The head men had urged Gribardsun to clean out the Wotagrub, saying that there was not enough game in the area to support their own people for long, let alone an additional tribe. Moreover, the Wotagrub had not been punished enough for their theft.
Gribardsun had refused. He had nothing against the so-called Wotagrub, who had done only what their enemies would have done in their place. Moreover, though he did not tell the Wota'shaimg so, he intended to study the Wotagrub. And he certainly could not get friendly with them if he decimated them.
The hunters stopped when Thammash raised his hand with a spear held straight up in it. He nodded at Thrimk, who had also stopped. The youth shook his spear at them, smiled, and trotted off into the pass. He was a tall fellow with light brown hair and a scraggly beard. He had not yet attained his full growth. He was noted for his swift running and his high spirits, alternating with fits of deep depression. His father was Kaemgron, the best worker in stone and wood weapons in the tribe. But Thrimk and his father quarreled often.
The nucleus of the best hunters, with Kaemgron, who was supposed to stay close to his son, and Gribardsun, trotted after Thrimk a minute later. Von Billmann climbed the side of the hill on one side of the gap, and Silverstein climbed the other side to take pictures.
A narrow stream wandered out of the mouth of the valley. Along its sides were unusually heavy growths of vegetation, though none were over six feet high. Gribardsun saw the vegetation moving. Occasionally Thrimk's head would appear. Then he saw the brown tip of a horn plowing through the little trees. He repressed a shout. A moment later he heard the sudden thudding of heavy feet and the thrashing of little trees bending and breaking under the onslaught of a huge body.
Thrimk should have gone in far more cautiously, and he should have tried to lure the behemoths out into the open. But he must have been overconfident because of his dream. And he also probably wanted to impress the tribesmen with his bravery. Whatever his reasons, he had made a fatal mistake.
Thrimk yelled, there was a very loud thud, and the youth's body went sailing through the air while a tall horn followed it and then the shorter horn appeared and then the head of the rhinoceros as the beast completed the upward toss.
Both beast and man disappeared, but the vegetation waved and shook as the beast turned and charged again.
The hunters were setting up loud cries by now. They ran up to the edge of the vegetation and poked their spears into it and shouted. Gribardsun looked up at von Billmann. Gribardsun was not wearing the tiny communication set today. Now he regretted not having permitted himself any product of civilization.
The German, however, saw him and waved at him. Then he gestured into the valley and held up seven fingers. Seven rhinos.
Presently the vegetation thrashed and bent and cracked again, and a great woolly rhinoceros burst out. He was larger than any the group had yet seen, and his hide was covered with brownish, tightly coiled hair like rather sparse sheep's wool.
He stopped after he broke the greenery, snuffed, and then trotted back and forth, his head lifted high.
A female and her baby broke out of the woods and then another male and female and a baby and a half-grown female.
The first beast had blood upon his horn and on his hoofs.
Kaemgron yelled and ran forward and then cast his spear. It struck the huge male on the shoulder, and the tip of reindeer antler penetrated about two inches. The atlatl had given the spear considerable force.
At that the rhino, which had not been able to make up its mind which way to charge, or, indeed, to charge at all, started out for Kaemgron. The earth shook as its heavy legs pounded, and its head was slung low.
Kaemgron turned and ran. Angrogrim threw his spear, and the missile penetrated perhaps three inches into the right rear flank just forward of the upper part of the leg. But the rhino did not even seem aware of the wound.
Other spears missed or, striking, bounced off harmlessly.
The men scattered.
The rhino did not allow itself to be distracted by all the yelling and running figures. It headed straight for Kaemgron and was going to catch up with him within the next twenty or so yards.
The second male also charged.
Gribardsun ran in with a spear he had snatched from a man in flight, and rammed it into the eye of the beast as it passed him by at three feet.
The spear was torn out of his grasp, and he was whirled around violently and thrown to the ground.
Von Billmann's express rifle boomed, and the second rhino stumbled, recovered, and charged again, though not as vigorously. Its goal was Gribardsun, who was just getting to his feet.
The express boomed twice, the rhino collapsed, its legs folding under it. Blood ran out of three wounds on its left side and out of its mouth.
The first behemoth was also dead. Gribardsun's spear had driven into its brain.
The remaining beasts had turned uncertainly and moved back into the brake. Von Billmann signaled that they were now moving rapidly up the valley. Gribardsun picked up one of the spears that had ricocheted off the beast and went into the brake. It did not take long to find what remained of the unfortunate Thrimk.
Kaemgron pushed past Gribardsun and then wailed loudly. He went around the corpse three times widdershins, dragging his speartip in the earth, and then he returned to the body of the rhino that had killed Thrimk. There he beat the animal over the head with the butt of his spear, wailing and weeping all the time. Then he walked three times counterwiddershins around the beast and cut off its tail with his flint knife. He gave the tail to Gribardsun, who stuck it in his belt. Gribardsun recovered his spear, noting that the reindeer antler tip was loose.
Kaemgron returned to his son's body to mourn. Those who followed him also began wailing. But those who stayed to cut up the two carcasses were jubilant. They laughed and smeared blood over their foreheads and lips and dipped their index fingers in the blood and spotted Gribardsun's forehead with the blood. After von Billmann came down off the hillside, he was daubed with blood, too.
'That was very good shooting, Robert,' Gribardsun said.
Tve practiced enough in the preserve,' von Billmann said. But you, you were magnificent! Right through the eye, and you had to crouch and drive it upward, the rhino's head was so low! If it had turned on you...'
'But it didn't,' the Englishman said. 'He had his heart set on Kaemgron. Though it is true that the beasts are very unpredictable and he might have turned.'
He did not seem to want to talk about his feat. But he looked as if he were bursting with happiness.
Drummond joined them. He said, 'I got some fine shots, but the people back home aren't going to believe them.'
Thammash approached Gribardsun. 'We have plenty of meat for a week or so,' he said. 'And the mourning for Thrimk must start soon. But the day is far from being over, and it would be well if we pushed on and killed more. What do you think?'
Though he had been treated with great politeness and respect from the beginning, Gribardsun had not before been asked to decide any course of action. Apparently his spectacular feat had made him the equal, or perhaps even the superior, of the chief. He was now one of them - in some respects anyway.
Von Billmann had been daubed with the rhino blood, and he was treated with great respect too. But the tribesmen seemed to believe that he was secondary to the Englishman, Perhaps they thought this because Gribardsun, being the first one to use the rifle, was considered to be the owner. And he had loaned his thunder stick while he killed the rhino with unmagical weapons to show that he could use them as no one else could.