Page 39 of Love in the Wild

“My wife is right. For the last two decades, the forest has been full of men with hearts of greed. Between the deforestation and men hunting gorillas for bushmeat, there has been so much destruction.” He hesitated, and Eden sensed he wanted to mention something else, but perhaps he didn’t know if he could trust her.

“It’s the gold and diamonds in the cave, isn’t it?” Eden asked after she finished cleaning the plate. She had been starving, and Afiya was an amazing cook. “What do you know about that?”

“An ancient people once lived deep in the jungle, so long ago that most memory of them has faded away and exists now only in myths and legends. When I met Thorne, I saw the crown upon his brow, and I knew that he had found the old-world treasures. I asked him about the gold and the diamonds, and he told me he had found a cave, a cave that called to him, a cave that held the stars themselves. I never believed in those myths myself—until I saw that crown. Most men would have been tempted to ask where the treasure is, to make Thorne show them, but that day, I saw him and I knew that he was there for a reason. The jungle protects itself, often in the most mysterious of ways. I believe he was chosen by the forest, so I keep the secret of Thorne. The legends of the gold and diamonds have always been here, but the forest has kept most men away. If Thorne found this cave, it’s possible others have as well. Most poachers would not have killed the tourists and the guides—they would have simply fled. I think whoever attacked you were not poachers.”

“Bwanbale, how did you meet Thorne? He told me only a little about you, but I’m learning that his way of telling stories is very different than what I’m used to.” This was something she’d been desperate to know. Thorne had explained what he knew of Bwanbale, but as a journalist, she knew there were two sides to every story, if not more. Bwanbale glanced at his wife, his embarrassment apparent on his face.

Afiya gently patted his shoulder. “Tell her. I will not be angry.”

He sighed. “It was five years ago. Dembe was only a year old. Our crops were failing, and I could not feed my family. I joined a group of men from Bunagana who planned to sneak into the Impenetrable Forest to hunt gorillas. In the old days it was common for men to hunt them as food for their families, but now the bushmeat trade puts a high price on eating gorillas. The wealthy believe it’s prestigious to dine on them, and there are those who believe that some parts of a gorilla’s body can be medicinal or hold some magical charm. Then there are the collectors who wish to have the hands, heads, or feet as prizes. There are the poachers who kill a few gorillas at a time, but there are others who abduct infants for researchers or zoos or the pet trade. When those men take the infants, they almost always kill every single adult in the band, as they try to protect their young.”

Eden had heard of such horrors before, but now that she had seen them in their natural habitat, it was even more gut-wrenching to know how thoughtlessly they were being slaughtered.

She thought of Akika, Thorne’s brother, and his infant son. This was the reason she had come here, to write and take photos. She wanted to remind people that it wasn’t just the gorillas at risk, but all life in the jungle, due to deforestation and poaching.

Sometimes people needed to be reminded of how they were connected to the world. In this modern age, it was easy to feel like a person was set worlds apart from the animals, and that the vanishing forests didn’t matter. But when a person actually saw the face of a gorilla, saw those soulful eyes that at times seemed so human, it reminded people what was at stake. Reminded them that what was being lost in the world existed outside their smartphones.

All her life, Eden had wanted to make a difference, to protect what deserved protection. Thorne had shown her the jungle and the life within it in such a way that she was forever tied to the ancient forests and the mountain gorillas.

“To my shame,” Bwanbale continued, “I went with those men, intending to find gorillas and kill them. But Thorne startled us. I fell and hit my head and lost consciousness. When I came to, I was alone, and there was a wild young man with dark hair staring down at me. I had never seen anything like this man. He wore no clothes, save a deerskin cloth around his loins. His hair was long and dark, his skin deeply tanned. I thought that maybe he was a vision, or perhaps my fevered imagination’s creation of a strange dream. He bore markings here.” Bwanbale touched his shoulders. “Symbols that I thought looked familiar, but they were too ancient for me to know. I had the strangest sense that when I gazed up at him, I knew my life had been changed forever by this jungle man.”

Eden knew that feeling all too well. She was still certain that there was something dreamlike about Thorne.

