Escape from Silence: The Heroic Journey of a Girl and a Red Ape

By Kim LeMasters

On the day of her eleventh birthday, Nyxie's mother made her promise to never speak again. And with that, her mother disappeared from her life.

Handed over to an aunt and uncle she barely knew, Nyxie reluctantly learns to get around not speaking by using American Sign Language. She never imagined that knowing sign language would get her involved in aiding a young male orangutan's escape from the zoo to search for his mother in the faraway rainforest of Sumatra.

Their journey to Indonesia is an epic battle against natural elements and enemies, perhaps supernatural ones as well. Can Nyxie and the young orangutan survive the rage of sea storms, the plundering of pirates, or the hunger of predators? Will they ever discover the birthplace of all orangutans, Cloud Mountain? Or learn the real identity of those who called themselves the Paladins? Tag along with Nyxie and the young orang on their heroic journey of nine thousand miles to find his mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667860091

Book preview

cover.jpg

© 2022 Kim LeMasters. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. ISBN 978-1-66786-008-4 eBook 978-1-66786-009-1

This book is dedicated to an uncommon man

and teacher,

Ron Notto

Contents

THE SILENCE of the PRISON

THE SILENCE of the ADJUSTMENT

THE SILENCE of the ZOO

THE SILENCE of the ADVENTURE

THE SILENCE of the SURPRISE

THE SILENCE of the DECISION

THE SILENCE of the MEETING

THE SILENCE of the PROBLEM

THE SILENCE of the START

THE SILENCE of the SEPARATION

THE SILENCE of the LETTER

THE SILENCE of the OCEAN

THE SILENCE of the RECKONING

THE SILENCE of the HOPE

THE SILENCE of the ATOLL

THE SILENCE of the CALL

THE SILENCE of the ISLAND

THE SILENCE of the SEARCH

THE SILENCE of the LEGEND

THE SILENCE of the SIGHTING

THE SILENCE of the TREK

THE SILENCE of the VANASPATI

THE SILENCE of the MOUNTAIN

THE SILENCE of the RETURN

THE SILENCE of the PRISON

Towns like Silence, Arizona are clusters of low-cost services: cheap food, discount gas, and bargain priced hospitalities. The Lazy Daze Motel is a prime example. An uninspired single-story building, its thrifty construction consists of cinder blocks walls, metal doors, cut-rate vinyl windows and a single room air conditioner for every room. Shaped in a U, it cradles the asphalt parking lot with the open top of the U facing the highway. The welcome sign guarantees a good night’s rest at a great price.

Inside room number 13 of the Lazy Daze Motel is Nyxie. In a few hours, she’ll be turning eleven. Staring into the bathroom mirror, Nyxie pauses in the middle of brushing her teeth and conducts a review of herself. She thinks her hair is too straight and her mom cuts it too short. Hair should flow, bounce and swirl like it does in all the commercials. All her hair wants to do is hang straight down. She likes her eyes though, gold flecks dotting her irises that are a color her mom calls midnight blue. She notes with worry that she is tallish for her age and thin. She thinks it makes her look too much like a boy. Her mother swallows a laugh every time she hears this complaint and argues that someday Nyxie will be grateful that she got those genes from her maternal grandfather; a man Nyxie’s never met. Her review finished, she concludes with a sigh it’s the same as it is every time; there’s nothing special about being Nyxie. She spits out the toothpaste, rinses her mouth, and goes into the main room.

Having never attended a proper school because of the constant moving around she and her mom have done, Nyxie substitutes a motel room’s table for a school desk. She plops down on the metal chair, its threadbare cushion no longer softening the seat’s hardness. She slips her arithmetic workbook out of the short stack of homeschooling books, readies her pencil to start her daily lesson when a buzzing sound snags her attention. It’s a housefly pinging off the windowpane, doggedly unaware that it can’t reach what it sees outside.

