements. He did nothing for several seconds. Then he shifted his weight slightly. Johnny stopped what he was doing and waited.
“I just thought you might need some softer stuff on the floor’s all.” Johnny looked into Jocko’s eyes, continuing to pack handfuls of straw over the nail. “Did you try the potato? I don’t see it.”
Jocko considered his next move carefully. The human was presenting a gesture of friendship. His extended hand was an invitation to be touched – to link. If the human was a friend, Jocko would know in the linking.
Jocko hesitated a second as he wondered: Had his people ever linked with humans? The human was removing his hand from the cage. Jocko had to act.
Johnny didn’t see Jocko move, but he found himself in the vice-like grip of a hairless hand and Jocko was a foot closer to his face. Johnny held his breath and looked down at the hand, then back into the creature’s eyes. Johnny tried to pull free, but the grip remained firm. He gasped and pulled harder but realized that the arm that held him, while a good deal smaller than his, was much more powerful. Then, oddly, when Johnny’s mind registered fear, Jocko gently released his hand.
Johnny fell backward then sat up and stared at Jocko.
The ape-boy was stacking the straw over the nail in his cage, as Johnny had done.
“You thanked me by returning my arm,” said Johnny.
With the nail well padded, Jocko sat down and curled his knees toward his chest. He and Johnny spent several minutes simply staring at one another, studying each other’s faces.
Jocko spoke, but not with human words. His voice reminded Johnny of a chimpanzee. But it was different, more human.
“Poooaaaaamu Tsssstaaaa,” it said.
“Poooaaaaamu Tsssstaaaa,” it repeated, looking at
Johnny meaningfully.
Johnny’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Tssstaaa … Jonnni.”
“You’re talkin’,” exclaimed Johnny, covering the top of his head with his hand. “I don’t believe it, no sir.”
“Tssss ta Jonnii pooooaaaamu tsssaaaaah,” said Jocko, looking into Johnny’s eyes.
Johnny was dumfounded. An animal had actually spoken to him. But he sobered a bit when he recalled what J.C. Craig had said; that the thing “might be part Indian, part bear.”
Johnny could see that the ape-boy’s arms were longer in proportion to his body than a human’s but his legs were roughly the same. While thick black fur covered most of the animal’s back, his chest was bare in places. At the waist the hair began to grow longer than elsewhere on the beast’s body so his genitalia weren’t visible. His hands and feet were for the most part free of hair and the skin was like coffee with cream.
“Tssss ta Jonnii,” the ape-boy repeated.
No, thought Johnny, it’s not calling me by name. That couldn’t be. As it moved around in the cage, Johnny found the smell of the ape-boy strangely familiar yet decidedly unpleasant. In fact the shed was becoming unbearable for Johnny in spite of his fascination with Jocko. He walked over to the wall, pushed open the hinged boards that sealed the shed’s single window, and sniffed the sweet night air.
And so did Jocko.
Out there among the rocky pinnacles, the bluffs and the pines, out there under the moon, his people were moving.
Moving far away. And every second that passed put Jocko farther away from them. One day he would leave, but it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Some minutes passed as Jocko gazed out the open window. He began to moan softly.
Johnny sat down and listened. He knew there was nothing he could do for Jocko and he was becoming annoyed with his recurring impulse to release the ape. The night was closing in and he didn’t want to be alone. He looked around and found a dusty horse blanket. After shaking the dust out of it outside he went back to the side of Jocko’s cage. He saw another blanket and threw it to the edge of the cage. Jocko carefully let a finger glide through the bars and come to rest on the blanket. In a single stroke the finger curled and the blanket slid into the cage. Jocko looked at it and picked it up.
He turned it over and over. A fat spider fell out and crawled toward the edge of the cage. Jocko picked it up and ate it, barely distracted from his examination of the blanket.
The sound of it crunching between Jocko’s teeth nauseated Johnny at first, but Jocko’s matter-of-factness about it made the event easy to overlook. Johnny realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He decided to head over to the restaurant and bring back some real food for Jocko to try.
Johnny smiled and got up. Jocko looked at him.
“Some grub is what we need,” said Johnny, pointing to his mouth. Jocko looked at him blankly. “Some grub!” Johnny repeated, rubbing his stomach.
“Oh, you’ll see soon enough, Jocko.” And Johnny left the shed.
After the door closed Jocko looked at the lantern. He watched flies dance in the light.
“Jo-ko,” he said.
Johnny was back within the hour. He had managed to talk the cook at the restaurant out of half a roast chicken, some carrots, a raw turnip, and some onions. He handed most of it to Jocko, saving a drumstick and a couple of carrots for himself. Mitzie had just made some popovers and gave Johnny two. Johnny kept both of those for himself. Nobody loved popovers more than Johnny.
Jocko sulked in the cage. His nose was the only thing animated about him. He stared at the food, sniffing the alien substance. Cooking was new to Jocko because anything relating to fire was for men only. Campfires, fireplaces, forest fires. To Jocko it was just a matter of the scale of the evil. All fire was evil.
He could see that the food was warm. Hundreds of generations living in the deep woods and the high country had given Jocko and his kin the ability to see heat. To Jocko, the chicken sat glowing in the corner of the bear cage. He looked at Johnny, who had devoured his chicken and carrots and was now savoring the top crust of the first popover. Jocko could see the heat curling upward out of the hot interior of the roll. He regarded Johnny’s attitude toward the popover. He could feel Johnny’s delight.
Jocko smiled, faintly.
Johnny saw Jocko’s expression change.
“Come on Jocko,” said Johnny. “You gotta eat some- thing.”
The expression left Jocko’s face, and Johnny wondered if he had really seen a smile at all. “Well, if you don’t like the chicken or the carrots, how about that potato you’re holding?”
Johnny figured his eyes must have been playing tricks.
Apes can’t smile, at least not the way we do.
Jocko had been silent since Johnny came back with the food. Another half hour had passed and the ape still sat mute and unwilling to eat. Johnny noticed while he was gone the ape had spread the blanket over the straw, so that the floor of the cage was fairly comfortable.
