Unspoken Read online

  Advance Praise for Unspoken by Angela Hunt

  “The Christy Award-winning Hunt will please many of her faith fiction fans as well as animal lovers with this poignant tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “In Unspoken you’ll meet my girl Sema, one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever encountered. She will touch your heart and expand the horizons of your mind. As for Angie Hunt . . . well, she’s a stinky nut. To appreciate that complement, you’ll have to read this captivating book!”

  —RANDY ALCORN, author of Safely Home and Heaven

  “Unspoken is nothing short of amazing. Once again, Angela Hunt has taken an unusual situation and made it real . . . and deeply touching. This story went straight to my heart.”

  —DEANNA JULIE DODSON, author of In Honor Bound ,

  By Love Redeemed and To Grace Surrendered

  “Unspoken is the most intriguing book I’ve read in a long time. Hunt deftly delivers us into the world of primates and their humans with a loving touch and many questions. Sema the gorilla girl is one of my new favorite characters and Unspoken is my new favorite Angela Hunt novel. As Sema might sign, Hurry hurry buy gorilla book!”

  —LISA SAMSON, Christy-winning author of The Church Ladies and Tiger Lillie

  “Wow! Angela Hunt takes us to a whole new place in this thought-provoking tale of a talking gorilla. As I read this story, the world—and heaven, too—seemed full of new possibilities. Jump on in and let Hunt take you on a journey you won’t soon forget.”

  —ANN TATLOCK, award-winning author of All the Way Home

  “Angela Hunt is a natural seeker of God’s truth, and this always reflects so beautifully in her writing. In Unspoken , she has once again challenged my imagination and inspired me to dig more deeply into my own relationship with God.”

  —HANNAH ALEXANDER, author of Last Resort and Note of Peril

  “Angela Hunt’s new book, Unspoken , is destined to be a classic. Not only is it a fabulous story, as only a master like Hunt can produce, but readers and seekers will enjoy debating and discussing the premise for years to come. Put this book at the top of your to-be-read pile. It’s a story you’ll never forget.”

  —COLLEEN COBLE, author of Into the Deep

  “Unspoken is another example of consummate storytelling from Angie Hunt who has a gift of translating issues into stories that grab heart and mind of her readers. One cannot help but love Sema the little gorilla who understands love and can read and converse in sign language and at the same time feel for the agony of her trainer. Angie’s stories are a thinking readers’ delight. I laughed and cried my way through Unspoken , and hated for it to end, my criteria for a great book.”

  —LAURAINE SNELLING, author of The Way of Women

  “There are few fictional characters who stick with you after a book is finished. Few that will make you smile long after the book is put away on a shelf. Sema, the gorilla, is one of those rare characters who linger in your heart, who change you in subtle, yet significant ways. Who knew that a gorilla could be written with such depth, insight, and just the right amount of humor? In Unspoken , Angela Hunt has crafted a beautiful story of love and wisdom, signed in simple words.”

  —MARLO SCHALESKY, author of Only the Wind Remembers

  “With Unspoken , Anglea Hunt has taken the beauty of God’s animal kingdom and woven a wonderful tale of hope and new birth. I believe Angela’s caught a glimpse of how man’s relationships with the animals was intended from the beginning..and will be again. This novel will touch your heart, as it did mine.”

  —CLAY JACOBSON, TV director

  “One of the most imaginative books you’ll ever read. Not only a reminder that the Lord is Lord over ALL creation but also a challenge to think ‘outside the box.’”

  —STEPHANIE GRACE WHITSON, author of A Garden in Paris

  “Unspoken is the best of all worlds: intelligent, informative, inspirational, and entertaining. Angela Hunt engaged my mind, my heart and my soul with unique characters and amazing premise. Unspoken is a terrific, imaginative read and easily near the top on my list of favorites. I couldn’t put it down and didn’t want it to end!”

  —KATHY MACKEL, author of The Surrogate and The Departed

  “As always, Angela Hunt takes us on an unbelievable and fascinating journey! Unspoken is a thought-provoking, faith-building story of love and grace.”

  —KRISTIN BILLERBECK, author of She’s Out of Control

  “Wow! Unspoken is amazing, compelling, original, educational and entertaining— a phenomenal blend of science and Christianity. I didn’t want the story to end.”

  —PATRICIA H. RUSHFORD, author of The Angel Delaney Mysteries

  “I fell in love with Unspoken . The story is absolutely compelling. Even though I know what I believe about animals and their spirits, it gave me something to think about. What if God gave animals more emotion than we realize? What if animals do try to communicate with humans? What if . . . ?”