Nyxie rockets up and charges to the bathroom, returning with one of the courtesy cups. Snatching a sheet of paper from her work area, she stalks the fly. With a practiced move, she slaps the cup over the fly and slips the paper between the windowpane and the bottom of the cup.

Opening the front door, she hurries over to the corner of the parking lot where, beside large trash bins, an old wood crate lies on its side. Squatting down and careful to keep her knees off the heat-soaked asphalt, she eyeballs a mess of a spiderweb. Lurking to the shadowed side of the web, she finds Morticia, her pet black widow spider. Nyxie expertly places the cup near the cobweb and snatches away the paper. The fly zooms for freedom only to be snagged and tangled in the widow’s web! Morticia scurries over to her lunch, quickly paralyzing the fly with a poison bite. Nyxie’s mother wanted Morticia dead, and that’s how Nyxie met Calvin.

† † †

It was a few months back when Nyxie and her mother checked into the Lazy Daze. Her mother’s inspection of the room spotted, up high in the shower, a carelessly constructed cobweb. The underside of the lady spider is emblazoned with the outline of a red hourglass; a warning from the Black Widow that if she bites, your time is short. Nyxie’s mom told her to get over to the motel office and find someone to kill it.

Nyxie took off for the motel office like a greyhound tearing after the racetrack’s mechanical hare. She burst in, ready to yell Spider! except the place was empty, save for a well-worn armchair, an unfilled magazine rack, and a check-in counter. On top of the counter, right next to a stack of postcards promoting the splendors of Silence, was a bellhop’s bell; the type that you tap twice to get some attention. Nyxie gave it three quick taps to speed things up.

Even though her eleventh birthday was three months, twenty-nine and a half days away, she was sure she’d turn gray before someone showed up. Her hand hovered over the bell, ready to deliver another three taps, when a man appeared. His long silver hair was tied tight to the back of his head with a whip of rodeo leather. His forehead was large, his nose hawkish. His skin was a crosshatch of wrinkles and his brown eyes, once brimming with curiosity, were now dulled with barren indifference. He wore a white, long sleeve western yoke shirt. It featured twin front pockets and had pearl snaps instead of buttons. The shirt’s long-tabbed collar was closed by a bolo tie, sporting a large clasp made of turquoise and silver. The clasp adjusted the cinch of the tie by sliding up and down the loop of the round braided leather. His Wrangler jeans had just enough inseam to properly break over the top of his timeworn rawhide boots. He couldn’t even get out a hello-how-can-I-help-you before hearing, Come quick! You gotta kill it!

The old man looked puzzled, Kill what?

The spider! My mom says it’s a black widow. One bite and you’re dead!

Nyxie watched the old man’s look of puzzlement melt into what could only be called a suggestion of interest. Why do you want to kill it?

Why??!! I just told you. It’s gonna bite us!

Maybe. But only if you bother it.

It’s in the shower. I’m pretty sure my mom and me are going to bathe sometime.

Do you like mosquitos?

Nyxie sucked in a deep breath to answer when she realized she didn’t really understand the question. Even though she’d not had a ton of personal experience with the elderly, her mom said they often blabbered and jabbered about things that made no sense. She decided on the slower approach of walking the old man through the situation, Mister—

No Mister, just Calvin.

—Calvin, the problem is not mosquitos. The problem is a killer spider, and you need to squish it quick.

Black widow spiders are a marvel. They eat whatever comes into their web: ants, flies, mosquitos, even scorpions. Every time you open and close the door to your room, something pesky can wander in. And that ol’ widow is there, just waiting to gobble them up.

As Calvin spoke, Nyxie’s imagination took control. She could see it all—the careless fly getting trapped in the sticky web, the ant, the mosquito and the… Nyxie couldn’t quite figure out how the scorpion could end up in a shower corner. How’d the scorpion get up the shower wall?

In your case, given where the widow is, scorpions won’t be on her diet. But widows often nest in the corners of floors where scorpions roam. You leave her be and let her get the bad guys for you.