Then he remembered Jocko’s speech. “You did talk, didn’t you?” He looked into Jocko’s eyes. But Jocko just stared back at Johnny with a sad face. “Say some more!” Johnny ordered.
“Come on, talk!” Jocko simply sat there like a prisoner, and what annoyed Johnny the most was the constant feeling of knowing how the ape-boy felt.
The wonder of the wilderness, that nameless something that compelled him to look into the shadows was sitting right in front of him, looking him right in the eye. And in so doing, Jocko had become Johnny’s equal.
Johnny thought morning would never come. Once, he didn’t know for how long, he fell asleep. A mosquito stinging his ear woke him up.
The lantern burned dimmer. Jocko was asleep, or so it seemed. The mountain night had brought with it a deep chill.
Johnny wrapped the blanket tightly around his legs. The cold m ade him have to pee, so he got up and walked out into the dark.
Johnny looked up into the starry night as he relieved himself in some bushes behind the shed. The moon glowed so brightly he could see the blue of the sky. A breeze began to nag at him as he stood thinking of home and hearth.
Tomorrow, no matter what, the problem of what to do with old Jocko would be someone else’s.
Johnny shivered. He looked at his pocket watch, amazed that he could read it by the moonlight. “Three in the mornin’, hooooeeee!” He whistled softly. “I gotta get some sack.”
When Johnny returned Jocko lifted his head and opened one eye. When their eyes met, even for that brief instant, Johnny found himself plagued by guilt.
“You’re worse’n a spook!” Johnny wrapped the blanket around himself and settled among the sacks of potatoes.
Jocko kept an eye on Johnny. There was really no expression on his face. Johnny stared into Jocko’s eyes, and soon, tired as he was, he drifted off to sleep.
Some time, minutes or seconds later, he thought he heard a voice. Almost imperceptibly it said: “ Spooooook.”
Johnny woke to the sound of Bill Costerson’s voice. Ned was there and so was J. C. Craig, still clutching his rifle. Behind him was Dr Hannington.
Cold and lame from his night in the drafty shed, Johnny felt about as nimble as a stepladder. He struggled to his feet with a helping hand from Ned.
“Tough night, Johnny?” asked Ned.
Johnny nodded, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“We’ve made some arrangements,” said Costerson.
“John, we’d like you to look after Jocko kind of full-time. Just for a few days or so.”
Ned still had a hand on Johnny’s arm. “C’me on, gents.
Lets get the boy some breakfast. Can’t you see he ain’t had a good night of it?”
Johnny’s left foot was just coming back to life. Fiery needles shot through the soles of his feet. “Damn!” He stomped his foot on the dirt floor.
Johnny looked at the doctor who stood outside the open door lighting a cigar. His back was turned toward them.
“Hi, Doc,” said Johnny. “Ain’t you comin’ in?”
The doctor turned in a cloud of smoke. “Hi, Johnny. You seem a little worse for wear, I’d say.” He stepped into the cabin and approached Jocko’s cage. As he passed Johnny he paused a moment to look the boy over. Then, apparently satisfied that Johnny was suffering only from a long sleepless night, he turned to face the other men who were clustered around the cage. “If you gentlemen would please step aside, I’d like to take see to the creature’s wounds. If we alarm it, it might make a commotion and … well, we don’t want to bring the town down here, do we?”
With Costerson at the lead, the men filed out of the shed.
“We’ll be at the restaurant,” said Costerson.
The doctor started circling the cage, examining Jocko, but the ape kept turning, keeping an eye in the man.
After a couple of turns Johnny laughed. “I think he likes dancin’, Doc.”
“Looks like he’s healin’ up, Johnny. Looks like … well now, look here. Look at the shoulder muscles on the lad!” Doc marveled at Jocko’s neck, or lack thereof. “I thought he was feelin’ sore, but that’s how he’s built, I guess.”
Indeed, when Jocko looked around Johnny could see that he had to lift his chin to clear his shoulders. In spite of this ape-like characteristic, the animal was clearly more boy than beast.
As Hannington looked him over, it was clear that Jocko was becoming nervous, so the doctor ended his examination.
“Johnny, I think you need some breakfast.”
Mitzie’s Saloon and Eatery was generally empty of its breakfast crowd by eight, but today the place was nearly full.
The doctor paused to take the scene in for a moment and then led Johnny to a conspicuously vacant table in the center of the dining room. Johnny saw no sign of the other railroad men.
The owner of the establishment, Mitzie, was standing by not far from their table talking to Alice Frye, who owned the General Store.
“Hello again, Doc,” she said. “Back for seconds? I had no idea our bacon was that good. Oh, your friends are in the saloon.”
“Just coffee for me,” said the doctor.
“Me, too,” added Johnny.
Johnny was starved but had little cash on him. “Uh, doc,” he stammered, “I hate to say this, but I’m kinda low on …”
“Bring him what he wants, Mitzie. I’m buyin’ this mornin’,” said Hannington.
Johnny thanked the doctor and ordered the ten-cent breakfast special.
Mitzie paused for a moment after writing up the order and looked curiously at Johnny. “You railroaders have the day off?
Its only Friday.”
Out of the corner of his eye Johnny could see that most of the people were watching them.
“Well, Mitzie,” said Hannington, “Johnny, here, and me got some things to do later.”
Johnny was satisfied that the doctor had fielded her question with ease, but Mitzie persisted. “What’s the railroad doin’ to you men? Everybody’s talkin’ business, but most of
’em are drinkin’ in the saloon.”
“Special baggage order,” blurted Johnny.
The doctor looked at him in surprise but kept his composure. “That’s right. We got us a situation. I guess those boys told you the train hit an animal yesterday. A bear. A small one. And, well, it wouldn’t have been noticed, ’cept Johnny, here, knows animals and, well, he knew it was unusual.”
Mitzie listened intently.
Over at the window Guy Costeau, a logger, was watching Johnny and the doctor. Blowing copious billows of smoke from his Meerschaum, he had long ago finished breakfast.
