Chapter 49

As usual, after a good workout the night before, I woke feeling no pain and in a very good mood. I got up, dressed, and then went about my business scattering out hay for the horses, mules, and the donkeys. Most of them seemed a little out of sorts and snippy, but I figured it was over being confined to the inside of the cave and not being able to get out and graze. Well, they'd have to like it or lump it.

There was no handy pastureland outside to put them in and even if we put up the electric pen it wouldn't stop other animals from attacking them. I figured if I could discuss it with them they'd rather be inside and protected than outside and at the mercy of any saber-toothed tigers who showed up.

There were no two ways about it. Our site selection this time wasn't the handiest. The view of the ocean was magnificent, but as far as practical matters went it sucked. Worst of all, I didn't really see anything we could do about it. Even if we were right beside hundreds of acres of grassland we'd still be fucked since there was no way we could be sure the horses and mules wouldn't end up dinner for some predators.

I felt ok over things for a month or two because we had a lot of hay with us, but if we stayed longer we'd need to do something else. The main trouble was I didn't know what else to do. I went ahead and gave them plenty of hay today though and as for the rest I'd just have to hope for the best.

I pretty much forgot about the horse and mule feed when I was called to the table for my own feeding. The food was great as usual, and I noticed we had some meat I wasn't familiar with. I couldn't tell whether I was eating rhino bacon or mammoth bacon. Of course it wasn't really like bacon at all, except for the fact it was sliced very thin and fried. Hell, it was close enough for me, but I did wonder about it and I asked the girls.

"We have a slicer that works pretty well, but it is annoying to have to crank it. Still, it beats hell out of trying to do it with a knife," Jerrilyn said.

"What about cooking. How do you manage to do all this cooking over an open fire?"

"It is a little bit harder, but even with the generator it seems senseless to try bringing and electric range and oven along. We have the oven we can just basically put on an open fire and most of the other things we fry, or fry at with a pan on the fire," Jacky said.

"It seems I should be able to figure out something better for you to cook on. We have fuel tanks all over the trucks and we hardly ever use much fuel from them. Maybe I could get a butane tank installed and maybe we could get a butane range and oven to bring with us," I said.

"Maybe we'll try it next time, if there is a next time. To tell you the truth it is a little disconcerting to just camp in Kerrville and then wake up one morning back off in time. This time is even worse since there are really no people we can talk to easily. I mean Nadla is catching on pretty well, but it's nothing like it was when we were just sent back to an earlier time in Texas," Jerrilyn said.

"We don't really have any control over things and we'll just have to do the best we can," Kahlila said.

"Ain't that the gospel? No matter what we have to put up with it beats the hell out of sitting around in one place from now on. Even with the trucks, a helicopter, and everything else we could never have as much fun any other way. I just hope we don't piss off whoever is doing this for us," Selene said.

"I don't see how they can expect anything else out of us. They've just dumped us here without any directions and all I know to do is the best I can. I don't know how they feel about what we did last time and I don't have a hint about what they feel about what we're doing now," I said.

Nobody else had any suggestions and we basically finished our meal and cleaned up the dishes. We didn't get any visitors from the camp we'd helped out yesterday and were basically left to our own devices for the rest of the day. I gathered firewood most of the day and that was pretty much it.

Nadla, Janat, and Dortalla were staying close to Jerrilyn's warm side and watching the cooking like hawks. Even the little bit of equipment we had for such must seem magical to them. It was fair. The little slices of heaven they had between their legs were magical to me and I considered it an even trade.

I thought about teaching them to shoot, but decided not to. If I'd had sense enough to bring some modern day compound bows and arrows I might have tried them on those, but I just couldn't see trying to get them started with shotguns, rifles, and pistols in the here and now. If they went back home with us it would be different, but for here and now I decided against it.

I guess it was the male chauvinist pig in me since I hadn't felt a bit of reluctance about teaching them fucking the modern way. What the hell? Sue me. I doubted we'd be teaching them to drive anytime soon either.

That thought got my attention somehow and then I realized we could probably teach them to navigate one of the four wheelers, or several of them. Maybe tomorrow, but today I was gathering firewood. As long as we were without the butane, cooktop, and range I had thought up I was going to make sure we had plenty of firewood.

We had a light lunch and a respectable supper and I went to sleep that night after being well abused by all the women present. I can remember hearing a thunderstorm blow up during the night, but I didn't think much of it. I did in the morning though because we were somewhere else when we woke up. I walked out of the cave mouth to look around and damned if we didn't seem to be in a pine forest.

Hell's bells, we were in a pine forest all right. We were in the one right behind my house. In fact I walked about fifty feet from the cave entrance and I could see the new buildings that had just been erected. I walked back into the cave and started building the cooking fire.