Well, she is pretty high up, but Calvin—

All creatures know where they fit and what they’re supposed to do. Calvin elaborated for Nyxie. Animals, the vegetation, they adapt to where they are. The wildflowers will lie in a crack of the ground and wait patiently—maybe for years—until conditions are right for them to bloom. Insects, like the widow, fit to what nature gives them, even if it’s the top corners of a shower stall. Calvin paused, grew quiet and pensive. Humans think nature should bend to their will. They think they can kick nature around, break it to fit their fancies, take what they want, not care about others on the earth. It is not the right way to exist. It is not the Hopi way.

Nyxie sifted through Calvin’s words, sorted through them all, attempting to determine whether they were the truth or that blabbering–jabbering thing her mom mentioned. Not sure I get it, Calvin. Maybe after I turn eleven I will. But I know for sure my mom is not going to be happy with being naked in the shower with a black widow spider hanging over her head.

You tell your mom what I said and if she’s still upset, I’ll move the widow for you.

Nyxie turned for the front door, Okay, I’ll go tell her, but there’s a strong chance I’ll be right back.

Fair enough. One thing before you go. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.

It’s Nyxie. My first name is Nyx. My middle name is Cole. But when I try to tell people my whole name, Nyx Cole Geste, everyone thinks I’m saying Nicole. But I’m not. Mom says Nyx is like the name of some singer or something and Cole is an old family name. Mostly, she calls me Nyxie unless I’m in trouble. Then I get Nyx Cole.

N-i-x-i-e for Nyxie?

No, it’s with a Y.

N-y-x. Well, that’s a very interesting name. There’s a Greek—

The door banged open, startling both Nyxie and Calvin as Nyxie’s mother strode in. What’s going on and why isn’t that spider dead yet? Nyxie barely got three words out about what Calvin said black widows liked to eat before her mom cut her off. I’m not interested in the eating habits of a spider. She riveted her eyes on Calvin. I am interested in getting it out of my bathroom.

Nyxie gave Calvin a shrug and Calvin smiled, Right away, ma’am. I’ll find a good place for it out of your shower. Nyxie followed her mom out of the office, pleased she’d met a friend for life in Calvin.

† † †

Back at the wooden crate, Nyxie watches Morticia inject digestive enzymes into the fly to liquify the innards so she may suck them out at her leisure. Before leaving to return to the motel room, Nyxie leans in toward Morticia, who is busy winding her silk around the fly. Don’t forget, Morticia, you owe me your life, girl.

Inside and at her makeshift desk, Nyxie reopens her math workbook, intent on studying long division but instead finds herself wondering if, on this birthday, she’ll get something fun from her mom. Usually, it’s something practical: practical pants, practical underwear, practical shoes, and such. Twirling her pencil, she imagines maybe getting a unicorn bathrobe, or a backpack, or maybe even a phone! Her dreaming shatters when she whacks her pencil on the desk and breaks its point. Math homework requires a pencil. With a point. Nyxie rises and heads for the door, and ambles over to the motel office for Calvin and his pencil sharpener as it’s too dang hot to run.

Inside the office, Calvin is in his usual uniform of jeans and white shirt with his turquoise and silver bolo tie neatly in place. Good morning, Nyxie. What’s today’s crisis?

Broken pencil point. She holds up the nubbed No. 2 as evidence. Need to borrow the sharpener again.

You know where it is. Nyxie moves behind the counter to an old-school sharpener, powered by a hand crank, mounted on the shelf below the counter. Calvin continues, Got something for you. Nyxie looks up at him. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?

Nyxie breaks into a wide smile, It is! Who told you?

Calvin bends down to Nyxie, his eyes level to hers and smiles. You did. More times than I got wrinkles, Calvin stands back up and reaches into his jeans. He pulls his hand out motioning for Nyxie to hold hers open. He drops something onto her palm.

