No, it's not related to the hippo, save in the sense that all animals are related. But you'd have to go back to the Paleocene Epoch to find their common ancestor. It's an odd-toed animal, like horses and tapirs; while the hippo is even-toed and related to the pigs. It's a case of what my scientific friends call parallel or convergent evolution.
To get back to the story: None of my sahibs wished to kill the amynodont, but Huang still wanted his photographs. So I sent him and Hofmann ahead to stalk the brute, warning them to go no closer than a hundred meters. I thought that Huang, with his telephoto lens, could get all the pictures he wanted at that distance. I followed.
We tell the sahibs that we put them in front to give them the first shot. That is true, but it's not the only reason. It's also a fact that every now and then one of these amateur Nimrods trips over a root and stumbles or falls, and if the guide were in front, he might get his bloody head blown off.
"Keep behind me, Cliff," I told Standish. "That bow of yours wouldn't make much impression on a thick-skinned bloke like that."
So I stood, gun ready, as Hofmann and Huang walked toward the amynodont. At about a hundred yards, they stopped for Huang to look through his eyepiece. But then they started advancing again, slowly and stealthily. I wanted to call out a warning to go no further; but to do so would only excite the amynodont. It might run away, in which case Huang would not get his pictures; or it might charge, in which case they would have to rely on Hofmann's rifle, with me as a back-up. Having seen Hofmann shoot, I didn't think I had much to worry about on that score; but I started forward, too, keeping a constant distance behind my clients.
They kept stalking closer and closer. They must have covered another fifty meters, and I was filling my lungs to yell "Stop!" when they halted. The amynodont had quit eating and raised its head suspiciously. I snatched a look through my own glasses. Although I know creatures like that don't have facial expressions, I couldn't help thinking that it was glowering at my clients.
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 toward my clients like an animated blimp at racehorse speed.
Huang turned and ran toward 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, as 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 extra 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 that 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 photographing 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.