Chapter 29

Now that breakfast was over I left the girls cleaning up and went to find my favorite saddle. I caught Red, my Quarterhorse stallion and attached it and then I went around until I had collected five mules on lead ropes strung out behind jack. Next I removed their hobbles and led them down to the river where they drank peacefully.

I wanted to get down and kick my own ass for not thinking of this the night before. It was stupid to carry water to the horses when they were perfectly able to carry it themselves after they'd drank their fill. I no longer had to carry water to them and I didn't even have to walk at all to get them watered. This also let me split up the work with the women, since one of them could catch and unhobble the horses while I was watering one bunch and they could rehobble them when I got back.

I considered it an act of providence when I returned with the first five and was noticed by Kahlila as I was dismounting to unhobble the mules I'd just watered. She called the other girls and they took over the catch and release program for horses and mules to be watered. I was left with only the driving. It worked out much better than schlepping five gallon buckets up the hill.

It also went a lot faster. I was done watering every bit of stock we had within half an hour and I'd even had a nice short ride. Meanwhile, it hadn't required much time from the girls either and they were busy with their own concerns. After I had put Red away I moseyed by their latest project and relieved Jackie of the shovel she had been manning.

They were involved in digging a big hole was all I could tell about the goings on, so I asked for directions. It was when I learned they were trying to dig a cooking pit. Mine was not to reason why, especially when it involved cooking, so I started digging and asked how deep while I was doing it.

"Thanks, Tommy. We wanted to surprise you with it, but we decided that was a lost cause after about five minutes," Jackie said.

I was a little surprised with the size they wanted. It wasn't nearly as big as what I considered a cooking pit should be, and I even said so when they stopped me. Jackie told me this was just an experimental dig and they wanted to try it and see how things came out.

"We think we have a handle on things here now, Tommy, why don't you take a ride and kill something for us to eat," she said.

"I'll take a ride, but I don't know so much about killing something to eat. I'm not even sure if deer season has started yet."

"We know for sure it hasn't, because we checked before hand. There should be some exotics around somewhere to shoot though. They raise them near here for renta-hunters to come and shoot and they always have some that get loose. We are supposed to pay for any we kill though," Jackie said.

"You could always shoot a javelina. There's no season on them around here," Christine said.

To humor them I fetched a Marlin in 35 Remington, but I promised myself I wasn't shooting anything but black bear, and I was practically positive there were none near us. I saddled the Arabian stallion this time and away we went.

Of all the God Damned luck I came across a coyote that was mad. I don't mean angry either - I mean mad as in rabid. The cock sucker came out onto a trail I was riding along and held his place as if challenging me and the horse. I thought I was going to have to shoot it, but it raced toward the horse before I could even get my rifle out of the saddle scabbard.

The stallion wasn't as unsure of what to do as I was. When the coyote approached, he merely lifted his front feet off the ground neatly, and came back down on the coyote, squashing him like the proverbial bug.

I dismounted to check and make sure the little rabid bastard hadn't even scratched my magnificent horse, but it hadn't. I guess all that desert bred crap counted for something after all. At least he'd known exactly what to do during a small animal attack.

I remounted and spent another hour riding, but I realized there was something else I needed for it - chaps. The brush was getting a little irritating on my legs and a pair of chaps was in order. I finally turned around and headed back to camp.

"What'd you bring us daddy?" Jerrilyn asked, when I got back.

I deflected questions about my hunting prowess with the tale of the rabid coyote. There followed a long discussion about rabies and shots for the horses and shots for us and ... And we just didn't know. I was confident we were safe this time, as far as my person and the stallion were concerned - but, we decided to pack up and go home right away anyway.

Kahlila phoned her father's number right away of course, but she asked for some other official. She found out all the horses from there were vaccinated for rabies. She asked for complete medical records for all of them to be sent.

Still, we had other horses, the jack and jenny, and mules by the score which weren't protected, that we knew of, and we spent the rest of the day packing up and then we left.

It was a short end to our camping trip, but I wasn't disappointed. We had made some important discoveries. For one thing, we needed to make some arrangements for non-potable water supply. Leading the horses and mules to water and letting them drink had worked out fine this time, but I didn't want to take it up as a full time job. Of course Kahlila had scored us the Humvee fire wagon, but I could think of better uses for it than pumping water for the horses.

The Generac had been another minor annoyance. We were using it in diesel mode, but currently we had to siphon diesel out of one of the truck tanks and pour it into a small tank on the Generac cart. We had to change that situation somehow. At least we had squared away the tent problem, or the which tent to use when problem. We had settled on the smaller tent for summer time and short trips and the larger tent for all winter operations.