The voice from the forest came again, shrilly.
“Climb, Ulg!” it warned. “Climb the tree!”
That sounded like good advice. Pete had never been an acrobat, but his new body was unexpectedly agile. He went up a trunk like a monkey—a simile which struck too close to home to be entirely pleasant. At a safe height he paused. Clinging to a branch, he looked down.
The saber-tooth was pacing around the bole, spitting and snarling, staring up with hunger in its baleful amber eyes. Pete relaxed. In a low, fervent voice he told the tiger what he thought of it.
Leaves rustled. A gray, shaggy figure swung down from above and clung beside Pete. A face almost identical with his own twisted into what was apparently meant to be a friendly grimace. Manx drew back involuntarily.
“That was close,” the newcomer observed. “I thought he had you. You’re not usually careless, Ulg.”
Pete thought fast. He. was, it seemed, inhabiting the body of a prehistoric man named Ulg. By this time Manx had a reasonably good idea that he had gone pretty far back in time.
Obviously something had gone wrong, as usual, with Mayhem’s time machine. The physicist would eventually repair it and rescue Pete. But in the meantime, he would have to walk warily. The first thing was to find out the whole setup—just who Ulg was.
“What now?” Pete asked cleverly.
“I came to tell you that the chief, your uncle Burl, has gone mad,” said the newcomer. “He hops and eats ferns, and squeaks at us when we approach him. You must come back to the caves and fight Grul.”
Pete strove to figure it out for himself.
“Oh,” he said slowly. “Grul wants to fight me? Why?”
“If Burl is mad, he cannot be the chief. You have always said you would be the next chief, and would kill anybody who opposed your rule. Grul says he wants to be chief, so—” The furry shoulders moved in an expressive shrug.
“Grul can be chief, if he wants,” Pete said hastily. “Politics is out of my line.”
“But Grul wants to kill you, anyway. He does not like you since you tore his left ear off three moons ago. He sent me, Shak, to find you.”
“Thanks,” Pete responded, “but I don’t think I’ll go back to the caves, Shak. I’ll just hang around here for awhile. Can you imagine a guy getting sore at me for a little thing like that?”
But he knew that was just bravado. Ulg must have been some sweet kid! How many enemies would he have in camp?
“NO man can live in the jungle at night,” Shak said, with a shake of his head. “You know that. It’s certain death. Only in the caves are we safe. Come back and kill Grul and then we can have dinner if I can find a rat or two.”
Manx found himself disliking his bird-brained companion. Shak was entirely too naive. He scratched his flank contemplatively and found a flea. He considered it with some interest, and then ate it, after politely offering it to Pete and meeting with abrupt refusal.
The definitely ex-barker considered. After further questioning, he realized that Shak was correct. To remain in the forest after dark would certainly be fatal. The ferocious carnivores that roamed-by night couldn’t be ignored. Unless Pete returned to the caves, his doom was sealed.
“Like a blackout in Hell’s Kitchen,” he moaned. “Just the same, I’d take my chances here if only I had a typewriter.”
“Typ-rhyyder?”
“Gat. Tommy-gun. The things that bring Frank Buck back alive.”
“You,” said Shak solemnly, “are mad, like your uncle. You say strange words.”
Pete grunted. He was thinking deeply. The setup, after all, wasn’t so bad. He felt firm confidence in himself and in his ability to talk with glib effect. Grul was probably just an overgrown monkey, anyway. He could be oiled along—that is, if he really was as dumb as Shak, who was now engrossed in nibbling aimlessly on his toes.
“Come on,” Manx urged. “The tiger’s gone. Let’s pick ’em up, pal.”
This utterly confused Shak for a time, but at last he understood. Together the pair climbed down and set off through the primordial forest.
It was an eerie place. Strange noises were continually heard. The jungle abounded with life. Huge, lovely butterflies hovered over bushes that were like nothing he had ever seen. Incredibly large dragon-flies darted here and there. That was where Johnny Weissmuller would have felt quite at home, Pete decided. He was interested in the fact that there were no flowers in evidence, though he didn’t know why.
It was the Age of Mammals. The Carboniferous Era had passed into unwritten history, and the great reptiles were long since dead. As time goes, Pete had not gone very far into the past—merely to the dawn of intelligence in anthropoid mammals. But at the moment he felt billions of, light years away from Times Square and the comfortable tumult of Broadway.
