Fort Lupton (18 page)

“
We’re waiting for Ms.
Yvonne and Jabari,” Jacob said. “Remember?”

Katy nodded. She liked being held more than
she wanted to run ahead so she didn’t complain about being picked
up.

“
What about Keenan and
Ivy?” Katy asked.

“
We don’t have to wait for
them,” Jacob said. He gestured to where Keenan was standing with
Ivy. “They came with us.”

Katy laughed at her own joke. Ivy rolled her
eyes, and Keenan scowled.

“
What is this place
again?” Keenan asked. “I know you’ve said, it’s
just . . . odd.”

“
It is odd,” Jacob said.
“We collect animals so that people can see them.”

“
But animals are living
creatures,” Keenan said. “They are not born to entertain people.
They belong in their native environment, in the world.”

“
A lot of people feel as
you do, Keenan,” Jacob said. “At the same time, many of these
animals would no longer exist without zoos.”

“
Why is that?” Keenan
asked.

“
Their environments have
been polluted or destroyed,” Jacob said. “Some are hunted for their
horns, like the rhinoceros, or their tusks, like elephants. If they
didn’t live in the zoo, they wouldn’t live anywhere.”

“
Let’s go see the
elephants!” Katy said with a kick of her legs.

Jacob scowled at her, and she laughed. He
smiled at her and looked at Keenan.

“
What do you think?” Jacob
said.

“
The whole thing seems a
little crazy,” Keenan said.

“
It’s a little crazy,”
Jacob said. “Sometimes, things change and the animals can go back
to their native environment.”

“
But not very often,”
Keenan said.

“
Sometimes,” Jacob
smiled.

“
There they are!” Ivy
pointed.

Yvonne and Jabari were walking hand in hand
toward them from the parking lot. Jabari carried Toto. Even from
this distance, they could see that the boy was talking. Yvonne
smiled and waved at them.

“
May I?” Ivy
asked.

Jacob gave a quick nod of his head and Ivy
took off. She sprinted to welcome Yvonne. For reasons Ivy couldn’t
quite explain, the girl felt a connection to Yvonne. In return,
whenever Yvonne was at the Castle, she made an effort to spend time
with Ivy.

Ivy caught up with Yvonne. She knelt to hug
the girl. Ivy took Jabari’s hand and they ran to where the others
waited. Yvonne walked behind them.

“
We are very excited,
Jacob,” Yvonne said. “Very excited.”

Yvonne touched Katy on the arm and said
hello to Keenan. The boy blushed at the beautiful woman’s
attention. He felt her beauty like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy
day.

“
Can we go now?” Katy
asked the question all of the kids wanted to ask.

“
We have to find the man
who is going to show us,” Jacob said.

“
Jake?” A friendly
looking, elderly man walked toward them with his hand out. “You
probably don’t remember me.”

“
Edward,” Jacob
said.

“
That’s right.” The man
smiled. He glanced at Yvonne and smiled.

“
Thank you for this,”
Jacob said.

“
Of course,” Edward said.
“Your family has been so generous to the zoo. This is the least we
can do.”

Edward looked down the row of children.

“
Now which one of you is
Jabari?” Edward asked.

The children stared at the man. Yvonne
nudged Jabari, and he stepped forward.

“
Would you like to see
your namesake?” Edward asked.

Jabari spun in place and ran back to Yvonne.
She picked him up.

“
I’m sorry,” Yvonne said.
“We had a very difficult week.”

“
Maybe this will make it
all better,” Edward said.

“
He was hoping that his
father could be here,” Yvonne said.

“
He’s famous,” Katy
said.

“
I have no fame, so I’m
filling in,” Jacob said.

“
I see that,” Edward said
with a smile. “Why don’t you follow me?”

Jacob gestured for the kids to go. Ivy took
Yvonne’s free hand and Jabari clung to Toto. Keenan stayed close to
Jacob. They made slow progress along the wide asphalt path. Ivy,
Keenan, and Jabari had never been to the zoo. Katy acted at their
tour guide from her perch on Jacob’s hip. They rounded a corner and
followed Edward toward a building.