Hearing what Hannington said, he called out in a thick Quebec accent. “I seen lots a’ bear, boss. What kin’ you got dere? I’ll take a look ’t her.”
“Donno’, Guy,” said the doctor. “It’s hurt, but it’ll live.
We’re gonna ship it out soon. I examined it. Looks like an old black bear to me. The train damaged it some and we don’t want crowds in there upsetting her. Could be a rare specimen. Sent a wire this mornin’ and the Seattle Zoo wants to see it soon as possible. John, here is the caretaker. Right, Johnny?” The doc leaned toward Mitzie whispering, “Sure would like some coffee, Mitzie. This poor boy’s been up all night watchin’ the bear. He even gave his dinner to the bear.
Have a heart and get the boy some grub.”
Across the room the logger turned back to his coffee and faced the doctor. “All the same, Doc, I’d like to take a gander at that bear.”
“No problem, Guy,” said the doctor. “But the Seattle boys say to keep people away.”
The doctor’s lie seemed to placate the crowd for the moment. The logger, being a relative newcomer to the area, didn’t press his point. He stared darkly at the doctor for a moment, and then went back to his coffee.
Hannington looked at Johnny and shook his head.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if Mayor Hayes walked in next,” he said in a low voice.
Several minutes passed and the room filled with an ominous silence. Johnny’s head was buzzing. He expected questions to start coming from everyone in the room. But, mercifully, Johnny’s breakfast came and seemed to break the tension.
The smell of the food sparked Johnny’s hunger and he tore into his bacon and biscuits.
“I should check on the boys in the bar,” said the doctor.
“It’s odd, them saloonin’ so early in the day.”
His mouth full of bacon, Johnny nodded as the doctor got up. He watched as the doctor disappeared through the swinging doors that led past the kitchen to the saloon.
Like the doctor, it struck Johnny as odd that Ned and the rest were keeping their distance. Johnny had known Ned for many years, ever since he broke his leg in a fall from a caboose. Ned had carried Johnny piggyback two miles to the doctor’s office; a debt Johnny felt he could never repay.
Ned and Johnny had become good friends, but it didn’t feel like that now. Jocko had changed all that.
Johnny wondered about the caged animal in the railroad shed. No matter how many times he mulled the question over in his mind, he always came back to the same conclusion.
There was only one creature that it could be. But that was supposed to be impossible.
Living in British Columbia means being used to ‘mountain stories ’, as the English called them. The local Indians told of a tribe relatively near to Vancouver made up of wooly people called sasquatch. The trainmen often passed nights on the rails trading hair-raising tales. Johnny had heard them all, but he had always dismissed the stories as local lore. Until this moment those stories were just that, the stuff of fantasy or fun. In one day all that changed, and Johnny’s sense of wonder was beginning to fade.
A moment later the door to the saloon opened and the doctor returned to the dining room followed by Ned and Bill Costerson.
“We sent J. C. back to watch the … bear,” said Ned, looking around.
The other patrons watched them with mild curiosity, especially Guy, the logger, standing at the door about to leave the restaurant. It seemed he was going to say something when the men returned to the dining room, but when he saw Costerson, he lowered his eyes and left quickly.
As the doctor paid for the breakfast Mitzie was her usual direct self. “Well, boys, I hope you’ll forgive all our questions.
Such a small town. It makes us all busybodies, I suppose.”
She giggled pleasantly.
The doctor held his hat politely and smiled. “My goodness, no, Mitzie. A strange animal around town is a curio. I know that. And unless they changed the laws around here without telling me, talk is free.”
This brought a chuckle from Mitzie, who leaned forward and said into Doc’s ear. “So it’s really a bear?”
“No,” said Ned. “It’s a wooly mountain ape the size of an ox. Seems he came to town askin’ about your cookin’.”
For a half second she stood stone-still with her mouth agape, then she shrieked another laugh.
Ned smiled. “Gotta go now, Ma’am.”
Johnny smiled cas ually, looking briefly but deeply into Ned’s eyes. The Jocko affair was starting to affect them all in a way he didn’t like. Events were moving rapidly. In a few seconds he was sure that the mayor and the county constable would show up. But in spite of the apparent ripple of talk in town the mayor was nowhere to be seen.
Craig and an unknown man were by the shed door when the group returned. Johnny was beginning to feel more clear-headed. The breakfast had done him good. Now he thought of Jocko; the ape, or whatever it was, would probably be hungry too. But he realized that ordering another breakfast to take out would just add to Mitzie’s suspicions. Johnny figured that they ought to move Jocko to some other locale, and soon.
When they got to the shed J. C. Craig introduced the man he was with as Charles E. Collins, from Seattle, an entrepreneur and show planner who had been called to Yale by his old friend Mayor Hayes to give his advice on the coming Fair.
Johnny hung to the rear and listened as the doctor stepped forward with his usual ease, to shake the man’s hand.
“I came yesterday on the train,” said Collins. He had a surprisingly high voice for a person his size. “We stopped for a while, back a few miles, by some rocks. I was in the last car with my wife at the time and thought the stoppage due to a tree or rock slide that had impeded the right of way.”
“I told him we had hit an animal and now he wants to see it,” said Craig.
“I don’t think so,” said Costerson. “Craig, I thought I told you …”
Johnny spoke up quickly. “You can’t now, Mr Collins. I’m its keeper and I’m under orders to keep folks away. It’s hurt and scared. It might die if it gets upset.”
“That’s right,” said the doctor. “Don’t feel slighted, though, sir. There must be fifty souls in this town we’ve refused a look as well.”
Craig feigned a frown. “Yep, nobody, not even the mayor, was to see Jocko!”
“Jocko?” said Collins raising an eyebrow. “You named it?”
The man looked at the railroad shed for a moment. “I see no harm in sneaking a peek.” Without waiting for a response he stepped over to the shed, raised up the wooden shutter that covered a window, and stuck his head inside.
No one had dreamed Collins would do this, and he moved too fast for anyone to stop him.
Panic set in. The doctor spo ke up first. “Now, Mr Collins, we were given specific orders not to upset the bear!”
