Bear Bob's Story as told to Edward Summer

Chapter Four
The Ordeal
 

Never had a day taken so long to pass. My mind had never been so filled with fear in full daylight.  What would happen that night?  What would the creatures in the tree do?  My mind could only imagine terrible, terrible things. Would my friends perish before me making horrible sounds?  What would happen when I tried to climb the tree? Would the demons knock me down? Would they attack me? Would they bite my fingers when I reached for the pods? Would I get down alive?

     My friends were silent, too. Their heads must have been swimming with the same thoughts. They glanced at me. They glanced at each other. They stared at the ground, and sometimes they fidgeted in the dust.

     And the whole time, we were all hungry and thirsty. The men sat around us silently. They did not move. They did not talk. They just watched and waited.

     After an eternity, the sky began to darken. Tonight only a thin sliver of the moon would rise. It would give a tiny glow of light to the darkness. If the sky was clear, the stars would shimmer, too.

     All at once, the men stood up. The tall man was there. Where had he been all this long, hot, hungry, thirsty day? I had not seen him. Where had he gone?

     He gestured, and we stood, too. The men began to move. Without touching us, without talking to us, without a gesture, they made us know that we must move, too.

     Slowly, we all walked toward the baobab. The closer we got, the bigger the tree became. Was it growing before our very eyes? Or was it so big, so big that no matter how far away you stood it rose tall into the sky?

     The sky grew darker, but we could see something moving on the tree. What was it? It was small. No. There was more than one thing moving. There were dozens, hundreds of things moving on the tree. What were they? What were they? We could not tell from where we stood. Our minds told us that they had claws and fangs. And they must be as hungry as we were. Their stomachs must be empty and growling like ours. Empty. Waiting to eat juicy little boys.

     The men said nothing.

     As the sun sank lower we moved closer and closer and closer.

     And the tree grew bigger and bigger and bigger.

     The branches, the branches that looked like roots reached up and grabbed the sky.  It looked like the branches were drinking the light from the sky, sucking it in, draining the light until not a drop was left. Only black was left. And as the tree sucked in the light, it only got bigger and taller above us.

     Then we stopped.

     The baobab was so big that it was like a mountain. If it was hollow, our whole village could live inside it!

     A drum began to beat. Tump ta tump. Taa ta tump. A strange rhythm. Not the rhythm of walking. Not the rhythm of the drums that talked across the lonely spaces of the forests. A strange, strange rhythm.

     "You!" the tall man said and pointed to the boy next to me. "You!"

     The boy’s eyes were wide in the soft glow of light from the stars and the tiny sliver of moon that tried to split the blackness of the night. We could see the terror in that whiteness of his eyes. His black skin vanished in the night. Only the eyes. Only the fear.

     "Go!" the tall man said. Now, he pointed to the tree.

     The boy walked slowly to the trunk. He was so tiny next to the tree. So, so tiny. But he went to the tree and looked up into the heavens and began to climb. He found a branch here. He found a crack in the wood there, and he began to climb. Up two feet. Stop. Look around. Up another foot. Grab a branch. Up three feet. Over to the right. Stop. Look around. A crack for the right foot, a branch for the left hand.

     We could barely see him. All we could hear were the strange sounds of the demons in the tree. And the pounding of our hearts.

     Whoosh! A shape flew past our heads. I ducked. We all ducked. What was that? Whoosh! A black shape flapping and flying. A bird? No. It was too large. What, what was it? What was it?

     Something on my arm! Slap! It was gone! An evil spirit? A demon? An insect? Too dark to tell. Only that it was gone.

     "Help!" From the tree, a cry. The boy called out! "Help!" The sound moved, falling toward us. "Help!" He fell down from the tree. He hit the ground. Thump! He was still. We could barely see his eyes blink.

     The men went to him. They stood around him.

     "A demon," the boy said. "A demon flew into my hair! A demon bit my hand. A demon!"

