Chapter 10

The sex continued at night, but our days were filled with trying to get the new ballista built as soon as possible. John was more skilled than I with metal working, so we were able to use a continuous steel bow. Some steel cable was unwound to make a bowstring, and we were in business before long with a mobile ballista.

We made some darts from tree trunk sections. The shafts were split from the trunk and turned to a round crosssection with a simple, home-made lathe. We fletched the darts with feathers from a T. Rex we found dead on one of our hunting trips (no, we were not stupid enough to attack an adult T. Rex just for his feathers). The head of the dart was made of flint; it resembled a Clovis point, but was much larger than any ever seen on TV.

We practiced with a dummy head on a dart until we could hit a stationary target at 75 yards every time. There was no point on practicing with moving targets, since the flight time of the dart left too much chance for random movement of the targeted dinosaur at that distance. We really got ambitious and made up 20 darts, hoping that we never needed to use them all in one fight. The darts were six feet long and three inches in diameter. The darts weighed nearly 20 pounds, each, so they packed quite a punch.

The ballista was serviced by a crew of three, an aimer, a loader, and a shooter. This worked out pretty good, since it took three people to pull the heavy damned thing. The new plan was for the ballista, with its crew of three, to accompany three or four hunters, with crossbows, pulling the empty cart which was to return loaded with meat.

This plan would probably have to be modified as pregnancies started to complicate things, as Angie's already was. She was due in two months, by her own estimate, but she could not be sure. In any case, she was sticking around the cave and letting others make the long walks. Angie was concentrating on nursing the garden along; she was becoming an accomplished farmer.

The first couple of hunting trips with the ballista along were blanks as far as the crew was concerned. All they got out of it was some exercise which they didn't really need. However, on the third trip, the ballista got used in an unexpected way. We encountered our first herd of triceratops, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Jean and I selected a likely candidate for the stew pot and fired some bolts at it. All we did was annoy the animal—the bolts could not penetrate its tough skin. The only thing that kept us from being gored or trampled was that the beast had a gimpy leg and was hobbling around too much to charge us. The other members of the herd appeared to write us off as harmless cranks, so we had plenty of time to consider what to do.

The shooter asked for the opportunity to fire one of her ballista darts at the animal, and we hunters decided that we weren't accomplishing anything, so why not? The triceratops was a stationary target about 35 yards away, so it was a perfect choice to shoot at. The ballista crew went through their drill in a very professional way, and the aimer lined up on the target. The shooter and loader cocked the bow, and the loader placed a dart into position. The aimer signaled that she was ready, so the shooter pulled the lanyard.

The dart flew true to its mark and slammed into the side of the triceratops just behind its foreleg. The dart hit with such force that it knocked the animal down and traveled far enough through the triceratops that the head just failed to penetrate the skin on the far side. I wish I could say that death was instantaneous, but the beast didn't live long with its lungs torn up that badly. The only sound made by the victim was a kind of whoosh as the air was knocked from its lungs, and the rest of the herd was not even aware that one of its members had been attacked.

We hunters congratulated the ballista crew on an excellent job before we walked over to the animal to begin butchering. By moving slowly, we did not frighten the rest of the heard, so they stayed where they were. I wondered how many we could have killed before they tumbled to their danger.

All seven of us turned to butchering the triceratops, and we finished in record time. It was obvious that we needed more carts if we were going to take full advantage of all of the meat provided by just one triceratops. As it was, we took the best parts and made ready to return home.

We had gotten about half way across the large meadow where we had killed the triceratops when we heard human voices shouting behind us. We turned to look and saw two terrified men in a stumbling run trying to catch us. They were continually stealing glances behind them as they ran toward us. It was not long before we saw why.

They were being pursued at a sedate walk by one of the largest T. Rexes we had ever seen. It had to be close to 50 feet long, head to tail, and, at first glance, it appeared to be all teeth. The two men were carrying swords, I supposed them to be sabers, but that made no difference, since the T. Rex was not going to be bothered by something as puny as that.

We sprang to the defense of the two men, since the T. Rex could as easily turn on us, and we knew that we could not outrun it if it really wanted to catch us. We were in the middle of an open field, so there was no place for us to hide—our only choice was to fight. The ballista crew quickly began to set up their weapon and point it toward the dinosaur.

Fortunately, the animal was moving slowly and straight at us, so aiming was not a real problem. Liz, the aimer, lined up on the T. Rex, Sarah, the loader, and Joan, the shooter, cocked the weapon, and Sarah dropped a dart into place. Liz signaled that she was lined up, and Joan pulled the lanyard. The two men were startled when the dart came flying over their heads, but that did not slow them down as they continued to run toward us.

The dart wobbled a little in flight at that extreme range of 75 yards, but it did hit the animal in the chest. The dart penetrated about half its length, and irritated the hell out of that T. Rex. It stopped in its tracks and tried to pull out the dart, first with its "hands," then with its teeth. Neither one were successful, but it did manage to break off the dart shaft about even with its skin.

We must have scored a good hit, because the T. Rex took a few steps toward us before returning to trying to dig the dart out of its chest. It must have realized that it could not get the dart out, so it resumed traveling toward us, albeit, a little slower than before. By this time, the crew had loaded another dart into the ballista and were ready to fire.

They waited until the T. Rex was about 50 yards away, this time, and let go with another dart. This one hit close to the previous hit and went in deeper. The T. Rex was actually rocked back on its haunches and would have fallen over if its tail had not caught its balance.

The men had reached us by this time and were shouting in a language that I could not understand, but sounded like Spanish or Portuguese. I said, in English, "Please wait until this fight is over, then we will talk to you." I could tell that the men did not know what to make of us, since we were all nude. They certainly could not stop staring at the women.

One of the men said, in English, "Thank God, you speak English! We will wait."

Meanwhile, the crew had loaded another dart into the ballista and were getting ready to shoot. Liz made a slight change in the elevation of the shot, and signaled to Sarah to fire. This time the dart caught the T. Rex high on the chest/low on the neck, and went all of the way through. Only a few inches of the shaft were left protruding from the front of the animal, and this appeared to be what was needed to finish off the beast. It fell over on its side and kept moving its legs spasmodically for another 15 minutes, but we were sure that it was no longer a menace.

We waited around until we were sure that the T. Rex was dead. We wanted to recover our darts. While we waited, I talked to the two men we had rescued. They were from the US Revenue Cutter Service (I knew them as the Coast Guard). The White man introduced himself as Lt. Ezra Pond and his Black companion as CPO Amos Hunt. "We were on patrol between Florida and Bermuda when we were struck by an impossible storm. One moment we were at sea, and the next moment we were on dry land. Among other duties, I was the navigation officer, so I tried to determine our location on land. It was very confusing, for all I was able to determine was that we were still at the same latitude and longitude.