Craig just looked at the ground shaking his head while Ned pulled the man’s coattail. “Sir, sir,” he kept saying.
“It’s dark in there, Collins,” said Costerson angrily.
“There’s a lantern,” said Craig. “I was givin’ some greens to …”
Finally, after a few seconds, Collins pulled his head back and stepped down by the men. He wore an expression of doubt as he brushed cobwebs from his hair. Then he smiled.
“I think your anim al got away. There’s nothing in there but an empty cage.”
A train whistle sounded in the distance. Collins looked toward the station. “Well, I’ve some business to attend to, gentlemen. I wish you good luck in finding your animal.”
Johnny struggled with the rusty padlock on the cabin door.
When it finally squeaked open he peered inside. Jocko sat in plain sight on top of the empty cage eating lettuce. He looked up as the door opened and he saw four surprised faces staring back at him. He recognized them, especially Johnny, and showed them his teeth. Johnny closed the door and replaced the padlock.
“Told ya so,” said Collins. “Sorry to be the one …” He began walking toward the railroad station. “See you at the Fair, I suppose, Mr Craig. And I hope you find your bear.”
When Collins was out of sight they all looked at one another in surprise. Johnny, completely dumfounded, reopened the door and went inside. Jocko was out of his cage, but for some reason Johnny felt no fear.
The men stayed outside watching Johnny as he approached Jocko.
“Be careful Johnny,” Ned whispered, “What are you doing?”
Johnny stopped a few feet away from Jocko, then looked back at the faces at the door. “You better close it. We don’t want any escapes.”
The door closed. A few moments later the faces reappeared looking in the window.
Still seated casually on his cage, Jocko looked at Johnny, then at the men. He seemed completely at ease.
Johnny looked at the doctor. “By the way, is anyone else around out there?” The three faces looked in all directions.
“None that we can see, Johnny,” whispered Ned.
Johnny knew that he was the best person to take care of Jocko, and he was glad that the group had charged him with the job of keeper. If they hadn’t, he would have volunteered.
Johnny stood looking at Jocko who had risen to his feet.
They regarded one another with caution and curiosity.
Jocko acted at ease, but he was terrified. He had always known that it is suicide to exhibit fear. Predators smell it and it just encourages them. To Jocko that rule applied to human predators as well.
As he looked at Johnny his mind raced. He was lost –
utterly lost.
His loss of consciousness and his having been moved a long distance put Jocko in an unprecedented situation. His family was far away. He knew that because he could not sense them.
How had he gotten here? He tried hard to remember.
What was it that had carried him to this place? What was that sound he’d heard?
Jocko looked at Johnny. He knew the human was his only link to his family.
Out there somewhere was a trail and on that trail were his family. Perhaps they were asleep. After all, it was daytime.
Or maybe they found the favorite patch of snowberries they had grazed since he was a boy. Perhaps they were there already. Eating the earth fruit. Smelling the sweet fragrance of the summer. Jocko yearned for his kin, and the only way to return to them would be with Johnny’s help.
In spite of the midday sun warming the shed, Johnny felt a chill. It was not the temperature that caused his shiver. It was an image in his mind: snow fields, a mountaintop; a driving, howling wind; blinding, stinging ice. He saw footprints fading in the blowing powder. Prints that vanished. Then, only snow.
Johnny blinked and realized he was looking into Jocko’s eyes and the ape-boy was holding his wrist. He heard a sound. Ned was at the window, looking puzzled.
“What’re you up to, Johnny?” he implored. “Are you hearin’ us? Don’t let the monkey get a hold o’ you. Johnny, listen … there’s a spade behind ya.” Then, “Geez … I’m gettin’ my gun.”
Ned’s face disappeared from the window, and Doctor
Hannington replaced him. The doctor called to Johnny.
Heeding the warning, Johnny stepped away from Jocko and turned toward the window.
“Doc, look. Everything is all right.” Johnny stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dungarees. “We got to let this be for a while, Doc. Tell Ned he don’t need his gun. I can tell you Jocko isn’t gonna hurt me.”
“Very well, Johnny,” said Doctor Hannington. Then he left the window shouting after Ned. In a few moments they were both back at the shed.
“What?” Ned’s red face appeared again at the window.
“Time. We need to buy us some time, Ned,” said Johnny.
“We need to work this together.”
J. C. left the window. “Doc!” he said quietly, and the doctor’s face disappeared from view.
Costerson returned from town, carrying a rifle. Ned stepped away from the window to greet him.
“Costerson, got your ’75. Whooooah! Plannin’ to hunt game?” Ned called out loud and clear so Johnny could hear.
Craig closed the dus ty wooden shutter and darkness consumed the cabin. Johnny felt his way to the window and pushed on the shutter. It wouldn’t budge.
Next to the window a convenient knothole allowed Johnny to see what was happening outside. He could see Ned, J. C., and Doctor Hannington standing in a tight circle talking to Costerson, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Johnny was going to yell a protest but he suddenly remembered Guy Cousteau at Mitzie’s restaurant. The logger, burly as he was from years hauling timber, was obviously very afraid of the railroad agent. Johnny strained to hear the conversation.
As Johnny watched the men’s lips move he tried to fill in the words, but he was no lip reader. Paranoia gripped him as he stared at his best friends, laughing at something Costerson said.
Johnny stepped back from the wall and looked at Jocko, who was crouched on his cage watching him. “These people are my friends,” he told the ape-boy. “What’s getting into me?”
Not since Johnny was a little boy had he let dark thoughts like these torture him. He felt the way he had when his father, a trapper, came home drunk with no beaver pelts, complaining of Indians raiding his traps. He would usually end the evening taking his frustrations out on little Johnny.
Johnny thought of his helpless mom, how desperate she would get. She never hit Johnny. She didn’t think it was right.
He wished she was still with him, especially now. What could he do? He thought of Aunt Gertrude and her sage advice. “Do what you want to do,” she would say. “But follow your good heart, son. If I ain’t with you, that’s who you should listen to. In your heart is the good Johnny, the Johnny I love.”
