Chapter 52

We were all staring out at the Indians and the massive herd of buffalo. The hunters were moving in on another cow to cut out of the herd and I was watching them closely to see how they did it. Apparently they were not frightening to the mass of the herd, but just as obviously the ones near them realized they were up to no good. The scene was playing out as if for my viewing pleasure along when I heard thunder rumbling off in the distance. I wondered if a storm was brewing and also wondered how the rain would affect the goings on.

It turned out I needn't have worried about the rain disturbing the hunting. It was the lightning and thunder that did it in. Suddenly a massive bolt struck on the other side of them from our location. I counted and came up with twelve, which to my mind put the strike at two miles away. No matter the distance it was too damned close to suit the buffalo and they panicked and bolted. I saw several of the men run over and I'm sure most of them were trampled; I just couldn't see them all get it.

The women had been smarter than the men, or at least they had thought faster this time. They had stopped what they were doing with the first rumble, and when they heard the second one they had started running, heading directly for a creek-bed they had come from in the first place. Their direction of travel did more for their safety than the proposed destination though.

My quick estimate was that the women and the children cut the angle on the stampede by about fifty feet. Of course that was only for the last ones in line -- the hindmost I guess you'd say. Others of them who started sooner or ran faster had more clearance. Unfortunately not a single man escaped, even though two of them did try leaving stage left, as Yogi Bear or Boo Boo might have said.

The Buffalo had up a head of steam by now and damned if they didn't seem to be heading straight toward our cave's entrance. I ran back inside quickly and all I could think of to do was pull one of the horse trailers across the entrance to block them out. I was the last one back inside though and within five seconds of my coming back inside the cave I heard a loud slamming sound behind me. In spite of the emergency I turned around to look and I could see something was now covering the opening. I could still see out of it, but the view wasn't nearly as clear as it had been before and it looked for all the world like there was a semitransparent rock wall covering the opening now.

I approached it and put my hand against it. It was completely smooth on our side and I could see my hand had been stopped at least twelve inches from the other side of the covering which had fallen into place. The rocky look was caused by the other side since it was not smooth at all. In fact it looked like I was looking at the back side of a rock wall. I just happened to be able to see through it. The buffalo were approaching it by now and I could see those headed right for it were veering off now and attempting to go around.

This was very weird to me, but I guess it wasn't any weirder than the damned little hill moving us around in time and space. A few of the bison couldn't make the bend and slammed into the door which had been closed in their faces. Apparently those who did had slowed down since they scrambled off to follow the others.

My next thought was how were we going to get this door opened again. I didn't ask aloud since I didn't want it opened quite yet. There were still thousands of buffalo headed our way after all. Still, I wondered about it. Was it going to open as automagically as it had closed? And that was another thing. Had it waited until I came back inside to close? I could clearly remember I had been standing outside the opening and had only turned around to try moving a trailer into place to close the door, so to speak. I guess we'd see later if it opened on its own after the danger was over.

The women were all staring at the opening now and watching the buffalo go by. Luckily they hadn't thought of any questions for me yet, because I sure as hell hadn't thought up any answers.

"Funny," I said, "I don't remember telling Vanina to put in a door."

"It's damned sure a good thing somebody put one in. I'd have hated it a lot if they'd all rushed in here with us. I hate to say it, but I don't think I could have remembered to get up in a truck before they squashed me," Jerrilyn said.

"Me both, Jerrilyn, me both. I'm really proud of whoever or whatever thought to install that door right now. I mean, I wouldn't mind cooking a little buffalo, but that looked like more than we could fit on the stove," Christine said.

Most of the women were still flummoxed over the whole thing. Especially Nancy, Hope, Charity, and all those who came after. The ones who'd figured it out were busily explaining what they could about it to them now. Jan, Sharon, and Jenny were commenting on how glad they were the helicopter wasn't out in the danger zone and that was something I was glad about too, but mostly I was just glad all out people had been inside the cave. I was especially glad I'd thought to run inside it at the last. Suddenly the damned thing started rising and when I looked out I could see there were no more buffalo headed out way so I guessed the danger was well and truly over.

I headed back outside almost right away.

"Where are you going?" Jerrilyn yelled as I walked out of the cave.

"I'm going to go see if any of the natives need our help," I said.

"Not without a firearm you aren't. Get back in here and get to packing. We don't intend for you to leave us stranded here," Selene said, and it did make sense.

I went into the house and strapped on my gunbelt, the one whit three holsters and a pistol for each. I also picked up my modified M1. Jerrilyn, Jacky, Christine, and Selene came in too and they all grabbed up their shotguns and belted on their holsters with pistols. They all had a little bag for their gun belts now which held shotgun shells.