The Ape Man's Brother Read Free Page B

crawled off to cover inside a flowered bush and quivered for awhile before it went still. It was not a good day for monkeys.
    All the others of The Woman’s group came running up then. They all had the same kind of clubs. They were pointing them at us. During all this action, I had rushed up beside The Big Guy. I thought it was going to be a fight to the death, and I was more than willing, maybe even a little anxious to try it out, see how we’d fare against all those men. I had no idea about the guns, then. I had heard one, and I had seen it spit fire, but I didn’t know they threw bullets. I thought that first monkey had just fainted at the sound of the shot. I thought it would be us against them, arms against arms, legs against legs, fists against fists, skulls against skulls, and their clubs against us. But, of course, that isn’t how it would have been. That many armed men, no matter how strong and quick The Big Guy was, no matter how savage the both of us were, we’d have lasted just about long enough for our balls to swing once between our legs before we hit the ground, torn apart by bullets. What saved us was The Woman raised her hand and yelled at the others. Everything stopped. She stood staring at The Big Guy, and he stood staring at her.
    The Big Guy had never seen anything like her, all curved up in the right places, wet, red lips and shiny blue eyes. And she was looking at a very big man with dark hair and a body that was all long, lean muscle, dirt and scars and deep suntan; from the way her face relaxed, I had a pretty good idea she liked what she was looking at as much as he liked what he was looking at.
    It was while they were looking at one another, The Woman with her arm raised, holding back action from those behind her, that there was a screech loud enough to make my backbone shift. A great shadow flowed across the moon and a flying, feathered lizard as big as one of your air planes, swooped down and grabbed The Woman by hooking its claws in her shoulder.
    Those damn things were all over our part of the world. A nuisance is what they were. So, it was pretty much over for The Woman, I thought, and then the next thing I know The Big Guy is running. I mean, he is moving. He took to one of the tall trees, and went up it swiftly. Those flying creatures have an odd habit of grabbing something, then circling back, maybe to see if they’ve left part of it on the ground. This habit was something The Big Guy, of course, was fully acquainted with, and he took advantage of it.
    It was circling back, true to from, and The Big Guy having judged its circle had quickly climbed that tree, and as the thing winged by, The Big Guy leaped and effortlessly landed on its back. He wrapped one arm around its neck, went to beating its hard head with his free fist. You could hear him whapping it all the way from where we stood.
    As the thing flew over us, blood sprinkled down on us from the The Big Guy’s blows, that and brains from that thing, and the next thing you know, its crashing into a tree, and letting go of The Woman. The Big Guy, moving faster than a snake can strike, leaped off that flying, twisting, falling wreck, grabbed The Woman’s arm as he went, and swung them both into the leafy boughs of the tree.
    There they were, standing on a limb in a tall tree, her shoulder slightly wet with blood, bleeding through the cloth of her torn shirt, and there he was, standing without clothes, staring into her eyes; his pecker standing up like a snake rising to strike. She moved the short distance between them, took hold of his long, tangled hair, pulled him to her, pressed her mouth against his, and even from where we stood, that kiss sounded like someone pulling their foot out of a deep mud puddle.
    “That son-of-a-bitch,” said the flame-headed guy, who I would later learn was called Red.
    The Big Guy picked her up with one arm, leaped off the limb, grabbed another limb with his free hand, swung them up into the cover