The Last Mountain Gorilla

The Last Mountain Gorilla

Gary Ponzo

Copyright 2011 Gary Ponzo

All rights reserved.

The Last Mountain Gorilla

A Simple Solution

The Escape Artist

The Last Mountain Gorilla

Death is often a good career move for a journalist. There are massive vigils where the words hero and courageous are thrown around like confetti. The wife and children of the deceased are shown on CNN huddling in a pew while a parade of senators and Hollywood actors stop by to express their sympathy. The obligatory memoir written by the widow is destined for the New York Times bestseller list.

These are all the thoughts that run through my mind as I watch General Busutu smile behind those sunglasses, his white teeth a stark contrast to his dark features. He drums his fingers over an AK-47 and stares at me as if deciding how long I should live.

“I’m here to help,” I say, my open palms exaggerating the obvious. I’m unarmed. I’ve already been patted down and my guide beside me has been removed of his weapon.

General Busutu on the other hand has a couple of dozen Hutu militia soldiers behind him, ready to fire their machine guns at the slightest nod from their leader. The rain is slight, but thunderclouds are threatening overhead and the jungle mist rises around us like a morning fog. This part of the Virunga National Forest is alive and thick with wildlife.

“You’re here to help whom?” His accent on the word ‘whom,’ throwing around his high school education like a badge of honor.

“The gorilla, of course,” I say.

“I see,” the general says. “He call you and ask you for help?”

This brings a chuckle from his soldiers and I can’t help think that it may be the last time I ever hear laughter again. We’re only ten miles from the Rwandan border where a million people were killed for much less than I was asking.

Eastern Congo is thought to be the home of the last known mountain gorilla—a five-hundred-pound silverback named Kwendro. He is a myth in much of Africa, that’s why my magazine was offering a hundred thousand dollars for a photo of the animal. Not to mention a years salary for the Park Ranger to guide me up this steep mountain to Kwendro’s habitat. But that’s not my true motive and the general appears to sense this. Their rival militia, the Tutsis, control the region where the mountain gorillas once thrived and tourists paid almost a half-million dollars a year to the Tutsis for the privilege to glimpse the remarkable animals. Fourteen months ago the bodies of dead gorillas were discovered along the southern sector of the park. As the weeks went by more and more gorillas were found shot, not by poachers who would have taken body parts to sell on the black market, but by cold-blooded killers. It was rumored to be the Hutus who began a campaign to eliminate the gorillas, thereby drying up a lucrative source of revenue to their sworn enemy. I am here to discover the truth.

Now it seems the general is considering how he can use me. It is the only reason I’m still alive. As the machine gun twitches in the crook his arm, my wife and daughter flash in my mind. Did I remember to leave that note for my daughter before I left?

“Okay,” the general says with a wave of his hand, “you want to see the gorilla for yourself, go ahead.” He points his gun down a narrow dirt road to his left. “I am a conservationist. If you feel you can help him, then go. Go and tell the world what you find.”

He steps aside to allow us to pass, but I am frozen. My journalistic instincts want me to ask for my camera back, but I know this would only accelerate my death. My guide moves quickly ahead of me and this propels my feet to act.

As we walk down the dirt road, no one dares turn around. The only sound are the raindrops pelting the thick foliage around us. We both expect to be shot and every additional step gives us hope. After a hundred yards the road bends to the right. Finally, my guide, Armel, turns and for the first time I see the fear in his eyes.

“We are dead,” he says.

“No, we’re not,” I say. “If he wanted to kill us, we’d be dead already. He must know this gorilla doesn’t exist and when I write that story in the magazine, foreigners will stop coming to search for him. The Tutsi’s tourist revenue will have dried up for good. He’s simply using me.”

“Then you finally believe me that this gorilla no longer lives?”

“I’ve always believed you. It’s the story I’m chasing, not the myth.”

I am walking along this muddy path in complete bliss, knowing that my occupation has once again saved my life. Until Armel jerks my arm so hard that I feel my shoulder pop out of its socket, then pop back in. I’m thrown to the jungle floor where my stomach hits a tree trunk and forces the wind from my lungs. My eyes burn while my open mouth gropes for air that eludes its grasp. Armel is waving something at me, but tears are blurring my vision. I suck in short staccato breaths until I finally gain enough energy to wipe my eyes.

It’s then that I see what Armel is holding. A human arm. There is no clothing on the severed limb, just scorched skin and the bone sticking out from one end. Now my stomach threatens to heave up my breakfast. Armel is pointing to the road and it takes a moment for me to realize what he is saying. The road is mined.

“That is the real reason we were allowed to go,” Armel says. “It is easier to explain that we stepped on a mine, than we were victims of a random murder.”

My head swivels around in self-defense, not knowing what is out there.

“We are truly dead,” Armel repeats.

I have nothing to refute that.

Armel begins searching the jungle floor for something, then stops to pick up a football-sized rock. He pulls me to my feet and guides me along the forest beside the road like a parent steering their kid through the mall.

“There,” he says, pointing to a subtle lump in the road that could pass for a shallow grave for a cat. He motions me back and I move without asking questions. The rock leaves his hand with a high arch and before it ever hits the ground, both of us are already face down in the undergrowth.

The explosion pounds my ears the hardest. It feels as if giant hands have slapped both sides of my head simultaneously. The heat passes over us in a wave of anger, then embers float down and burn the back of my neck.

Before I can flick the pain away, Armel pulls me to my feet and grabs my hand.

“Run,” he yells.

I only know he’s yelling because of his exuberant expression. My ears have stopped working. I sprint in silence between saturated tree limbs and oversized bushes.

We run for almost ten minutes before my hearing gradually returns. Armel slows. He turns to look me over and the fear is still there on his face.

