Time's Last Gift Part 16

The three scientists ate their breakfast in a gloomy silence. Immediately afterward, Gribardsun said that he would go out and look for Drummond. The others volunteered to go with him, but he said that he could travel faster alone. He put food, ammunition, and a small camera in his backpack and left. He carried collapsible snowshoes in the pack too, but would not use these until out of sight of the tribesmen. It was agreed that the explorers would not introduce any technological innovations to the Magdalenians. Snowshoes were, according to the twenty-first century anthropologists, not known to the Europe of 12,000 B.C. But the explorers used them only when they were un.o.bserved by humans.

Gribardsun thought that this was an unnecessary precaution. Obviously, since late Paleolithic Europe had not known snow-shoes, then they would not be introduced by the time travelers. Thus, why worry? Use them in sight of the tribesmen. Teach the tribesmen how to make them. The knowledge would be lost because it had been lost.

However, the agreement had been made, so he would stick to it.

Once around a low hill and out of sight of the Wota'shaimg, he put on the snowshoes and set out swiftly on Drummond's trail. The physicist had gone around the hill and cut on a straight line across the plain, which was about two miles wide. He had not, as Gribardsun had suspected he would, hung around to spy on him and Rachel. Evidently he wanted to get as far away as possible.

As the Englishman pushed across the flat and comparatively treeless plain, the snow began to fall more heavily. Before he reached the low hills at the other end of the plain, the tracks were completely filled in.

Gribardsun stopped among the trees and considered. He could keep on a straight line, hoping that Drummond had done the same. Or he could describe large circles, hoping to come across some sign of the man. Or he could do the sensible thing and return to camp. Let Silverstein, who had put himself in this mess, get himself out of it.

But Gribardsun's obligations included doing all he could to make the expedition a success. If he allowed Silverstein to die, he would be cheating the world of the physicist's labors. There was an immense amount of work for each member of the expedition and if one were eliminated, the others couldn't possibly replace him. Besides, he just did not like the idea of letting the man wander around until he died even if it was his own fault. There was a time when he would not have cared if anyone lived or died unless the person's fate had happened to touch his own interests. But time had changed that.

He decided to take the straight line for another half a mile and then describe a spiral. He had traveled perhaps two miles and seen not a sign of Drummond when he heard faint sounds far to his right. He went through a pa.s.s between two low hills covered with firs. Beyond was a series of broad low hills which ran for half a mile. On the other side was a low mountain, and at the base of this were twelve men. They were on their bellies, working their way through the snow behind various large boulders. Their goal was Drummond Silverstein, half hidden behind a large boulder. He was firing about once a minute to drive the men back. But they were slowly decreasing the distance between them.

Gribardsun watched them for a while. They were big men with light brown or blond hair and light skins. They wore bear or bison skins; they carried spears, axes, and leather slings and stones. Two lay face down on the snow with small pools of frozen blood radiating out from them. They knew what the thunderstick could do and yet they were still going after the man using it. This required high courage or a low intelligence or possibly a combination of both.

Gribardsun walked out from behind the tree he had been using as a spy post and slogged through the snow toward the fight. A few seconds later he dived into the snow. A bullet had screamed by his head.

He did not cry out to Drummond that he had made a mistake. Drummond must have recognized him; the fact that he was carrying a rifle was enough to identify him. It was possible that Drummond was in a near mindless frenzy and was shooting at anything that moved. That often happened to men without experience when they were first in battle. However, he did not think that this was the situation. Drummond had certainly been cool and deliberate enough about firing at the natives with his revolver.

Gribardsun began to work his way to the left toward a stand of snow-laden trees part way up the hill. But the natives had seen him, and five of them were coming through the snow toward him. They were yelling and brandishing their spears in their gloved hands. They certainly made excellent targets for Silverstein, but he did not fire at them. It was then that Gribardsun decided that Silverstein had shot at him knowing who he was. Now Silverstein was hoping that the natives would do what he had failed to do.

