Chapter 43

With more truck exploring put off and two days of concrete curing to look forward to it looked like a good time for George and I to grab our rifles and take a ride to do some serious looking around up here on our shelf. When I found him he agreed. We saddled Jingo and Red and made ready to leave.

Rose packed my saddlebags with food for the two of us. I put an M1 in my saddle scabbard and George brought along one of his 450 Marlin Saddle Guns. Even he admitted its accurate range was limited, but he said when things got up close and personal he could really count on it.

It was something I didn't doubt. George's philosophy on firearms was based on bigger bullets are better and it had served him well here. The two Cro-Magnon men he'd dispatched earlier had fallen to his daily sidearm, a Ruger Super Blackhawk in 44 magnum. He actually carried two in a cowboy style double holster gun belt. He didn't even pretend to be able to shoot worth shit with the left hand, but claimed he was damned good at switching guns after one was empty.

We weren't expecting a firefight today though. We mounted and headed for the farthest pasture/canyon first. It wasn't the largest, but it was big. Mostly there were bison and aurochs hanging around in it. There were maybe a hundred aurochs and a couple hundred bison. We weren't here to work stock though. We headed directly away from the entrance and to the woodline of the scattered forest toward the opposite end.

Mostly we kept our eyes on the ground looking for sign. There was some from wolves and a little from hyenas but we didn't find any we thought was recent. I'd already told George about the cave lions I'd taken on this level and he thought I'd probably cleaned them out and probably the big bison and aurochs were too much for wolves or hyenas to try unless a lion had already wounded one or they were simply old or weak or injured by other means.

"If the other canyons are like this one the hyenas and wolves have probably moved on. I doubt they'd try attacking anything as big and healthy as these look," George said, and I hoped he was right.

After taking a good look around and even moving into the light woods for about an hour we left this canyon and headed back toward home and turned into the next one. Unfortunately we found where the cave lions had moved. This was a larger canyon and there were more bison and aurochs in it. There were also nine cave lionesses hunting at the moment.

They looked to be about to close a large circle into a smaller one which included two aurochs nursing mothers and their calves. We approached within two hundred yards of the male and the cubs he was nominally protecting and I let George break the ice by lambasting the male with his 450. Sometimes bigger is better and the male didn't even wiggle after the shot.

Everything else in the canyon was looking our way now though and I figured their ears were ringing nearly as much as mine were. The female lions were damned suspicious of us moving closer to their mate and cubs too so they left off hunting and began working their way towards us.

We let them come within a hundred yards before we started cashing in their chips. I let George fire first again and as I'd hoped the tremendous racket caused the lions still living to stop and look around. I did for two while they were still and then George and I kept shooting until they were all down. We finished off the cubs with pistols.

Another real feature of George's cannon became evident twenty minutes later when Layta, Leita, Keita, and Chalta came riding up with all dogs and wolves following. Keeta scolded me a little for not warning them we might be hunting and scaring them so, but I told her we hadn't intended to shoot anything until we found a fuckup in progress. She forgave me right away and the girls all dismounted and began skinning.

George and I tried to get down and help, but they wouldn't let us. We weren't even allowed to cut travois poles.

"Why don't you go bring truck for skins. We have guns and can watch out for ourselves for a few minutes," Keeta said.

Neither George nor I thought it was a good idea, but he finally broke down and headed back to the cave leaving me to stand watch.

"Did George kill some lions?" Keeta asked, after he was gone.

"Yep. He shot the male and half the females. I think we were about even on the cubs too."

"His mates be happy tonight. George be too tired to get out of bed tomorrow," Layta said, and they all laughed.

"They be making necklaces for days," Leita said, and got everyone laughing again.

Mama, the cubs, and the dogs weren't laughing though. They were all sitting on their asses watching the skinning and gutting. It wasn't long though before lion internals were tossed towards them and they began gouging themselves.

Less than an hour later George showed up and pulled into the canyon with the reefer behind him. Loading the skins and internals the dogs and wolves hadn't been able to stuff in didn't take long and soon enough we all headed out for cave sweet cave.

Even after unloading the skins we weren't very late for lunch. George didn't eat with us today though. His crew had him covered and when I glanced their way it seemed they might be smothering him. Zeeta, Zaata, the three new women, and all the children were gathered around him with most of them jabbering about something.

"I wonder what kind of trouble George got himself into," I asked

"He's not in trouble. His women and children are bragging on him. I'm sure they can hardly believe what he did. They are trying to praise him and feed him at the same time and the women are anxious for him to eat so they can get to the job of preparing the lion skins. To them it is still a miracle a man can kill a lion and not even get a scratch," Catla said.

"I'd forgotten completely about it," I said.

"Of course you have. You kill every lion you see as if for sport. To most of us it is still dangerous and frightening. His women will be doing their best work on the skins, claws, and teeth for days," Leita said.

"I guess one of us should show them how to use the drill on those teeth and claws," I said.