Joko Read Free

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