Adventures (22 page)

“How do I know that I won't provide old Goola here with a little snack?” I asked, for to my eyes Goola was looking decidedly eleven-o'clockish, an opinion that was strengthened by the loud rumbling noises that his belly was making.

“Goola will do what I tell him to do,” said Bloomstoke firmly. “Now come out so that he can see you.”

“I don't know about this,” I said from behind my tree. “He can't eat what he can't see.”

“Elephants are herbivores,” said Bloomstoke.

“They're also very nearsighted,” I pointed out. “Maybe I look like a fig tree to him.”

“If you don't come out instantly, I'll simply leave you behind,” he said.

I quickly discussed my options with my Silent Partner, and we decided that being left behind was—very minimally—the less desirable of two admittedly depressing alternatives, so I slowly left the protection of my tree and edged, a step at a time, over toward Goola.

“Let him smell the back of your hand,” said Bloomstoke.

I held out my hand and Goola took a good whiff, almost pulling my arm out of the socket in the process.

“Good!” said Bloomstoke vigorously. “Now we're all friends. Goola, lift us up!”

Goola pawed the ground three times with his right front foot.

“No, Goola!” said Bloomstoke.
"Lift!"

Goola rolled over on his back and closed his eyes.

“Idiot!” snapped Bloomstoke. I kept feeling we should throw him a fish or something, but my companion stalked off furiously. “Come on, Jones, we'll walk!”

When we got about a hundred yards away Goola trumpeted six or seven times and stood on his head. Then we took a hard left around a wait-a-bit thorn tree and I couldn't see him anymore, though we could hear him for another ten minutes.

We followed an old rhino trail in the direction of the gunshots, and in about half an hour Bloomstoke held out his arm, practically decapitating me as I walked by him, and when I fell to the ground, gurgling and gasping for air, he put a forefinger to his lips.

“Silence!” he whispered.

Well, I would have told him what I thought of his silence, but I was a little preoccupied with choking to death, so I merely glared at him and quietly urged the Lord to strike him either dead or mute, whichever came first.

I got my breath back and stood up just in time to see Bloomstoke stride out of the bushes into a clearing to confront a kind of smallish white man dressed all in khaki.

“Who are you that invades my jungle?” Bloomstoke demanded.

“I'm Capturing Clyde Calhoun,” said the white man, not looking the least bit scared or startled. “And you are either the strongest white man or the puniest gorilla I've ever laid eyes on.”

“What is your business here?” said Bloomstoke ominously.

“Business?” laughed Calhoun. “Ain't you never read my books or seen my movies? I'm Capturing Clyde! I go out after the most dangerous animals in the world—except for redheads named Thelma—and bring ’em back alive, and put ’em in my circus or turn ’em over to zoos or gourmet chefs or other interested parties.”

“What animals do you seek?”

“Gorillas,” said Calhoun. “Thought I'd bring back fifteen or twenty of ’em before they're all extinct.”

“I distinctly heard the reports of a powerful gun,” said Bloomstoke.

“You bet your boots you did,” said Calhoun, holding up a Lee-Enfield .303 military rifle. “Or at least you would if you were wearing any boots.”

“I thought you told me that you brought them back alive,” said Bloomstoke accusingly.

“Maybe I should reword that a bit,” said Calhoun. “Them what I bring back
is
alive. I just take old Betsy here and aim right betwixt their eyes and fire away. Anything still breathing gets captured and civilized.”

“Where's your camp?” asked Bloomstoke.

“About eight miles behind me,” said Calhoun. “You can't miss it. I've got two hundred porters, a dozen trackers, ten cooks, a couple of translators, and forty-three veterinarians.”

I stepped out of the clearing next to Bloomstoke.

“What the hell are you?” demanded Calhoun.

“The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service,” I said.

“You got any good funeral ceremonies for hippos?” he asked,

“I ain't never tried my hand at one,” I admitted.

“Then you'll have to be at someone else's service, Reverend Jones,” he said. “I got a little too enthused down by the river this morning.”

“You planning on going back to Nairobi anytime in the near future?” I asked him.

“Soon as I pick up my gorillas,” he said.

“Mind if I tag along with you?”

“Why not?” he said. “What the hell are you doing out here in the Congo anyway?”

“I've mostly been concentrating on being lost,” I said.

