Chapter 438

The Prison Planet

Morales had gotten up twice during the night to put more wood on the fire. When the first rays of daylight crept into the cave, he was already up for the day and priming his percolator. After putting it where it would heat properly, he donned his jacket and strapped on his weapons. As soon as he was armed, the wolves went over to the bars, ready to go do their business.

Morales pulled the bars out of their slots and slid the heavy door back as he realized there was a downside to the sliding door – Lobo couldn’t let himself in or out now. Hmmm, he’s certainly strong enough to slide the door, but he has no way to grasp it without hands, and the hens can’t get in on their own if they’re threatened. Gotta think about that.

Outside, the rain had stopped and the wolves hurried to the area they had chosen to do their business, but Morales stood looking toward the eastern sky, where, in the far distance, the sun was just peeking over the mountains. Looks like the clouds have gone, but that wind has even more bite to it this morning. Probably in the low forties. I need to think about making me a coat before cold weather gets here. This fatigue jacket won’t be enough for long.

Dropping his pants with the cold wind blowing up his bare ass made him think yet again about constructing something for shelter while he did his morning constitutional. Even having lived in a big city all his life, he still knew of pit toilets from movies and jokes, but he had never thought he would ever use one, let alone construct one. But be dammed if I’m going to shit out in the snow, he grumped to himself.

Having finished with their business, the wolves were trying to play, but Lila was hampered by hopping on three legs while holding the bandaged foot up.

“Come on. Let’s go back inside. It’s time I looked at that foot again,” Morales called out to them.

In the cave, he brought the medical case over, and Lila’s good mood vanished.

“Oh, it isn’t going to hurt. We’re way past that. I just want to look at it, put more ointment on and change the bandage. Now come here and lie down,” he told her as he knelt while pointing to the ground in front of him.

Amazingly, Lila hobbled over and laid down. Without hesitation, he gently took her foot and removed the dirty sock. “Looks like we got the goody out of that,” he told her as he dropped the sock on the hard-packed dirt floor. “But you did a great job of keeping it out of the mud.” The sock was dirty, but the dirt was dry and had probably been picked up as she lay in the cave with no way to keep her foot off the ground.

He unwound the bandage and gently maneuvered her foot until he could see the bottom of it, but she appeared to remain calm and allowed him to inspect the injury seemingly without fear and certainly without growling. The swelling was gone, there was no blood or pus that he could see and the sides of the wound were firmly knitted back together.

“Lila, your foot is doing well. So well, that I’m not going to put any antibiotic ointment on it today. I think I’ll just put a bandage back in place to keep the dirt out, and see what happens. If it continues to heal at the rate it has so far, we should be able to dispense with the bandage in a couple of days. Sound good, Girl?”

Lila panted back at him, seemingly unconcerned.

“Well, I don’t know if you can understand anything from my mind, but it’s nice to not be growled at.” With a new bandage in place, he slipped another latex sock over her foot, then without thinking, patted her on the head. Instead of snapping his hand off as he had worried she would do on the first day, she just whined back at him. “Good girl. Now keep your foot off the ground as much as you can and I’ll look at the wound in another couple of days.”

He started to throw the dirty latex sock on the fire, but thought better of it. Instead, he washed the sock and hung it up to dry. It doesn’t have to be sterile, and we might need it again. I could use a piece of hide to keep the bandage clean, but the latex is waterproof. Better to save it. The General sent me more coffee, arrows and bolts, but those latex socks might be all I ever have, and it’s not as if I can run down to the drugstore and get another box of them. I’m here forever. Then aloud, “Dammit. Those assholes needed killing. They were killers and would have killed again. Mr. Mazarella wanted them dead before they managed to kill him. Of course, he was just as bad as they were. Then I got caught in a torch job that I didn’t want any part of to begin with. Ah, shit. How did I get my ass into this mess?” Looking over at Lobo, he wondered if he could leave this world without his friend, even if he ever got the chance. Useless to worry about that, he thought. This is for life.

Tired last night, he hadn’t brought up anything from the ice cave before going to bed, so he went after meat for breakfast. A little later as he prepared their meal, he thought about all the steaks he and the wolves had been eating, not to mention roasts, most of which were better cuts of meat than he could ever have afforded back on Earth. “No more hamburger meat,” he mumbled. “Hell, instead of a hamburger, I just have a steak sandwich whenever I want one now. But ... I have to cook practically everything. No microwave for a quick meal, no potato chips as I watch TV. No TV, for that matter.” But that brought a grin. “Hell, that’s probably a good thing. I’ve read more since I’ve been here than I had in the last five years on Earth all put together. And most of the reading I’ve done here is ... research; I guess you could call it. Looking things up and trying to find out about the planet. Learning things. Shit, why didn’t I study in school when I had the chance?”

Glancing at the wolves as they lay together, he continued mentally. I should have the opportunity to read a lot more once winter is here and I can’t get outside as much. But there’s an awful lot to do before it gets really cold. In the immediate future, I need to put in a post on either side of the door in order for the locking braces to have something to hold them. Braces are the only thing I can think of to make the door as strong as the log wall. Oh, yeah. I have to cut firing ports in the door and ... I have to figure out how to make my ballista moveable so I can get it closer to the door when it’s needed, he thought as he glanced back at the weapon. I need it close in order to shoot through a firing port. Of course, I won’t need a lot of maneuverability because all I have to do is fire down the entranceway like I did with the bear. If the animal is in there, it’s gonna get hit. But how in the fuck am I going to make wheels for the ballista?

