Chapter 34

After breakfast I went right back to work on the smoker and I had more help than I could use. A couple of Growwta's guys caught on to laying the adobe brick fast and with Sahnay's help I was able to get them going on what I wanted. I left them to it and made my way to the helo to see about removing an aluminum panel for use as a top.

I found a good prospect for the end door right off the bat since one of the side compartments had a door which would do a fine job. I was even able to remove the frame around it and I took it to our newly elected masons for inclusion at their earliest convenience.

After careful examination the big sliding door on the side looked like it would be our best bet for the top. Something would have to be rigged up to help while raising and lowering and we'd have to cobble up some sort of hinge to help hold it in place, but I thought it was our best bet. Unfortunately it took most of the rest of the day to get it off the remains of the bird and to remove the extraneous hardware we wouldn't need for smoking meat.

Eventually I was eased out of this line of work too. It seemed no matter what I started there were people coming around wanting to get hands on training and then they'd take over the job. Maybe it was all part of delegating responsibility.

Hell, I let it happen gladly. Being from Texas I wasn't afraid of work. I could stand around and watch people do it all day long without being the least bit frightened. Their behavior was actually helping make me be the leader instead of letting me try to do everything myself. I wised up and wandered from project to project, looking things over and trying to decide whether they were doing things closely enough to correct.

Things in and around our living area were coming together even more quickly than what I had on my front burner outside. It was due to the more expert leadership the women had. I had lots of mates and my status as leader gave them status too. Besides, most of them were naturally take charge type girls. Chris, Mary, and Mecha were taking names and assigning duties inside while keeping Sahnay close to me so she could hold down misunderstandings from translation difficulties.

Just after the lunch break some sort of commotion got started back near the woodline. Using the binoculars I could see some type of hunting was going on back there and it was four legged hunters doing it.

I knew they had to eat to stay alive, but I didn't have to like it. In fact we were in direct competition with them for meat. Sooner or later they'd have to go and since everything seemed to be under control on the brick making and smoker building, Reela, Keela, Kemela, Welta, and I saddled some horses, picked up our rifles and headed back to at least thin out the predators.

When we got near I could see cave lions had caused the trouble and things had escalated from there. Apparently the lions had downed two bison, but hyenas had intruded in greater numbers and had pushed the lions back from one of the kills.

As far as my feelings went we could get along fine with no lions at all and no hyenas either. I was wary about taking on the whole crowd at once, but decided if we stayed mounted we'd be safe enough.

The bad part was the numbers. There were eight or nine mature lions and at least twenty hyenas. They were still at sort of a standoff and making noises and feints toward each other.

One on one a hyena was no match for a lion and wouldn't even consider hanging around to fight, but on the other hand hyenas were much more accustomed to working together for group attacks.

After a little squabbling the male lion must have decided he could be bothered after all and came up to roar and strut. The hyenas backed down slightly from his attempt to assert control, but they wouldn't abandon the kill they'd already stolen. I decided to help.

The next time the male lunged toward a nearby defiant hyena I shot him. It was only a wound, but it broke one of his hind legs and seriously hampered his mobility. The hyenas could recognize his injury at once even if they didn't have any idea what caused it. They spent their whole lives attacking and killing lame animals and several of them rushed him.

For the hyenas, the hard part was the lions front legs were not hurt and since they were the main things he fought with the battle wasn't as one sided as they might have hoped. They were winning at first, but they still lost a few of the early arrivals.

The female lions joined the fray then. Their job was usually the hunting, but they didn't seem too proud to jump in and help big daddy fight when they needed to. The fight turned into a real fur ball then, with all comers joining in.

I had the girls join me in firing then and we concentrated on the hyenas. There were more of them and they were sneakier too. If we killed enough hyenas to let the lions win it would be fine, since lions were easier to find and dispose of anyway. Besides, the hyenas were just plain ugly along with being vicious.

Before long the hyenas somehow realized they weren't doing as well as it might seem. They began to disengage and as they did we redoubled our efforts to finish them off before they made their escape. I'm pretty sure we did away with all but three of them.

It left us the lions to deal with. The big male was in bad shape. Several hyenas had done a number on him after I lamed him. He was still alive, but he was fairly well torn up. I put him out of his misery right off the bat. A couple of the females were also worse for the wear, but not anything they couldn't get over. We made sure to change their status as quickly as possible.

After all the mature lions were dead we had to search for the cubs. Apparently they were old enough to know about hiding when the shit hit the fan. We found and killed six, but I wasn't sure it was the whole bunch. The danger to us from them at this age was low anyway; still, I'd rather they were dead than alive.