every step. The smaller bears joined in the chase.
A stand of slender white birches stood shimmering in the moonlight a few hundred paces away. If he could make it to the grove, Kit imagined it just might slow the animals down long enough for him to find a tree big enough to climb. Gulping air, he drove himself to greater speed, willing strength to his legs and fleet to his feet. And for a moment it seemed as if he actually gained some ground on the pursuing beasts.
Alas, whatever imagined advantage Kit might have enjoyed was instantly lost when, skittering over the uneven surface, his foot slipped on a moss-slick stone and he fell hard, whacking his chin on the river rocks. Mother Bear was on him before he could get his feet under him again. Squirming onto his back, he faced the beast, kicking and screaming as if that might drive the enraged animal away.
The bear, seeing its quarry helpless on the ground, reared for the final assault, jaws wide, claws extended. It made a mighty sweep with one great, death-dealing paw. Kit anticipated the blow and rolled to one side, narrowly avoiding having his entire stomach ripped open.
He shouted and kicked out blindly. The toe of his shoe struck a leg solid as a tree trunk.
Astonishingly, that kick appeared to confuse the bear. It paused midlunge and shook its shaggy head. Emboldened by this unwarranted success, Kit kicked again. The blow was accompanied by a loud, meaty chunk. The bear reared back.
Before Kit could launch another kick, there was another thunk, and another. The bear swiped at the empty air, and fist-sized stones began to rain all around. Thick and fast they came. Striking, glancing, bouncing as they smacked mercilessly into the animal’s bulky frame.
The bear staggered back in confusion, and Kit heard a sudden loud cry erupt behind him; he twisted his head around to see three primitives break from the birch grove, all with fist-sized river rocks in their hands, and all shouting and heaving stones as they ran, throwing with unerring accuracy; every missile struck home with a satisfying thump.
The great ferocious beast cowered under the attack. After being struck a few times on the head and chest, it turned, lowered itself to all fours, and beat a hasty retreat, crying for its cubs to follow. The young bears did not wait for the stones to begin falling on them. They hightailed it after their mother, mewling all the way.
Then hands were thrust beneath Kit’s shoulders, and he was hauled to his feet by his armpits. While two other primitives continued to hurl stones at the fleeing bears, Big Hunter patted Kit around the body as if feeling for wounds.
“I’m okay,” Kit told him, knowing full well he would not be understood. “I’m only a little skinned up. It’s okay.” He gripped the heavy hand. “I’m all right.”
This brought a response from Big Hunter, who ceased pawing at him. “Gangor,” he said, plain as day, his voice coming from somewhere deep inside him. It was the first word, if word it was, that Kit understood. He said it again and pointed to the bears.
“Gan-gor,” Kit said, trying to repeat the sound of the word as near as he was able.
Big Hunter’s eyes went wide with amazed delight. He called to the other primitives, and when they had returned and gathered around, he said the word again, looking at Kit with an expression of anticipation. “Gangor,” said Kit, eager to oblige.
The effect was electric. All three primitives began jabbering at once and patting him-stroking him like a dog that has just learned a new trick. Kit endured this enthusiastic buffeting. “No, really. It was nothing,” he told them. Turning to Big Hunter, he pressed the primitive’s hand. “Thank you.” He gazed into the bearded faces around him and, with all the sincerity he could muster, said, “Thank you all for saving me.”
The celebration finished and the primitives started back to the settlement. Through gestures and proddings they gave Kit to know that they expected him to accompany them. But Kit had a better idea.
“No, wait!” he insisted, planting his feet. Stepping quickly behind the nearest bush, he removed his soiled underwear and, with some regret, left them. He washed as best he could in the shallow stream, then emerged from the bush to rejoin the party. Pointing up the valley, he indicated one of the tiered ledges of the gorge and said, “I need to check on something.” He knew full well that there was not the shred of a chance that any of them would understand him, but it was a relief to talk and he harboured the small hope that he might make them understand-in the manner of British tourists abroad who, not knowing the local patois, just speak English-but loudly. “Up there. I have to go there. Won’t take a minute.” Kit spread his arms and then drew a circle that included them all. “You can come with me. In fact, I hope you will.” He turned and made a show of starting off. “Come on!” He made a sweep of his arm as if calling the start to a marathon. “Let’s go, chaps!”