  —www.epinions.com

  OTHER NOVELS BY ANGELA HUNT

  The Awakening

  The Debt

  The Canopy

  The Pearl

  The Justice

  The Note

  The Immortal

  The Shadow Women

  The Truth Teller

  The Silver Sword

  The Golden Cross

  The Velvet Shadow

  The Emerald Isle

  Dreamers

  Brothers

  Journey

  For a complete listing, visit

  www.angelahuntbooks.com

  UNSPOKEN

  UNSPOKEN

  If we teach her to talk . . . can she trust us to listen?

  ANGELA HUNT

  Copyright © 2005 by Angela Elwell Hunt

  Published by WestBow Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any other means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission from the publisher.

  WestBow Press books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hunt, Angela Elwell, 1957–

  Unspoken / Angela Hunt.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-8499-4482-1 (trade pbk.)

  1. Gorilla—Fiction. 2. Animals—Treatment—Fiction. 3. Human-animal communication—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.U46747U57 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2004020483

  Printed in the United States of America

  05 06 07 08 09 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

  I want to know who I am—

  and what it was that made me that way.

  —CREDITED TO ANTHROPOLOGIST LOUIS LEAKEY,

  in the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist

  Ask the animals, and they will teach you.

  Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.

  Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you.

  Let the fish of the s
ea speak to you.

  They all know that the LORD has done this.

  For the life of every living thing is in his hand,

  and the breath of all humanity.

  —JOB 12:7–10

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  AN INTERVIEW WITH ANGELA HUNT

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR BOOK GROUPS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1

  I am writing this under duress.

  My brother the lawyer says duress is the wrong word, because it implies threats or illegal coercion, and he hasn’t exactly put a gun to my head and forced me to sit at the computer. He has, however, suggested that the act of recording the events of the last few months might help them form a cohesive whole and make sense. I’m not sure they can ever be understood in terms of human reason.

  I am certain of one thing—after reading this, my academic colleagues will have a riotous laugh at my expense and consign these pages to the recycle bin. Some will fly to their computers and fire off scathing rebuttals to Scientific American and Anthropology ; others will send snide e-mails to researchers on the other side of the globe, complete with smirky emoticons and flocks of exclamation points. People I have spent years hoping to impress will spread vicious gossip about me for a few weeks, then wipe my work from their conversations with the same disdain with which they wipe their soiled shoes.

  Crackpot. Pretender. Glorified zookeeper—they’ll call me those names plus a few unprintable variations. They’ll accuse me of anthropomorphism, hypocrisy, and religious zealotry. They’ll petition the university to deny me the PhD for which I’ve sacrificed every semblance of a normal life over the last several years.

  As I said, I’m writing under duress.

  Psychologists claim that the act of dressing events, feelings, and realizations in words can prove therapeutic—perhaps it will. I may be different by the time I complete this memoir . . . I know I am greatly changed from the woman I was a few months ago.

  All I can ask of you, skeptical reader, is a measure of trust. I would not lie about a story guaranteed to ruin my reputation. I’m a strong believer in objectivity, empirical facts, and pragmatic systems. I’ve been trained to record demonstrable data, not whim, fancies, or fleeting thoughts. I am, above all, a scientist.

  Those are only a few of the reasons why I’ve resisted the urge to record this story. I’m not sure I can put the experience into words . . .

  My brother Rob says I have found my starting point—words . Sema, the western lowland gorilla entrusted to my care eight years ago, was fascinated by words. Like Helen Keller, whose intellect caught fire when she connected the water flowing over her right palm with the sign Annie Sullivan was pressing onto her left, Sema fell in love with words the day I taught her to ask for more by bringing the fingertips of her hands together. Do you want more oatmeal? Ask for more. Do you want more juice? Sign more. Yes, the watermelon is delicious. And you can have more if you ask with the sign.

  Critics of animal language studies often claim that primates are merely engaged in mimicry when they speak with whatever means we’ve taught them, but I saw a spark of comprehension in Sema’s button brown eyes that afternoon. She began signing more for every desire— more food, more drink, more hugs and kisses.

  At the beginning of my study, she was a five-month-old bundle of black fur, an uncoordinated but playful infant. By the time of our first language lesson, she had mastered a teetering version of a knuckle-walk, but she did not walk bipedally unless she could follow in my footsteps and grip the hem of my lab coat. Just like free-living gorilla infants who follow their mothers and hold tight to their rump hairs, Sema tottered behind me and grinned in self-congratulation.

