A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

We'd put up a telescoping aluminum flagpole with a big American flag on top, not just for patriotism but to give a landmark. In that flat landscape you could see it from quite a distance, provided you found a tree you could climb without its collapsing under you and dropping you into a bog.

Fish said: "Say, Professor, how about giving us a couple of those phosphorus bombs in case we meet naupredas? Whaddaya say, huh?"

"No," said May. "You can run away from them if you do meet them. Saving the grenades in case a column heads toward camp."

So Fish and I took our guns and started out with our plastic hoods over our heads and big collecting bags on our backs. I soon knew why we didn't have to worry about getting out of sight of the flag. In the first place, when you sink up to your calves in mud, you don't walk very fast. In the second, the ground was so cut up with ponds that you had to walk three times the straight-line distance to get anywhere. And the fact that the gravity is about three per cent less than ours doesn't help much.

We followed the isthmus in front of the camp and went on to a big swamp beyond it. This swamp was part of the Beebe River, into which the lakes drained. But the Beebe is so sluggish and spreads out into so many arms and bays and swamps that you can't tell which way it's flowing without a map.

Finally, that short day fools you, even after you should have gotten used to it. We had to hurry home with our bags only half full so as not to be nighted in the swamps.

Aside from collecting some small specimens with the shotgun, there wasn't anything special about that little hunt. Still, I got a good look into Winthrop Fish's character. He talked a lot, but, since we both wore hoods, he couldn't spray me with spit. I learned that, though he never finished secondary school, he was well-read, especially in the literature of the outdoors, hunting, and natural history.

The trouble was, he couldn't do anything with all the many facts he'd picked up. Instead of reasons or principles, his mind was stuffed with childish prejudices, cliches, and cant phrases. You know the sort of thing: All women are predatory and treacherous; all Greeks (meaning me) are sharp bargainers; all politicians are crooks; and so on. He really believed all these things, and it did no good to argue. For instance, every time we saw an animal that might be a carnivore he'd shoot it, whether we already had specimens or not. He called it ridding the country of predators to protect the game, though the planet lacked anything we'd call game.

"I've always shot every gaw damn lousy predator and I'll always shoot every gaw damn lousy predator!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Crows, hawks, wildcats, everything like that. I kill 'em all!"

I'd picked up a smattering of ecology from the scientists and tried to argue about the place of carnivores in a well-balanced fauna. Fish only yelled louder:

"I'll kill 'em all! They're cruel and destructive! The trouble with you, Roy old boy old boy, is you're too soft-hearted for this kind of work." He punched me in a joshing way, nearly breaking my arm, and went on: "You've never been in God's great outdoors like I have! Hunting and fishing, that's the sport for a real man! The strenuous life! Lemme tell you about the time ..."

After he'd rambled on about some pointless hunting anecdote he said: "And you ought to see some of my trophies at home! I've got a house, you know, in Westchester County. Big barn of a place I rattle around in, all alone except for the cook and the butler and the gardener and the maid. Ever since my wife ran off with the kid ..."

He stopped talking to push a handkerchief up under the edge of his hood and wipe away the tears.

"Never trust a woman, old crumb!" he said. "They're all fickle and treacherous, like the good book says! I did once, and look what happened to me. If my lawyer hadn't dug up evidence, why, she'd have skinned me to the bone, old fruit; absolutely to the bone.

"But looky here, after we get back to earth, you gotta come see me. I ain't got many real friends, you know, in spite of the twenty-room house. I'll show you my heads, and that record salmon — well, anyway — what was I talking about? Oh, yah, I got a swimming pool too. If you haven't got a car of your own you can use one of mine. Whaddaya say, huh? Say you'll come see me, Roy! I'm alone so gaw damn much!"

He was kneading my arm with those steel fingers, and I saw he was really pleading. I said: "Sure, Winthrop, I'll be glad to come." I said it with mental reservations. I don't think he had homosexual tendencies, but you have to watch out whom you get involved with.

He slapped me on the back and nearly knocked me on my face in the mud. "I knew you would!" he yelled. "We'll have a real swell time, huh? Now let's knock off some of these gaw damn predators!"

I got the impression of a man whose personality had stopped growing at nine or ten, but who was still basically a kindly, well-meaning, lonely fellow for all his oddities. I asked:

"Winthrop, why did Doc Sander shush Harry Constant when he remarked about your habit of talking to yourself the other day?"

He giggled and looked at me with a funny expression, like a small child trying to be crafty. "Well, uh," he said, "I ain't supposed to talk about that. But since you're gonna be one of my few real friends, Roy old boy, I'll say in confidence I've been pretty sick in recent years. Yah, quite sick. And good old Doc doesn't want my nerves upset,. on account it's liable to bring on a relapse."