Nyxie rolls it in her hand, inspecting it. There’s a relief carving of a buffalo and under, in raised letters, are the words Five Cents. Nyxie does her best to look excited over getting a nickel from an old man; after all, what the heck will she ever be able to buy with a nickel? This, this is a terrific present, Calvin. I—

Know what it is?

Yeah, it’s a nickel.

Look at the other side.

She flips it over and sees that on the face is a carving of a clown wearing a hat. Her brow knits into a furrow. Is this real? I mean, a buffalo on one side and a clown on the other doesn’t look like real American money.

It’s real, alright. Called a hobo nickel. An old ’bo taught me how to use a ten-penny nail and change the Indian head side of the coin into something else. Hobos made them so that they could sell a nickel for a quarter—big-time moneymaker back in the day.

Nyxie looks at the nickel and back to Calvin. You made this? He nods. How long did it take you?

A lifetime. It’s the only one I ever made. I gave it to someone else once, but it sorta came back to me. Figured I’d try passing it on again. I thought you might be the right person to take care of it. Besides, it’s the best I could do for your birthday.

Nyxie smiles; at last, a birthday gift that’s not practical! She quickly hugs Calvin, who appreciates the energy of touch. He pushes her back, Got something else for you. He opens a cabinet and takes out a cupcake and a candle. Before you ask, no, I didn’t bake this. Got it over at the Pick-n-Pan. Save it for tonight and don’t forget to make a wish when you blow out the candle.

The front door slams shut, startling them both. Calvin focuses his eyes outside, surveying the weather. Wind’s picking up. Probably going to get some hard rain tonight. Thunderclouds are forming a war party.

Nyxie looks outside; there’s not a cloud in the sky. How do you know that?

Yaapontsa.

Nyxie’s face screws up in confusion, Ya who?

It’s the Hopi word for the Wind Spirit. They say that Yaapontsa brews the clouds to quench the dry thirst the desert makes. The desert doesn’t want to be cooled down, so it stays so hot that it keeps the rain away. To break through the desert’s armor of heat, Yaapontsa must make the clouds angry and powerful giants. They must be strong enough to break through the firewall of the desert and bring the rainwater that feeds all life.

Nyxie’s expression of interest turns to doubt. Calvin, am I supposed to believe you?

I’m mostly Hopi Indian, so I ought to know.

And your name is Calvin?

Yes. Not very Hopi, but easier than my real name, Kwatoko. It means ‘bird with a big beak’. A fair description of my nose, I think.

Your nose is kinda big.

When I was young, kids teased me about it. My father said the Romans had big noses too, and they conquered the world. My father said what we are at birth has no bearing on what we will become. Good advice, I think.

I don’t know, Calvin. Having a big nose and being part Indian doesn’t mean you know when it’s gonna rain.

You’ll see. Right near sunset, the warriors will march in. You best get back to your room. Do your homework and when your mom gets home, enjoy the cupcake. Nyxie hugs him once more and, with her nickel, cupcake, and candle, heads back to room number 13.

† † †

Thirty minutes from the Lazy Daze Motel, Café Smoke’s early dinner customers sip coffee, their dirty plates still on their tables. The café has seen better years. Red duct tape covers tears and cigarette burns on the upholstered vinyl. The million movements by thousands of hands and elbows have rubbed off the fake wood grain of the Formica tables and countertops while keeping the aluminum edging shiny bright.

Two servers, Nyxie’s mom and a big-boned woman named Sadie, both achy from the hours of being on their feet, hope the diners clear out soon. Nyxie’s mother bears the weathering a harsh course in life can inflict. Thinner than she ever was, her makeup is applied with less care. Her hair is dry and brittle from washing with motel soap in place of shampoo. What was once envious natural beauty is being hollowed out by gnawing circumstances. If she could catch a break, get one step ahead, correct her course, her beauty could still return. But the hardness of her eyes as she stares out the café’s window into the late afternoon suggests a greater concern than how she looks. There’s something outside that’s disquieting.