Breakfast done, he portioned out the meal. Again, Lila looked to him, then Lobo before she began eating. She’s smart as hell, Morales thought. She accepted my treating her foot. Granted, in the beginning, it was because Lobo stood over her and made her do it. But it didn’t take her long to understand that I was trying to help. Now, she offers no resistance at all, even with Lobo lying on the other side of the cave.

As he took his own plate and walked over to his padded rock, he noticed the chickens waiting patiently for their breakfast. Feeling guilty for eating without first feeding them, he put the plate of food down to get grain and corn for his feathered egg factories. Although he kept an eye on his food, the wolves made no effort to approach it, nor did the chickens. He knew that it would have taken a well-trained dog to resist a plate of steak and potatoes fresh out of the skillet, but the wolves just finished their breakfast, got a drink of water and had laid down by the fire.

Okay, he thought. The wolves are intelligent and probably telepathic, but the chickens saw my food and didn’t approach it, either, although I was ready to protect it, but they didn’t know that. And I certainly know they love steak. They sure as hell gobble the scraps I give them. I thought chickens were dumb as rocks, but these use the manure pile, and never screwed up after their first lesson. Shit, this planet is weird. Well, I had already decided not to eat the chickens, anyway. But I’ve always loved fried chicken, and these are big fuckers that would make some great meals. Oh, well, they’re doing just great with laying eggs for me.

It took only a couple of minutes to feed the chickens. Returning to his seat, he ate while working out what he had to do today. At least now I can eat without the hens staring at me and making me feel guilty about not feeding them.

A second later, Junior flew to his shoulder to cheep repeatedly while staring at Morales’ plate. “You’re spoiled,” he told his shoulder ornament. “The other chickens wait for the scraps, but you’re already...”

“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep!”

“Like I said – spoiled.” But he cut off bits of the steak to feed the growing and always-hungry chick.

After cleanup, Morales set to work with his post hole digger to allow him to erect a pole on either side of the door with the right one set in a channel he had cut in the wall so the post would not interfere with clearance for his rolling cases. He had fashioned supports on the door side of the poles so he could slide in three support pieces to help block the door against a determined attack from a large animal.

“I shouldn’t have to put the support pieces in unless we’re under attack,” he told Lobo who stood nearby watching. “But if Mr. Bear comes back, the extra bracing should help to make us safe while I fill his ass with ballista bolts.”

With a chisel, he widened a crack between the poles of the door so he could get the blade of his saw in. A few minutes later, he had a firing slot wide enough to shoot through easily if the ballista were close. Turning to look at the weapon, he sighed. “I was in a hurry when I made it, so I just mounted it on a pole anchored in the dirt. Now it’s time to make the machine a little more portable. But first, I need to do some research.”

Ever-present cup of coffee in hand, he sat on his rock with his computer on his lap to search the database for ideas about making wheels out of wood. There didn’t seem to be much info. Finally, frustrated, he sat thinking. Finding examples of wooden wheels was easy – both solid and spoked. But he wasn’t able to find any real-life directions for making them with the tools he had.

While looking at the ballista, he grumbled aloud. “This doesn’t have to be rocket science. I just need wheels good enough to be able to move the ballista closer to the door so I can shoot through the firing slot, then be able to move the weapon out of the way when I’m not using it.”

He had several short pieces of poles left from making the wall and door. With his saw, he cut off two slices (disks) about three inches thick each, then stripped the bark off them. Although the poles had looked reasonably round with the bark on, it was soon evident that their roundness was only a rough approximation.

“The ballista is heavy. If I’m to make wheels out of those,” he said aloud while looking at the disks he had cut off, “then I’m going to have to do something else to them.” An idea struck and he marked out the approximate center of each disk, then drilled a hole in both with his biggest drill bit. That done and with one of the disks in hand, he went looking for a hardwood pole that was a little bigger than the hole he had drilled in the disks.

Back at the cave, he stripped off the bark, cut the pole to length, then shaved one end down enough that the disk would mount on it and snug tight. After digging a hole, he put the pole in and braced it with rocks to leave it sticking out of the ground a couple of feet. With a little effort, he could now turn the wheel on the vertical shaft. After sliding the heavy box he had built over, he positioned it within a couple of inches of the suspended disk. With the chisel braced across the top of the box, he could turn the disk with his left hand while guiding the braced chisel near the outer rim of the disk. Each time the high side of the disk came around, the chisel would take a little of the out-of-round wood off.

The method was crude, but little by little, he nipped off the higher edges until the disk was a lot closer to being perfectly round than he would have ever imagined it would be when he got the idea. I must be grinning like a fool, he thought, but I don’t give a shit. I just made myself a wheel.

An hour later, he had two wheels and an axle completed. By midday, he had a triangular-shaped frame installed on the ballista, and had bored a hole in the bottom front to accept the axle. After greasing the hole with lard, he slipped the axle through. To keep the wheels from coming off the ends of the axle, he bored a hole near each end and put a wooden peg in. There wasn’t anything to keep the wheels from rubbing the frame, so he put a little lard on the inside of the wheels. I should have a washer on both sides of the wheels, but this thing isn’t going to be moved more than a bit, so I don’t need finesse, just a wheel that will roll a few feet to get the ballista near the door. If I have to move the weapon around much, the inside of the wheels will rub against the frame, but this will work for what I need to do.