by Don Wilcox
Right now he was stuck here, in this ancient world. But, he resolved, he’d get back someday. When spring came again, he’d camp right on the spot where the time chain had deposited him, and he’d wait till it returned!
But for the present this cave was his only home; despondent as he was, he realized that there was nothing to do but make the best of it.
It was an interesting home, as far as that went. Any home ruled by a patriarch who could change his moods from kindness to fierceness as quickly as Fangler, was bound to be interesting. But it was far from agreeable.
And Vincent had not been there many months before he realized that even to Hunzk, who was Fangler’s oldest son, and therefore most important of Fangler’s problems against the day when he should be granted full manhood and given a mate to become mistress of a new cave-hold in the family of Fangler, the home was by no means an agreeable place.
The cave was too crowded. The fire was not big enough. The heap of firewood, which Ponpo helped Hunzk replenish daily, took up too much room. So did the bins of grain, and the carcasses of game, and the hides, and the stone tables where Hunzk and Fangler chipped their arrowheads, and the artist’s pile of equipment in the center of the floor.
Everything had moved indoors for the coming of winter; and taken altogether it was a caveful. In addition to all the goods and supplies and smoke and smells, there were nine people in the cave most of the time: Fangler; his wife; three young children; Penzi; Hunzk; Torlink, who was an artist and not a member of the family by blood; and Vincent himself.
If the freezing winds rested for a few days, the congestion would be relieved for a short time; Hunzk would go off on a short hunting trip, or Ponpo would go out to watch for the return of his time chain, or Penzi would venture across the hills to visit with one of her neighboring girlfriends. And certainly those three scalawags of boys who dressed in fox furs and who got into mischief at every opportunity would not fail to get out for a romp whenever the weather permitted.
On the other hand, a week of winter warmth also increased the congestion of the cave by bringing sundry visitors from the outside, and often these would stay all night; or if a blizzard swept in, they would stay for days. And their families would sit by their own fires calmly waiting for better weather to learn who had been under shelter and who had been frozen to death in the snow.
Hunzk and Penzi, adopted daughter of Fangler, had been friendly with Vincent from the first. Hunzk was nearly full grown, and he was already an expert hunter and a ready fighter. He was eager to escape his father’s domination, and marry, and establish a cave-hold of his own. But as yet his father, an instructor in tribal customs and knowledge and an important authority among the people of the valley, had refused to confer the full rites of manhood upon him.
Penzi, Hunzk’s adopted sister, was a thorn in Vincent’s flesh. A cheerful, good-natured thorn, to be sure—as full of giggles as any homely, skinny thirteen-year-old girl he ever knew back in grade school. Penzi doted on everything that belonged to Ponpo: his dainty manner of eating, comparatively speaking; his preference for clean hands and a clean face; his curious clothing; above all, the mysterious books that he kept hidden away in his saxophone case.
All of which nettled Vincent Harrison.
It disgusted him to see how that little snip of a Penzi would put on airs in the presence of her friends—all because she lived in the same cave with the most wonderful of all human oddities—Pon-pon-pon.
But the real trouble began when old Fangler himself began to notice the attention that Penzi was paying to Ponpo.
Fangler was angered. This was not right. Nothing should be done unless with his permission—and certainly Penzi had not asked Fangler whether she could speak to Vincent or to become interested in him.
For a time Vincent didn’t know what was wrong. He only knew that something was causing the old stump-legged patriarch to grumble more and to lose his temper more often than previously.
“It’s this damned being-indoors all the time,” Vincent told himself. “As soon as spring comes I’ll get out of here.” He took refuge, as usual, in a hazy dream of planning a house down there by the river where he could keep watch for the time chain, day and night.
A sharp bark from Fangler brought his thoughts back with a jerk. He caught the command, and wasted no time obeying. It was an order to go out and get some water—which, at this season, consisted to bring back a big ball of snow to be melted in a stone vessel.
He returned to find Fangler and his wife arguing violently. Their words were outside Vincent’s comprehension. Their tempers were not. Fangler’s wife, the buxom black-haired Kansleen, had a tongue that could lash like a whip when the occasion demanded.
But her voice went silent the instant she realized that Vincent had returned. All of which set Vincent’s curiosity to working. Was he somehow involved in this family squabble?
Later that night while the three children and Hunzk and Penzi were still munching by the fire at the other end of the cave, Vincent, supposedly asleep on his shelf, overheard a few more grumbled words between Fangler and Kansleen.
“But for me,” Fangler growled in an undertone, “she’d have died in the snow.”
“You lie with a smooth tongue, Fangler,” his wife retorted. “You stole her.”
“She owes her life to me.”
“So you want to eat her up like a wild boar.”
“I only want her not to forget.”
“How could she?” Kansleen snarled under her breath.
“I have made myself her father and her first friend. By me, she lives. Without her we would have no daughter.”
Kansleen’s face softened and her voice grew tender. “She is our daughter, Fangler. She has taken the place of our own daughter, who died. You will always be her father, Fangler.”
Fangler gave a muffled grunt. He was somewhat soothed but not entirely satisfied.