“I was injured, my head.” Bwanbale touched a pale thin scar on his scalp “Thorne was as well. One of the men I was with had shot him. He had only been grazed by the bullet. He hadn’t even known what guns were. We tended to each other’s wounds, and I stayed with him for a full month, letting my head heal, before I felt I could make the journey home. He shared his world with me, and I realized the error of my ways. I left my life of poaching behind and made amends by seeking to protect the jungle. I work with conservation groups now and meet once a month in Kampala to lobby for change. We have protected much of the land here, and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest has much more protection now, as do the gorillas. Ugandans care about our land, and I am finding more and more people are rallying behind the cause with me. Thorne reminded me what it means to be Ugandan, to be a part of this beautiful country. I am proud of what we have done, and I am thankful to him for reminding me of that.”

Eden smiled sadly. “Thorne definitely has a way of changing your life. He just swoops in like a big wrecking ball and destroys all your assumptions about life and leads you on the most amazing adventures instead.”

Bwanbale smiled. “You see him as I do. A man with a pure heart. Thorne knows no evil and knows no greed. He uses violence only to protect and survive.”

“Yes,” Eden agreed. “That is exactly how I see him.” And she’d seen so much more of him. He was passionate, playful, tender, and fierce all at once. “I admit, it all seems a bit fantastical at times, the way he seems so attuned to the jungle, how he understands the animals when they interact with him.”

Bwanbale offered a secretive, affectionate smile. “Thorne is no mere man. No man knows the language of the animals as he does. It is not natural, and it cannot be taught. I believe he was chosen. There is a deep magic in the jungle, older than the history in our books. The ancients of the old lost civilization were like Thorne, attuned to that magic. I believe that the cave he discovered is a resting place for their spirits. If what you say about Thorne’s parents is true, then I believe their resting place was disturbed by the men hunting for gold, and the spirits reached out and chose Thorne.”

“Why?” Eden asked, her skin breaking out in goose bumps.

“To avenge a wrong, perhaps. Or maybe to find peace. Perhaps so that their past isn’t lost forever. You saw the homes he built in the trees—he spoke to me of visions, of seeing men and women build them in his head. I helped him, gave him tools, but the ideas were his. The symbols on his shoulders—those too came from the cave. Thorne is part man, part dream.”

Bwanbale was quiet a long moment, and Eden let the weight of this new knowledge about Thorne sink in. Chosen by the jungle, by ancient spirits. Did she believe it? It was becoming harder and hardernotto believe that something mystical was connected to Thorne.

“He speaks of you fondly,” she told Bwanbale. “You are his dearest and only friend in the world of men.”

Bwanbale looked bashful, and Afiya chuckled at her husband’s response. She flashed a smile at Eden before she collected the empty plates. Bwanbale’s gaze turned distant, as though the past were playing before his eyes. “To know Thorne is to love him. To love him makes one a better person.”

Bwanbale’s reply was so full of honest emotion that it made Eden’s heart ache. She tried not to think of that moment when she and Thorne had parted ways.

“Come, you must be tired.” Bwanbale stood and looked toward Dembe. “You will sleep in my daughter’s room. Dembe, show our guest your room.”

Dembe bounced with renewed excitement as she followed her father and Eden toward the small room. A narrow cot sat in the corner of the room, and a tiny bookshelf held a stack of children’s books, along with a bin of some toys and dolls. The plaster walls were painted a soft orange and decorated with sketches of colorful birds and other drawings, clearly done by Dembe. The room’s cheeriness was like a mirror of the girl who lived here.

“Thank you for letting me have your room tonight, Dembe.” Eden hugged the little girl, who smiled brightly.

“We will leave tomorrow morning for Kampala once you are ready.” Bwanbale kissed his daughter’s head, and then they left.

Eden put her camera bag and backpack down on the floor and sank onto the small cot. Fortunately, she was just short enough to fit. Her limbs grew as heavy as her heart now that she was alone again. It was too humid for her to get comfortable.

She sighed after a long moment and reached for her camera, flipping through the hundreds of photos she had taken. She paused as she reached pictures of Maggie and Harold, smiling as they ate lunch in the mountains, along with the other tourists. Then she found the photos of their two guides, posing by the entrance to the national park with bright smiles. Eden’s heart squeezed in pain.

All of them were gone. So many lives taken. All in the name of greed.

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