Chapter 24

All the girls except Delia went back to work on the bear. Most of the meat would have to be sliced into strips for drying and even though they all had real knives from my time it would be a lot of work. It had to be done though and they weren't complaining. In fact they seemed to be happy about having so much meat. I decided I was going to try harder to kill smaller game when I could. Of course if I just had a big chest type freezer we wouldn't have to go to the trouble of so much cutting up and drying.

I gave Delia about thirty more minutes of instruction in the use of the Glock and I explained exactly what happened when the trigger was pulled. I showed her a cartridge and pointed out the bullet which came out of the end and did the damage to the target. I had her try her luck at a couple of rocks and she hit four out of ten. They were around ten to twelve inches and she hit them from twenty feet. Not good shooting, but not bad considering. She could surely hit one of the big assed cave bears.

We were much more careful entering the next cave. We listened outside and when we didn't hear anything inside we went in much more slowly than I had yesterday. It was empty and after looking it over I knew it would be a great cave to live in. It was nearly three times as large as the one we were living in now. It also had a much higher ceiling if that's what you call the top of the inside of a cave.

Over near one side, far removed from the entrance, there was a depression in the floor and it was full of water. The water ran down one side and seemed to go out through a rough hole in the floor. Oddly it seemed to just run out from a crack in the wall above the depression. Running water seemed awfully suspicious for some reason.

The next cave had me thinking even harder. It was just too good to be true. The map had told me it was the largest. It wasn't one big open cave though. It seemed almost as if it were separated into big rooms. They weren't actually rooms, more like big chambers. It would be simple to divide them into rooms with a few partitions though and it was big enough for at least twenty families to have living spaces.

Topping it off was the downward slanting opening near the back. Almost as if it were planned the floor sloped down into a chamber underneath the rear wall. The opening was about five feet wide and the floor sloped down for about twenty feet until the next level was eighteen to twenty feet below the main cave's floor. There was ice in the lower chamber - it was below the permafrost level. Hell it was a natural freezer.

Was it natural though or was it Alien? Did it matter? If it had been done at Argent's direction why should I care? I couldn't begin to understand why he would have done it, but it just seemed too pat. If he had done it, for whatever reason, why should I turn up my nose at the obvious gift? It made me wonder, but hell, I was still wondering why he wanted to put me here in the first place. I knew we would be moving here if there were any way to convince Gigo and the others to come with us.

The next cave was nearly as large but it looked more nearly normal to me. It wasn't like I was a cave expert or anything, but it was just more irregular inside and there was no convenient deep freeze.

When the thought struck me I told Delia we had to go back to the others. There was no need for them to cut up all the meat. We could just put it in the wagon and carry it down to be frozen. If no one would move here with us we could get it later if we needed it. I felt sure the others would realize how much better it would be here though.

When we got back I saw we would be saving the girls more than half the work they'd expected. I explained my plan and they were glad enough to go along with it. We hitched up the team and then loaded the meat into the wagon. Soon we had it in the big cave. Wrapping it in some of the visqueen I had - we left most of it to freeze. I doubted any animals would stray down into the frigid dark to bother it.

We all went along for the rest of the explorations. I claimed the cave with the running water as our next home. We took the wagon back down river to the entrance for the blind canyons. It was just south of the first cave and on the other side of the wide shallow river. The river had a gravel bottom here and it was easy to ford after I convinced the team it was the right thing to do. After crossing we headed up into the canyon in the wagon and it was just perfect.

There were hundreds of acres up those canyons and only a few scattered small woods. It was mostly grass and wild oats. It was perfect for horses and would probably support over a hundred easily. Better yet, its entrance wasn't very wide and would actually need less of a fence than the one I'd already built. The walls were much steeper and more rugged than at my cave too. There was no chance a predator could get down from above without falling to its death.

It was all too good to be true. It was there though and whether it was Mother Nature's or uncle Argent's doing it was nearly perfect. I'd expected to spend a couple or three days looking around here but I didn't need to see anymore. This was going to be a new home for all of us if I could swing it. It was such a good area I might even consider moving my little band here alone if the others wouldn't come.

We had a few beans with the bear meat tonight. It was good and I ate too much. We'd pulled the wagon into the cave with the little pool and after supper I went to it and tried to wash off a little grime. The water was cold but it beat hell out of hopping into the river.

When we settled into the wagon I was asleep almost before I could squeeze even one titty.

As soon as I woke the next morning I was ready to leave already. We had the bear's skin to deal with though and for a while I couldn't think of anything to do about it but finish it off here. Then I got an idea. We put the tops back on the wagon and lay the stretching rack out over them, tying it on. The skin was still stretched and we could move out. It was a little inconvenient because we couldn't get into the wagon box without taking the rack off first, but it would have to do.

It took a little over two hours to get back to Gigo's camp. Another big greeting was in order when we arrived and I had to admit to everyone how scared shitless I'd been when I found the giant bear. At least Delia'd had sense enough to tell us to bring a big haunch of the bear for cooking when we got back to the camp. We had taken it back out of the storage before it froze and the women went to work right away to get it cooked.

Dergo and Gigo helped me find a place for the big stretching rack and we set it up here at their camp. They offered to finish the work on it if I wanted to travel tomorrow. I thanked them and was grateful since we needed to go to Delia's mother's camp to deliver the tent to her brother. I was anticipating seeing another camp too. Gigo's was really the only camp I knew anything about. My visit to Delia's to pick up she, Waaya, and Winna was a little subdued to say the least.

Waaya and Winna fit in here now as if they had always lived here. They laughed and joked with Geera, Dieta, and all the others like they were one big family. In a way I guess they were. I didn't know anything about their former lives of course, but if they were sorry those days were over they didn't show it.

I spent some more time telling Gigo and Dergo about the new area. They seemed as amazed as I had been. They didn't fully appreciate the value of the blind canyons for the horses but it was to be expected. They had never considered horses as anything but prey before. Even though they had seen how much help the horses could be I was sure it would take more time for it to fully sink in. They still hadn't tumbled to the amazing possibilities of the wheels on the wagon. They took them for granted as a part of the wagon and I could tell they had no ideas about other ways to use them.

Still they were excited about the new caves and while they didn't jump right up and offer to move the camp there they were considering it. I knew I would have to take them there and show them and possibly others in the camp would want to go also. Their lives had been pretty good in this spot, they weren't bound to stay here at all cost, but they would have to be convinced they would be better off at the new location before they would move.