“They will send someone to be sure we are dead,” Armel says between breaths. “When he does not find us, he will track us down and kill us.”

“Then let’s keep going,” I say. But Armel doesn’t move. I notice his right pant leg is torn below the knee and he is bleeding. A result of the explosion. I bend down to examine the wound, but he pushes me away and says, “Come on.”

We go on for another ten minutes at a much slower pace, but Armel finally acquiesces and drops to the ground. This time he allows me a closer look at his leg and I’m surprised he can even walk. There is a concave lesion on his calf that reminds me of a turkey leg that had been chewed by a wild animal. I have nothing for the wound and after a few moments he appears prepared for his fate.

“Go on,” he says. “Go and tell your magazine what is happening here.”

I don’t even consider that option, but mostly because I wouldn’t survive one night alone in this jungle without my gear, even if a Hutu assassin wasn’t tracking me.

“No,” I say. “We go together or we don’t go.”

I have my story. The Hutus are certainly the ones who killed the mountain gorillas, but now I must survive long enough to tell the world.

“Listen,” Armel says, “the Congolese army has an outpost not two miles from here. You can make it. My cousin, Simon, he is a—”

A branch snaps thirty yards behind us and we freeze. It seems too soon, but we were traveling slowly for too long. A few moments later a soldier steps out into the open with a machine gun out front and a shovel strapped to his back. He scans the terrain around us and I wonder what he’s looking for until I zone in on the shovel. He wants the softest turf available to bury our corpses. He gestures with the muzzle of the machine gun toward an area to our left. We hesitate and he fires a burst of gunfire just over our heads. He points the gun again and this time we hop up and begin walking to our graves.

I want to beg, but I am paralyzed with fear. I consider running, but I don’t. Somehow living an extra twenty seconds seems so gratifying. He motions us to our knees and we don’t resist. What’s the point?

I shut my eyes and hear Armel murmuring words of despair next to me. We are both alone with our prayers as we await our fate. I think of my wife and two daughters. I realize how much I truly love them and how my damn curiosity has caused me to lose them forever. A moment passes, then two. I hear a strange thumping sound, like a violent pillow fight.

I open my eyes and see him for the first time. Kwendro. The Hutu is face down on the ground as the five-hundred pound silverback pummels him with both giant hands at once. The Hutu’s torso actually bounces up after each blow. Kwendro is grunting and hopping in a violent jungle rhythm, pounding his chest between blows. I am relieved and petrified all at once. I try to stand, but Armel pulls me back down.

“Do not move,” he whispers. “No matter what happens.”

Blood is trickling from the soldier’s ears, nose and mouth as Kwendro continues his assault. The Hutu is merely a rag doll in the hands of the massive gorilla. I watch in amazement as nature takes its course. And for a moment I feel somehow aligned with the animal. Our closest relative gaining a small amount of revenge for the murder of his family. His entire species.

As Kwendro dances around the Hutu’s corpse he steps on the soldier’s machine gun and stops. He reaches down and grabs the gun, first holding it at arms length, then tossing it backhanded into the jungle like a piece of foam.

That’s when he takes us in his sight. I shiver as he slowly knuckle-walks in our direction. As he approaches, he wrinkles his wide, black nose and smells my neck. I can feel his breath on my face like the blast from a cars exhaust pipe. My entire body trembles as he gives me a full examination.

When he appears satisfied, he moves towards Armel who was stretching low to the ground in a subservient manner. Kwendro looks down at my guide’s leg and leans close to the wound. He seems frozen, his head just above the gash. At first I can’t tell what was happening. Then I hear a sound I’ll never forget. Kwendro whimpers. There is no mistake, the gorilla is crying. He reaches under Armel’s knee and pulls up on the remains of his pant leg. Armel cringes, but remains motionless.

Kwendro cocks his head, as if in deep thought. Then he gently places Armel’s leg to the ground and wanders off into the brush. I am no longer afraid of this massive beast. He is showing no sign of anger or threat. He isn’t baring his teeth or rising up to show us his size. I look at Armel and he’s in pain. He needs help.

“Keep still,” he says. “He has no family anymore.”

After a few minutes Kwendro returns with a handful of leaves. He places a few small, oval leaves directly onto Armel’s wound and applies pressure. Armel cringes in agony, but remains quiet. That’s when I realize Armel was right. Kwendro was the patriarch of his family. Once they had been destroyed, he needed to fill that void and here we were.

Kwendro focuses on Armel’s expression and we both seem to notice the same thing; whatever is in those leaves is working. Armel’s head is back and facing up into the trickling rain that sneaks through the heavy foliage. He is smiling. The bleeding has stopped.

Kwendro takes my hand and places it onto the leaves. He wants me to keep applying pressure and I do. He takes a piece of vine from his pile of leaves and wraps it around Armel’s leg to bandage the leaves against his skin. He is far more sophisticated than even Dian Fossey could have imagined when she first discovered these creatures used tools to catch termites.

Kwendro moves the back of his hand to the side of Armel’s face and gently strokes his cheek. Armel’s eyes gloss up and fill with tears. The jungle is still, the three of us are hunched together like boy scouts at a campfire. I study the lines of Kwendro’s face. His eyes are small and imbedded within deep pockets of wrinkled skin. Patches of gray hair sprout from the fur around his head. He seems weary, as if he’s personally witnessed all of the world’s troubles.

Kwendro takes notice of my gaze. He reaches for the side of my head and I feel large fingers picking at my hair, grooming me, searching for imaginary bugs that could cause me harm.

The stillness is broken by the crackle of a radio. Kwendro jumps around and quickly locates the source. It’s coming from the dead soldier’s belt. He grabs the radio from the Hutu’s belt just as a voice calls out over the speaker. “Nickoli,” a voice says. “Where are you?”