Chapter 638

The Plains of 2214

The trip across the plains continues.

Christine had managed to get a great video of the cat’s act. Kayla and Tosha had also gotten video with their phone cameras.

Ashley, in complete innocence, turned to Selina. “Why so quiet? Are you okay?”

“Oh, I am very well, indeed,” Selina bubbled. “It was just so sudden that it scared the pee out of me for a moment there.”

“Oh, crap. Me, too. My heart is still going like crazy. And then Jeff just casually tosses Mr. Bad Ass way over there,” she finished, nodding to the area where the cat landed.

Selina caught Diana’s eye and winked. The Clan Queen broke out in giggles, and the more she thought about Selina’s response, the more she laughed. She brazenly told the truth, but of course, Ashley thought she was kidding. Now, if someone notices, she can just say, “Well, I told you.“

“You guys ready to go on?” Jasmine asked as she slid back into the driver’s seat.

When they all acknowledged, she pushed the joystick forward, and the crawler continued on its way. They saw many animals at a distance, and Jas avoided the herds of buffalo and other larger beasts. Finally, they topped another slight rise and could see a herd in the distance that could only be aurochs.

“Oh, crap. Even at this distance, those things look impossibly huge,” Kayla said as she realized just how big the aurochs were, or at least thought she did. As they drew nearer, she upped her estimate even more.

They were still out a couple of hundred yards, but basically continued to parallel the river as Jasmine guided the crawler toward the herd. From a distance, the aurochs appeared to be rough-looking cattle on steroids — lots of steroids. Both the sexes had horns, and their appearance was similar, with the largest bull a third larger than the largest female, and his horns were correspondingly bigger.

The horn was comprised of a robust hub atop the head that gradually changed into branches leading out for two-and-a-half feet on either side. Each side of the massive horn then swooped forward and appeared much less cumbersome but more deadly than did the horns of a Texas longhorn. The auroch horns were much thicker and more graceful looking as well. It didn’t take a genius to understand that the bull, with his massive build and strength, could be a deadly foe. With the aurochs, even the females would put any Earth bull to shame.

The big bull stood over seven feet at the withers and weighed slightly north of two tons. According to scientists, no auroch bull had been this big on Earth since the Middle Pleistocene, where the bulls weighed up to 3310 pounds. Here on 2214, the auroch — or their cousins — had thrived, seemed plentiful and were even bigger with some of the bulls weighing in at two tons or more.

It didn’t take long for the big bull to take notice of the strange thing that made a noise he had never heard while belching foul-smelling fumes into the air. His curiosity piqued a couple of minutes later, and he turned away from the herd to come a few feet in the machine’s direction before stopping to bellow and paw the ground. He would not put up with this thing invading his territory.

Jasmine stopped a hundred yards from the herd, and they sat watching. “Wow. Just look at that guy, Morales said with a chuckle. “Seems as if I read somewhere about an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. You can bet that old boy is used to being the unstoppable force,” he said as the auroch bull continued to paw and bellow out his challenge. “That is one big SOB.”

“I think he’s saying we are on his property,” Diana nervously offered.

No one contradicted her.

The bull noted the invader had not turned and run, as any intelligent creature would have. Not satisfied with the upstart’s lack of respect, the bull started toward them at a leisurely pace, occasionally stopping to stomp the ground and bellow out his challenge. Surely this new animal would tuck its tail and run for its life. The big bull intended to make that a reality. But for every step the bull took, and the invader did not turn to run, the madder the bull became. At some point, the bull’s anger crossed into a fury, then into a blind rage beyond any semblance of reason.

“I agree he thinks the place belongs to him, and unless I miss my guess, he’s just decided to enforce his edict,” Kayla quietly commented as the bull snorted snot, and its stomping pace changed into a charge.

The wolves had lain together in the back, basically just watching throughout the trip, other than coming to their feet when the saber tooth charged, but when the bull charged, they were again on their feet.

“Easy, Morales told them. He can’t get through the cage.”

They lay back down, but both remained tense.

“No worries,” Morales told Jasmine. “He can’t get to us inside this cage, and no matter how big and bad he thinks he is, bones and flesh won’t top steel.”

No sooner had Morales’ remark passed his lips, than the big bull kicked it into high gear.

“Fuck, look at that monster go. I would never have believed...” Morales said as Jasmine decided they needed to be someplace else and slammed the joystick all the way back. But ... the crawler wasn’t designed to move backward as fast as it could go forward, and the pissed-off monster was closing the gap — quickly. Caught in a dilemma, Jasmine knew she couldn’t stop, turn and accelerate away before the bull reached them — if the machine could outrun the big auroch while even going forward — and... it was going to catch them in a matter of seconds if she didn’t do something.

“Oh, shit,” Jeff said, impressed. “Did somebody stick a booster up his ass? That thing is moving.”

Everyone was hanging on as the crawler bumped across the rough ground. “Baby, stop,” Morales told his wife. “As big as that thing is, he just might cause the crawler to roll over should we hit a bump at the same instant he barrels into us — and he’s going to hit us. Stop, lock it down and let it happen.”

With no additional thought, Jasmine, in one fluid motion, centered the stick and locked the brakes down, which caused the big machine to slide to a stop.

“Now that’s what you call a divot,” Kayla said, laughing as she saw what the sliding tracks had done to the soft ground.