“
They’re keeping the baby
in the back,” Jacob said.

“
Until he is
self-sufficient,” Edward said. “That’s correct.”

“
That’s where we’re
going,” Yvonne said.

Jabari’s huge eyes took in everything. He
hadn’t said a word since they entered the zoo. He nodded.

“
Just this way,” Edward
said. He turned to Katy. “You’re a fine tour guide, young
lady.”

“
I’ve been here a bunch.”
Katy smiled at the man’s praise.

Edward smiled and held a door open. They
shuffled inside a hallway behind an exhibit. Edward stopped to let
Jacob past. They went around a corner, and then they were standing
next to a large pane of glass looking out into an exhibit.

Before them was a four-legged animal,
six-foot-high at the shoulder, with what looked like zebra legs, a
thick horse body, and a beautiful face. There were lighter brown
rings around his neck and the underside of his head was white. The
okapi had large, dark eyes with long eyelashes. The caramel-brown
fur between his eyes met the white under his chin and gave him a
delicate look.

“
Wh-what is it?” Jabari
asked. He pressed his face against the glass.

“
It’s an okapi,” Edward
said. “It’s a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They
are endangered. This is the male, Sekele. They look more like
zebras, but we know they are more closely related to
giraffes.”

“
But it lives here?”
Keenan asked. “Not in the Congo?”

“
Yes, it does. His mother
was born here,” Edward said. “This guy was born in the San Diego
Zoo. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll just let them know that
we’re here.”

They waited a moment before a small okapi
came out from the back with a larger, more caramel-brown okapi.
Edward returned from the back.

“
The larger one is named
Kalispell,” Edward said. “The female okapi is larger than the
male.”

Edward looked at Jabari and smiled.

“
This is Jabari,” Edward
said.

“
I’m Jabari,” the child
said from his spot on Yvonne’s hip.

“
They named it after you,”
Yvonne said.

“
They did?” Jabari
asked.

Edward nodded.

“
How come?” Jabari
asked.

“
They heard about you in
the paper,” Edward said. “Did you know your name
means . . .”

“
Brave,” Jabari said. “I’m
very brave.”

“
Yes you are,” Edward
said. “This little guy needs to be very brave as well.”

The baby okapi looked up at Jabari, and the
child smiled.

“
Hi Jabari,” the child
said through the window. “I’m Jabari too!”

Jabari laughed.

“
What do you think?” Jacob
asked Katy, Keenan, and Ivy.

“
He’s beautiful,” Ivy
said.

“
I feel his strength,”
Keenan said.

Ivy hit his arm with the back of her hand,
and shook her head.

“
Too weird?” Keenan
asked.

Ivy nodded.

“
Why don’t we try again?”
Jacob asked.

“
He is very beautiful,”
Keenan said. “Special. Strong.”

Ivy nodded, and Keenan smiled.

“
May we look around more?”
Keenan asked Edward.

“
Of course,” Edward
said.

“
We’ll stay here for a
moment, if that’s okay,” Yvonne said.

She pointed, and Jabari the okapi started
suckling his mother.

“
Of course,” Edward said.
“I need to stay with you if you’re going to be back here. But,
Jake, you can take the children to look around.”

Yvonne and Jabari watched in silence while
the little okapi suckled from his mother. When the animal was done,
Yvonne thanked Edward. The elderly volunteer helped them find the
entrance, where Yvonne called Jacob from her cell phone. He told
her where they were and they left to find him.

“
You’re awfully quiet,”
Yvonne said to Jabari. “Did you like Jabari?”

The boy nodded.

“
A lot,” Jabari said.
“But . . .?”

“
But?” Yvonne
asked.

“
Toto really wants to see
the elephants,” Jabari said.