When the human turned his back on him, Jocko shifted his weight slightly so that his relaxed crouch became that of a coiled sprinter, ready to bolt from the cabin. His powerful muscles locked into place and his eyes narrowed as his animal instincts calculated the precise distance to the door.
Then Jocko looked at the human’s back. He knew the door wasn’t solidly shut. And he knew he was fast enough.
But where would he go? Back to where he lost his family?
Where was that? Beyond the dark spot in his memory.
The humans – this human – held his only hope of finding it.
Jocko looked at the bright light that outlined the unbolted door. He could try to find the ravine he’d fallen into. But the boy had the answers. And now the boy was exhibiting total trust by turning his back on him. Why had his traditional enemy – a human – done such a thing?
Jocko stared at Johnny in astonishment.
Johnny realized that he had turned his back to a wild animal.
He looked quickly over his shoulder. Jocko was still squatting on the bear cage, looking at him. Jocko seemed to appear different to Johnny every time he looked at him. At that moment Johnny saw in Jocko a person very much like himself, even physically. The way Jocko leaned slightly with one hand on the cage seemed very human.
Johnny spoke to Jocko: “This is weird, Jocko. I don’t know if you get a word of what I’m sayin’.” Johnny lowered his eyes.
“You ain’t no monkey, like in a zoo.”
He took a deep breath. “That’s what they think. They think you’re a thing.” He gestured to the window. “Even if they don’t think that now, they will sooner or later.” He paused for a second. “Are you hearing this?”
Jocko gave no sign that he understood. He listened intently, that was for sure, but whether Johnny had gotten through to him remained to be seen. Johnny decided that he had to proceed on faith alone. “Anyway, Jocko. I got a feeling you aren’t up on our human ways. If they start to be afraid of you, they might … Oh Jocko, I don’t know. Those are good guys out there. But …”
By now Johnny’s eyes had fully adjusted to darkness inside the cabin. He saw Jocko’s head turn toward the window. Then the ape-boy’s eyes met his own.
Jocko was slowly becoming sure that the human was hearing his call for help. He blinked and smiled gratefully.
“Damned if you don’t understand me,” said Johnny.
Johnny had always known animals could understand people. But he also knew animals’ feelings weren’t supposed to matter. As his dad said: “A dog watches his master. A cat watches the milk pail. Simple as that. No use givin’ ’em credit they ain’t due.”
Johnny had been sensitive to animals all his life. He never had the stomach for hunting, but he knew the woods. He accepted hunting and trapping as a way of life, like logging.
But he didn’t like the killing.
Everyone who knew Johnny also knew he had a way with animals. Dogs and cats loved him. Horses let him ride.
Johnny said he simply understood them, and they seemed to understand him. Deer would eat from his hand. Perhaps it was a knack. Whatever it was, “the trick” was difficult for him to explain because he didn’t understand it.
Once, when Johnny was still a baby, his mom was hanging out laundry in the yard one summer day with Johnny playing nearby. Suddenly a squirrel came hopping toward him. He remembered being fascinated with the animal and its large bushy tail.
The squirrel continued to hop toward Johnny until it was a just foot from the boy, still not seeing him. Johnny’s mom took notice at that point and watched as Johnny charmed the squirrel into his lap. It was there a full minute, she would later tell her neighbors, “… and the squirrel never showed no fear.”
Johnny wanted to be normal, even though he knew he knew he wasn’t.
He tried to remember his mom; how she bragged about him to her sister Gert. Even when others called him weird, his mom was proud. She called him gifted, and special. Because of her, he knew what it was to be loved. And, when he should have been bathing in that love, he was taking it for granted.
“It’s a strange thing John does,” she told Aunt Gert. “He can disappear to a critter. They don’t seem to see him until he wants them to.”
“It’s your way,” his aunt had told him. That was a long time ago. Now Johnny was nineteen and no closer to understanding his gift.
Jocko understood the young human. He heard a soft voice in him. The boy was wondering, as was Jocko, “What would the other men do?”
“So here’s the thing, Jocko,” said Johnny, lowering his voice to a more solemn tone. “The best thing to do is for you to get back in that cage. You opened your cage, and got out. I know you did. But the others don’t believe you could do it. That’s what matters.”
He looked at the window. Jocko’s actions parroted
Johnny’s.
By now Johnny could see Jocko clearly and he took a moment to study the ape-boy’s face. Devoid of excessive hair, Jocko’s countenance looked human. He had wide cheek bones, a pronounced but not obtrusive brow, and fairly thick eyebrows. His ears poked out obtrusively through a shock of tangled red-brown hair.
Johnny considered that if Jocko had the benefit of an expert barber he might actually pass for human. “Jocko,”
Johnny said. “For your own good, you’ve got to get into the cage. I give you my word that I won’t let them hurt you. But if you run, I don’t know. Two of them have rifles and are probably good shooters. You can’t outrun a bullet.”
Jocko listened intently, then climbed back in the cage.
“You won’t be sorry, Jocko, I promise,” said Johnny with a smile of relief. Then he slowly slid the latch into place.
When the men returned to the shed, and found Jocko in his cage with Johnny standing beside it, they all hooted and clapped happily. “How did you manage it?” asked Doc Hannington.
Johnny thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “I just told him to get in the cage.”
Costerson laughed derisively. “You told him to?”
“Right.” Johnny nodded sternly.
To his surprise, no one else questioned Johnny about how he’d communicated with Jocko. All that seemed to matter was that Jocko was safely in his cage and Johnny had done his job.
Costerson continued a conversation he was having with Craig about having read that P. T. Barnum was losing money and needed a star act. The doctor and even Ned got excited at the prospects. Costerson said he’d already sent ‘a feeler telegram’ off to Barnum.
After a while everyone began to notice that the shed had acquired a thick musky smell. Johnny, who had been in the shed for a while, didn’t notice it until Ned mentioned it. The smell came from Jocko. Johnny guessed the group of humans clustered around the cage was making the ape-boy nervous.
