Chapter 13

We lounged around as much as I could stand and then a bright idea came to me. There always seemed to be plenty of horses up on the plateau over our heads. Of course there was too much space available for me to even think of roping one, but with only a little fencing I could hem them in one of the smaller cut-off areas. The trucks and trailers could do that for me. It would take a little manuvering, but I could back them up and pull them around to form an almost fence and surely it would slow a few of them down enough so I could get a loop over their head. I could take it from there.

Since we'd just finished breakfast I asked the girls to pack us a lunch and I went to untangle the truck parking situation. After much pulling up and backing I finally had the new Ford headed out with both trailers attached and I pulled my original truck right in behind it. I called the girls to come to me and bring lunch and we piled into the Ford and I took off for the top.

Once we were up there I could see plenty of horses so I parked it, told the girls to stay inside, and climbed down the face got into my original truck and drove it up top too.

Now that I had them both on the plateau I angled the Ford and trailers toward a wall and left a nice wide opening at the back so there'd be plenty of room to run the horses in between the wall and the truck and trailer fence.

Herding horses with a pickup isn't easy but it is doable. I concentrated on getting them into a bunch and then ran them around the top of the plateau for a round or two to get them a little winded and then eased them to the side and had them run up between the pickup and trailer string and the wall and slipped the Chevy pickup into the space where they'd entered and blocked them in. I guess I had about fifty of them penned up in there.

Who said I couldn't plan ahead. I took a hatchet over to the one small tree near the end of my makeshift capture pen and cut the limbs off it as high as I could reach. I tied a lead rope around it about shoulder high and then fetched one of my new lariats and slipped into the pen with the horses.

I'd already spied the horse I wanted for myself. He was a sorrel Stallion with two white stockings on his hind legs and a star and a strip down the front of his head. His conformation was excellent and his ass was as wide as a barn door. I knew better than to try him first though. As a warm up I dropped my loop over the head of a big bay mare and the tugging match was on. Either I waltzed her around our new pen or she waltzed me around, but the dance was on for nearly thirty minutes. She finally decided she couldn't get loose and I finally got up near her and was able to pet around on her neck and calm her down. I considered it a big step when I was able to get one of the halters on her head and fastened.

I signaled the girls to get out then and made them understand I wanted them to walk up behind the horse without getting close enough for it to kick them. I also managed to get one of them to back my old truck out of the way and then I turned to lead the bay mare toward the tree I'd stripped for a hitching post. The mare didn't move when I tugged the lead rope but it came right along once it noticed the others approaching it from the rear.

I managed to get her over to the snubbing tree and hitched up close to it and then I walked off, went back to the old pickup and blocked off the catch pen again.

The girls all came up then and wanted to know what I was doing.

"Training the horse."

"Training it to do what?"

"Training it to stand tied for now. It's the first lesson they get. After a few hours I'll train it to follow me on the lead rope when I try to lead it somewhere." I said.

"But where will you lead it?"

"I'll lead it all around. I just need for it to understand it is supposed to follow me where ever I lead it. I don't want to have to get all of you to walk behind it when I need to lead it somewhere."

"Oh."

"A few of you might have to get behind it again to get it started, but soon enough it will follow me without that."

"What will we do now?" Ayla asked.

"We will site in the truck and watchit. It will be boring, but we need to keep watch over it incase something comes to try and eat it while it is tied up." I said, and then they got into the truck with me.

About a hour later three wolves came ambline along and I figured they'd try for the horse once they noticed it wasn't leaving right away. I let them get within about a hundred yards and cashed them in with the Marlin. The girls bailed out to go skin then and I stepped out with the Marlin to watch over them. Within thirty minutes they came back and laid the wolf skins in the pickup bed and then got back inside to sit down again.

A little later a young bison moved into range and I shot him too. Instead of letting the girls get out again I drove the pickup over beside it and let them do their thing. After skinning it i helped and we quarterd it and loaded it into the pickup too.

The mare had been pulling and fighting with the snubbing post all this time and was still at it so I gave each of the girls lessons for driving the truck. It had an automatic transmission so it was pretty easy for them to catch on. After they'd all had a turn I started over again and had them drive for about an hour each, round and round the plateau. We were able to get close to a young aurochs and so I nailed it and let the girls have at skinning something else. When they were done we loaded it into the truck too and then I drove us up near the mare since she didn't seem to be fighting some much by now.

I walked over to her, snapped on another lead rope and released her from the post. She didn't want to follow me at first, but the girls figured out the drill and moved behind her and she started following me. I led her in a circle for about fifteen minutes and then stopped her. I told the girls they could go sit back down and they did. When I led off again the mare followed me.

I asked Ayla to drive again and I took off leading the mare down the ramp. When we reached the cave's entrance level I led the mare around the path and Ayla and the girls followed. I stopped when I neared the roll up door for the storage section and the truck stopped behind me. I led the mare back to the truck and asked one of them to go and hit the switch to raise the door.

After the door was open I led the mare inside and tied her to the older pickup. The girls got out of the truck and headed for the kitchen. I sent the door back down and followed them and then waited while they cooked a nice lunch.

After eating I took the truck back out and decided to build a real fence. I brought along the Stihl 440 chainsaw I'd picked up in Price's. There were small oaks near the edges of the plateau and I cut several and then cut them into posts lengths. It was assholes and elbows with post hole diggers then but within four hours I had enough holes for a fence along the lines where I'd used the pickups and trailers.

With this exact thing in mind I'd bought some bailing wire too and I was soon attaching cross pieces onto the posts. I built a gate for the end but I didn't bother with hinges. For closing it off I intended to just put it in place and wire it shut. I went back down to the cave in time for supper. After eating I took a shower and spent the rest of the evening playing with my girls and then watching some of the TV I'd finally figured out was recorded. I didn't care if the shows were old ones or not, they were new to me.

The next morning after breakfast I walked into the storage side of the cave, or the storage cave anyway and I could see there had been some changes. It was nearly twice as large now and fully two thirds of it was fenced off, but not with makeshift materials like I'd used up top. The post were eight inch steel pi;e and he stringers were two and three eights upset tubing. It was al welded together with nice welded gates made of the upset tubing and with hinges and latches. I could barely believe it.