The two emerged from the forest and faced a rising slope, ending at the base of a steep cliff that was pitted with black cave-mouths. A group of shaggy figures were gathered about a fire some distance away. Shak led Pete toward the flames.
“Look,” he said, pointing. “Your Uncle Burl. He is mad.”
Burl was the largest man Pete had ever seen. He was all hair, muscle, height and breadth, with a displacement like the Queen Mary. The monstrous form squatted beside a clump of ferns not far away.
Abruptly Burl looked up. He squeaked and moved with extraordinary hops around to the other side of the ferns. Pete’s jaw dropped as he remembered something.
“Oh-oh!” he whispered. “That rabbit back in the doc’s lab! I’ll bet that rabbit’s ego is in Burl’s body.”
PETE’S shrewd guess was correct.
The former chief of the tribe was now nibbling ferns and twitching his nose nervously.
“Come along,” Shak urged.
They went toward the fire. Those around the blaze looked up at the newcomers.
One man rose—a huge, barrel-chested giant, only slightly smaller than Burl, the former chief. He was entirely covered with reddish hair. One of his ears, Pete noticed, was missing.
Manx gulped and quickly pretended to be clearing his throat. He-smiled placatingly as he moved forward, Grul didn’t look any too smart. He just stood there, blinking little reddish eyes, with his mouth open. Pete waved his furry hand amiably.
“Hiya,” he said in a tight voice.
“Nrgh!” Grul responded. “I kill!”
He plunged toward Manx, who let out a shrill cry and hurriedly scrambled out of the way. There was a flat-topped boulder conveniently near. Pete sprang to its summit. There he paused, staring around nervously. Apelike faces watched him with casual interest. Grul walked forward, gritting his teeth loudly.
“Now hold on!” Pete said loudly, making a few quick passes in the air. The tribe stared. Grul hesitated and mumbled something murderous.
“I kill—”
“Just a minute!” Pete went into a barber’s spiel by force of habit. He bent, clutched at the ground, and brought up a clenched fist,-holding it high. “Ladies and missing links! I invite your attention. I have a message of vital import to man and—er—beast.”
Pete paused anxiously, but nobody seemed insulted. Grul was glaring, open-mouthed, baffled.
“Now look, pals.” Pete’s voice became softly ingratiating. “I ain’t trying to sell you something. I’m trying to help you—all of you.” He eyed his clenched fist and opened it suddenly, to reveal nothing. “See that, folks? Nothing at all! That shows it’s easy to trick people, just like you were fooled, Grul, old boy. You thought I didn’t like you, eh? Now look, pal, I just want to show you how wrong you were.”
“Hah!” Grul remarked. “All the shes like you. They do not like me. I kill.”
He extended unpleasantly long fingers toward Pete, who shrank back in terror. Abruptly he felt something being pressed into his hand. Looking down, he saw that Shak had surreptitiously slipped him a sharp little knife chipped from flint. An idea sprang full-blown, into Pete’s mind.
“Hold on!” he ye
lped. “Listen, Grul, you got the wrong slant altogether. The whole trouble”—he pointed to the giant’s crop of bristling beard—“is there. Dames don’t like whiskers. They hide your beauty. Back where I come from—uh—I mean there’s a famous poem illustrating the point. ‘Never let your whiskers wave. Shave ’em off with Flint-o-shave,’ ” Pete improvised hurriedly. He threw all his persuasive ability into the argument. “It’s painless, too. You’ve got a Barrymore profile—but nobody can see your mug behind that bush. Just let me demonstrate—”
CHAPTER III
The Hottest Climate Yet
GRUL was tempted and fell. He sat down nervously on the rock. Growling under his breath, he watched suspiciously as Pete smeared bear grease and water on the red beard and gingerly applied the knife. Gradually half of Grul’s face emerged from the underbrush. Pete kept up a running comment designed to distract his patient’s attention.
