Chapter 16

We left as quickly after breakfast as we could get organized. Everyone was going and so we had to parcel out the loads and the childcare. All of them could walk except Sika, and Marita had a type of carrier she wore for that. They weren't big enough to walk all the way though and I was afraid of delays along the way. I cured it by pressing another travois into duty. I covered it with a bear fur and it was a good place for the children to ride for resting stretches. I thought it would be a lot less trouble than halting everyone for numerous breaks.

It was a brisk pace, for me anyway, but we reached the spot Mecha had been leading us toward in a little over two hours. We just didn't see any horses. There was plenty of sign they'd been here before though and a lot of it was fresh, there just weren't any horses in sight.

To me it was a slightly odd area to begin with. Of course, being a Texas boy from the particular part of Texas I was from, mountains, or even tall hills were a little odd to me. This was a sort of hanging valley I think you'd call it. For the last mile or so we'd been gaining altitude, sorta. Let me put it this way; we'd been walking up. Not a steep slope or anything, just a gradual rise.

Mecha had brought us to a wide opening between two mountains; it was easily two hundred yards from the closest point on one to the other. Behind the opening from where we were was mostly level ground surrounded by the mountains on either side. There was also a nice sized stream flowing and it basically cut the two halves of the valley in half down the nominal middle.

The oddest part was the way everything in the little valley was basically level and regular. It seemed almost as if the mountains had been carefully placed to surround and fence off about three thousand acres of mostly grassland, with the entrance we were standing in as the only good way in or out.

Mecha broke my amazement over the area by chivying us along. Apparently she wasn't disturbed about the missing horses. She headed toward the stream and we followed. When she reached it she stooped over for a drink and at once everyone realized they were thirsty.

When I took a cupful of the water I was surprised and delighted. It was nearly freezing cold and as far as water went it was delicious.

"It's from a glacier," Mary said, letting me know after she and Mecha had a small discussion.

"How far is it? I've never seen a real glacier and if it isn't too far I'd like to," I said.

"You'll probably get an excellent chance to see plenty sooner or later. Mecha says this particular glacier is a small one. Of course she didn't call it a glacier and she doesn't realize how it got where it is. She has no idea it was probably once hundreds or thousands of feet thick.

"We need to look for more than horses in this valley though. We need to find a cave, or a spot where we can build suitable shelter. If that's the only way horses can get in or out, we could build a fence to keep most of them out and we probably won't have to cut hay ever again. There's plenty in here for horses to pull up on their own all through the winter, especially if we keep large numbers of them out," Mary said.

"Of course there is. The high mountains on either side will keep even blizzards from covering the ground very deep in snow. We need to explore this valley more than we need to find horses," Chris said.

Even a man with more available pussy than the law allows can understand when the women have spoken. The horse hunt was off for now and the valley exploration was on. As a sop to my feelings the women declared we'd have an early lunch before we got started.

It was traveling food, good cold water, and they even made a pot of coffee - in my honor I'm sure. As long as they had the fire going anyway Chris and Mary showed their worth by digging out some shish kabobs they'd cobbled together and roasted them. Half an hour later they had be fat and happy and pumped full of caffeine.

Mecha, Mary, and Chris thought it would be fine to separate into two groups so we could cover ground more quickly, but I managed to kill that idea by pointing out we might very well find another cave full of bears. Mecha sealed the deal when she agreed it was very possible. I took the Barretts out of their cases, made sure all the spare magazines were loaded, and then drafted Reela to carry my Marlin and Keela to carry the other Barrett and magazines.

Mecha detailed Bayla as Mary's gun bearer and Crayta as Chris'. Bayla carried Mary's thirty-ought-six and extra ammo while Mary was using the shotgun and Crayta hefted Chris' shotgun and extra shells while Chris carried Carl's former 7mm magnum.

We headed back to the entrance and started exploring along the valley's outer edge around to the left. Things were mostly uninteresting as we made our way around, but it didn't take long to see that the area was much more productive than our current spot.

Keela and Reela found sign and footprints, or pawprints, in abundance. I didn't know if we'd run into any cave bears, but there was evidence they knew about this place. Wolf sign was also plentiful and we even noticed saber tooths had been by and even a larger cats too, they were larger if the size of their paws were any indication.

We found a cave when we made it about a quarter of the way around. It's opening wasn't nearly as large as the one we were currently using, but it was large enough for anything we might want. We put off exploring it in detail. A look with a flashlight showed it was more than large enough for all of us, but tracks in and out showed both Cave bear sign and large black bear travel. If we wanted this cave we'd no doubt have to perform another eviction and we weren't prepared for it this trip.

Moving on around we found another cave with an even larger entrance about two hundred yards on. The sign in and out of it was mostly wolf size. If there were wolves in there we didn't disturb them either, even though looking in with the flashlight told us this cave might be even bigger.

As we neared a spot almost exactly opposite the valley's entrance we discovered where the stream came from, kinda. It flowed down the middle of a much smaller opening in the mountains. Another discovery had most of our attention though. There was almost a road passing through a narrow cut in between two mountains.

The total opening wasn't more than seventy feet and the road had been practically graded by hoof prints. The downtime women examined it closely and they identified several different types of animal sign, from deer to bison and even aurochs, at least that was the best translation Chris and Mary could come up with. Reela and Keela even described an animal Mary thought must be an elephant, but even she didn't believe it.

It was getting on into the afternoon by now and it was time to leave or make camp. We decided to camp even though we would be exposed. We headed back along the stream toward the first entrance we'd come through, but only moved a couple of hundred yards out of the small forest along the back of the first valley.

Keela, Reela, and Chris had been bringing the travois and we went back to the edge of the forest. They wanted me to stand guard while they gathered firewood. It only took about half an hour for them to pile the travois so high I had to drag it back and let Chris take over the guard duty.

Mecha, Kemela, and a few others had started a cooking fire with the few scraps they could gather from nearby and they built it up to cooking size with what we brought back. Everyone though it was enough wood for now except me and I was able to get another load put on the agenda. We even brought a little more back this time.

I spent the rest of the time until dark making places for fires to keep curious animals away. It was a little tricky since I had to burn off a larger spot before placing the actual fire. The grass was high and mostly dry in the valley and I didn't want to accidentally get a sho nough grass fire going since it would probably burn from now on, killing us all in the process.