Then Kansleen added, “Remember she is yet a child. Her affections are wild like the winds . . . But I will speak to her.”
Vincent caught enough of this conversation to guess which way the wind was blowing. He was head over heels in troubles that were none of his business.
“Here it is in a nutshell,” he said to himself, after a week of sharp watching and listening. “I come bumping into a crowded family, and Penzi takes a fancy to me. I try to keep out of her sight and she tags around after me. I don’t like it for my own sake. And much less for her father’s sake. And her mother’s all stirred up because her father’s got an idea he’s been disobeyed. And now he takes it out on me and Penzi both. But I got twentieth century worries that are more important.”
Vincent scrunched down in bed of bearskin on straw and watched the flicker of the fire against the cave ceiling. “Twentieth centuries worries . . .” He chuckled to himself as he thought over the trifling matters that had disturbed some of the people he knew. His own mysterious disappearance, as he had often stopped to consider, must have been a shocking thing to his parents and a few friends. But whenever he thought of Aunt Minnie—or of Maestro Steveno O. Galancho, his music teacher . . .
Well, he couldn’t help reflecting that the thing Aunt Minnie must be most worried about was the library fines that were piling up on her missing books. And as for the maestro, could there be anything more tragic than the loss of part of his symphony manuscript?
Man’s worries, Vincent concluded sleepily, may have undergone some evolution in the course of twenty-five thousand years.
CHAPTER IV
The Time Chain Returns
Before Kansleen had a chance to talk with her impetuous thirteen-year-old, the family friction ignited into a physical fight. It lasted for only two or three blows—brief but effective.
It began when Vincent, coming into the darkness from the bright sunlight, accidentally stumbled into Fangler. Without warning the old man unleashed his power of authority in a staggering swat across Vincent’s cheek.
The sound of that blow was f
ollowed instantly by another as Hunzk lashed out with his fist. Fangler’s open hand smashed against the rock wall. Fangler roared and crouched as if to tear into a whole-hearted fight. His tall, well-muscled son stood straight before him, arms folded, and the old man’s roar tapered away.
The bond between Hunzk and Vincent grew tighter in that moment. Vincent, a guest in this cave, would have had no right to fight. Hunzk had taken rights in his own hands—by fighting his father—with the result that a few days later his father conferred upon him the full honors of manhood.
Late in the night, while all the others were sleeping, Kansleen and Penzi talked the matter over in low voices.
“You have been blind, Penzi, not to know your father is displeased with you. He only treats Ponpo this way because you drive him to it. If you will do more reverence to your father he will give you his kinder side.”
“But I thought reverence was only for the sacred artists who make pictures on our cave walls.”
“That is the reverence our customs demand. But the reverence for your father is a reverence that comes from your heart. Your father is very fond of you, Penzi.”
“I suppose he is,” said Penzi, looking thoughtfully into the red coals. “Though sometimes he doesn’t act like it. Sometimes I wonder—”
“What?”
“Whether it makes any difference that he is not my real father?”
Kansleen gave a little start. “What—what do you mean, my child?”
Penzi stirred the coals of the fire roughly. “You know what I mean, Mother. I’m not really your child. Fangler stole me from one of the tribes far to the south of us . . . when I was still a baby . . . after your own child died.”
“Penzi! How did you know this?”
“Hunzk told me. He tells me everything. We understand each other. He will always be my brother. And you will always be my mother, Kansleen. But whether Fangler will always be my father I do not know. It depends—”
And there the conversation had ended, for there had sounded the ugly growl of a cave bear at the entrance of their home. On the instant the household had aroused out of its deep snoring. Everybody went into action. The three little children yelled with fear and delight. The men grabbed their huge stone mauls and raced to the entrance, while Kansleen and Penzi quickly followed with torches in their hands.
Vincent always felt helpless on such occasions. He wasn’t seasoned to meeting bears and panthers in hand to paw conflict. He could only get in the way of the others—which might be a disastrous thing to do. So he hung back and watched Hunzk fly into the fray with his heavy stone sledge hammer.
Close behind Hunzk was Torlink, the artist; and back of him stomped old Fangler, shouting orders, already paving the way to take credit for the kill. It was Hunzk, of course, who struck the staggering blows. But Torlink, the artist, was also a good fighter—a fact which amazed Vincent, for Torlink spent his daytimes in a sort of sacred sleepiness, breathing sluggishly through his thick lips while he worked at his picture-making on the walls. Torlink seldom ever spoke; he simply ate and slept and purred by the fireside like a cat. And smiled at Penzi.
Now the party had chased out into the deep snow after the retreating beast, who was probably wondering why he had ever been tempted by the delicious human smell of that warm cave.
Hunzk and Torlink battered at the fallen hulk, and Fangler came after them shouting warnings. “Look sharp, there! He’ll get up and charge. Let me at him!”
Meanwhile the three children with their bows and arrows surrounded the bear from a safe distance of fifty yards, and shouted at the tops of their lungs that they had him and everyone was safe. But no one paid any attention to the three young rascals except Vincent, who by this time was getting a great kick out of the scene, in spite of the snow that was freezing his bare feet all the way up to his knees.
