They froze, and after a few seconds the amynodont went back to chewing the leaves off a bush.
Huang raised his camera and began photographing. Whether the motion of his hands or the tiny buzz and click of the camera aroused the amynodont, I don't know. But all of a sudden the animal looked up again, uttered a thunderous snort, champed its jaws—showing a fine set of tusks—and began bounding towards my clients like an animated blimp at racehorse speed.
Huang turned and ran towards me. Hofmann raised his rifle and seemed about to fire, but nothing happened. Then he began looking through the pockets of his safari vest. In the field you need a lot of pockets; but with those bloody things—I wear one, too—there are so many pockets that it takes forever to go through them all. I remembered that Hofmann had emptied his magazine potting alligators, and I didn't recall seeing him reload. Evidently he was looking for more cartridges and not finding them.
"Run!" I yelled.
The amynodont was getting closer when Hofmann looked up, saw the beast bearing down on him, and belatedly turned and ran after Huang. Behind him came the amynodont, puffing and galumphing along and gaining with every bound. I hoped it would not catch Hofmann before he got out of a straight line between me and the animal, to give me a clear shot.
Hofmann raced past, and I sighted on the animal's skull. But then the amynodont unexpectedly halted. It stood for several seconds, panting and peering about. Then it calmly turned and waddled back toward the river, to resume its browse on that bush. It must have run out of wind, and those short-legged animals do on a long run.
My mind was snatched back from watching the beast by sounds of a violent quarrel behind me: "You've got my vest!"
"I have not!"
"Let's see it. There, it's got my cartridges!"
"Must have been a mistake when we got dressed—"
"The hell it was! You wanted me killed, to give you another chance at Marta!"
"That's a lie! I never had any such idea—"
The two had a rare old row; got so bloody furious that I was trying to think how to get the rifle and the bow away from them. Standish insisted that he and Hofmann had inadvertently traded safari vests when they dressed. Hofmann thought Standish had done it on purpose, hoping Hofmann would get himself killed, so Standish could court Hofmann's widow, whom he'd been romancing before she married his friend.
I could see a strong argument either way. Standish couldn't have known that Hofmann would shoot off all his magazine at alligators and forget to reload. On the other hand, it was equally unlikely that Standish would put on the vest, with a kilo or two of rounds in its pockets, without noticing the weight.
A couple of years later, I still don't know the good oil. Maybe I ought to get in touch with that psychic who told Standish he'd been a barbarian in an earlier life. Of course, if you believe in reincarnation, fifty-odd centuries ago everybody was a barbarian; so that's what you'd have had to be.
Wishing I had the Raja along to handle the situation, I managed to calm those two down enough so there was no immediate danger of mutual homicide. We spent a couple of bloody unpleasant days at that river camp.
You said something at the start of this interview, about how people thought I ought to have the most fun of anyone in the world at this occupation. Well, at times you can be as happy as a possum in a gum tree, when everything goes as planned. But that doesn't happen often. And when you have a pair of clients who want to kill each other, it's no bloody fun at all! Not only is there no beak or walloper you can appeal to; but also, how could you convict anyone of a murder committed tens of millions of years ago?
Another thing about hunting these animals, or even just watching and photographic them: It's the nature of the beasts to be thick one day and all gone the next. That's how it was here. Plenty of game the first day, and then the countryside empty; not a beast in sight save a couple of alligator sculling along the river. Then we had a rainy day, which kept us in camp.
By the time we got back to the chamber site, Standish and Hofmann were at least on speaking terms again, though no longer good mates. The first day after our return, I heard a hullabaloo and came out to see. Running into the camp was Pancho, one of Beauregard's crew, holding a bag full of garbage. After him came the second biggest local herbivore, the entelodont of that time, called Archaeotherium. It's a relative of the pigs and hippopotami.
If you imagine a buffalo-sized warthog, you'll have the general idea. It doesn't have the tusks curling up outside its mouth, as our warthog does. Instead, it had big canine teeth, like those of the hyaenodon and other carnivores. Like a warthog, it has big, bony bumps on its skull, I suppose to protect it when the boars fight over sows or territory.
Pancho had been dutifully taking a load of garbage away from the camp to bury it. The entelodont must have thought the smell too delicious to pass up and made for the bag with its fangs bared to grab it. Pancho had orders not to feed garbage to the animals, since it might make them more familiar with the camp than we liked. These beasts have no instinctive fear of man, since there weren't any in their time. If you let them get familiar, they come to expect service; and if they don't get it they're likely to take out their resentment with teeth, horns, or hooves.
All Pancho could do was to drop his shovel and race back with the bag, the entelodont one bound behind him. Pancho's a smallish bloke, but he put on a notable turn of speed, as Professor Huang had done with the amynodont. Still, there's nothing like being chased by a prehistoric monster to bring out the best in any runner.
By the time I got there with my rifle, Pancho was just entering the camp, and Clinton Standish was lining up the entelodont in the sights of his bow. Hofmann was just ducking into their tent to grab his gun.
As the entelodont entered the camp, Standish loosed his arrow. For once it didn't miss, but struck with a meaty sound and buried itself in the animal's body between neck and shoulder.
The entelodont halted and whirled halfway round, looking this way and that to see what had punctured it. As it presented its broadside, Standish gave it another arrow, this time in the ribs. When it whirled about again, he gave it another on the other side.
The entelodont halted, hanging its head. Standish shot another arrow, into the beast's neck. Blood dripped from the animal's muzzle. It turned about and started to walk out of the camp. Outside the boundary it collapsed on the ground, where it lay, kicking in a feeble, uncoordinated way until it died.
"Ya!" yelled Standish, "Who says I'm not a barbarian?" The silly galah screamed: "Yeow!" and pounded his chest with his fist.
"There's your trophy," I told him. "Bear a hand with cutting off and salting the head."
His expression changed. "You mean I've got to get all mucked up with blood and goo?"
"Of course! When did a true barbarian mind a little gore? Come on!"
He came on, though I could see he hated every minute of it. At least he didn't faint or vomit.
After that, things were quiet for the next couple of days. I shot an oreodont for Huang to dissect, getting blood all over himself again. We had to have another session with soap and brush. This was harder, since we had to haul our water from a little local stream.
Before the transition chamber arrived to take us back to Present, there was one more incident. I told you there was a bushy, open stretch on one side of our camp. The last day before the chamber arrived, I was in my tent when Beauregard called:
"Mr. Rivers! Come out; here's suthin you gotta see!"
My sahibs and I arrived to where Beauregard stood almost simultaneously: Huang with his camera, Standish with his bow, and Hofmann and I with our rifles. What Beauregard called about was a full-grown male Brontotherium, ambling across the meadow and eating as it went. It was fully as large as one of the smaller adult elephants and can't have been over fifty meters away.