Death and Capture

 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 aginst her chest. The youngster’s dark brown eyes were wide with fear, confused, 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 market.”

From near the pick up 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 base of the trunk.

    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.  There was a loud crack as the tree splintered at the base and 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 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. A logger moved forward with his parang and hacked at the mother’s arm in an effort to release her grip on the baby.  In his rush he severed three of the baby’s fingers sending her from panic into shock.

    It was enough.

    A shot cracked out through the clearing. The forest fell silent.

    Rafi lowered his rifle he had fetched from his truck and flinched slightly despite himself.

    The mother orangutan went still, her arm around her young went slack but did not fully release its hold even in death.

    “Grab it,” Hali said.

    One of the men stepped forward, 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 was still burning and smouldering.  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.

    The small orangutan was carried 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 peering 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.