Mastodonia (19 page)

I heaved a sigh of relief, hoping that it was not premature. It didn't seem to be. Stiffy kept on standing there and Hiram kept on scratching him. Bowser, with some disgust, turned around and trotted back to sit beside me.

“Hiram,” I said, as quietly as I could. “Hiram, listen to me.”

“You don't need to worry, Mr. Steele,” said Hiram. “Stiffy is my friend.”

I'd heard that ever since I'd returned to Willow Bend and renewed my acquaintance with Hiram. Everything was Hiram's friend; he had no enemies.

“You better be sure of that,” I said. “He's a wild animal and he is awful big.”

“He's talking to me,” said Hiram. “We talk with each other. I know that we are friends.”

“Then tell him to get out of here. Tell him to keep his distance, to stay off this ridge. First thing you know, he'll be butting at our home and tipping it over. Tell him that if that ever happens, I'll take a two-by-four to him.”

“I'll take him down to the valley,” said Hiram, “and tell him that he has to stay there. I'll tell him that I'll come and visit him.”

“You do that,” I said, “and then get back here as fast as you can. There'll be things for you to do.”

He put out his hands and pushed on Stiffy's shoulder and Stiffy set himself in motion, shuffling around, taking mincing steps, heading down the slope, Hiram walking beside him.

“Asa,” Rila called from the door, “what is going on?”

“Stiffy wandered up here,” I said, “and Hiram's taking him back where he belongs.”

“But Stiffy is a mastodon.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “He's also Hiram's friend.”

“You better get in here and shave,” she said. “And, for goodness sakes, comb your hair. We have company.”

I looked down the ridge. Five figures were walking in line, one behind the other. Ben was leading. He wore boots, khaki pants, and a hunting coat, and carried a rifle. The others were dressed in business suits and either were carrying briefcases or had portfolios tucked beneath their arms. One of them was Courtney. The other three, I figured, must be the Safari people. It struck me as hilarious—these staid business types carrying their badges of office through this howling wilderness.

“Asa,” said Rila sharply.

“It's too late,” I said. “They'll be on us in a moment. This is the new frontier. They'll have to take me as I am.”

I ran a palm across my chin and the whiskers rasped. I had a fairly heavy and untidy growth.

Ben came up to us and said good morning. The others ranged themselves in line expectantly. Courtney stepped forward and said, “Rila, you know these gentlemen.”

“Yes, of course,” said Rila. “But none of you have met my partner, Asa Steele. You'll pardon his appearance. There was some mastodon trouble this morning and …”

The military-looking old gentleman at the end of the line said, “You'll excuse me, madam, but am I seeing right? It appears to me there's a man and mastodon going down the ridge together. The man has hold of the mastodon's trunk, as if he were leading it.”

“That's only Hiram,” Rila said. “He has a way with animals. He claims to talk with them.”

“So Hiram's already at it,” said Ben. “It didn't take him long.”

“He's had a few days here,” I said. “That is all he needs.”

“Never saw anything like it,” said the old military gent. “Can't believe my eyes. Quite impossible.”

“Asa,” said Rila, “our disbelieving friend is Major Hennessey. Major, my partner, Asa Steele.”

“Pleased, I'm sure,” said Hennessey. “I must say, you have quite a setup here.”

“We like it,” I said. “Later on, we'll take you on a tour, if you have the time.”

“Unbelievable,” said Hennessey. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

“Mr. Stuart,” said Rila. “Mr. Stuart is chief counsel of Safari, Inc., and Mr. Boyle. If I remember correctly, Mr. Boyle, you are general manager …”

“In charge of travel arrangements,” said Boyle. “I'm looking forward to safaris after dinosaurs. It should be quite challenging.”

In more ways than you are thinking, I told myself. Just by the sight of him, I didn't like the little punk.

“Since we all know one another,” said Stuart, “why not get down to business. I would like it if we could stay out here. It's very stimulating.”

