Chapter 48

The next morning, after a big breakfast, we saddled up and took off. Nancy, Hope, and Charity took over the driving duty for the wagon and the rest of us went horseback. I had thought for a few moments about asking Jan and Sharon to go up and take a look around, but I decided not to.

The ground was level enough back up from the ocean, but it turned hilly before long. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary for a while, but Nadla did clue us in that some of the others were following along behind us. I was suspicious about what they were up to, but decided to wait them out. I felt fairly well in charge of things with the modern weapons we had.

Our hunting luck turned good after about three hours. We came across some mammoth sign and I decided it would be more than enough meat if I only made one kill. In fact it would probably be a lot more than we needed. I did want to impress our followers though.

We moved in closer to them slowly and they didn't panic. Possibly because they weren't afraid of anything, or at least they weren't afraid of us. They seemed to stop at once point and they were all just feeding so I got down and urged the others to do the same. When I went to take a good look at our game with the binoculars I saw something else in among 'em.

It looked like a rhinoceros to me and I considered taking it instead. It looked like it was well fed itself and somehow it seemed more like something I should be shooting. The mammoths long trunk saved them I guess. I talked it over with the women and they all agreed. At the time I didn't even know the rhino couldn't even see us from this distance.

I settled down into the prone position and lined up my shot with the M1. I knew thirty caliber wasn't such a good round for something so big, but what the hell. If I'd been intending to take a mammoth it would have been the same, and it was the biggest rifle I had.

The rhino was side on to me and I picked my spot as if it were a deer or something similar. I decided to shoot it just behind the shoulder and hope for the best. When I shot it I damned sure got its attention even if I didn't knock it down. I fired again, and then again. It was looking in our direction now, but I was happy enough it wasn't heading our way. As I said I didn't know they had such poor eyesight. Finally I got tired of waiting for it to fall and shot it twice more.

I didn't really know if I'd finally hit something important or whether it was just the combination of so many shots, but the rhino finally fell over.

The ones following us played a dirty trick on me then. They sent the women and children up to start on processing the kill and I let them do it. What the hell, we had enough to eat when it came down to it and the way the kids looked made me fell like they didn't. I scanned around for another rhino and didn't see one so I took it out on the largest bull mammoth.

It was facing me and I shot where I thought its heart might be. Apparently I made a better guess on the mammoth because after only three shots it fell. It threw off the ones heading for the kill though. They didn't know which one to go for. Finally they split up and sent a group to each one.

Nadla was getting a little testy over things by now and she got even more so when several men headed our way. She was talking up a storm to Jerrilyn and Jacky and they finally got a clue about what she was saying.

"This is the camp Nadla came from and he comes the leader who traded her away," Jerrilyn told me.

"Well maybe he wants to trade her to me now," I said.

"Nadla thinks the same thing, but she said he'd probably want to try getting more out of you," Jerrilyn said.

"I guess I'll have to teach him about finders keepers then."

Sure enough the leader and five men with spears came walking up like they owned the place. He said something profound I'm sure, but I couldn't understand a word of it. He gave some directions to one of the men and that one walked toward Nadla as if he were going to take hold of her. I didn't shoot him since it hadn't been his idea. I shot the leader in the chest with one of my Blackhawks and it ended his dealings right away. It also stopped the one advancing on Nadla in his tracks.

I took the opportunity to walk to Nadla myself and I put my arm possessively around her shoulders and pulled her to me. One of the others who had been standing near the back of the crowd raised his spear then and shouted something so I raised my Blackhawk and let it shout itself. I guess the others got the message when he hit the ground and wiggled out his lasts.

I was beginning to get the idea these men should try their luck hunting on their own instead of trying to steal what they wanted. Oh well, I was a long way from being able to get that concept over to them. The group who had come up to take over drifted back away from us now and it looked like they were having some type of meeting. The women weren't called to the gathering, but all of the men were.

I asked Jerrilyn if she could ask Nadla what was going on and she said she'd give it a shot. Meanwhile, back at the skinning and cutting up a few hyenas had come up and were trying to make pest of themselves. I merely turned around, shouldered the M1, and started cleaning their plows. The noise made the ones cleaning the kills flinch, but when they noticed the hyenas dieing over it they adjusted and were happy enough.

The hyenas got the messaged that our kills weren't to be fucked with after a while, but it was hard for them. I'm sure they didn't understand what was killing them, but they finally figured out something was and they gave up and started hassling the younger mammoths. This pissed their mothers off and soon they commenced to open up their own can of whupass on the hyenas. I though it was really smart of the mammoths to pick up large rocks and throw them with their trunks, and apparently it was, because when they hit a hyena with one it went down and a grown one would walk over and step on it after it couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way any longer. The hyenas finally gave up the whole idea and moseyed off to other prospects.