Sadie, glancing to ensure she’s unwatched, pours whiskey from a hip flask into a mug of black coffee. She loads a mouthful from the mug, swallows it in reverence, and eases down onto a counter stool. She catches her coworker’s unease, If it’s them thunderheads out there that are bothering you, honey, forget about ’em. They’re loud, flashy, and wet, but they’ll be wrung dry before long. Sadie expects a reaction from Nyxie’s mom, but none is forthcoming, What is it, Mary?

The thunderheads are not what fuels Nyxie’s mom’s anxiety; it’s her past. Her selection of responses to Sadie’s concerns drifts between ginning up another lie, letting the truth spill, or pretending everything’s all right. What ultimately stumbles out of her mouth is as foggy and fatigued as she. Nyxie’s mom breaks from staring outside and looks to Sadie, I’m thinking about something I shouldn’t’ve done. Unfortunately, it’s something I can never undo and because of that, it still stalks me.

Sadie is quiet, sips from her mug as she maintains Nyxie’s mom’s gaze. In sinned kinship of ill things past, they silently explore each other’s face, privately and personally reflecting on the stumbles that led to them waitressing in a diner, off an interstate exit, orphaned in a mix of gas stations and fast-food joints that are defenseless against the monotonous blinking of a neon billboard above a truck stop claiming to have the cheapest diesel in western Arizona.

A dancing discharge of lightning and sharp clap of thunder cracks their melancholy and reflashes fear in Nyxie’s mom, I need to go. It’s my daughter’s birthday today.

Sadie nods, points to her coworker’s name badge. Before you go, I gotta ask. Is your name really Mary? I haven’t known you that long, but you don’t seem like a Mary to me.

No, it’s Jennifer. And you, are you really, Sadie?

Sadie gives her hips a bump and a sway. Don’t you think I’m sexy? Realizing Jennifer is clueless to the reference, Sadie dwindles into a sag, Beatles song. Before you were born. She reaches over the counter, retrieving a clear plastic clamshell container and hands it to Jennifer, Your kid’s dinner. Jennifer mouths a thanks and leaves. Sadie turns and sees the mountain of work to close the café and takes another long swig from her whiskey-spiked coffee.

Outside, Jennifer ducks the rain, unlocks a ’67 Dodge Coronet R/T dusted with surface rust and hops inside. The 440-cubic-inch engine coughs to life, then settles into a loping idle. While the engine warms, Jennifer opens the glove box, touches an object wrapped in yellowed linen confirming it’s still there. As she closes the glove box door, the crack of a rap against her window jolts her.

His long, dark-green greatcoat, made of thick wool, is matted wet from the rain. His hair hangs long, dripping, and loose. His eyes are such a deep blue they favor purple, and his skin is pale enough to mimic the dead. When he smiles, it’s iceberg cold. He extends his hand, his voice raw and flat, Give me what I need. Now.

Jennifer waits not a heartbeat and floors the Dodge. The big hemi engine roars; tires smoke steam as the car burns forward. Through the windshield, Jennifer sees a young woman standing in the path of the Dodge. The woman throws back the hood of her long cape revealing blood-red hair shorn short, her eyes lifeless, her skin the color of ash. Jennifer swerves the Dodge to miss her. The woman shifts her weight to her left brandishing the long handle of a double-bladed axe. Grasping it with both hands, she swings the axe around her hips. The axe head plows into the side of the Dodge’s right side as it passes by. The blade slices the car’s sheet metal as easily as a scalpel through flesh and squeals an unearthly metallic shriek as it travels the length of the car. Jennifer jerks the steering wheel, fishtailing the car, hightailing toward the highway. The man and the woman don’t give chase as the wounded Dodge fades away from them.

Jennifer’s eyes tick-tock between the road and the car’s rearview mirror. Relief seeps back in, seeing no one chasing her. She leans on the speed, hoping to shorten the half-hour drive to the Lazy Daze Motel.