Hennessey thumped his chest. “Smell that air,” he said. “Absolutely clean. No pollution here. I've not breathed air like this for years.”

“Please find chairs,” said Rila. “I'll bring out some coffee.”

“You need not bother, really,” said Boyle. “We have had our breakfast. Mr. Page gave us coffee, also, just before we left.”

“I want some,” said Rila tartly, “and I suppose Asa does as well. I'd hoped that you would join us.”

“Why, of course,” said the major. “We would be most happy to. And thank you very much.”

They found chairs around the table and set their briefcases down beside them, all except Stuart, who put his on the table and began taking papers out of it.

“You'll have to keep a close watch on Hiram,” Ben said to me. “Maybe a mastodon's all right, but there are other animals …”

“I've talked with him about it,” I said. “I'll talk to him again.”

Rila brought out a tray with cups and I went into the house to bring out the coffee. Sitting on the work-table was a sliced coffee cake and I brought that out as well.

By the time I got back, everyone was seated around the table and seemed about ready to get down to talking. The table was full so I took a chair and sat off to one side.

The major said to me, “So this is Mastodonia. Pleasant, I must say. Would you tell me how you managed to pick such a delightful place?”

“Hunch, mostly,” I said. “From what we guessed about this time. Not us, of course, but the geologists. This is the Sangamon, the interglacial period that lies between the Illinoisian and the Wisconsin glacial periods. We picked it because we felt it would be the most familiar of the various periods that we might have chosen and because the climate should be ideal. We can't be sure of that yet since we haven't been here long enough.”

“Amazing,” said the major.

“Mr. McCallahan,” Stuart said, “are you ready to begin?”

“Certainly,” said Courtney. “What do you have in mind?”

“You understand,” said Stuart, “what we want. We'd like to arrange the rights for our safaris to be introduced into the Cretaceous.”

“Not the rights,” said Courtney. “We won't give you rights. We keep those for ourselves. For a consideration, we'll grant you a limited license.”

“What the hell do you mean, Courtney? Limited?”

“I've been thinking in terms of a year,” said Courtney. “Renewable, of course.”

“But such an arrangement would not be worth our while. We'd have to commit a lot of capital. We'd have to set up a staff …”

“A year,” said Courtney. “To start with.”

“You'd give us all counsel and consideration …”

“That's how you have it written out?” asked Courtney, gesturing at the papers Stuart had spread out in front of him.

“That's the way we'd thought of it. We're new to this business of the Cretaceous and …”

“All we give you,” said Courtney, “is the license. Once you have that, the rest is up to you. That doesn't mean that we won't give whatever counsel and assistance we can offer, but as a matter of good will, not by contract.”

“Let's quit this haggling,” said the major. “We want to send in safaris. Not one safari, but a lot of them. A lot of them early on before the novelty wears off. If I know sportsmen, and I do, it would be important for any one of them to be among the first to bring out a dinosaur. And we don't want to pile one safari on the other. We want to keep the hunting areas as clear as we can manage. We'll need more than one time road.”

Courtney looked at me, questioning.

“It would be possible,” I told him. “As many as they want, each separated by, say, ten thousand years. We could cut it finer and make the interval less than that.”

“You realize, of course,” Courtney said to Hennessey, “that each time road will cost you.”

“We'd be willing,” said Stuart, “to pay you as much as a million dollars for three time roads.”

Courtney shook his head. “A million for the license for one year. Let's say a half-million for each time road after the first.”

“But, my God, man, we'd be losing money!”

“I don't think you would,” said Courtney. “Are you willing to tell me what you'd charge for a two-week safari?”

“We haven't gotten around to discussing that,” said Stuart.

“The hell you haven't. You've had a couple of weeks to consider it. With all the publicity, you must have a waiting list.”

“You're talking economic nonsense,” said Stuart.