It amazed Johnny that, when Collins had pushed his face inside the shed, he hadn’t smelled Jocko. There was only one answer. Jocko had somehow managed to vanish. There was no other explanation. But when he said as much the other men laughed, and Doctor Hannington suggested in a patronizing tone that Jocko had simply hidden from Collins’ view.
“Okay, what about the smell?” asked Johnny. “It’s pretty thick in here. You said so yourself, Ned. So why didn’t Collins smell him?”
“We know nothing of Collins’ olfactory conditions,” said the doctor. “And I think he smokes cigars.”
Johnny didn’t pursue the issue, but he knew there was no way Collins could have overlooked the ape-boy. When he pushed his head in the window he’d have been so close to Jocko that he could have touched him. He would surely have smelled him. But Collins was long gone and, judging from the fact that Mayor Hayes never showed up at the shed, he really hadn’t seen the ape-boy.
But Johnny couldn’t relax. And it wasn’t Jocko. As evening fell he left the shed to get some supper with the money Doc had lent him earlier. He’d already taken care of Jocko’s needs with a dusk raid on a nearby lettuce patch.
Johnny planned to take Jocko out to his aunt’s home a couple of miles from town. He’d go out there, get the buckboard, and hitch up Tilly, his aunt’s trusted steed, to haul Jocko to safety. But now he felt weak and dizzy. He knew that after he ate he’d be able to think more clearly.
A thousand miles down the coast an agent for the Barnum Circus had received a cable about Jocko. The message was relayed immediately to the great showman himself, in Sarasota, Florida:
APE-BOY FROM MOUNTAINS CAPTURED ALIVE
STOP
YALE BRITISH COLUMBIA STOP
NO LIE STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP
T. Paterson, Los Angeles, California
The response was even more brief. In a sentence, Barnum’s wealthy hand reached out to steal Jocko’s future:
SPARE NO EXPENSE BRING APE-BOY TO
SARASOTA BY ALL MEANS STOP
Barnum, Sarasota, Florida
By the time Johnny entered Mitzie’s Restaurant, he’d decided not to take any action to rescue the ape-boy until he had a better idea what his friends were planning. Now that he was out of the musty shed and away from Jocko he wondered why he’d felt so protective of the ape-boy.
As Mitzie put her famous berry pie before Johnny the door of the dining room opened and Collins and the Mayor entered the restaurant. They surveyed the room. Spotting Johnny, Collins said something to the mayor and they walked over to his table.
“Hi, Mayor Hayes,” said Johnny, trying desperately to remain calm.
“Good evening, boy,” said the mayor. “The word around town is that Mitzie has done herself proud this time with that berry pie. Is that right?”
Johnny nodded nervously. “Well, I ain’t tried it just yet, Mayor, but the Doc said it was real good.”
“Well, I won’t keep you from it.” Hayes smiled. “By the way, what’s this business I hear about some bear in the railroad shed?”
Johnny winced, then tried to cover it by shoving the first bite of pie into his mouth.
“Mmmmmm,” smiled Johnny. “Sure is good pie.” He chewed with relish, buying time to think of a good response.
“Mmmm,” Johnny said. “Real good pie! You gotta try it, Mr Mayor.”
“Did you ever find the bear?” asked Collins.
Johnny looked up at him and swallowed hard. “We found one up at the pass, yesterday, near the tunnel. It fell off the bluff or got hit by a train. We saw it layin’ by the tracks and took it to Doc Hannington.”
“Hannington treated a bear?” laughed the mayor.
“Well, it was hurt. And Ned, the engineer, said we might just sell it to the zoo. It hurt its head and doc was the only one in town, you know, who can fix … well, it had a big cut behind its ear, and …”
As the boy began to ramble about the bear the mayor lost interest. “Collins, here, says he saw nothing in the shed when he looked.”
“That’s right, mayor sir. We guess the bear ran away when we left the door open.”
Johnny was afraid of saying too much so he filled his mouth with another piece of pie and began to chew slowly.
“I see,” said the mayor. “Sorry to hear you lost your bear, young Tilbury. I can’t see a zoo wanting it, though. Any zoo around would be full of bears.” Hayes looked at Collins and shook his head. He seemed slightly annoyed. “Well, Johnny,” said the mayor as he looked around the room for an empty table. “Give my regards to your aunt.”
Still chewing, Johnny nodded politely. Mayor Hayes and Collins left Johnny to his pie and settled into a table across the room.
Johnny felt relieved. He didn’t want to try to spirit Jocko out of Yale that night. He was tired and figured that by now his aunt would know he was in town. He decided that the best thing to do was go to his aunt’s and bring the old blue buckboard to town the next morning under the pretext of moving some things for a friend.
Johnny swallowed the last bite of dessert and left his m oney on the table. He did his best to look casual as he left the restaurant and returned to the shed.
When he arrived everything was normal. Jocko lay curled in his cage. Johnny turned up the lantern to get a better view.
In the pale amber light the flickering shadows made Jocko appear to take several forms at once: a bear, an ape, then a man.
“A trick of the light,” muttered Johnny as he checked the latch on the cage.
Jocko still seemed to be asleep, so Johnny grabbed his satchel, locked the shed, and began the long hike to his Aunt Gertrude’s house.
A bright half-moon lit the road, and as he walked he thought about his encounter with the mayor and smiled. He felt really good about himself.
Within the hour Johnny arrived at his aunt’s farm.
His uncle, Jimmy Wescott, had been dead many years, it seemed. Johnny couldn’t even remember what the man looked like, but he ran a good farm and built a solid stone house that Johnny suspected would last two hundred years.
Johnny loved the way the house was built into a hillside, to make the place warmer in the winter. As his uncle intended, the house was built like a fortress. There were even special slits in the walls where rifles could poke through. The westward expansion and its trials had left its mark on everyone. Things had gotten a lot tamer around Yale since the house was built. Now those rifle holes were filled with planks and mortar.
As Johnny approached the farmhouse, he smiled at all those memories he had of the place. After Jimmy died in a fall from a buckboard, his aunt had struggled to keep the farm running.