“See how simple it is, pal? How’dya expect to get sun-tanned unless you shave? See how you look now—a ringer for King Kong. One of the handsomest guys I know,” Pete amended, and shaved away with greater confidence. “Facial, massage, shampoo—Boy, all you’ll need is a manicure. Just—”
At that moment the blow fell. Pete had grown much too confident for his meager skill. The sharp flint sliced neatly through the red hair. But it continued from there, and went on to slice a good-sized hunk of epidermis from Grul’s jutting jaw.
Half-shaved, Grul stood up and batted Pete over the head with a hamlike fist. The clout knocked Manx end over end. Before he could scramble to his feet, Grul was swarming all over him.
“Help!” Pete squawked, striving to keep his opponent’s teeth from his throat. “You can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
“I kill!” Grul snarled, and did his best to make good the threat.
Pete frantically kicked the red giant in the stomach, whereupon Grul seized a large rock and beat his barber over the head with it. The world started to spin around . . .
Pete let himself go limp, playing possum. Through narrowed eyes he watched the brutal face of Grul twist into a frown. The giant hesitated, drew back. Pete’s muscles tensed.
“He lives!” somebody said. “Will you kill him now?”
“No,” Grul refuted. “Tonight we shall cook and eat him. Till then—” The cave man moved swiftly.
“Hey!” Pete gulped.
He said no more, for a rock bounced off his skull, and the lights went out for Mr. Manx.
He woke up in approximately the same position. Shak was squatting on his haunches, devouring part of an auroch. He grinned toothily at Pete.
“Ow, my head,” Manx groaned. “Where’s that Galento?”
“Who?”
“Grul.”
“A tiger carried him off,” Shak said, “Must have smelled the blood from when you cut Grul’s cheek. It was smart of you, Ulg. You are the chief now.”
Pete blinked, dazed. It seemed too good to be true. But Shak assured him that it had actually happened. A huge saber-tooth had bounded into the clearing, smelled the blood on Grul’s jaw. Seizing the man, it had leaped back into the jungle. That, apparently, was that.
The whole tribe, Pete noticed, knelt in a circle. They were banging their heads on the ground. He gulped.
“You mean—I’m the boss? The big shot?”
Shak nodded and grinned. Pete took a deep breath.
“Then,” he said grimly, “there’s going to be a New Deal, starting right now. Yeah! A Blitzkrieg, pal—and watch my dust!”
TWO days later, a transformed Pete Manx strolled about the camp. He had painfully fashioned shirt and shorts from the skin of a deer, and the other missing links were clothed similarly. It had been hard work, and the line of hairy men who stood solemnly in a row were far from sartorially perfect. But it was, at least, a start.
“Right—dress!” Pete roared.
Several dozen arms and heads flipped busily. Unfortunately the tribe didn’t know right from left.
“Patrol Leader Shak, report!” Pete ordered.
Shak stepped forward, saluting.
“All present, Ulg—I mean sir.”
Pete eyed the man’s uniform narrowly.
“Hold on. When I made you, Patrol Leader, I sewed two stripes of white rat fur on your sleeve. What happened? Where are those two stripes?”
Shak wriggled miserably. Under Pete’s baleful glare he blinked embarrassedly.
“I—I ate ’em,” he finally confessed.
Pete spoke at some length. When the air had cleared, he dismissed the troop. He stood watching them, feeling a strong sense of satisfaction. Shak was instructing three rookies in the art of making fire by friction. Farther away, two others were sending each other messages by means of semaphore flags. They certainly were doing it badly.
Others were practicing first-aid on an unwilling patient. He was finally subdued by the simple expedient of beating him over the head till he lay limp and was an actual patient.
Pete clucked happily to himself, and turned at a sound behind him. Grul was loping forward, a gaping scar on his left arm. The red giant’s teeth were bared in a vicious grin.
Pete’s stomach turned over sickeningly. He gurgled.
“Grul! But—but—”
“I killed the tiger,” stated Grul, licking his lips unpleasantly. “With my bare hands. And now—tonight—
I shall kill and eat you, as I did the tiger.”
With that he sprang upon Pete and choked the horrified ex-barker into unconsciousness. Manx’s last thought was a vain regret that he had not remembered to invent the bow and arrow.
SOME time later, Cave Man Manx recovered. Flickering firelight was gleaming in his eyes.
Rising unsteadily, Pete started. A huge figure bounded away toward the back of the cave in which he stood.
