Mastodonia

EIGHT

The noise brought me straight upright in bed.

“What’s the matter?” Rila asked sleepily from her pillow.

“Something’s at the chickens.”

She stirred protestingly. “Don’t you ever get a night’s sleep here? It was Bowser last night and now the chickens.”

“It’s that damn fox,” I said. “He’s got three of them so far. The chicken house isn’t much better than a sieve.”

Through the night came the squalling of the frightened birds.

I swung my feet out of bed, found the slippers on the floor and shoved my feet into them.

Rila sat up. “What are you going to do?”

“This time, I’ll get him,” I said. “Don’t turn on any lights. You’ll scare him off.”

“It’s night,” said Rila. “You won’t be able to see a fox.”

“There’s a full Moon. If he’s there, I’ll see him.”

In the broom closet in the kitchen, I found the shotgun and a box of shells. I clicked two of them into the chambers of the double-barrel. Bowser whined from his corner.

“You stay here,” I told him. “And keep quiet. I don’t want you messing around, scaring off the fox.”

“You be careful, Asa,” Rila cautioned, standing in the doorway of the living room.

“Quit worrying. I’ll be all right.”

“You ought to put something on,” she said. “You shouldn’t be running around out there, just in your slippers and pajama pants.”

“It’s warm,” I said.

“But it might be dewy. You’ll get your feet wet.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said. “I won’t be out long.”

The night was almost as bright as day; a great golden Moon shone directly overhead. In the softness of the moonlight, the yard had the haunting quality of a Japanese print. Lilac scent hung heavy in the night air.

Frantic squawking still came from the hen house. A clump of cabbage roses stood at one corner of the structure, and as I went pussyfooting across the wet, cold grass, heavy with dew, as Rila had said it would be, I got the impression, somehow, that the fox was not in the chicken house at all, but hiding in the rose clump.

I stalked the rose clump, gun at ready. It was silly, I told myself. The fox either was still in the chicken house or had left; he would not be hiding in the roses.

But the feeling persisted that he was in the roses.

Thinking this, almost knowing it, I wondered how I knew, how I could possibly know.

And at the moment I was thinking this, all thought and wonderment were knocked out of me. Out of the rose clump, a face stared fixedly at me — a cat face, the whiskers, the owl eyes, the grin. It stared at me, unblinking, and never before had I seen it so clearly as at that moment — so clearly or for so long a time. Most of my sightings had been no more than fleeting glimpses. But now the face stayed on, hanging in the bush, the softness of the moonlight highlighting the details of the face, making each whisker stand out clearly. And this was the first time, I was sure, that I had actually seen the whiskers. Previously, I had gotten impressions of them, but had never really seen them.

Entranced and frightened, but more entranced than frightened, and with all thoughts of a fox knocked out of my mind, I moved forward slowly, the gun at ready, although now I knew I would not use it. I was close now, closer, something told me, than I should be, but I took another step, and on that step I stumbled or seemed to stumble.

When I recovered from the stumble, the rose bush was no longer there, and neither was the hen house.

I stood on a little slope that was covered with short grass and moss, and up the hill a ways was a clump of birch. It was no longer night; the sun was shining, but with little warmth. The cat face was gone.

From behind me I heard a shuffling, thumping sound, and I pivoted around. The thumping, shuffling thing stood ten feet tall. It had gleaming tusks, and a long trunk hanging down between the tusks was swinging slowly from side to side like a pendulum. The thing was only a matter of a dozen feet away and coming straight toward me.

I ran. I went up that slope like a scared rabbit. If I hadn’t run, sure as hell that mastodon would have run over me. He paid no attention to me; he didn’t flick a glance at me. He just went shuffling along, for all his bulk stepping daintily and with deliberate precision.

A mastodon, I told myself. For the love of Pete, a mastodon!

My mind seemed to catch and stay upon the word — a mastodon, a mastodon, a mastodon— there was room for nothing else, just that one repeating word, Backed against the clump of birch, I stood transfixed, the stuck needle of my mind repeating that one word, while the beast went shuffling across the landscape, turning now to head downhill toward the river.

First, it had been Bowser, I thought, yelping home with a Folsom in his rump, and now it was me. I had somehow traveled, ridiculous as it might seem, the self-same trail as Bowser.

Here I stood, I thought, a ridiculous figure dressed in pajama pants and a pair of worn slippers, clutching a shotgun in my hand.

A time tunnel had brought me here — or a time road or a time path, whatever one might call it — and that damn Catface was mixed up in my predicament somehow, as, undoubtedly, he’d been mixed up in the time traveling that Bowser had done. The funny thing was that there had been no sign of the time path nothing to warn me that I was putting a foot upon it.