“Jimmy always said my cooking would kill him, but Tilly got him first,” Gert would say. Then she would add, “Lord knows I miss the old coot.”
Johnny was glad to see the lights in the house still burning. Their glow illuminated old Tilly out in the field beside the house. She whinnied a call of recognition to Johnny as he approached the porch, and he called out to her. “Okay, Tilly, you can go back to sleep now.”
The door opened and Rocky came bounding out past
Gertrude’s skirt, barking gleefully.
“Hey, Rocky. Hi, Aunt Gert!” Johnny said as he grabbed the wagging pooch around its middle. “Now I gotcha!” He swung the dog back and forth, and Rocky growled a happy protest as he tried to lick Johnny’s face. The black and white spaniel was a good heft for Johnny but he held on tight.
Rocky groaned and strained to be put down.
“Oh, Johnny, put him down, now. He’s too old for those antics! I thought I’d see you yesterday,” she said, wiping wet hands on her white apron.
Johnny put Rocky on the ground and the happy dog ran in wide circles around the two, barking playfully.
Johnny told his aunt that he’d gotten tied up doing some business in town.
“I heard something about a bear,” she said. “Saw Stan Sams yesterday. He said you and Doc Hannington were carin’ for some animal, maybe a bear.” She assessed Johnny from head to foot with a critical eye. “That true?”
Johnny rolled his eye and said: “Oh, there ain’t much to that. Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
Johnny loved his aunt Gert because she was like his mom. Often sisters are different, often alike, but the marvelous thing about Johnny’s mom, Dorothy, and his aunt Gert was that they started out very different but in later life they looked and acted alike. At least it seemed that way.
Now that his mom was dead, and his father gone, Johnny hungered for family and his aunt was it. If he couldn’t trust her …
She seemed to accept his story. When they got inside the house she set about boiling some water. “Some tea or hot cocoa, John?”
Johnny yawned. “I ain’t too hungry but I sure am tired.”
His aunt looked him over now that she could get a good look at him. He looked tired, as he’d said. “Well, John, you do look done in. Maybe you and me oughta hit the sack and do our talking over breakfast?”
Johnny smiled. “I’ll take some of your famous egg bread, if you please, ma’am.”
Johnny’s nose woke up before he did. Dreaming of a big mess of …
“Egg bread this mornin’, Johnny!” called Gert. Johnny rolled his feet off the bunk and sat up. His eyes fixed on his aunt, holding two eggs and leaning into the room. She looked as though she’d been up for hours. A painful thought, since he hadn’t even heard the rooster crow yet. But the truth was that the rooster had crowed hours ago.
Johnny rubbed his eyes. Then he saw Jocko’s face emerge from the dark patterns behind his closed lids. It looked at Johnny. Johnny stared at it. His body froze.
The image started to fade, but as it did so he thought he saw Jocko’s face distort in anguish and fear. Johnny blinked.
The fireplace was burning brightly. It had been a cold night.
“How many pieces?” his aunt asked.
“Pieces?” asked Johnny, still blinking sleepily.
Yesterday came crashing back to him. The mayor.
Costerson. Ned. Jocko.
Johnny pulled on his breeches and shuffled into the kitchen. “I gotta borrow the wagon.”
She looked at him. “How many pieces of egg bread?”
“Oh. Three, please.”
“Why do you want the wagon?” asked Gert, flipping a piece of wet bread onto the hot buttered griddle. Johnny watched it sizzle invitingly as he fastened his suspenders to the clean green breeches his aunt had left out for him.
“I promised some friends I’d help ’em move some stuff.”
“You promised my wagon to your friends?” she said in mock alarm. “I suppose you promised them the horse, too?”
“And the dog,” Johnny smiled. “Is that done yet? It smells good.”
“John Tilbury. What on earth are you up to?” Gert turned around, holding the spatula like a sword.
Johnny hated to lie, especially to Gert. He had never been much on religion, but he believed in God. He figured God made things the way they are, and that meant the way things are is truth. So, Johnny concluded, if God was anything He is truth. Johnny thought the things most folks call the Devil are the false things. The lies. So it was difficult for Johnny to lie, especially to his mom’s only sister.
“That’s not all,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
He almost hoped his aunt didn’t hear.
But she heard him plainly. “Johnny, sit down, have breakfast, and tell me.”
He told her everything. About Jocko, the train, Ned and Doc Hannington. But when he told her about Jocko he left out some details, like the strange mental link between the ape-boy and himself. Not that he didn’t want her to know, he simply had no idea how to describe it.
But he told her Jocko took to him. But Gert knew animals took to Johnny. She called it his ‘talent’. No one else described it that way. She made it sound like a gift.
By the time he had finished relating the story, his aunt was sitting across from him at the dining table. “You’re right to trust Doc Hannington,” she said. “He won’t let you down.”
His aunt stared out into the field next to the house. The sun shone on ripening sunflowers and a dark jay swept a bug from the air. Waiting for the inevitable advice, Johnny scraped the last of the breakfast from his plate. But after a few minutes she still was silent. Finally he could stand the silence no more.
“Well, let’s hear it,” he said.
She looked at him and smiled. “Hear what?”
“You got more to say, but you ain’t sayin’ it, that’s what!”
“Johnny, don’t pester me. I’m thinkin’.”
“Well, what about the wagon? Can I take it or not?”
“Of course you can, Johnny. You know it’s yours to use if you ever need it. But what are you planning to do with it?”
“I want to bring Jocko here, but not permanent like. Maybe keep him in the shed or somewhere, ’til I can figure out what to do. I have the feelin’ he wants me to take him back to where we found him.”
“You think this Jocko sees you as a way to get back?”
“I think so, yes. But who else does he have? I know where we found him.”
Rolling her eyes, Gertrude began gathering plates from the table.
“Land sakes, Johnny,” she sighed. “Lord knows you’re a special one. That’s no lie.”
Without another word she went out the door and called the dog. “C’mon, Rocky,” she called, “get the scraps!” Then Johnny heard her call after him. “Be sure to mind Tilly’s right hind hoof. She picked up a stone a while ago. We got it out but her hoof might still be sore.”