     The men lead him away from the tree.

     "You!" said the tall man. "You" and he pointed to a different boy.

     Up the tree went the boy. Left hand. Right foot. Grab the branch. Find a foothold. Higher. Higher. Now, a crackling sound. A branch breaking. Breaking. Breaking. And the boy fell with a loud, loud thump.

     "You!" Now the tall man pointed for a third time. "You!" My mind did not understand. His finger pointed at me. At me. At me.

     Something moved under me and I rose. It was my legs. They did not belong to me anymore. They straightened all by themselves. I was too busy listening to my heart pounding in my ears, the breath rushing through my nostrils, in and out of my mouth. I was too busy to understand how I moved.  But I did move, and now I walked to the tree. The tree. The baobab tree.

     Now I stood next to the fat, fat trunk, so big that a thousand thousand men holding hands could not embrace this tree. So big. So big. And I looked up. And the tree was so high that only the gods could see the top. So high. It was so very black against the star sparkled sky. So black. The sliver moon's light caressed the branches enough so that they glowed with fearsome pleasure. Skeleton hands in the night.

     Would they fall down upon me?

     Would they hold me up?

     What terrible monster would eat at my arms and face as I climbed? What monster? What terrible monster?

     I placed my hand on the tree and it was smooth and hard and yet still warm from the day. Warm. Alive. The tree was alive. So alive, that it must know all about me.  Know everything about me. Know that I would try to climb it.

     My hand ran until it found a small branch. Full of fear I grasped upon it. I tugged. I tugged again. It did not break.  My left hand felt about until it found a crack in the bark. Into it went my left foot. My body raised up and I reached with my left hand and found another stub of a branch. Slowly, I hung my weight on the branch. It did not break. It did not break.  A new place for my right foot and up I went again.

     I could not see down past my stomach. So I looked up and up. And could see nothing but flat tree. Far, far above, thrust into the night like an arm with fingers was a long thick  branch.  I knew that was the place I must reach.

     First a branch, then a place for my foot. Then another branch, and another place for my other foot. One step at a time. One branch at a time. Tugged hard first to make sure the branch did not break. Put my weight on my foot, and hoped I would not fall.

     Up one step. Up another step.

     Now my heartbeat was not so loud in my ears. My breathing not so loud in my dry mouth. My nostrils quivered. But now I could hear the other sounds. The other sounds. What were they? Chattering. Chattering. No language I had ever heard before. What were they saying? Were they warning the other demons that I was coming?

     Up three more steps. Up four more steps.

     The branch was closer, closer now. I needed the fruit. Could I reach it from the trunk?

     Four more steps. Four more steps. And now I saw the branch. But the fruit was too far away! I saw it hanging like fat fingers. I must crawl out on the branch to get it.

     Four more steps and my arm landed on the top of the branch. It was like a bridge, this branch. A bridge from the tree into the heart of night. My right arm went over the branch, and I pulled my body onto it.  It was as big as a highway. My body lay upon it and I was exhausted. No food, No sleep. But now I could rest, except for the strange sounds.

     I knew I had to crawl along the branch to find the fruit. Slowly, an inch at time I crawled. From time to time, I reached down to feel for the fruits. The sounds were louder now.  But these sounds were not threatening, they were sounds of fear. How could that be? What would monsters be afraid of?

     Then I could see something moving, shiny, shimmering along the branch in the shadows. It moved like a silent wave of water on the branch, closer and closer to me.  Silent. Silent, shimmering, silent. Then I saw. I knew what it was.

     A snake.

     Moonlight caught in the slit eyes of the snake. Moonlight shimmered on the flickering tongue. The body wove its way through the moonlight toward me.

     I wanted to turn. I wanted to run. But I could not stand up on the branch, I would fall!  I could not turn fast enough! I would fall! Where would I go? Where could I go before the snake arrived and made me its dinner?
 

This page 01/24/99