What kind of sign, I wondered, would a man look for — a sort of shimmer in the air, perhaps, although I was sure there had been no shimmer.

And while I was thinking of that, I thought of something else. When I had reached this place, I should have marked it so that I’d have at least a fighting chance of getting back into my own time again. Although, I told myself, that probably wasn’t as simple as it sounded — just marking the place where you came out might not mark the path. Nonetheless any chance of marking the spot now was gone. I had run scared, and with reason, when I’d seen the mastodon. Now there was no way I could find the original spot.

I comforted myself by thinking that Bowser had traveled in the past and had come back. So it was not impossible, I told myself, for a person to get back.

If Bowser could get back, so could I. Although the moment that I thought of that, I was not too sure.

Bowser might have a way to smell out a time tunnel that no man could ever have.

Just standing there and worrying about it, however, would not solve the problem, would not give the answer. If I couldn’t find the road back to the present, I might have to stay a while, and I told myself I’d better take a look around.

Looking in the direction the mastodon had gone, I saw a herd of mastodons, a mile or so away, four adults and a calf. The mastodon that had almost run over me clumped steadily to join them.

Pleistocene, I told myself, but how deep into the Pleistocene, I had no way of knowing.

While the lay of the land remained unchanged, it had a vastly different look, for there were no forests.

Instead, there was a stretch of grassland that looked somewhat like a tundra, dotted here and there with clumps of birches and some evergreens, while along the river, I could make out misty yellow willows, The birch trees in the clump next to me were leafed out, but the leaves were small, the immature leaves of spring. On the ground beneath the trees was a carpet of hepaticas, the delicate, many-hued flower that came to bloom shortly after the snow was gone. The hepaticas lent an air of familiarity, almost of identity. In my boyhood, on this very land, I had ranged the woods to bring home in grubby hands great bouquets of the flowers, which my mother would put in a squat brown pitcher, setting it in the middle of the kitchen table.

Even from where I stood, it seemed to me that I could smell the exquisite, distinctive, never-to-be-forgotten odor of the tiny flowers.

Spring, I thought, but it was cold for spring. Despite the sun, I was shivering. An ice age, I told myself.

Perhaps just a few miles to the north reared the shining ramparts of the glacial front. And here I was, with no more than pajama pants and slippers, and a shotgun in my hand — a shotgun with two shells in its barrels. That was all. That was the sum total. I had no knife, no matches, nothing. I glanced toward the sky and saw that the sun was edging up toward noon.

Noon and chilly as it was, it could be freezing by nightfall. A fire, I thought, but I had no way to make a. fire. Flint, if I could find some flint. I racked my brain to recall if there was flint to be found in the neighbor-hood, although even if there were, what could I do with. it? Flint struck against flint would produce sparks, but not hot enough to start a fire. Struck against steel, the sparks would be hot enough to start a fire in tinder.

The gun was steel, but there wasn’t any flint — for now.

I remembered that in this area there wasn’t any flint, Perhaps I could take a shell and open it, extracting the shot charge, then pour out some of the powder to be mixed with tinder, and fire the opened shell into the tinder. Theoretically, the burning powder expelled from the barrel would fire the tinder if it was mixed with powder. But what if that didn’t work, I asked myself. And where would I look for tinder? In the heart of a rotten log, if I could find a rotting log and could tear it open to get at the dry, pulpy inner wood, Or bark peeled off a birch tree and shredded finely, Maybe that would work. I wondered whether it would. but could not be certain.

I stood defeated, exhausted with my thinking and the fright that was creeping in. Now, for the first time I became aware of birds. First the flowers and now the birds. I’d been hearing them all the time, but my brain, roaring with its problems, had rejected them.

There was a bluebird perched on a winter-dead stalk.

A mullen stalk, perhaps. I tried to remember if the mullen was native or had been imported, in which case, it could not be a mullen stalk. Anyhow, the bird clung to the swaying stalk and sang. A meadowlark leaped from the grass and soared into the air, spraying its trill of excited happiness behind it. In the birch trees, little birds that must have been some sort of sparrow hopped cheeping from branch to branch. The place simply crawled with birds.

The lay of the land, once I had gotten myself oriented, began to look more and more familiar. Naked as it might be, it still was Willow Bend. The river swung out of the north and curved toward the west, then veered east again. All along the bend, the stream was lined with yellow willow trees.

The mastodons were moving off now, down the valley away from me. Other than the mastodons and birds, I could detect no sign of life. But there could be other life, I thought: sabertooth, dire wolf, maybe even cave bear. I could take care of myself for a time, I knew, but only for a time. Once the two shells had been fired, I would be without a weapon, defenseless, the gun no better than a club.

