Chapter 15

They found a fantastic cave only about 200 yards beyond the waterfall. This cave had just about everything they needed. It was large enough with a multitude of chambers to house 10 times their current population. The cave had running water in a couple of the chambers, and one of them looked like a swimming pool just waiting to happen. Air circulated through the cave, so it would be easy to keep the air fresh, no matter how many fires and other stuff they had going in the multitude of chambers. There were even more caves that looked like ideal places to put manufacturing plants, so they could hardly wait to get home to tell everybody why they should relocate.

Finally, Alice called a halt to the spelunking, and they traveled farther along the cliff face, looking for other good reasons to move. They did find other minerals, but nothing to compare with what they had already found. After four more weeks of exploring, they decided to head home.

This side of the river from the waterfall was almost perfect for travel by their tractor and trailer. There were enough trees to provide fuel, and the ground was so smooth that they hardly felt a bounce per mile. About 20 miles from the cliff, they saw a monstrous lake, at least, it looked that big from their angle. It looked like a trip around the lake was too chancy—it could be as big as Lake Superior for all they knew and very difficult to get around, so they had to cross the river.

They built the minimum bridge that would do the job of getting them across the river and resumed their trip home. They followed the edge of the lake for several miles until they came to a small stream flowing from the lake in the direction they wanted to go. The shore along this stream was also smooth and free of any serious obstructions. They made good time until they came to that plain where they had encountered the centipede-like creatures.

They were reluctant to venture out on to the plain, but they had no real choice. They were very surprised when they did not encounter any of the voracious creatures, but they did see the largest reptile they had seen to date. As near as they could tell without getting uncomfortably close was that they were seeing several family groups. The animals they could see ranged in length from around two to as much a 16 feet long. The largest animals stood about five feet high. It was quite possible that these creatures kept the centipedes in check, either by biting them or by stepping on them, maybe both. If so, they were creatures to be nurtured!

They had gotten well out onto the plain when they encountered an animal that had to be eight or nine feet tall and 20 feet long from its snout to the tip of its tail. They tried to go around the beast, but, for some unknown reason, the animal took exception to their presence. It began to paw the ground and to make other menacing gestures, then it began to roar at them. It had a short horn on its head, and the lowering of its head and the pointing of the horn in their direction was too much to ignore.

Shirley rotated the gun mount to face the beast and loaded a full hopper of bolts. Connie took careful aim at the beast's forehead and opened fire. A steady stream of darts flew out at the beast and struck it near the horn, but every one of the darts bounced off! They had never seen this sort of thing, before.

At Alice's order, Henry turned the tractor to pull them around to try to expose the animal's side, but it kept turning with them, so they could not get a good shot at it. In desperation, Connie lowered her aim and tried to hit the beast in its neck or chest. Damn! The darts just bounced off!

As a last resort, Alice aimed at the beast's eye with a shot from her crossbow, and she struck pay dirt! The bolt penetrated the eye far enough to disappear inside the beast's head. It must have blinded the beast on that side, which was good, but the poison was not working. Connie started spitting bolts at the other eye, and one of them hit. It seemed to penetrate more easily that had the less-powerful bolt that Alice had fired, but that was not the point. The beast should now be blinded.

It should be possible, now, to get to the side of the beast and shoot enough bolts from the machine gun to kill the thing, even if it took a hundred hits to do the job. Henry drove around to an advantageous position, and Connie opened up with a continuous stream of darts into the beast's side. Sometimes, the bolts bounced off, but at other times the bolts penetrated. They lost count of the number of bolts fired, but, eventually, the beast fell to its knees. Alice ordered Connie to stop shooting and they waited for further developments.

The had to wait for nearly 30 minutes before the beast gave a deep sigh and fell to its side, fortunately, the side without all of the bolts. Henry drove closer to the animal and parked. Alice ordered everybody else to wait until she gave the word; then, she walked over the the beast and gave it a swift kick in the belly. The beast didn't react, so she called the others over to the carcass.

For a little while, they just walked around the animal marveling at its massive size. Henry reached up to try to pull out one of the bolts that only penetrated the skin part way, but found that he could not move it. He took out his bronze knife and tried unsuccessfully to cut the skin to remove the bolt. In a fit of frustration, he went to the wagon and took one of the tree-felling axes to try to cut through the skin.

His first swing simply bounced off! Henry really felt the frustration now, so he climbed up on the beast to stand on its side. With a mighty swing with all of the force that he could muster, he swung the ax down into the beast's skin. The ax bounced again! Alice stopped him when he started to swing again; she was afraid that he would cut himself or damage the ax.

Alice sent Shirley to the wagon to bring the saw. This time, with two people working opposite ends of the saw, they were able to cut through the skin. However, it took so long to make the cut, Alice was afraid of ruining the saw. They had only one large saw with them, and they might need it for cutting trees before they got home. The upshot was that Alice ordered them to gather the bolts that they could find lying on the ground and take them back to the wagon. It was time for them to leave before they attracted unwelcome attention.

They would have to wait for another opportunity before they could take the time to dissect the animal. One thing was sure, they would need different instruments to get through that tough skin. Examination of the bolts showed that every one was unusable because the flint point was broken. There weren't enough of these bolts to bother with, so they pitched them away and forgot them.

Here they were, back at the swamp, again. This trip was no easier than the previous time. They still had to thread their way through the morass between the pools and the quick sand. This time, they actually were able to see at least one of the denizens of the pools. On a couple of occasions, a head at the end of a long neck stuck out of the pool and followed their progress through the swamp, but never made any aggressive moves, so the humans treated the occurrences as happy standoffs. It was one of those "you don't bother me and I won't bother you" kind of things.

They came to that pesky stream where they needed to build another bridge. The problem was that the best trees for the job were on the opposite side of the water. At least one person was going to have to cross the stream on foot and cut one or more trees. These trees would have to be moved into position and a bridge had to be built.

Shirley volunteered to be the one to cross the stream. She had been downright foolhardy about taking risks since her adventure of losing her leg and having it grow back. Alice was somewhat concerned about the way Shirley seemed to be scornful of danger, but she was the logical one to wade the stream. Shirley slid down the stream bank, stopping just short of the water. The stream was so narrow at this point that she was able to step across without ever getting wet.

She had some trouble climbing up the opposite bank, but finally made it. There were some useful trees growing very close to the stream, so Shirley dropped a tree so that it fell in just the right place. She dropped another tree close enough to the first one so that there was no need to move either one. She dropped two more trees to be used as cross pieces, and that was the limit of what she could do this day. She was just too tired to do any more ax-work.