Jeff was focused on the bull, and not wanting the idiot to kill himself, which would entail having to go back for the trailer, then dress the beast out before taking all that meat to the ice cave. After that, there would be the hide for Morales to process. The Prime doubted that the tough old bull would be worth eating, anyway.

Having only a few seconds to act, the Prime grimly reached with his mind to put up a barrier for the auroch similar to the one he had used with the saber tooth, only considerably stronger because of the size of the big bull he was having to stop. The beast playing butt-the-head with the big crawler’s steel construction would not lead to a healthy bull. The Prime meant to allow some give to the barrier; however, by the time he had it hastily constructed, the bull was already barreling down on them and only a second or two from colliding with the crawler.

Oh, well, at least I have the barrier up, he reasoned a split second before the bull hit. Crap, I should have learned how to make it visible, I suppose. Oh, well, too late now.

The bull had obviously intended to end the fight with one massive display of strength and was hellbent on destroying this obnoxious creature (the crawler) with one charge. He had put his head down, intending to ram the front of the new beast with his forehead, shoulders and horns, backed up with the massive two-plus tons of muscle and flesh that he used to destroy any intruder coming into his domain.

Jeff cringed as the bull, leading with his nose, hit the invisible, unmovable barrier.

There was a tremendous thud that seemed to shake the ground, accompanied by a spray of red blood. The massive bull stopped instantly — well, his front end did. The back end kept going, and the only place left was up. Jeff swore the bull’s ass end left the ground by a good three feet before it came crashing back down. In the process, the bull disgorged the biggest fart any of them had ever heard, and it seemed to go on forever. The bull, his eyes only half open, lay on his belly, staring at the blood seemingly painted on nothing but the air directly in front of him. He could not feel his face, and his nose seemed shorter somehow.

“Is he dead?” Selina quietly asked.

“I hope not. I don’t want to spend the rest of the day and half the night processing his ass,” Morales grumbled.

“Language,” Jasmine chastised. “We have a...” But she caught herself just before calling Selina a child. “Uh, we have Selina and Adrienné with us.”

“Sorry,” Morales apologized as he turned to the frowning little genius, but most of them knew she wasn’t frowning about Morales’ language. Adrienné, unfamiliar with the language anyway, thought little about the descriptive noun. Besides, she was certainly familiar with the Miadax crew’s version of curse words.

The bull was still lying on his belly casually sniffing the invisible but blood-smeared TK barrier as if having his nose driven back halfway to his asshole was an everyday occurrence.

Shit, I guess I screwed that up. But I was rushed a wee bit, Jeff defended his actions mentally. Rising up a little to get a better viewing angle, he saw what was behind the bull. Damn, I didn’t know an animal could have that much shit in them.

Selina, having temporarily forgotten about her problem, was now standing on the seat to see better and said brightly, “Well, he shouldn’t have to go to the bathroom for at least a week after that.”

Jeff snorted out a laugh, and the bull, startled, farted again before turning to look toward his ass as if it belonged to someone else.

“I assume you did something with your TK just as you did with the saber tooth,” Morales ventured.

“Yeah, put up another barrier, but I was pushed for time, so I didn’t have time to put in some give to it,” Jeff defended.

“Well, pushed or not, you got the job done — really well from the looks of the bull.” Then after a chuckle, “I have never seen anything that big stop that fast.”

“The crawler isn’t exactly streamlined. He would have killed himself on the brush armor on the front end if I hadn’t stopped him, but you do realize what we are going to be doing if he dies,” Jeff pointed out.

That sobered Morales right up. “Oh, shit,” he said as he came to his feet. “Stand up there, Big Guy. You’re just fine — just a bit dizzy, maybe. Come on. You can do it.”

“Jeff, you hurt that animal,” Diana accused.

The Prime stared at her. “I ... uh. He was trying to kill us, Diana,” he pointed out. “And besides, if he had hit the front of the crawler or this cage, he probably would have died. At least the wall is smooth and didn’t cut him.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about his dying just yet,” Jasmine said as the bull’s eyes seemed suddenly to clear. A moment later, he shook his head, snorted, and slinging snot and blood everywhere, staggered upright. No longer on his knees, the mountain of bull auroch was way beyond being impressive as they stared at the mound of muscle and horns now staring back at them.

“Incoming,” Selina said with a giggle when she saw vapor billow out of the bull’s ass. “He just did it again.”

“Awk,” Diana squawked out, “that smell is just plain evil.”

“I thought you were worried about his being hurt,” Jeff injected.

“Well, I was, but that doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly lost my sense of smell. Oh, crap, one more of those, and I’m going to lose my breakfast.”

“Please don’t do that,” Kayla said with a giggle, “for certain it will cause a chain reaction among all of us.”

“Absolutely,” Tosha agreed as she held her nose.

“You know, I’ve never seen a fart before,” Morales injected. “Did anyone get a picture of that?”

“Uh, guys,” Jasmine said. “In case you haven’t noticed, our buddy there is back on his feet, and he’s looking more pissed by the minute. Instead of his meeting with an immovable object having changed him, if anything, I think it has revved his anger up even more.”

The bull had worked his way down the TK barrier — it was only about six feet long — and had once again set his sights on the crawler. At any rate, the angry bull was soon standing beside the crawler looking at them as if they were insects caught in a jar.