Chapter 54

I felt safe enough for the moment since the door was down. I decided it would be best to at least drag on some clothes before I went to see who was knocking.

After I had my clothes on and my three gun belt and holster rig I walked toward the new door and noticed six men standing outside it, looking it over with puzzlement on their faces. Most of the women had started crawling out of the furs when I got up and now I could see a few were dressed. I called Jerrilyn and Selene over since they seemed ready to go.

The men were dressed in period garb and in my opinion they were from the period for real. Those weren't costumes for fooling us. They each carried a sturdy thrusting spear, but I wondered what they wanted. No doubt they'd been able to see inside before they triggered whatever it took to bring the door down. I'll admit I would have closed it before sleeping if I'd known how to get it done.

Jerrilyn and Selene had come without bringing their arms, but as soon as they saw the men with spears in hand at the door they went back and picked up a shotgun each. Apparently the also mentioned our visitors to the other women, because all of them who knew about guns came back armed. We now outnumbered the men at the door and we were all armed with modern weapons.

The unarmed women came up behind my armed and dangerous bunch shortly and I could tell the men could see through the door just as we could. They got agitated at the site of the downtime women from this time and began yelling something to them and motioning for them to come to them.

One of the women who was seemingly a leader among our recent arrivals said something to Jerrilyn then and before I knew what was happening two more from the new group had joined her. Selene, Christine, and Nancy were also huddled around them and before long the damnedest bunch of hand waving and jabbering you ever heard broke out.

I could tell the women were all trying to communicate and none of them had breakfast in mind yet. I went to make a pot of coffee and wait for a consensus to be arrived at. I was working on my first cup before Jerrilyn and Selene came over to try and give me the gist of things.

"Bejahwa says this is a group of men from their former camp. Apparently they have decided these are too many women to lose just because their mates were killed. The women do not want to leave with them. They say they will have no prospect for another mate back in their former camp. They will mostly just be kept to do extra work," Jerrilyn told me, explaining the situation.

"Well, it seems they intend to stay and hope the door opens again. The three in front seem the most adamant. If we can get the door open let's try to kill them first and then see how it goes with the others."

"Are you sure we need to kill any of them?" Selene asked.

"It seems our only option to me. They all have spears in hand and they won't have a clue about our weapons. They will see me as unarmed and the only male here. They're bound to think of me as easy pickings."

"You're probably right, but it seems a shame they have to die to find out," Christine said.

"I happen to think it would be an even bigger shame if I had to let one of them jab me with one of those pig stickers. Remember, they are used to hunting buffalo by chasing them until they are to tired to fight."

"You do have a point there, and I guess any diplomatic advances we make to them will necessitate a show of force first," Christine said.

"Well what are we going to do then?" Jerrilyn asked.

"I don't think we can do anything until the door opens," I said.

"That's right. We don't have a way to signal it. There's no switch or button or anything," Selene said.

"Please open the door," I said, to the room at large, and damned if it didn't start up.

It caused a good bit of excitement among the men outside and one of them hit the ground and crawled under it as soon as there was room for him. Somehow it triggered something and the door stopped in its tracks, but two others started crawling under it at once.