The chamber disappeared with a whoosh as it went back to Present. An hour later it was back with Beauregard, his helpers Pancho and Bruno, and a train of a dozen asses—burros, you'd call 'em. It had to go back for Ming the cook and the camp equipment; and once more for Plautus Fuller and his taxidermic materials.
While Fuller and the crew were hauling Fuller's bundles out of the chamber and setting them up in the part of the campsite we had dedicated to taxidermy, Pancho suddenly shouted:
"Hey! ¡Estd viviente! This one is alive!"
We all stopped to stare at the bundle he had carried out of the chamber and dropped. The tarpaulin opened, and out stepped Miss Willow Lamar, in a new khaki safari suit and carrying an umbrella.
"Well," said Larry Swayzey, "dip me in guano!"
"Stone the crows!" I said.
"Jai Ram!" said the Raja.
' Dog my cats!" said Beauregard Black.
"Good God!" roared Jim Swayzey, in the kind of voice God might have used on Sodom and Gomorrah. "It's that little bitch from the S.T.L.O.! Think you're gonna spoil our fun, do you? I'll show you! I'll hog-tie you so you can't move!"
Jim started for Willow with his hands out to grab, ignoring a cry from young Larry: "Hey, Dad, you can't ..."
Willow ran away from Jim Swayzey, chortling: "You can't catch me, gramps!"
"We'll see!" yelled Swayzey, running for all he was worth. Both disappeared among the scattered trees, although we caught glimpses of them, getting smaller and smaller. Then they were entirely out of sight. Larry Swayzey said:
"Mr. Rivers, what's the meaning of this? Did you arrange for this wench to stow away in the time chamber?"
"Absolutely not!" I retorted. "I was as bloody surprised as you. It's the first time anyone has stowed away in Prochaska's chamber; have to see that a special guard is posted henceforth."
The building already had a night watchman. I suspect, though without any sort of proof, that Willow seduced this bloke with her alabaster body to sneak her in.
After some speculative chatter among young Swayzey, the Raja, Fuller the taxidermist, and me, I said: "Anyway, we'd better get the camp set up."
By the time this operation was finished, Jim Swayzey appeared, red in the face and walking slowly, as if his run had bloody nearly done him in.
"She got away," he mumbled.
I said: "Now look here, Mr. Swayzey, you signed an agreement to obey your guide's orders. That means not dashing off into the woods, unarmed, because of some bloody personal difference. You might have run into a bear-dog, which would have made short work of you."
"Personal differences!" he howled. "Here I been looking forward to this trip for years, and this crazy bitch comes along to ruin it, and you call it just a 'personal difference'!" (Excuse the expression, Ms. Pierce; I'm just giving a literal account.)
"Calm down, Dad," said Larry. "I'm sure Mr. Rivers would have stopped this if he'd known about it. What worries me is, what will she do for food and shelter?"
"Serves her right if she starves to death, or gets et by one of them bear-dogs," snarled Jim.
The Raja spoke up: "Mr. Swayzey, we really cannot let that sort of thing happen if we can stop it. It's just not done, you know."
"Maybe not by your fancy-pants kind," barked Jim, "but that wouldn't stop a real man!" (He did not add "like me," but I'm sure he thought it.)
I said: "What I'm thinking is, who's going to pay for her passage in the chamber?"
"Make her pay in trade," snarled Jim Swayzey. "You know, so much a screw."
"Sorry, sport," I said. "That won't work. I'm a married man and want to stay that way."
Larry said: "My guess is that hunger will bring her round. Since she's unarmed and doesn't believe in killing wild things, she can't live off the country."
"If she comes back," growled Jim, "it'll be on my goddam terms."
Altogether, the atmosphere at dinner that night was as miserable as a bastard on Father's Day. It wasn't lightened up by the distant flashes of lightning and growls of thunder. Sure enough, the rain began towards midnight and drummed on the canvas all night.
Next morning it was still pouring, with no sign of Willow Lamar. The schedule called for us to make a one-day trek after fresh meat and then pack up and head westward, where the Geological Survey maps for this period showed a big river flowing south, possibly the great-grandfather of the Mississippi.
You can't really identify any river you come across in periods earlier than the Pleistocene with any stream in Present, because the rivers shift their beds about the continent and even change their direction of flow from eon to eon. Often they just disappear.
Jim Swayzey wanted to set out on the meat hunt, downpour or not. He was in a fever of impatience to kill something, but I told him we would do no such fool thing. It would be as silly as a gum tree full of galahs. In this weather, it would be easy to get lost and not be able to find the camp again. Whether he liked it or not, we should bloody well wait out the rain and then do some careful exploring round about the local outback.
The rain went on and on, cascading down from an endless procession of blue-black, swag-bellied clouds. On the third day it was still coming down. When along towards midday it let up, a small voice called:
"Please, may I come in?"
I looked out the Raja's and my tent. Sure enough, there was little Willow Lamar, looking like a drowned rat. I said:
"G'day, Miss Lamar! What brings you back?"
"I found I couldn't live off this country. No nuts or fruits in season. So it was either come back here or starve to death."
"Yes," I said. "Too bad we humans don't have those multiple stomachs like cows and goats, so we could digest leaves and grass. But that's typical of the temperate-zone forest most of the year.'
"And then I got lost," she went on, "and thought I'd never find this place again. Just luck that I stumbled on—"
"Well, well!" growled Jim Swayzey, appearing from his tent. "I heard voices ... Willow, what the hell d'you think you're gonna do? We're going hunting as soon as the rain quits for good. After that, we got some strenuous hikes ahead of us. When we're hunting, you can stay in the camp if you like; but we won't put up with none of your animal-rights lunacy. I'd sooner shoot you myself."
"I—I thought," said she, "I'd like to go along on one of your hunts, just to watch. If I'm to work against that sort of thing, I ought to know what it is I'm opposing, oughtn't I?"
"Reckon you ought," said Larry Swayzey, appearing behind his father.
"But without any of your nutty stunts to scare the game!" roared Jim Swayzey. "The first one of those you pull I'll hog-tie you myself!"
"I—I promise," she said, looking tearful.
"Okay then," growled the older Swayzey. "By the way, if you're gonna stay with us, where you gonna spend the nights? All our tents are full up."
After some round-and-round discussion, Plautus Fuller said: "There's room in my tent for Miss Lamar." I thought I saw a lecherous gleam in his eye.
"Fine," I said. "But then you'll have to squash in with the crew."
"Oh," said he in a disappointed tone.
"You needn't make Mr. Fuller move," said Willow. "I don't mind sharing a tent with him."
"Maybe you don't," I said, "but I do." I thought this safari had enough complications without having to meld in the sex factor.
"It is against the Rivers and Aiyar policy," said the Raja firmly and primly. He is actually more of a puritan in such matters than I am. So Plautus Fuller had to move his stuff in with Beauregard, Pancho, and Bruno.