“How about you?” he said to Bloomstoke. “You coming back to Nairobi too?”

“This is my jungle,” said Bloomstoke, folding his arms across his massive chest. “I will not leave it, and you will not hunt in it.”

“Do you know who you're talking to?” roared Calhoun. “I'm Capturing Clyde, by God, and I'll hunt where I want!”

“This jungle belongs to me, and I will not allow you to molest my gorillas,” reported Bloomstoke.

“What kind of pervert do you take me for?” said Calhoun. “I don't want to molest them! I want to capture them!”

“No,” said Bloomstoke. “Now I want you to leave my jungle.

“Who says it's
your
jungle anyway?” demanded Calhoun.

Bloomstoke reached inside his loincloth and whipped out a pair of folded documents, which he handed to Calhoun.

“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Calhoun after he had read them. “I didn't know they could sell a jungle.”

“Neither did I,” said Bloomstoke morosely.

“Who'd you buy it from?” asked Calhoun.

“A man named Van Horst.”

“Figgers.”

“Why does everyone say that?” asked Bloomstoke.

“I'd tell you, but it brings back too many unpleasant memories,” said Calhoun. “I don't suppose you'd consider renting me a little section of your jungle, with maybe an option to buy?”

“I could use the money,” admitted Bloomstoke. “But I'd have to present your proposal to the tribe and get their approval, and they're very leery of anything that reeks of capitalism.”

“Tribe?” asked Calhoun. “What tribe? I didn't know there were any natives in this region.”

“This tribe is a little more native than most,” I said.

“No,” concluded Bloomstoke, shaking his head sadly. “I'll never get the Ruling Council to buy it.”

“Would it help if I told them they could retain the mineral rights?” asked Calhoun.

“I doubt it,” said Bloomstoke truthfully.

“All right,” said Calhoun. “I've got another proposition. I'm being paid four thousand pounds for every gorilla I capture. If you'll let me hunt in your jungle and give me a helping hand, I'll split the take fifty-fifty with you.”

“How many gorillas do you need?” asked Bloomstoke.

“About twenty.”

“And I owe Barrow, Phillips, and Smythe thirty-eight thousand pounds,” he mused. Then he shook his head again. “No! I just can't! John D. Rockefeller or J. P. Morgan might have understood, but Karl Marx would come back and haunt me.”

“And George would eat you,” I added.

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” asked Calhoun.

“Let me speak to them about accepting a short-term lease on the jungle,” said Bloomstoke, grabbing an overhanging branch and pulling himself up on it. “Maybe I can show them that Fabian socialism doesn't necessarily preclude the validity of certain capitalistic principles.” He leaped into the air, caught a low-hanging vine, and was soon racing through the treetops to meet with the tribe.

“Tell me something, Reverend Jones,” said Calhoun, leaning against a tree and lighting up a pipe.

“If I can,” I said amicably.

“When Americans go crazy they beat up their wives and spend their life savings on booze, which at least keeps their women on their toes and puts a little money back into the economy. And when Irishmen go crackers, they go off and join the IRA and help keep down the population of a very crowded little island.” He paused thoughtfully. “So how come whenever Englishmen go nuts then run around naked in tropical climates?”

I allowed as to how I didn't know, but it did seem to be the case, at least in my experience. He pulled out a small metal flask and offered me a swig, and we got to talking about one thing and another, passing the time of day very pleasantly, when suddenly we heard a horrible sound away off in the distance.

“What is it?” asked Calhoun.

“I can't rightly tell,” I answered.

“Sounds like a bunch of savage voices screaming in fury,” he said, putting his flask away.

A moment later we heard a noise overhead, and saw Bloomstoke dropping down from one branch to another until he finally landed right next to us on the ground.

“Hurry!” he cried. “We've no time to waste!”

“What are you talking about, Brother Bloomstoke?” I asked.

“We've got to get out of here!”

“But what happened?” I persisted.

“They decided that I was a closet imperialist and threw me out of the party!
Me
, who brought them a fourteen-year agricultural recovery plan!”

“What's he talking about, Reverend?” asked Calhoun.

“I think he's saying that his visa's been revoked and he is in some danger of being deported,” I said, falling into step behind Bloomstoke as he lit out for the east. “Or worse yet, detained without right of counsel.”