It was Burl, the former chief, now motivated by the ego of a rabbit. Apparently Burl was destined for the same fate as Pete.
The cave had evidently been used as a storeroom. Piles of old hides, stacks of wood, clay pots, and various other primeval objects were scattered here and there. A fire was burning nearby. The cave wasn’t a large one, and Pete went toward the circle of blue sky that marked its mouth. He peered down and shuddered.
The ground was unpleasantly far below. The tribe was still squatting about their fire, and it was late afternoon. What had Grul said?
“Tonight we shall cook and eat him.”
“I’m getting out of here!” Pete remarked—but it was more easily said than done. The cliff outside the cave mouth was absolutely perpendicular. A line of pegs, stuck into holes cut in the rock-face, extended up from a ledge forty feet below. But the uppermost dozen pegs had been removed, making Pete a prisoner. Above him the cliff beetled out. Obviously there could be no escape that way.
Burl squeaked and hopped into a corner as Pete came back, scratching his head. What now? He couldn’t get out of this prison and there was nobody around for him to talk his way out. What was left? At dark Grul would come for him—and Pete would find himself the entree at the feast. Frantically Manx’s eyes scanned the cave in the hope of discovering some weapon. But his search was futile.
Pete threw more wood on the fire, and then his eyes brightened. If Grul could only be frightened! If Pete could somehow manage to arouse the red giant’s superstitious fears, that would be far more effective than any weapon. Yet—how?
Pete examined the pile of skins in the cave. His attention was caught by the horned head of a bison, auroch, or buffalo. It was rather mangy, but the horns curled out terrifyingly. An interesting masquerade costume might be constructed from it, with the aid of a few strategically arranged skins. But that wouldn’t be enough.
The sound of lapping came to Pete’s ears. Turning, he saw Burl crouched toward the back of the cave. His face was buried in a little spring that rose silently to vanish in a hole in the wall. Abruptly Pete’s eyes widened.
“Eureka!” he whispered. “Maybe—Yeah! If it works, I think
I got something!”
He had fire and water. For some reason that reminded Pete of his days barking before the Fun House at the amusement park. Suckers used to stand and gape when a horned devil arose through billowing white clouds, in an alcove above the ticket booth. An old stunt, and plenty corny, but—cavemen might fall for it.
PETE went to work. He didn’t know how much time he had, but the sun was ominously near the tree-tops. Swiftly he found all the pots he could and brought them to the spring. He filled them with water, after replenishing the fire.
Gluey yellow clay lined the banks of the little pool. Pete used it to seal the mouths of the water-filled pots. He went back to the pile of wood and selected a number of hollow bamboo poles.
The giant bamboo of prehistoric days towered as high as the great redwoods. Each segment, Pete saw, was about fifteen feet long—quite sufficient for his purposes. Selecting a dozen of the straightest of the hollow tubes, Pete brought them to the spring. He hastily went to work.
Each bamboo shoot was inserted in one of the water-filled pots. He packed clay about it, so the sealing was complete. After that, Pete baked the clay at the fire, taking pains not to burn the bamboo. He sent apprehensive glances toward the cave-mouth. It was nearly sundown.
As darkness fell, Pete grew more and more apprehensive. What if the clay pots failed to hold? Obviously they weren’t very strong. Well—, there was only one way to tell.
Finding a sharp piece of flint, Pete whittled wooden stoppers for the bamboo tubes. He arranged the pots in the fire, and laid the poles fanwise toward the mouth of the cave. They just reached it, as Pete had planned.
Burl squeaked sadly and cowered against the wall. From below, loud shouts arose. The cavemen were becoming hungry.
The sun vanished behind the jungle fringe. Twilight deepened. Pete anxiously examined the pots. The clay was still holding. He fitted his stoppers into the bamboo tubas and then hurried to the pile of skins, selecting one of the largest. This he tied about his body. Struck by an idea, he added a dozen more, until he looked like a furry ovoid topped by a bullet-shaped head. The more grotesque he appeared, the more effective would be his stratagem. If it worked! Time dragged. From below, loud shouts still drifted up. Pete hovered frantically about his gadget, examining it with anxious eyes and fingers. So far it was working all right.
Collected Fiction Page 173