Gribardsun, still lying in the snow, raised his rifle, which was set for single-shot action, and fired over the heads of the men advancing upon him. He did not think that would stop them, but he would make the effort. After that, if they continued, they deserved what they got.

They kept advancing, though they sank into the snow to their knees.

Gribardsun fired with about twelve seconds between each shot. He wanted the survivors to appreciate the fact that no shot was now missing and that he was taking his time. But three fell before the two remaining decided to make off. They slogged away at right angles to their former path, determined to get away from both riflemen.

By then Silverstein had hit two more men in the snow, and the rest had decided that it would be best to retreat.

Gribardsun had quit firing, but Silverstein knocked over every man who stood up.

The total was fourteen dead. Somewhere nearby was a tribe which had lost much of its adult male population.

Gribardsun thought that Silverstein had truly gone insane.

By then he was behind a tree. He adjusted the bullhorn amplifier around his neck and roared, 'Throw your gun out, and come out with your hands up!'

'So you can shoot me down in cold blood!' Drummond's amplifier thundered back.

'You know I wouldn't do that!' Gribardsun said. 'You're a sick man, Drummond! You need medical care! That's all I'm concerned about! I want you to get well so you can do your work! We need you! And you need us!'

'I don't need you or anybody! I'm just going to keep on moving until I can go no more! And then I'll die!'

Gribardsun was silent for a while. The snow had ceased falling, and the grayness overhead was breaking up. Several times in the next ten minutes the sun shone through momentary brighter patches. It fell on the dark bodies scattered around the open arena. From downwind came the faraway cry of wolves. These may have smelled the blood and might be on their way to the promised feast. If so, they would be late, because six ravens had just flown in and alighted near a body. But there was enough to feed a hundred ravens.

The big black birds cautiously approached the body and then, deciding that it was not playing possum, tore at it. The eyes disappeared down black throats; the lips were pecked and stripped away; the tongue began to shred away in sharp beaks.

Gribardsun watched the eating indifferently. If anything, he approved. Ravens were one method for getting rid of garbage, of keeping the world clean.

But Silverstein could not stand the sight. He fired, and a raven flew apart in a spray of black feathers. The others took off cawing and flew around describing black interrogation marks. When they fluttered back to the original corpse, they were scared away by another shot. This missed them but struck the head of the corpse and split it open. The ravens returned a second time and began to eat the blood and the brains. Silverstein did not shoot at them again.

Gribardsun stuck his head completely around the tree trunk, only to jerk it back. He was too late, of course, but the bullet gouged out a big piece of trunk and screamed off to the right. A few pieces of wood were stuck in the left side of his face. He picked them out while the blood froze on his cheek.

A few minutes later he jumped. Something had cracked loudly in the woods behind him.

It could have been the cold splitting open a branch, but he could not afford not to investigate. He crawled away, keeping the tree between himself and Silverstein until he got over a low ridge. His scouting revealed nothing except a fox which exploded from beneath a snow-heavy bush, and, a minute later, the hare which the fox had been hunting.

Gribardsun watched the rodent with its big hairy feet bound along on top of the thin frozen crust of the snow. And then darkness exploded in him. When he awoke, he had a sharp pain in the back of his head. He was lying on his side, and his hands were tied behind him. A pair of bison-hide boots were directly in front of his eyes. He looked up along wolf-hide trousers and a spotted black and white horse-hide parka. The man had a long dark beard with red undertones, thick black eyebrows and greenish eyes. He held a reindeer antler-tipped spear.

Gribardsun turned over slowly and saw six other strangers.

A moment later, three more came through the snow with a fourth whose hands were tied behind him.

'This is a fine mess you've gotten us into!' Drummond said.

Gribardsun might have smiled at this if his head had not hurt so much. A stone axe must have been thrown at him. That had to be so, since he was sure that not even an aboriginal woodsman could get close enough to hit him with a weapon in hand before he heard him.

He was sure that they had not arrived after the firing had ended. They must have been burrowed down in the snow, able to see him without his seeing them. Then, when he turned his back, one had gotten up slowly and thrown his axe.

He was surprised that he was still alive, but he was glad. While he lived, he had hope.

