Rivers of Time

Delarue cleared his throat. "Don't you mean 'bring back the bison'?"

"No; I said 'buffalo* and I meant 'buffalo.' That's what the animal was always called in that time and place. A 'bison' is something an Aussie like Reggie here uses to wash his hands in."

"Oh, bulsh!" I said. "A dinkum Aussie does not pronounce 'basin' and "bison' alike. Unless you're hearing-impaired, you can hear the difference: 'basin,' 'bison,' 'basin,' 'bison.'"

"I see," said Delarue. "You move "basin' halfway to 'bison,' and 'bison' halfway to 'boyson.' "

Blackelk asked: "Is there such a word as 'boyson'?"

Delarue shrugged. "I once knew a Mr. Boysen." He turned to Blackelk. "What did the Crows call it, Norm?"

Blackelk spread his hands. "Don't know. I learned Absaroka in school, although all the tribe are Anglophones now. The theory was that the language mustn't be allowed to die out, because it was a priceless cultural heritage or something. I never became fluent in it. Actually, 'bison' and 'buffalo' are both names for several kinds of Old World wild cattle. The white invaders carelessly applied both Old World names to the one American species, since they couldn't pronounce the Native American words for the animal."

Hockersmith said: "We're getting away from the subject. Norm, we want you to do a ghost dance to bring back the mastodon. It may not work, but what have we got to lose?"

"Don't know that I could do that," said Blackelk. "Even if I could remember enough Absaroka, the language has no word for 'mastodon.' Maybe it did once, but if so it must have been forgotten soon after the animal went extinct."

"Well then, simply call it 'mastodon.' Your Native American gods would understand."

"I'll see what I can think up—"

"Don't do it, Norm!" said Delarue. "It's just pandering to primitive superstition. The world will never be able to manage its affairs in a rational manner as long as people go in for irrational, unscientific cults and sects, with gods and other spooks."

Delarue's cocksureness even got under the skin of Joe Hockersmith, usually an even-tempered, self-controlled man. "Look, squirt," he said. "We'll make it a sporting proposition. If Norman comes up with a ghost dance, what'll you bet the mastodon don't appear in a reasonable time, say ten days? How about ten bucks?"

"Make it fifty," said Delarue. "I don't ordinarily bet, but against a silly superstition it's a sure thing."

They shook hands. Blackelk said: "The first thing I need is a drum. Too bad we didn't bring one."

After much yabber, we decided to convert Hockersmith's barrel of apples into a drum. We dumped the apples out in the chamber, took a sheet of plastic used as a tarpaulin, and with much tugging and grunting got it pulled tight over the empty barrel and dogged down. It gave a satisfactory boom when Blackelk slapped it. He said:

"Now I need some dancers. Reggie, you and Joe ought to do."

"Me, dance?" said Hockersmith. "Never have in my life. My wife's been after me for years to take lessons—"

"You thought up this project," said Blackelk, "so you can damn well play your part in it."

"What steps have we got to learn?" asked Hockersmith.

"I'll show you." The steps proved simple enough, with much stamping and raising the knees, as in that British parade step the Commonwealth armies used to practice.

After tucker that night, when full dark came, we cleared a space and went to work. Blackelk sat on a camp chair with the barrel between his knees. Stripped to the waist, he had a necktie knotted around his forehead for a headband and some feathers, which Ming supplied from a fresh turkey in our commissariat, stuck in the band. He began a chant in Absaroka. I can't reproduce any of it. It had a rather monotonous little tune with about three notes, while Blackelk slapped his drum. Hockersmith and I hopped and stamped around him in circles, as Blackelk had taught us. The rest of the crew, standing about in the firelight, kept time by clapping. After a while the rhythm and the pounding got into our blood, as they got into mine when I once took part in a corroboree with some Native Australians in the outback.

When Blackelk ran out of song and Hockersmith and I out of wind, we paused. From the dark woods came a squeal, and then another. Then several proboscidean throats let loose with that sound called 'trumpeting,' because it does sound like some sort of trumpet, only a horn with spit in it.

Everybody turned to look while the Raja and I got our guns. Presently an animal hove into view, near enough so that we could dimly make it out by firelight. It stared at us and turned away; the light showed it to be an American mastodon. I guessed it to be a female from its slender tusks. I had read that elephant herds are commonly bossed by the oldest cow; they have alpha females instead of alpha males.

After this first mastodon came another, then a couple of little ones no more than waist high; then another big one, following the track of the first. More went by until at least a dozen had passed. All, as nearly as I could judge, were cows and young. At the tail of the procession, a big bull ambled along. This one looked our way, hoisted his trunk to sniff, and flapped his ears. Then we heard a loud toot, which seemed to come from the head of the line. The bull turned away and single-footed it after the herd like a Bondi tram. It must, I thought, have been the big cow who headed the line, the matriarch, telling the bulclass="underline"