Vergie said, andthe excitement in her voice matched what Mayola was feeling at the same exact moment.
Nothing big ever happened in Wakulla County.
She was just catching her breath again and readying herself to go find out about what they’d come for, when they heard a screech of grinding metal that like to cut the air in two. She watched as a white man in a strap undershirt pushed up the back of the cage truck,pulled down a ramp, and poked inside with a long hooked stick.
Mayola almost swallowed her gum when, slow as a Sunday stroll, a for-real elephant walked out into the Florida sun.
* * *
“ Aaahhh-eeeeeeee-aaahhhh-eeeee-aaaahhhh-eeeeee-aaaahhhhh! ”
A long, ululating cry pierced the quiet of the jungle.
“That’s Tarzan!” Boy said. “He’s going for a swim!” Boy grabbed Cheeta’s paw and they racedthrough the wiry grass until they came to the bank of the mighty river. A fallen tree lay across a branch of a taller tree, overhanging the water. As nimbly as any young ape, Boy scampered up the steep angle to stand beside his father, leaving Cheeta below to watch.
Tarzan stood high above the slow-moving river, naked except for a triangular loincloth low on his hips, his knife sheathed at hisside. He was a magnificent man, his thick hair long and dark, his skin the color of honey. He was poised and ready to dive, every inch of his smoothly muscled body as sleek and lithe as an animal’s, showing at a glance his wondrous combination of enormous strength, suppleness, and speed. His deep, brooding eyes scanned his realm.
The ape-man might be ignorant of the ways of civilization, uneducated,childlike in his puzzlement about the tools of the white man. But this was his world, and in it, he was the most cunning, the most intelligent, the most respected—and most feared—of all the creatures. King of the Jungle.
“Umgawa!” he said to Boy. And without another word—for he was a man of few words—Tarzan took another step out onto the limb, flexed his powerful legs and—
“Cut!” yelled thedirector.
Johnny Weissmuller relaxed. He looked down into the crystal clear waters of Wakulla Springs for a moment, then cuffed little Johnny Sheffield on the shoulder, and the two actors climbed down the ladder hidden from the cameras on the far side of the tree. On the ground, his assistant helped him into his white terrycloth robe, its edges stained brown from his full-body makeup. Weissmullerwas as tan as any man in Hollywood, but Tarzan had to be flawless.
“Boy go for swim?” he asked.
Sheffield shook his head. “I’ve got to do my schoolwork. Union rules.”
“Swim tomorrow,” Weissmuller said, and ruffled his blond curls.
A colored boy rowed them across the water to the movie encampment with its folding canvas chairs, tents, and trunks of equipment. Weissmuller slouched into the chairstenciled BIG JOHN, and watched as Little John ran across the manicured lawn and into the Lodge for his lessons.
Cameras were mounted on a floating barge in the middle of the river. Beyond them, two stunt doubles now stood on the tree branch, and at a signal from Thorpe, the director, they dived head-first into the deep, clear water. One of them faltered and made a huge splash.
“Crap!” saidThorpe. He turned to the swimming coordinator. “We have to shoot that again, Newt. Tarzan doesn’t splash , for crissakes.”
“Can do.” Newt Perry waited for the two Tallahassee lifeguards to swim over to the platform. “He wants it again. Make it a clean entry, this time.”
The smaller of the two boys grinned. “At fifty bucks a dive, I’ll go in any way he wants.”
“Just dry off and get back up there.The sun’s almost below the trees.”
Johnny watched from his chair. Even with the canvas umbrella, he could feel the heat of the sun on his back. Time for a cold one. He waited for the cameras to roll again and watched as two men carried a big wooden crate around the side of the hotel, struggling to