A big man lifted him up and set him on his feet. Then he knocked him down again with a fist in his solar plexus.

Gribardsun writhed around for a while, sucking in air, though he was not so badly hurt as he pretended. He had had time to tense his muscles and also to throw himself slightly backward to ride with the blow.

The big man picked him up again, raised his fist, probably expecting Gribardsun to wince, and then lowered it at a word from a man who seemed to be the chief.

Gribardsun and Silverstein were led away to the south with a spearman behind each to prod him if he lagged. Their snowshoes had been left behind. Either the strangers had not seen them use them, and so did not understand their use, or they were ignoring what they had seen because they did not fully comprehend it. But one man carried Drummond's revolver in his belt. The chief carried Gribardsun's rifle. They had gone roughly half a mile when they saw a dozen or so gray shapes drift along the side of the hill, sliding in and out between the trees. The wolves were on their way to the feast.

After two miles of hard walking - or wading - through heavy snow that was sometimes waist-deep, they came to the camp. This was pitched against the south side of a steep hill and consisted of thirty-three wigwam-like tents. Trenches had been cut through the twenty-foot-high drifts to connect the tents. But snow was a good thermal insulation material, and as long as the tents did not collapse, they would keep the inhabitants warm. As Gribardsun was to find out, the tribesmen had dug out much of the snow immediately around the tents, leaving the top projections untouched. Thus, there was not as much weight on the tents as there seemed at first sight.

At the moment, Gribardsun was in no position to make detailed observations. Some of the women, on hearing of the disastrous casualties, launched screams and wails to the skies and their nails at the faces of the prisoners. Both men suffered deep gashes before the men pulled the women off. Gribardsun, however, kicked three women in the stomach, knocking out two and making the third vomit. He could have killed all three but thought he would be better off if he did not.

The big man who had hit him with his fist laughed when the women went sailing out of the pack. He slapped Gribardsun several times in the face after he had rescued him, but not in a vengeful spirit. The man was grinning gap-toothed as he hit Gribardsun, as if he enjoyed seeing the women hurt. He also enjoyed hitting the prisoner, but he wasn't out to hurt him badly.

The prisoners were led through a trench of snow which rose high over Gribardsun's six-foot-three head. The central tent of the three concentric circles of tents was the largest. The chief lived in this with two adult women - his mother, apparently, and his wife - two juvenile females, a juvenile male, a six-year-old boy and a year-old girl. Wooden frames held the butchered carca.s.ses of a deer and a quarter of a bison and other frames held spears and axes and cutting and chopping stones and sewing equipment of bone and sinew. A single fire in the center, confined in a stone hearth, sent blue smoke upward to the narrow opening in the top. It also sent much of the smoke around the tent.

The occupants were naked except for loin strips, though the temperature was about ten degrees above zero Fahrenheit except very near the fire. The tent stank of stale sweat, saliva burning in the fire, wet furs near the fire, rotting teeth, gummy dirt, rotten meat on some bones in a corner, and excrement in two open dug-out trunks of wood used as chamber pots.

After being out in the open, the stench was almost as bad as a fist blow. But both men had encountered this every time they had entered a winter tent of the Wota'shaimg. Gribardsun had adapted - or at least had not complained - almost immediately. Silverstein had never really become at ease in the stench.

Three men pointed their spears at the two while the women removed the packs from their backs. All their clothes except their shorts were taken off. To get the parkas and undershirts off, their hands were untied. Gribardsun estimated his chances of breaking loose and decided against them. Even if he could get past the spears inside the tent and the mob outside, he would be naked. He still might escape freezing if he ran all the way back to camp. He did not have these people's tolerance for cold, but he had more than most twenty-first centurians.

However, his chances at this time were just too slim. He would wait.

When his hands were retied, they were fastened in front of him. This was an advantage, but his ankle was tied by a tough sinew to the bottom of a tent pole. Silverstein was similarly tethered. The sinew was long enough for them to sit by the fire, which they did without objection from anyone. The chief and the big man seemed amused by the shivering of their prisoners.