“Are you sure we have to run?” panted Calhoun, joining me.

“I'm sure
I
have to run,” I replied. “You do whatever you think is best.”

We made it to Calhoun's camp in about three hours. The gorillas lined up in a huge semi-circle just out of rifle range and kept screaming things at us, which Bloomstoke translated as “capitalist swine” and “war-mongering imperialists” and “running dogs". Every now and then one of them would call us “ugly naked apes who didn't have the brains to turn over a rotten log and find a handful of succulent grubworms,” at which Bloomstoke would smile and inform us that obviously the entire tribe was not yet radicalized.

By dawn the next morning it was apparent that the gorillas weren't going to come no closer and that Bloomstoke wasn't going to let no one go hunting in his jungle, so Calhoun announced that we would be leaving for Nairobi in an hour or so. Bloomstoke gave out that peculiar scream of his, and a few minutes later old Goola came lumbering out of the jungle.

“Don't shoot him,” ordered Bloomstoke, as Calhoun raised his rifle.

“But he'll trample us!” said Calhoun.

“Am I not Master of the Jungle?” said Bloomstoke with a confident smile. He raised his hand and Goola came to a sudden stop.

“He does whatever you tell him to?” asked Calhoun, suddenly interested.

Bloomstoke nodded.

“You ever give any serious thought to appearing in the circus?” continued Calhoun.

“I'd need thirty-eight thousand pounds,” said Bloomstoke.

“Out of the question!” said Calhoun.

“That would include the elephant.”

“Let's see what he can do,” said Calhoun, scratching his head.

Bloomstoke walked up to the pachyderm. “Goola—sit!” he commanded.

Goola picked Bloomstoke up with his trunk and deposited the jungle lord on the back of his neck.

“We'll work on that,” said Bloomstoke hastily. “Put me down, Goola.”

Goola pawed the ground three times with his right front foot, while Calhoun snorted in derision and walked away.

“I could be an aerielist!” Bloomstoke called after him. “I'm really good at swinging from tree to tree.”

“I'll think about it,” said Calhoun.

“Or a sharpshooter!” continued Bloomstoke. “I'm a crack shot with a bow and arrow. Damn you, Goola—put me the hell down!”

Well, they spent most of the day dickering, but the upshot of it all was that Calhoun already had a flock of aerielists, and besides, it would cost too much to lug a bunch of trees and vines around the countryside and erect them under the big top. Also, people didn't pay top dollar to watch bows-and-arrow marksmen unless they were with a Wild West Show, which was one of the kinds of shows that Calhoun didn't run.

“Tell you what I'll do,” said Calhoun at last. “You teach that elephant five tricks by the time we hit Nairobi and I'll pay you thirty-eight thousand pounds to go on tour with my circus for two years.”

“And if I don't?” asked Bloomstoke.

“Then I'll buy him outright for ten thousand, and you can hire on as an animal attendant for standard wages.”

“Capitalist pig!” muttered Bloomstoke, but he shook on it.

Well, I never saw an elephant not learn so many tricks in my life as I did during the month it took us to get from the Congo to Kenya. Bloomstoke would tell him to stand up, and he'd roll over. Bloomstoke would tell him to lie down, and he'd speak. Bloomstoke would tell him to speak, and he'd count with his foot. When we were two days out of Nairobi it was pretty obvious that Bloomstoke was going to come out on the short end of the deal, so I walked over to him after everyone else was asleep.

“You been going about this all wrong, Brother Bloomstoke,” I said, taking him off to where we wouldn't disturb nobody.

“What do you mean, Doctor Jones?” he asked.

“Look, we all agree that old Goola, if he ain't out-and-out retarded, has at least got a serious learning disability, right?” I said.

Bloomstoke nodded.

“But he's also a good-hearted critter who's eager to please, even if he don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Bloomstoke.

“Why not give him commands in French or ape or some other foreign tongue?” I suggested. “Then, no matter what he does next, praise him and act like it was just what you had in mind.”

“That's immoral,” he said sternly.

“Well, personally I find it a lot less immoral than poverty,” I said. “But if you disagree, why, that's your right. Just forget I ever suggested it.”

The next morning Bloomstoke called Calhoun over and gave Goola a dozen terse commands in apeish, and shortly thereafter signed a thirty-eight-thousand-pound contract.