While the big animal was still twitching and squirming, Fangler got in his share of official death blows. No one else could strike the bear with Fangler’s master touch. He knew how to kill without damaging too much of the meat. Licking his lips, he reminded them all that there would be juicy bear-steak tomorrow and for many days to come.
No one doubted it, and no one doubted that the valley would soon hear how Fangler had saved his sleeping family from the ravages of this ferocious beast, and how he had chased it far out into the snow fields and finally overtaken it and killed it—practically single-handed. And this time he had not lost a leg in the bargain!
Whether it was the talk that had passed between Kansleen and Fangler, and Kansleen and Penzi—or whether it was the victory over the bear—the spirits of the Fangler cave-hold rose wonderfully. Everyone was gay and busy and friendly. The bright-eyed little Penzi was kind to Fangler and she would tell her friends—within his hearing—how proud she was to have so great a man for a father.
“See how much more than most men he is. Even with one less leg, he is the bravest of men and the most skillful of hunters.”
Fangler, in turn, ceased to snap at Vincent. He spent more jovial hours before the fire, baking his naked brown shoulders and gaunt hands, recounting his great exploits of the past. Vincent was strangely warmed by his friendship. And one morning after Fangler had slept too close to the fire and had awakened to find that his wooden leg had burned to ashes halfway up to his hip, his friendship for Vincent waxed warm indeed—and Vincent went to work carving out a new wooden leg.
The artist Torlink passed the hours in silent work in his sacred corner of the room. The three youngsters played at killing bears and lions outside the entrance to the cave. Mother and daughter worked the hides up into clothing. Vincent accompanied Hunzk on some of his exploits for game and firewood. Fangler talked to anyone who would listen while he worked at his flints. And the winter days passed away.
On the first bright warm morning Fangler hobbled away with a sack of food slung over his back. He would be gone many days. He would make the rounds of all the caves in the valley to see how the tribe had fared through the winter.
During his tour his ego expanded wonderfully, and he returned after three weeks expecting a hearty reception from his family.
In fact, he had hoped they would see him coming and would have hot food ready. On the last few miles of his homeward journey he could see the dot in the hillside that was his cave. His mouth watered.
He tried to cover the ground faster, but hiking over the rugged terrain on a wooden leg was hard work and his body was sore. Once he slipped and fell into a ravine and covered himself with snowy, muddy water.
But at last Fangler neared the cave. He sniffed at the air and licked his lips, and his watery old eyes brightened. The return of an important tribal patriarch would evoke great shouts of glee, and he had never felt more important, For on this journey his tribesmen had agreed to give him more authority in training the younger generation of hunters and fighters.
Slipping in through the entrance quietly, expecting to surprise Kansleen and Penzi and all the others, Fangler heard the low voice of Vincent. He paused, listened. There was no voice but that of Ponpo. This was strange. He crept closer.
Peering into the main chamber of the cave he could see his entire family seated by the fire. There was Ponpo, in the center of the group, looking into one of those odd leafy objects that he called books. Ponpo was getting words out of that book—he was talking from it—and he was putting his talk in the clear, simple, beautiful Cro-Magnon language.
On one side of Vincent was Hunzk, peering dreamily into the fire. On the other side was Penzi, leaning so close that her flowing brown hair almost brushed Vincent’s cheek. Kansleen was leaning back against the wall, looking upward, her hands locked back of her head. It was curious to see her so hypnotized.
Deep-hued anger flamed through Fangler’s crusty old face, and his big-veined hands doubled into knots. He cleared his throat.
Vincent looked up. “It’s Fangler!” And he jumped up to extend a greeting, and so did all the others.
But P
enzi’s excited words blurted forth above everyone else’s to crush the moment of greeting to the earth.
“Oh, Fangler! You must hear the wonderful story Ponpo is telling us!”
So it was Ponpo that was wonderful, was it? It was Ponpo that must have all the praise and glory! No matter if he, Fangler, had tramped all over the valley through melting snow and slushy ravines. No matter if he comes home starved and exhausted after many days. No matter if he is loaded down with all the winter’s latest gossip from the far ends of the tribe. It is Ponpo’s story that must be heard!
“Get food, Penzi,” the mother quickly commanded. For in Fangler’s flushed leathery face Kansleen read the jealousy and the silent rage better than anyone else. “Your father is tired. He must be fed.”
And in that moment Fangler, breathing fire, somehow held his tongue.
Vincent discreetly kept his books out of sight during the next few days. He spent as much time outdoors as possible. Fangler’s return had made him feel like an intruder and an outcast. And of course he was an intruder.
And yet, he was almost willing to fight to make a place for himself—on the level with Hunzk and Hunzk’s generous, robust, big-hearted mother, Kansleen. Yes, and Penzi, the little dickens.
It was a cinch that Penzi was as quick as lightning. The sharp questions she asked about his twentieth century life were amazing. It beat all how she and Hunzk, twenty-five thousand years behind the times, could grasp what he was talking about. All he had to do was give them a few simple illustrations and they put two and two together.
But if he kept on reading that history of human races to them, sooner or later they were going to demand to know what became of the Cro-Magnon race. Or rather, what would become of it!
