Chapter 7

My first night with horses in the barn portion passed uneventfully and the next morning was basically trouble free. I had breakfast and then went back to my stock. Red didn't even require the blindfold to be led out, but I could tell he wasn't happy to be tied when we got outside.

It was slightly surprising all the others had followed us out front. I decided to take it as a good sign and didn't even bother to hobble them. I saddled Red, put an M1 in the saddle scabbard, and took off toward our prospective pasture. I was in luck because all the others followed right along. Once I had them back in the valley I let them graze, except for poor Red. I tied him to the hitching rail.

Pulling a travois had been part of their leading lessons already, and I'd even let them pull one with a saddle on their backs. Red was about to get the first chance to pull one for something that actually needed to be done. I installed a travois, mounted him again, and rode him out the entrance. It only took a few minutes to put the rails I'd removed to let them in and out back in place.

After mounting again, Red and I left the others to their grazing and headed back to the cave for some tools. We were back on scene half an hour later.

Since I was done with Red, for a few hours at least, I unsaddled him, put on a set of hobbles, and let him graze too. I only hobbled him so I could catch him easily later. Now it was time for me to do something useful.

First things first, I improved my current three rail fence to an eight rail model and attached the original rails more soundly too. My next trick was installing a soon to be hot wire along the outside of each rail.

Rose didn't even have to search the net for my fence chargers, since I'd already known Price hardware at home carried the solar powered models. I made sure to attach it firmly and then did the hookup.

Making and hanging the gate with the fence already working had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after I shocked myself twice trying it I turned the fence off and went back to work.

After everything was working I was proud of myself. I had a good strong gate that opened easily and I only had to use one of the special insulated gate-hooks for the fence to disconnect it while I opened the gate or moved horses in or out.

After snagging Red and pulling him away from his mealtime I saddled him again and rode back to the cave for my own lunch, even if it was a couple of hours late.

With lunch over I had some unfinished business to tend to. Finding the horses in the first place and then putting everything else aside to catch and train them kept me from doing a thorough job of exploring. The path from cave to pasture was pretty well in my mind now, but that was the extent of things.

Red and I set out to cure my ignorance, or at least some of it. Before we left I attached another saddle scabbard. I was still taking the M1 along, but for long shots only. Its scope would be cumbersome for quick shots while I was mounted and the Marlin would be much better and quicker for anything up close. Maybe it was overkill for the situation, but from the saddle I considered overkill much more desirable than underkill.

We headed back toward my pasture and other stock but passed it by and kept to the rough trail. I realized I was living on what was more or less a shelf which occurred between the level of the upper plateau and the ground floor along the river level. I didn't mind this a bit, but I did want to know the extent of things. After two hours I thought I never would.

My shelf seemed to get wider and wider as I went along. It was mostly wooded too, with the woods getting thicker as I made my way along. By the time I turned around to head back to the cave I was probably eight to ten miles from it and everything I'd seen was mostly more of the same.

It wasn't a bad thing. Game had been abundant, and since I was on Red's back most of it hadn't been overly wary. Mostly I'd seen deer with a few wolves scattered here and there. I hadn't seen any more cats of any type and I wasn't upset about that.

We'd been by four more valley entrances with all the valleys being larger than the one I'd fenced off. I'd also seen three more small herds of horses and my guess was fifty was the largest group. I'd spotted one group of about twelve to fifteen aurochs and even a bunch of ten or so bison. I didn't know what had sent them down from up top though.

One thing had become clear to me. As far as I'd searched so far I hadn't come across another way down from the upper plateau. Surely there were other ways, but I hadn't found them yet. That meant I was parked next to the stairway to heaven, or to plateau anyway.

Since I hadn't seen any traffic or even any signs of traffic up or down I wondered if the nearby people Rosco had mentioned all lived down in the river's valley, one level lower. I felt certain no one lived up on the plateau. Of course, I could be wrong.

As Red and I passed the pasture valley he gave a couple of whinnies at my other stock and they returned the call. I kept going toward the cave though. I hadn't seen any sign or tracks of predators near the entrance and a good long look as we passed didn't show me anything troublesome.

Red would be spending tonight alone in the barn; he just didn't realize it yet. I thought the others would be safe enough in the valley, and if it weren't for the long walk I'd have turned Red loose in it too. If he showed distress about being home alone later I would turn out his light and see if that would settle him down.

Probably I should have used one of the others for my travels today. Red was the main protector for the herd after all. I didn't because he was the best mannered for riding. Yeh, that's it, if he wanted to stay with the mares he should have been giving me more trouble all along.

When we reached the cave I unsaddled Red and put hobbles on him so he could graze for a while. He'd missed the daylong feast the others had, and even though I didn't stop him from grabbing a mouthful now and then while I was riding, he still needed more to eat. I knew better than to let him graze without hobbles though, because he'd have left for the pasture as soon as I turned him loose.

I cooked myself a bite to eat then and after cleaning up the dishes I went over to give Mama wolf some meat and filled her water dish. She was more accustomed to me now and had quit showing me her teeth or growling at me.

The pups thought even more highly of me than Mama did. They were still small enough to get into or out of the cage with no problem. They stayed in it with her mostly, but I'd already discovered I needed to keep anything valuable put up out of their reach.

Anytime I came around though they thought it was playtime. They'd abandon their mother in a heartbeat if I was close enough for them to come out and gnaw on. Besides, I'd pet and scratch them and they liked it fine. I figured another four weeks would have all the pups considering the cave home, and after that I could turn Mama out and let her go on about her business.