“I will,” promised Johnny. Looking back at the kitchen clock he saw that it was later than he’d thought. He quickly pulled on his boots and ran out the door and up the short path to the barn.
Hurriedly Johnny hitched Tilly to the wagon and jumped aboard. He waved to Gert as he gathered the stiff leather reins in his hands.
“Mind Tilly’s hoof, now,” called his aunt.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Gert.” Johnny released the wooden hand brake. Hearing the creaking brake, Tilly threw back her head and lurched into action. The horse seemed to know Johnny was driving, judging from the spring in her step. There seemed to be no sign of a sore hoof, so Johnny straightened in the seat and pulled the reins tight.
As the wagon entered the town Johnny heard the train whistle as it signaled its approach to Yale. The sun was now high and bright in the blue sky. The mountains seemed so close as to rise from the edge of town. To the west of town Cedar Bluff glowed brightly, looming above the green forest.
“Must be the noon run,” Johnny said to the horse. “I bet Ned’s aboard.”
When Johnny got to the shed he could see the lumber train sitting on a siding. He was thinking about Jocko as he climbed out of the seat and tied Tilly to a tree limb, but when he saw the train his mind returned to his job, something he had barely thought about in the last two days.
Johnny’s weekly shift had ended when they found Jocko.
He realized that his two days had flown by.
“I’ve spent my weekend off baby sitting an ape. Jeeez.
Tomorrow I’ll be back to shoveling coal.”
Johnny searched his pocket for the key to the padlock. As he fumbled he noticed that the padlock had been replaced with a different one.
Finally he found the key and tried it, but as he expected, it didn’t fit the lock. Johnny looked around then, unable to think of any other action, he called out in a loud whisper, “Jocko.
You okay in there?”
But there was no response.
He looked around. In the distance he thought he saw Costerson step onto the train. Puzzled, Johnny walked around the shed. He found the window slightly ajar. On tiptoes he pushed open the window and peered into the shed.
He remembered the image that had hovered before his closed eyes that morning. Had Jocko contacted him? He couldn’t see every corner of the shed, but he could see that the cage was no longer there.
“What?” he said aloud.
The train gave a whistle heralding its departure. Then it moved slowly, straining under the weight of many log-filled flatbed freight cars.
Johnny searched the dirt near the shed for telltale tracks, but there was nothing. He knew Jocko was gone. Gone from the shed and from Johnny’s mind. In a strange way he began to feel that the whole thing had been a dream. Was that possible?
“No, that couldn’t be!” he said angrily.
Johnny began walking toward the depot. As he approached the station he looked for familiar faces, but there were none to be seen. He headed toward the train station, then turned and ran toward the doctor’s house. As he ran past the shed he stopped.
“Costerson. On the train.”
Suddenly he realized that Jocko was aboard the train. But it was too late. The last cars were pulling away from the station. Johnny could see the caboose about 500 feet away, doing about five miles an hour.
Johnny looked back toward the shed and saw that Tilly was secured to the post, then in a dead run he was off to catch up with the train. He knew it was impossible, because outside of town the grade went downhill, giving trains what Ned called the ‘Yale Booster’. If the train got there before Johnny, there would be no way of catching up with it. But he had to try.
The wind seemed to be with him. Despite the rough stone and brambles at the edge of the tracks, Johnny covered ground at an amazing speed. But as he tried to negotiate the tracks his footing became unsure. The way the wooden ties were laid down seemed to be at odds with the length of his stride. No matter how he tried to adjust his gait, the railroad seemed to be conspiring against him.
Johnny cursed as he stumbled and hit the gravel. He reached groundward and caught the steel rail. Heated by sun and locomotive, it burned his hand, but the pain spurred him to regain his footing. Johnny vowed to keep a better eye on his feet.
When Johnny at last neared the caboose the train began to pick up speed. Its front half had reached the ‘Yale Booster’.
Johnny never got closer than fifty feet from the train. It gathered momentum as it began its downhill run.
Experience told Johnny that the engineers used this boost to help them up the next grade a few miles down the line.
There, the grade slowed most trains to a crawl as they reached the ridge. Johnny would have to catch the train there, or never.
Johnny looked down at his knee. The denim was stained red. “Damn!”
Though his pants were torn and stained, it didn’t hurt too much, and he could still run. But after a mile of running, the patch of blood had grown larger and his knee was beginning to hurt. He tried to jump in measured strides from tie to tie. It was easy at first but was soon hard to keep up. Eventually he chose to run on the rough gravel beside the rails, dodging scrub cactus and brush. At least there he wouldn’t trip and break his ankle.
Johnny ran. Sweat poured down his temples but he kept it up. Eventually, as he came around a tight curve, he could again see the train, going up the grade and beginning to slow.
Johnny estimated that he’d have to run another mile to catch up with the train, and soon he would be going uphill. He was already exhausted. If a steady dry wind had not been blowing on him he might not have gotten this far, he reasoned.
“I can do it!” he muttered as he pushed his legs to move faster.
The grade got steeper. Two hundred feet in front of him he saw the caboose slow to a crawl. Johnny put his heart into it, spurred on by hope.
Once again he fell but jumped up, his shirt sleeve torn on a broken tree limb. But he gained on the caboose. He could make out its red painted numbers.
“642,” huffed Johnny. “Gonna git you.”
Then a branch grabbed his waist and he fell. Hard.
Dazed, Johnny tried to get up, but he was already past exhaustion. His head was swimming and the hot summer sun baked and dizzied his brain so that he couldn’t see straight.
Sweat ran into his right eye, stinging mercilessly. And then, almost as a mocking gesture, he heard the train whistle shout to the next town. Johnny looked up in time to see 642 disappear over the hill.
He bowed his head. “Well, that’s the end of it,” he said, resolutely examining his knee.
On his feet again, he trotted to the top of the hill, but the train was gone. Nothing but the wind. Johnny wiped the sweat from his brow. Behind him he heard someone say his name.