He stepped off a half-dozen paces and glanced back to see them still standing there watching him. On a sudden inspiration, Kit made the gesture Big Hunter had made with him earlier-the curved hand “come along” motion. Then, with a single grunt of command, Big Hunter started after him, and the rest fell into step. As they walked, the sky began to lighten, and Kit was glad to see that he remembered this region of the gorge. He walked with purpose, urging on his new friends at each turn.
The sun was rising by the time they reached the cutting Kit recognised as the ley trail leading down into the valley. “Here it is!” he cried, pointing like a wild man at the long, sloping incline. “This is the place!”
He made such a show of his excitement that the primitives stood bewildered by his odd behaviour, murmuring among themselves. “Wait here,” he told them, holding up his hands. “Just wait right here.”
With that, he turned and started up the trail. His entourage followed, so Kit had to repeat the “Stay put” gesture-as one would with a dog determined to follow its master to school-until they at last got the message. As soon as he turned away, he took the ley lamp from his pocket and made a quick survey of the site. The device was dead. No warmth. No little lights. Nothing at all to suggest the ley might be active.
Thinking that perhaps the instrument had been knocked around so much it had stopped working, he shoved it back in his pocket and instead took a few running steps down the centre of the ley. When he failed to raise so much as a tingle on his skin, he stopped, drew a deep breath, cleared his mind, and then with deliberate steps began walking swiftly up the inclined ley, fully confident that this time he would be transported.
Again his expectation was confounded. Kit closed his eyes and tried again. But upon opening his eyes he found he was still in the same place, same world, same time as before. If he had travelled at all it was only the few paces between the place he started and the place he stopped. Growing frustrated and a little desperate now, he tried three more times in quick succession before finally admitting defeat. The ley was not open and not active.
He gave up and walked back down to the valley to join the waiting primitives, who were watching him with undeniable expressions of concern on their broad, hairy faces. “Sorry to keep you all waiting,” he said. “I’ll try again later.”
In fact, over the next days he did try again-four times, twice more in the morning, and twice in the evening- each time making the arduous trek from the place he called River City Camp to the ley. Four times-with no better result than before. Though he resisted the idea that he was now trapped here, he had to admit that something had gone very wrong. To keep despair at bay, he immersed himself in observing his little community of primitives, all the while trying to remember what he knew about the Stone Age.
Like most people, what he had gained had come from jokes and B-movies. Were these the cavemen of cartoon fame? Were they heavy-handed dullards who hunted such things as mastodons and dire wolves and giant sloths? Were they subhuman ogres that eked out a nasty and brutish existence in a world of dinosaurs and spewing volcanoes? Were they hairy, monosyllabic troglodytes that lived in holes in the ground? Were they any of these things?
The first discovery to surprise Kit was that he could no longer think of them as primitives, much less call them creatures. Since the night they had risked themselves to save him from the bear, they were people-albeit of an alien race and species. Kit spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine the blood relationships and hierarchy among the members of the River City Clan. Big Hunter seemed to be the chief, though he was not the eldest; there were two females that Kit pegged as the oldest members of the group of sixteen individuals who ranged in age from three or four years to, well, whatever age the oldest ones were-sixty, seventy? That is how old they appeared; though, the privations of a hard-graft hunter-gatherer life being what they were, Kit doubted the aged ones were anywhere near that old.
The clan consisted of seven males and nine females. In appearance, aside from the primary sexual characteristics such as beards and breasts and such, the two sexes differed little: both were of stocky, muscular build, thick-framed and sturdy; both more or less the same height, with the males only a couple inches taller on
