Behind him were the almost modern crags of the Canadian Rockies. Beautiful country still, but not as wild and dangerous as this. Only a few cougars and bears roamed the modern Rockies. The Quaternate Rockies, on the other hand, were alive with all manner of impressive beasts. And no game wardens. The National Rifle Association had seen to that.
Thackeray relished a challenge. Most of his fellow hunters preferred the warmer regions to the south. The area around the La Brea tar pits was particularly popular. You could always count on bringing back a decent mastodon head from there or, if you were lucky, a cave bear. Dire wolves were thick as fleas. An animal trapped in tar wasn't too hard to stalk.
Well, Thackeray had had enough of that. After all, he was a sportsman.
There was no thrill if there was no challenge, no work, no discomfort involved. Anyway, he'd already grabbed off the best the tar pits had to offer. His trophy room was crammed full of record and near-record heads: Smilodons, dire wolves, American lions, giant ground sloths, mammoth and mastodon, and a new, as yet unclassified smaller relative.
Now he was after the only major trophy that had eluded him: the woolly rhinoceros. The paleontologists had decided that the woolly rhino had never been very common. The mammoths were more efficient subglacial browsers, the musk-oxen more intelligent . . . Competition was tough.
Hell with that, Thackeray had decided. He wanted a woolly rhino head, and by God, he meant to have one. He was convinced the paleontologists were in league with the preservationists, anyway. Surely the history of the Earth wouldn't suffer from the loss of one lousy rhino.
The wind howled mournfully around the blind. If there was a real storm coming, he'd have to close up and wait it out. Or worse. He glanced over a shoulder.
Behind him squatted a tubular metal chair surrounded by a molded plastic body impregnated with special circuitry. He could always climb back into the Chronovert, pack up his equipment, and be whisked back to the time station in twenty-second-century Albuquerque.
To do so would be to admit failure. Thackeray didn't like to fail. He didn't like it in himself, .and he didn't like it in his employees, who unfortunately could only be fired and not shot. Besides, Chronoverting was expensive, even for one of his considerable wealth.
Not many could afford to Chronovert. Not many had the financial wherewithal or the health (he was only forty-three).
He was determined to have that woolly rhino head for his trophy room. He'd reserved room for it on the west wall, a blank space he was sick of listening to comments about. That smarmy oilman from Qatar, Musseb Ihq, had noticed it right off during the New Year's party.
Well, Tuq didn't have a rhino, either. Thackeray knew because he'd visited the oilman's home. This was one time he intended to be first.
Unless the paleontologists beat him to it. They were hunting woolies, too, but for breeding and study. Thackeray decried the waste of good travel money.
The heat sensor on the Wincolt's sight beeped once.
Quickly he put down the thermos, wiped coffee from his lips. He raised the weapon and cradled it on his lap as he stared out through the drifting snow.
The river was a good location for a blind. It flowed from the base of the distant ice sheet out of the mountains and down into a burgeoning lake surrounded by relatively flat land. Herds of camels and small horses grazed contentedly around the lake. They were huddled together against the snow now. This was a transition zone, where inhabitants of the glacial front mixed with migrants from the warmer subalpine regions. There was free- flowing water and plenty of forage. Perfect rhino country.
He'd chosen a location on the flank of a hill, just below the more inaccessible bulge of the Rockies. He could shoot downhill from there. A bulky creature like a rhino wouldn't be able to muster much of a charge uphill. Thackeray was a sportsman but a prudent one.
He raised the Wincolt and squinted through the telescopic sight. Plenty of mammoth in view, a large herd of zebrelles, but no rhinos. Probably the gun had beeped for a zebrelle.
He was about to put the weapon back in its resting place when he heard the scream. It was sharp and high, and the wind carried it straight to him. Not an ungulate, of that he was certain. He'd heard too many of them scream when they'd been shot. This was something different.
Braving the snow, he stuck his head out of the blind. A rustling sound, a soft thrashing, came from somewhere behind his shelter. He frowned. It was snowing hard, but there seemed no danger of it turning into a whiteout. Could it be a trapped rhino, maybe, stuck in the snow? The wind could've distorted the scream. If so, his kill would be easy. He debated whether to go and have a look.
Unlikely to be a mammoth. The trail up the slope was too narrow, and there was no reason for a mammoth to come this way, anyhow. But a hungry rhino, maybe, just maybe.
Hell, it was worth a minute to check it out. Cradling the Wincolt tightly, he stepped out of the blind. The wind struck him full force and chilled him instantly. He worked his way cautiously around the shelter. The snow wasn't deep enough to hinder his progress. It whipped his exposed cheeks and made him think of his warm den back m Santa Fe.
There was nothing in view, and he was about to return to the blind, when the thrashing sound reached him again. It was fainter now and close by, beyond a slight rocky rise. Carefully he checked the location of the blind, which was white to match the snow. No harm in going another few feet. The possibility of a trapped rhino goaded him on.
The climb up the slight slope made him breathe hard. Near the crest he fell to crawling until he could peer over the edge of the snowbank.
He caught his breath. It wasn't a woolly rhino. It was Something Else.
The Phororhacos was dead, the three-meter-tall form of the giant carnivorous running bird stretched out in the snow. Its vestigial, tiny wings lay tight against its body. The enormous head with its razor-sharp bill lay limp, the eyes closed in recent death.
Not many creatures would dare to tangle with that feathered monster, whose appetite and ability to snap off the head of its prey in one bite made it a match for the legendary roc. Thackeray had a similar if smaller skull mounted in his trophy room. He'd shot the beast from a tree blind, not dar– not wanting to meet it on the ground.
Something had slain this one. He thought of the thrashing sound that had brought him out of the blind. Blood still seeped from its mouth and the place where a single bite had nearly severed its neck. Probably it had come upslope in search of the large agoutilike rodents that made their homes in caves along the mountainside. Now it had become prey itself.
There was only one Pleistocene carnivore with enough power and cunning to make a meal of the huge bird. But never, never had Thackeray dreamed of anything like this.
It was a Smilodon standing over the corpse, a saber-toothed cat. But it was unlike any Smilodon he'd ever seen described. Instead of the familiar tawny brown coloration, this killer was cloaked in a magnificent coat of white with black spots. In addition, a full black ruff ran around the neck. It blended perfectly with its environment.
The uncat glanced up from its recent kill. Thackeray burrowed lower into the snow. In his excitement at envisioning that exquisite skull mounted in his trophy room he'd forgotten that he was outside the armored walls of the blind. Olivine eyes flashed through the frozen breath that emanated from between nine-inch-long sabers. The tips of those extraordinary weapons were still stained-with the blood of the Phororhacos.
The flattened forehead and the positioning of the ears on the side instead of the top of the head marked this creature as a real saber-tooth and not one of the true, modern cats. He was of a line destined to drown in the river of time. A line suited to a wilder, more feral age.
Must be a new species, Thackeray thought anxiously. He could even name it. Smilodon californicus alpinus. No, no. Smilodon californicus thackeray. Much better. What would Musseb Tuq say to that?
Regulations said that in such cases his first duty was to call in a paleontologist. Damned if he'd do that. He'd discovered the beast. It was his. A paleontologist would just want to try and take it alive, anyway. That was hardly what Thackeray had in mind.
Besides, he was outside his blind, unprotected. He had to defend himself, didn't he?
Slowly he lifted the Wincolt and slid the muzzle through the snow. The shells it fired were specially designed