Watching carefully for any sign of life, I walked down the slope toward the river, which I saw was wider and flowing more rapidly than I had ever seen it. Melt water from the glaciers to the north, perhaps.

The misty yellowness of the willows came from pollen-laden pussy willows, great fluffy caterpillars covered with a golden dust. The stream was clear — so clear that I could see the pebbles rolling on the bottom and the flashing shadows of fleeing fish, darting schools of them. Here was food, I told myself. Without a hook or line, I still could weave a net of withe-like willow branches, stripping off pieces of the willow bark to hold the woven branches in place. It would be a crude affair and an awkward business, but it could be done; I could weave the net and use it to catch fish. I wondered how raw fish might do as a steady diet and gagged a little at the thought.

If I had to stay here, I told myself, if there was no way of getting back to my own time, then somehow or other, by some hook or crook, I must rediscover fire — fire to keep me warm, fire to cook my food.

Standing there beside the river, I tried to get the facts sorted out. Looking at the situation realistically, I had to reconcile myself to the idea that my chances of getting back to Willow Bend were small. That meant that there were a lot of things to do. First things first, I told myself. Shelter at the moment was more important than food. If necessary, I could starve for a little while. But before the fall of night, I had to find someplace where I would be sheltered from the wind, some small hideaway that might conserve my body heat. The important thing, I knew, was not to panic.

I had not panicked so far; I could not afford to panic.

Shelter, food and fire — those were the three things that I needed. Shelter came first, after that, food; fire could wait a little while. Fish, once I had rigged a net, would supply food, but there would be other food as well. Probably tubers and roots, even leaves and bark although I had no way of knowing which of these would be safe. Perhaps I could find out by watching what bears and other animals ate, take a chance that what they ate was safe. There would be, as well, slow game, small game, but for these, I’d need a weapon, a club. If I could not find another kind of club, the gun would work, but it would be heavy and awkward to handle.

A stick would be better. Surely, somewhere, I could find a proper stick that would fit my hand — a well-seasoned piece that would not break at the first blow.

A bow and some arrows would be better and in time, I probably could come up with such a weapon. I’d have to find a sharp stone or a stone that could be broken to form a cutting edge. With it, I could could down and shape a sprout into a bow. When I’d been a lad, I remembered, I’d been hell let loose with a bow and arrow. I’d need a cord, and fine roots — fine tough roots — would serve. Was it cedar roots that the Indians had used to sew canoes? It had been years since I’d read “The Song of Hiawatha” and there was something in it, I was sure, that told about cedar root being used to make canoes. Probably some of the evergreens that grew here were cedars and I could dig down and get the roots.

While I was thinking all of this, I had turned away from the river and was walking back toward the birch clump. I turned to the right and climbed the small slope above the clump, for it had occurred to me that I had better start right now looking for someplace to spend the night. A cave of some sort would be ideal.

If nothing else, if no cave were available, I might make out by crawling into a grove of evergreens. The branches of most evergreens hung close against the ground, and while they might not afford much protection from the cold, at least they would keep out the wind.

I reached the top of the little rise and began to angle down it, looking for some ground formation that might lead me to shelter. Thus it was that I was almost on top of it before I saw it — the hole gouged in the ground. Stopping at its edge, I looked down into it.

But it was some seconds before 1 realized what I had found.

Then, suddenly, I knew. This was the pit where I had been digging. It was old. There was no freshness to it. A bit bigger than when I had first come upon it, but still old; its walls were overgrown with grass and a small birch tree thrust out of the far wall, the tree tilted at a crazy angle.

I squatted down and looked at it and a curious wave of terror came over me. A terrible sense of time. If only the gouge could have been new and raw, I thought, I might have derived some strange comfort from it. But for some reason I could not understand, the oldness of the pit stirred a deep depression in me.

A cold nose touched my naked back and, instinctively, I leaped straight up, letting out a squall of fright. I came down on the slope of the pit, rolling to the bottom, the gun flying out of my hand.

Sprawling on my back, I stared up the slope at the thing that had touched me with its nose. It wasn’t a sabertooth or a dire wolf. It was Bowser, looking down at me with a silly grin on his face, his tail waving frantically.

On hands and knees, I scrambled up the wall of the pit, threw my arms around the dog and hugged him while Bowser washed my face with a slobbering tongue. I staggered to my feet and reached out to grab his tail.

“Git for home, Bowser!” I yelled at him, and the limping Bowser, one back leg stiffened by the Folsom wound, headed straight for home.