Inside her motel room, Nyxie sits on the metal chair, peering out the window. Calvin is right, Yaapontsa has conjured a war party of thunderheads. Each cloud-warrior is a monstrous mountain of moisture that boils and crackles with lightning. They tower thousands of meters into the night sky. The warriors of Yaapontsa stomp a violent jig on the desert floor; sheets of rain are the ghostly dancers; wind, lightning, and thunder the angry music as the thunderclouds shed a torrent of tears to douse the heat of the desert’s floor and flood life into its sands.

As Nyxie watches the gale, headlights enter the complex. Jennifer skids the Dodge into the parking spot nearest their room. Nyxie jumps up, excited to see her mom, and lights her birthday candle. It’s a ritual on her birthday, dessert first, dinner second. She opens the door, letting her mother in.

Jennifer, hair disheveled and wet, pushes past Nyxie and goes straight to her suitcase. She rummages and pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and steps into the bathroom. Inside, she grabs a courtesy cup drains two quick shots. Jennifer stares into the mirror and sees Nyxie standing in the doorway, Pack up, we gotta go.

Nyxie, confused beyond her young limit, asks, Go where, Momma?

Jennifer takes a moment to answer, realizing fear has pushed her to run but thought has not dictated to where. San Diego. We’re visiting your aunt and uncle. She nods to her reflection in the mirror, confirming the newly hatched plan to herself. Now pack!

Nyxie, fighting back tears, starts stuffing her belongings into her own suitcase. Her mother keeps harping on her to hurry, saying they could be coming. Who’s coming? Nyxie wonders. Who? Jennifer grabs both Nyxie’s suitcase and her own, ushering her child out the door and toward the car. Inside the motel room, on the single cupcake, the single candle flickers and snuffs out not by the wet rage of the squall outside but by the absence of the air of joy that a birthday brings.

The parking lot is the casualty of the fury of the wind spirit. Jennifer and Nyxie bend against the gale. Out of the corner of her eye, Nyxie sees the wooden crate, Morticia’s home, caught in a whirlwind: lifting, bouncing, and cartwheeling away from the motel. Morticia! screams Nyxie, yanking against her mother’s grip to go save her pet.

Get in the car, Nyxie!

I have to save Morticia!

It’s a stupid spider. Now get in. With that, Jennifer shoves Nyxie into the car and slams the passenger door shut. The gash slashed down the car’s side by the woman’s axe leaks rust-colored water like a fresh battle wound drips blood. Jennifer gets in, drops the car into drive and peels out of the parking lot, heading for the highway.

Calvin stands outside the office watching the Dodge roaring toward him. Through the windshield, he makes eye contact with Nyxie. Even as the car races by, he can see the fright and worry on the young girl’s face. Calvin holds her with his eyes until the car slides onto the highway and disappears. The driving wind and rain is not the only reason Calvin pulls out a handkerchief. He wipes his eyes and face silently scolding Yaapontsa for making him again weep the tears of grief and loss as Nyxie disappears from his life.

Jennifer drives as if being hounded by hungry hyenas. The Dodge shudders as it climbs past 95 miles an hour heading for the Arizona/California border. In the front seat, Nyxie pulls her legs to her chest, so frightened, so perplexed, so worried. She cannot look at her mother, it only deepens her fear.

Jennifer holds the speed limit until she’s twenty miles past the California state checkpoint in Blythe, then pushes it back up. The hour is late enough, traffic is sparse, and the quarter moon’s light peeks in and out between the clouds. With her left hand on the steering wheel, Jennifer extends her right hand to Nyxie who gratefully accepts her mother’s touch. Jennifer looks to Nyxie, It’s gonna be okay, honey. Nyxie’s nod of agreement lacks belief.

Jennifer checks the rearview mirror. Impossible. Otherworldly. The man and the red-haired woman are riding horses and closing in on them. Jennifer glances at the speedometer confirming she’s doing 90. Yet the riders gain. Jennifer floors the Dodge, and it responds. Still the riders tighten the gap. Jennifer sees her fuel indicator touching the red Empty dot, the hemi