advanced toward the kill, snarling as it came. Others rose to their feet to follow. Boone picked up the rifle, shook it at them, roaring viciously. The big wolf halted and so did the others. Boone laid down the rifle and cut another slab of meat.
Never taking his eyes off the wolves, Boone collected the meat and began backing off. He moved slowly. Move too fast, he told himself, and the wolves might rush him.
The wolves watched, not moving, interested in what he would do next. He kept on backing off. When he was better than halfway to the fire, they rushed forward, closing in on the dead bison, snapping and snarling at one another. They paid him no further attention.
Back at the fire, he found a clean, grassy area and dropped the meat on it. Ten times more than he could eat at one time. He stood looking at it, considering what to do.
It wouldnât keep. In a couple of days it would be going bad. The thing to do, he thought, was cook it all. Cook it, eat what he needed, wrap the rest in his undershirt, bury the parcel in the ground, then sit on the hole where he had buried it. Unprotected, it would be dug up by the wolves, once they had finished off the bull. With him sitting on it, it would be safe. Or he hoped it would.
He set to work. Selecting stout limbs from the pile of juniper he had stacked for firewood, he trimmed them to proper lengths, sharpened their ends. He cut the meat into smaller pieces, thrust the sharpened ends of the limbs through them, impaling several gobbets of meat on each of the stakes. The fire had burned down to a bed of coals. He raked still-flaming chunks of wood to one side and used them to start another fire. He jammed the stakes into the ground, canting them to extend, with their freights of meat, above the coals.
He sat down and watched the cooking, adjusting the stakes from time to time. His mouth watered at the smell of the cooking meat. But mouth-watering as it might be, it wouldnât be tasty. He had no salt with which to season it.
The wolves were still quarreling over the carcass of the bull. A few of the vultures had dropped down, but had been chased off by the wolves. Now they sat, hunched, at a respectful distance, waiting for their chance at meat. The sun was just above the horizon. Night was coming on.
Out there on the plain lay the carcass of a bison that had been known in Booneâs time only as a fossil. Further out would be other living fossilsâmastodons, mammoths, primitive horses, and perhaps camels. Even the wolves feasting on the bison might be fossils.
Crouched beside the bed of coals, Boone kept close watch on the cooking meat. Pangs of hunger assailed him. Since the almost inedible oatmeal in the morning, he had eaten nothing. He had fallen on hard times.
When he had jumped into the traveler with Enid, he recalled, the thought had crossed his mind that they would go into the future, instead of to this world of extinct beasts and living fossils. Then the urgency of those last seconds at Hopkins Acre had driven the thought from his mind.
There would have been something to interest him in the future, but there was very little here. He thought about the future he had heard of at Hopkins Acreâa world almost empty of visible humanity, although humankind still was there as incorporeal beings, pure intelligence, with the survival factor that had made men the masters of the planet finally refined into small quantitive qualities that were no more than dust motes, if even that.
Change, he thought. Earth had undergone change during the nearly five billion years of its existence. What seemed at first small factors became in time significant in a process that no intelligence could pinpoint before it was too late to take measures to counteract.
Even given intelligence, the great reptiles could not have guessed what was happening to bring them to extinction sixty-five million years ago. Other forms of life had suffered extinction that could not be foreseen.
Never taking his eyes off the wolves, Boone collected the meat and began backing off. He moved slowly. Move too fast, he told himself, and the wolves might rush him.
The wolves watched, not moving, interested in what he would do next. He kept on backing off. When he was better than halfway to the fire, they rushed forward, closing in on the dead bison, snapping and snarling at one another. They paid him no further attention.
Back at the fire, he found a clean, grassy area and dropped the meat on it. Ten times more than he could eat at one time. He stood looking at it, considering what to do.
It wouldnât keep. In a couple of days it would be going bad. The thing to do, he thought, was cook it all. Cook it, eat what he needed, wrap the rest in his undershirt, bury the parcel in the ground, then sit on the hole where he had buried it. Unprotected, it would be dug up by the wolves, once they had finished off the bull. With him sitting on it, it would be safe. Or he hoped it would.
He set to work. Selecting stout limbs from the pile of juniper he had stacked for firewood, he trimmed them to proper lengths, sharpened their ends. He cut the meat into smaller pieces, thrust the sharpened ends of the limbs through them, impaling several gobbets of meat on each of the stakes. The fire had burned down to a bed of coals. He raked still-flaming chunks of wood to one side and used them to start another fire. He jammed the stakes into the ground, canting them to extend, with their freights of meat, above the coals.
He sat down and watched the cooking, adjusting the stakes from time to time. His mouth watered at the smell of the cooking meat. But mouth-watering as it might be, it wouldnât be tasty. He had no salt with which to season it.
The wolves were still quarreling over the carcass of the bull. A few of the vultures had dropped down, but had been chased off by the wolves. Now they sat, hunched, at a respectful distance, waiting for their chance at meat. The sun was just above the horizon. Night was coming on.
Out there on the plain lay the carcass of a bison that had been known in Booneâs time only as a fossil. Further out would be other living fossilsâmastodons, mammoths, primitive horses, and perhaps camels. Even the wolves feasting on the bison might be fossils.
Crouched beside the bed of coals, Boone kept close watch on the cooking meat. Pangs of hunger assailed him. Since the almost inedible oatmeal in the morning, he had eaten nothing. He had fallen on hard times.
When he had jumped into the traveler with Enid, he recalled, the thought had crossed his mind that they would go into the future, instead of to this world of extinct beasts and living fossils. Then the urgency of those last seconds at Hopkins Acre had driven the thought from his mind.
There would have been something to interest him in the future, but there was very little here. He thought about the future he had heard of at Hopkins Acreâa world almost empty of visible humanity, although humankind still was there as incorporeal beings, pure intelligence, with the survival factor that had made men the masters of the planet finally refined into small quantitive qualities that were no more than dust motes, if even that.
Change, he thought. Earth had undergone change during the nearly five billion years of its existence. What seemed at first small factors became in time significant in a process that no intelligence could pinpoint before it was too late to take measures to counteract.
Even given intelligence, the great reptiles could not have guessed what was happening to bring them to extinction sixty-five million years ago. Other forms of life had suffered extinction that could not be foreseen.
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