Matt came down the steps and stood there, getting wet, giving Susan her privacy. His eyes never left Howard, but he said nothing.
Susan appeared, drying her eyes on her sleeve, and started down the steps.
Fuzzy bellowed.
The whole trailer shook. In the back, the side of the trailer dimpled inward, then sprung back. Another bellow, and again the dimple appeared, and this time it didn't pop back out.
Howard hastily climbed the steps and stuck his head in the door. The mammoth was agitated, rocking back and forth against his chains, but Howard had seen this arrangement before, he knew even Big Mama could not have torn herself loose. The sides of the trailer were holding. Maybe it would be necessary to let Susan ride back here on the return to Fuzzyland, keep him calmed down until he got back in his familiar quarters.
Then he saw the time machine, sitting right there on the table with its top open. Suddenly all the excitement he had been feeling came rushing back at him. It was a good day. It was a damn good day!
He sat where Matt had been sitting and just stared at it for a moment, visions of T. rexes and brontosaurs dancing in his head. Matthew Wright wasn't the only genius in the world, not the only man who could figure this thing out. In fact, according to Matt, he never had figured it out. The damn thing just turned itself on, took him somewhere, and then brought him back again.
Matt was the only one who witnessed the thing doing whatever it did, and that might help, so maybe he could work out a deal with him to work on it again, though the prospect made him feel like gagging.
Whatever. It had been demonstrated that the thing worked, that was beyond question, and if it worked once Howard could make it work again.
He closed the lid, noticing the dents made when that maniac hit it that night in the warehouse. He snapped the catches, and stood up. He didn't hear the sound of Fuzzy's harness leather ripping.
The next thing he knew, Fuzzy had wrapped his trunk around his neck and slammed him to the floor on his back. He looked up into two tons of angry, hairy death as Fuzzy rammed his massive head downward. He screamed.
Susan bolted back up the stairs. Fuzzy had Howard pinned to the floor, one tusk just missing him on the right, the other poking into the aluminum case on Howard's left.
"Fuzzy! Up, Fuzzy, up! Up, Fuzzy!"
The mammoth paused, down on his knees.
"Up, Fuzzy! That's a good boy. Up, Fuzzy."
Fuzzy moved back slightly, got to his feet, looked down at Howard as if wondering if he might take just one more poke at the guy who had upset Susan so much... then backed up to where he had been and stood there, swaying gently.
"Go, Howard," Susan said quietly. "Just get out of here."
Howard scrambled to his feet, thankful he hadn't wet himself. He brushed himself off, and went outside.
"Are you okay, darling?" Andrea went to him and put her arms around him. She could feel him shaking. He hugged her, and turned to Warburton.
"Will do."
Warburton stood there holding the gun, though he knew Matt wasn't going to try anything stupid. He watched Howard and Andrea hurry down the stairs and cast off the line, then scramble aboard the boat. The engine started and the boat began to back up.
Then it vanished. There was nothing on the water but some backwash bubbles that quickly dissipated.
Warburton started running toward where the boat had been. Very near the edge of the pier he slipped on an oily patch and went down, striking his head on one of the pilings. Matt started toward him, and saw him roll over the edge and fall into the water.
"Matt, what's happening?" He turned and saw Susan standing in the door.
"You keep Fuzzy calm. I'll see." He went to the edge and looked. Warburton was floating facedown in the water. Matt cursed and jumped in. It was quite a shock, hitting the cold water.
He was an indifferent swimmer, but he managed to thrash along and turn Warburton over and get his arm around his neck in the vaguely remembered lifesaving position, and he treaded water for a moment, then started for the dock where the boat had been docked until a few seconds ago.
Susan was waiting for him at the dock, and helped him pull Warburton up and lay him out on the wood planks.
"Do you know what to do?" Matt asked.
"Mouth to mouth, I guess." She didn't seem pleased. At that moment Warburton coughed up some water, shook his head, and sat up.
They helped him to his feet, got his arms over their shoulders, and staggered up the stairs with him. Halfway to the trailer, Matt suddenly stopped, dropped Warburton's arm, and ran toward the trailer. He went up the stairs, was gone for only a moment, then he came back down and faced Susan and a very groggy Warburton.
"That son of a bitch stole my watch," he said.
THEY didn't have any clothes to fit big, bulky Warburton, so he sat across from them in the breakfast nook, soaking wet and shivering and wrapped in a blanket as he sipped from a cup of instant coffee Susan had heated in the microwave. While Susan was out, Fuzzy had entered the living area, curious now rather than angry, and had done a little damage.
"Do you have a first name?" Susan asked. "I never use it. Did you loosen the harness on that animal?"
"Satisfied?"
"Sorry. I had to ask."
"I would never have endangered Fuzzy that way."
"Point taken."
They were quiet for a while, each of them digesting what they had just seen, none of them quite sure what to think of it yet. Finally Matt spoke.
"Howard never told me about the frozen woman between the man and the mammoth," he said. "Looks like you had your little secret, too. Howard never heard about the watch the man was wearing, did he?"
"What was I supposed to do?" Warburton said angrily. "I didn't send a message in the clear, that would have been foolish. I just radioed Howard and told him to get up there where they were digging up his mammoth, there was something he needed to see. Howard knows I wouldn't waste his time. Between the time I made the call and the time I got back to the mammoth, that bastard Charlie had swiped the watch and was over the horizon on his snowmobile. I went up in the chopper and looked for him, and I don't know how he managed to hide in that wasteland, but he did. Some of the other Indians, Eskimos, whatever the hell they were, they said Charlie was a weird one, believed in magic, he must have thought the watch had powerful juju.
"Howard was on his way. Rostov had showed me the box by then. I knew Howard would be so happy about finding that... what the hell did it matter if the guy was wearing a watch? It was obvious he had traveled in time and I figured the box was the way he had done it. There were only me and five other people, counting Charlie, who knew about the watch. I figured the box was the important thing, but it cost me, plenty, to be sure those other five were quiet about it. One of them's dead now." He looked up, saw the expressions on their faces. "Not me. Rostov worked in a refrigerator, he caught pneumonia, he died. End of story. I'm not a hit man."
Susan grasped Matt's hand and squeezed.
"Don't feel responsible for this, Matt," she said. "We were talking about fate all night. I think you pick your fate. Howard did this to himself."
"What about Andrea?"
"That I don't know. But she's with him, I'm sure of that, wherever they are. And a few hours ago I had to consider whether I'd be happier in the Stone Age with you, or here without you. And I know how I decided."
Matt squeezed her hand. "It just seems so harsh. Howard is the last man I'd expect to survive hardships like that. And what took him up to the Arctic Circle?"