“
I’d bet he does,” Yvonne
said. “You know where our friends are?”

Jabari shook his head.

“
With the elephants,”
Yvonne said. “They’re helping to feed the elephants right
now.”

“
They are?” Jabari asked.
“We should help too!”

“
My thoughts exactly,”
Yvonne said.

They turned a corner and hightailed it to
the elephant exhibit. They got there just in time to see an
elephant take an apple from Katy. The little girl giggled with
delight.

“
Would you like to try
it?” Jacob asked.

“
We all did it!” Ivy
beamed. “I gave him a banana!”

Jabari looked at the enormous elephant and
shook his head. He turned back to hide his face in Yvonne’s
shoulder.

“
Let’s just hang out for a
minute,” Yvonne said.

Jabari turned back to watch the
elephants.

“
What is it?” Yvonne asked
the little boy.

Jabari shook his head. A Denver Zoo employee
placed an apple in Jabari’s hands. The little boy smelled the apple
and took a little bite. He was mid-chew when the elephant’s trunk
appeared in front of him. Jabari stared with awe. The elephant
snuffed Jabari with its long trunk before grabbing the apple from
him. Jabari laughed, and the kids cheered.

“
Would you like to stay
more?” Jacob asked. “The kids need to get to school.”

Yvonne looked at Jabari, and he shook his
head.

“
We were thinking of
getting breakfast,” Jacob said.

“
Sounds lovely,” Yvonne
said.

They followed Jacob, Katy, Ivy, and Keenan
out of the elephant area. Yvonne let a small space come between
them.

“
Are you okay?” Yvonne
asked.

“
Starving,” Jabari
said.

“
You are?” Yvonne asked.
The child had not been hungry since before he first got
sick.

Jabari nodded. Yvonne smiled.

“
Why are you smiling?”
Jabari asked.

“
You’re getting better,”
Yvonne said.

With that, they went to their car and
followed Jacob to Pete’s Kitchen for breakfast.

~~~~~~~~

Friday morning — 8:50 am

Sissy cleared her throat, and the elderly
man looked up from his newspaper. Anjelika had set up a meeting
between her father, Otis, and Sissy at the Fluid Coffee Bar.
Anjelika told Sissy that her father could help her get ready for
her new adventure.

“
Sissy!” Otis said in
heavily accented English.

“
Sir,” Sissy said. Her
eyes flicked away from him for a moment, and then back to him. “I’m
sorry, but I’m not sure what to call you.”

“
You may call me Otis,” he
said.

“
That seems kind of
informal,” Sissy said.

“
It’s a fake name.” Otis
shrugged. “My
American
name.”

Sissy giggled nervously and he smiled.

“
Come, we’ll walk,” Otis
said.

Otis picked up his cane. He took her elbow
with his other hand, and they left the coffee shop.

“
Don’t you need your
bodyguard?” Sissy asked.

“
Bruno?” Otis asked.
“No.”

“
But isn’t your life in
danger?” Feeling suddenly responsible, Sissy looked around for any
possible danger.

“
No,” Otis said with a
laugh. “Jillian returned the items which were taken. Everything has
been resolved.”

“
Oh,” Sissy said. “That
seems like a good thing.”

“
Yes,” Otis said. “For the
first time in many, many years, I breathe the free air. Bruno too!
He’s been attached to my hip for more years than you’ve been
alive.”

Otis laughed.

“
Did he go somewhere?”
Sissy asked.

“
He got married,” Otis
said. “Nice girl from Kiev. It is something he thought he’d never
be able to do. He is traveling for a while before he
returns.”

“
That’s nice,” Sissy said
with a smile.

She felt a lot more comfortable since Otis
said he wasn’t in danger. They continued down Pennsylvania Street
toward Benedict Fountain Park.

“
It’s a little bit cold,”
Otis said. “Will you be okay on our walk?”

“
I have lots of layers
on,” Sissy said. “That’s what we
native
Coloradans do — wear lots of
layers.”