“Don't talk to me like that,” Courtney replied. “You're on your last legs and you know it. Up in the twentieth century, the hunting's gone. What have you got left—a few limited big-game trips, camera safaris? Here you have a chance to get back in business. An unlimited chance. Hundreds of years of hunting. New and fascinating game animals. If some of your clients would rather have a go at titanotheres or mammoth or a dozen other kinds of big and dangerous game, all you have to do is say the word; we'll take you there. And we're the only ones who can take you there.”

“I'm not so sure,” said Stuart. “If Miss Elliot and Mr. Steele can develop a time machine …”

“That's something I tried to tell you,” said Rila. “You wouldn't listen or you didn't believe. You just glossed over it. There is no machine.”

“No machine? What, then?”

“That,” said Courtney smoothly, “is a trade secret that we're not divulging.”

“They've got us, Stuart,” said Major Hennessey. “There's no ducking it. They are right. No one else can get us there. Miss Elliot did say no machine. From the very start, she said it. So why don't we sharpen up our pencils and get down to figuring. Perhaps our friends would be willing to take a cut of our net. Twenty percent, perhaps.”

“If you want to go that route,” said Courtney, “fifty percent of your gross. No less. We'd rather operate on a license fee. It would be a cleaner deal.”

I had been sitting there, listening to all of this, and my head was spinning just a little. You can talk about a million dollars and it doesn't mean too much; it's just a lot of figures. But when it's your own million bucks, that's a different thing.

I walked down the ridge. I'm not sure the others even knew I had left. Bowser crawled out from under the house and trailed after me. There was no sign of Hiram and I was worried about him. I had told him to come right back, and still there was no sign of him. Stiffy was ambling slowly across the valley, heading for the river, perhaps to get a drink, but Hiram wasn't with him. I stood on the ridge and looked everywhere. There was no sign of him.

I heard a sound behind me. It was Ben. His boots made a hissing sound as he walked through the foot-high grass. He came and stood beside me and together we stared off across the valley. Far down it there were a lot of moving dots—perhaps mastodons or bison.

“Ben,” I asked, “how much is a million dollars?”

“It's an awful lot of cash,” said Ben.

“I can't get it straight in my mind,” I said, “that back there they are talking about a million and perhaps more than that.”

“Neither can I,” said Ben.

“But you're a banker, Ben.”

“I'm still a country boy,” said Ben. “So are you. That's why we can't understand.”

“Country boy,” I said, “we've come a long way since we roamed these hills together.”

“In just the last few weeks,” said Ben. “You're worried, Asa. What is troubling you?”

“Hiram,” I told him. “He was supposed to come straight back once he led Stiffy out of here.”

“Stiffy?”

“Stiffy is the mastodon.”

“He'll be back,” said Ben. “He's just found a woodchuck.”

“Don't you realize,” I asked him, “that if anything were to happen to Hiram, we'd be out of business?”

“Sure, I know,” said Ben, “but there'll nothing happen to him. He'll get along all right. He's half wild animal himself.”

We stood and looked a while longer and saw nothing of Hiram.

Finally Ben said, “I'm going back and see how they're coming.”

“You go along,” I said. “I'm going to find Hiram.”

An hour later I found him, coming out of the crab-apple grove below the house.

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked.

“I was having a good long talk with Catface, Mr. Steele. With all the exploring we been doing for the last few days, I've been neglecting him. I was afraid he would get lonesome.”

“And had he gotten lonesome?”

“No,” said Hiram. “No, he said he hadn't. But he's anxious to get to work. He wants to lay out some time roads. He wonders why it's taking us so long.”

“Hiram,” I said, “I want to talk with you. Maybe you don't realize it, but you're the one important person in this entire setup; you're the only one who can talk with Catface.”

“Bowser can talk with Catface.”

“All right. Maybe he can. But that does me no good. I can't talk to Bowser.”

I laid out the situation for him. I explained most carefully. I practically drew him diagrams.

He promised to do better.

TWENTY-THREE

When Hiram and I got back to the house, Rila and Courtney were sitting at the table. The others were gone; so was one of the cars.

“Ben took the others for a drive,” said Rila. “We wondered what happened to you.”