Chapter 28
Death and Capture
The air still smelled of smoke when the chainsaws fell silent.
From the ridge, the forest no longer looked like a forest. It looked wounded, raw brown earth exposed in long ugly scars, ash drifting lazily where underbrush had burned through the night. What had once been a cathedral of towering hardwoods now stood in ragged patches, the most valuable giants already gone.
High above the churned mud, in one of the few remaining trees, a mother orangutan clung to the trunk.
Her fingers trembled.
Below, engines idled.
“Boss says this is the last strip before lunch,” one of the men called, wiping sweat from his neck. His name was Rafi, and he spoke with the loose ease of one who had done this too many times to think much of it.
Another man squinted upward, shading his eyes. “Hey,” he said slowly. “You see that?”
Rafi followed his gaze.
There, pressed hard against the bark, was the flash of reddish fur.
“Orangutan,” Rafi muttered.
A few of the workers turned, interest sharpening their faces.
“Still here?” Someone said,” Thought they all ran.”
High in the branches, the desperate mother shifted. She had been silent for hours, barely breathing, her body curved protectively around the small figure tucked against her chest. The youngster’s dark brown eyes were wide with fear and confusion, her fingers tangled in her mother’s long hair.
The mother made a soft warning rumble deep in her throat.
Below, boots crunched through ash and underbrush.
One of the men grinned. “Baby will likely fetch a good price in the market.”
From near the pickup truck, the site manager, Halim, didn’t even look up. “Cut it,” is all he said.
A chainsaw roared back into life.
Up above, the mother froze, intelligent enough to understand what came next.
For a split second, the forest held its breath.
Then the blade bit viciously into the bark at the trunk's base.
The vibration shuddered through the wood, up through the mother’s arms, deep into her chest. The youngster whimpered loudly, pressing closer.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rafi called half-heartedly, though he wasn’t speaking to the animals.
The cut deepened. The tree splinteredh a loud crack at the base wit, shuddered violently, and began to fall with increasing acceleration. The impact was brutal.
Branches snapped like bones as the tree slammed into the scarred earth. Dust and earth exploded outward and upward in an expanding, choking cloud. For a moment, nothing moved.
Then…
A weak rasping breath. The mother lay twisted among her broken limbs, one arm still curved protectively around her youngster. Her leg bent wrong. Her shoulder hung at a terrible angle. But her eyes were still wide and alert. The young one began to cry in a high, thin, terrified scream as the workers approached.
“Careful,” one said, though he was smiling.
Rafi slowed as he got closer. The mother’s eyes locked on his, not wild, not raging. Just fixed. She seemed to understand. Protective. Desperate.
“She’s still breathing,” someone noted.
Halim finally walked over, expression flat. He glanced once at the barbaric scene, then at the frantic young orangutan. “That one’s worth money.”
The mother, in a vain attempt, tried to pull her baby closer, prevented by pain and broken limbs. She made a very small movement.
It was enough.
In an effort to separate mother and child, one of the loggers stepped forward with his parang and crudely hacked at the mother orangutan’s protective arm, cradling the still-living infant. In the process, in his eagerness, he severed three of the baby’s fingers. The baby, already traumatized by the fall in the tree, went into shock at his final attack. Finally, a shot cracked out through the clearing. The forest fell silent. Rafi lowered the rifle he had fetched from his truck. He flinched slightly despite himself.
The mother orangutan went still; her severed arm around her young went slack but did not fully release its hold even in death.
“Grab it,” Halim said.
One of the men stepped forward and tugged at the youngster. The small orangutan clung instinctively to the mother’s fur, wailing loudly now, panicked and raw.
“Stubborn little thing,” the man said, pulling harder. After a moment, the mother’s grip finally broke. The youngster screamed. Behind them, the deadwood fire still burned and smouldered. Two workers dragged the mother’s body across the dirt, leaving a dark trail in the ash. They thrust the body into the hottest part of the fire.
No one spoke about it. They rarely did.
They carried the small orangutan to the back of a dusty Toyota pickup. The cage waiting there was barely enough to turn around in. The youngster was shoved inside. The metal door clanged shut. Tiny fingers wrapped around the bars. Terrified eyes peered out. The whimpering did not stop.
Halim lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly. “I have a buyer; I’m going there now.”
From the cage, wide dark eyes watched everything.