  Even after the passing of eight years, she still enjoyed clinging to the back of my lab coat—though by then she did it not out of necessity but affection.

  And she continued to love words.

  Four months ago, on a cool January afternoon, Sema sat at the computer working on her reading. The program, designed for human preschoolers, flashed a picture on the screen, then offered a series of words. By tapping the appropriate arrow on the keyboard, Sema could match a word to the picture. By clicking the space bar, she could instruct the computer to speak the word she’d highlighted.

  When I looked up to check on her, she was grinning at a photo of a golden retriever. The computer offered three word choices: dog, cat , or fish .

  Delighted by the photograph, Sema clapped her hands, content to celebrate the puppy without doing the work. I turned and placed my hand over hers, directing her smooth, thick fingers toward the arrow keys.

  “I know you like the puppy,” I said, using my no-nonsense voice, “but you can look at pictures when you’re done with your work.”

  She pulled her hand free of mine. Gorilla finished , she signed in American Sign Language.

  “Oh no, you’re not.” Laughing, I reestablished the pressure of my hand on hers. “Which word matches the picture?”

  As Sema studied me, I knew she was debating the wisdom of defiance. Because gorillas are social animals, an individual’s status in the group is of crucial importance. I had established my dominance when Sema passed through the equivalent of a human child’s “terrible twos.” I had been firm but loving, using time-outs, redirection, and playtime deprivation to discipline my charge’s willful urges. Sema still occasionally tested me, but not often, and her maturity was a good thing. At five-six, I stood seven inches taller than my girl, but my 120-pound frame could not have withstood a purposeful pounding from a muscular 250-pound gorilla.

  After deciding to be a good girl, Sema pressed the proper keys, then grinned at me. Dog. The computer’s monotone voice filled the trailer. The dog is sleeping in the sun.

  “You’d like to be sleeping now, wouldn’t you?” I gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I think we’re almost finished. Are you ready for your nap?”

  Sema opened her mouth in a wide smile that revealed her pretty pink tongue, and then lifted her hands from the keyboard. Sema play outside?

  “Oh, sweetie.” I pointed toward the window, where raindrops streaked the glass behind the protective chain-link mesh. “You don’t want to play in the rain, do you?”

  Sema spread her thumbs and pinkie fingers into the Y sign and shook both hands. Play play play .

  I laughed. “Okay, you’ve worked hard today, but let’s play inside. Why don’t you get something from your toy box?”

  Pleased to be released from the computer, Sema dropped from her stool and knuckle-walked to the big wooden crate that held her toys. I moved to the counter where my notebooks waited—I needed to record her new sentence constructions while they were still fresh in my mind. Dian Fossey, the courageous anthropologist who gave her life to protect the endangered mountain gorillas living near Africa’s Virunga volcanoes, had always typed up her research notes at each day’s end. Since her brutal murder in 1985, she had become a
legend . . . and an inspiration to me and thousands of other researchers who adore gorillas.

  I had just reached the bottom of the page when I heard the clang of the mailbox. I opened the trailer door and leaned into the rain long enough to wave at the mailman and pull a stack of damp letters from the box.

  Sema looked up when I closed the door. Letter for Sema?

  I flipped through the envelopes, then shook my head. “Don’t think so. All for Glee.”

  Sema looked out the window, probably hoping the mailman would return with a treat for her; then she picked up her human baby and stood the doll in an empty plastic basin. She was pretending to give the baby a bath, an activity she had witnessed on television.

  Knowing the doll would keep her busy for a while, I glanced through the letters—by some quirk of technology, two were addressed to “Sema Granger” and contained offers for credit cards. Another company offered Sema a free medium pizza with the purchase of a large. I considered giving those letters to my girl, but she’d only shred and eat them. Like most people, she had the good sense to prefer meaningful correspondence.

  I paused as a familiar return address caught my eye—The Thousand Oaks Zoo, Clearwater, Florida. For an instant my stomach tightened, then I tossed the letter into a basket on top of the refrigerator. Let it collect dust with the other Thousand Oaks letters.

  One other envelope caught my attention. Addressed to me, it had come from the University of South Florida—a friendly reminder that all doctoral candidates had a limited time to complete their dissertations. “According to our records, you have already been granted two extensions. We will therefore expect your dissertation within twelve months of the date on this correspondence . . .”