Chapter 1

Free at last. Free at Last. Thank God almighty, I'm free at last. Or at least I'd just graduated from high school. Of course my father wanted me to attend a university or at least a college, but I wasn't for it. He could have changed my mind of course, but then again he had high ideals, as if any of them need apply to a high school grad.

It would have been simple for him to convince me to attend a local, or nearly local school, but he didn't really seem interested. When I told him there was no way I was attending anywhere in the Vauxhaul he'd provided for me as if it were a car he'd trumped me and told me he guessed I wouldn't be going off to school at all.

To tell the truth he was right in a way. I would have never paid enough attention to classes to do worth a shit. I knew how to read and write already and I'd heard enough about history to call myself educated, or educated enough anyway, I thought.

The Steelworkers Union representing the workers at Lone Star Steel caused a sort of truce between my father and I. They held a strike and all the workers went for it. I went over and signed up for a now vacant job and was well pleased with the $12.65 an hour it paid.

There were some hard feelings between some of the strikers and me. They thought they were going to scare me off my new job and I thought wounding a few of them while they were trying it was fair enough. They didn't see it that way and the next time they gave me shit two of them lost their pickups from gas tank shots with tracer rounds. I also kept them pinned down until the Texas Highway Patrol came snooping around to find out what was causing all that black smoke.

The patrolmen hauled them off to jail when I pointed out they'd fired the first rounds.

Of course this only caused more hard feelings between the union members and me, but I didn't really give a shit. They did change tactics though and put me in a position where I'd have to defend myself with my fist.

It was another fuckup deluxe on their part. Sure, I was a young boy and I guess they thought I'd be scared shitless to fight a grown man. They failed to take account of my size at six one and 255 lbs. I hadn't really been in many fist fights in school and it was mainly because of my size. I had done yeomans service as a blocking back on the local football team so I knew how to take a lick and keep on coming.

The one who took on the job of giving me an education looked like he could do the job alright. He was a little taller than me at six two and weighed nearly as much at two twenty five. Unfortunately for him he came expecting a real live fist fight. I disabused him of the notion when I started out with an excellent block which involved all my weight at close to my maximum speed. He ended up beneath me and I got to use my hands in a way which wasn't allowed on the football field.

He was out of breath when he hit the ground and both his eyes were swollen shut seconds later. I beat the coon dog shit out of his grown up ass and I even broke the arm of the first of his buddies that tried to pull me off him and kicked two other union asses before we were all done. To make matters worse for them I called the local sherriff and pressed charges on my attackers.

They found out they had really fucked up by coming to Cass county to pick on a young "just out of high school boy" in his own county. They got off with probation and a serious fine. Their union lawyer found it hard to get any traction in a county without a union job at all and the union found they weren't in such good shape in our county when the judge warned their leaders of dire consequences if any more incidencedents such as the one I'd been the center of cropped up.

"I'm taking it easy on you bunch of idiots this time," the judge told their lawyers, "but if anything like this happens again there will be prison time for the participants and for some of the union leaders as well," the judge told them.

Thankfully cooler heads prevailed when the company decided to settle the strike.

It left me in a delicate position since I wasn't able to join the union after the strike was over. Luckily the head of the shipping department admired my troubles on behalf of the company. He put me next in line to be advanced to heavy equipment operation and I enjoyed my time navigating a 988B Caterpillar rubber tired loader for moving pipe around.

There were plenty of hard feelings in the shipping department when the strikers returned, but there was no real oraganized hazing for me. I did have to tend to three of the biggest union gentlemen who couldn't take a joke, but when they got six months off without pay over causing the trouble the others caught on they'd have to get along with me or get along down the road.

I really could have wished for a more normal introduction to Lone Star Steel, but shit happened and I just made the best of it. I got along well enough with the union hands even though most of them still didn't think much of me.

Three years later when the contract came up again I was called to the shipping department office and given a promotion to a minor supervisory role.

Luckily a strike was avoided this time and after the new contract I was promoted again to a full fledged company job this time. I was a little like a fish out of water from there on. My time in the big cats was over and done with except for emergency cases.

Things went better than I'd expected though. I'd settled into a regular crew and in spite of the white hat I wore now I was generally accepted by the other hands on the job. In fact I thought I was getting along well. The main snag came up after a swing shift and it didn't really have a thing to do with the steel mill or the workers.

We got off around midnight and I climbed into my 1976 Chevy four wheel drive pickup. It was a short and wide I'd had about six months. Of course I'd snazzed it up with a Warn bumper and winch for cases when the 12 x 36 Monster Mudders wouldn't get it out of a mudhole. I'd also installed an aux fuel tank for an extra 150 gallons of push oil and I'd added a camper shell over the bed so I could put a mattress in back and sleep out if I needed to.

Sleeping out was what I intended real soon now too. My two week vacation was starting next Monday and I was already stocked up to go. Besides food I had plenty of ammunition for all my firearms, including my latest purchase of a Barrett 821A .50 calibre sniper rifle.

No, I didn't have a good reason for buying the damned thing along with the 4x32 day/night scope. I did have some temporary plans for it though. First thing, I was going to sight it in along with the Marlin 336c in .35 remington.

My first move was going home and latching my horse trailer onto the back of my pickup, loading my Sorrel Quarterhorse stallion and my pack mule into the trailer, and loading the rest of my weapons and my reloading equipment into the sleeping quarters of my horse trailer.

Yes, I had gone a little overboard for camping, but what the hell? I was single and camping was what I liked to do to spend my off days. Even with all the money I'd spent on rifles and pistols and all the extras for them I was still way ahead of what I'd have had to spend on a wife, and besides, neither the horse, mules, nor the firearms ever gave me any backtalk and they never nagged me the first time.

With the trailer attached and Red (my quarterhorse) and Mose (my mule) loaded I went into my house and brought out the rest of my packed in advance things, including clothes and food for a two weeks stay. With everything stowed, including my reloading supplies and equipment I headed out for a nice little part of east Texas my uncle owned. It was twelve thousand acres of timberland he'd acquired to keep his sawmill supplied with logs.

The area was unused now since my uncle was pushig up dasies and the sawmill had gone by the wayside after its salad days during the second World War.

The land actually belonged to Weyerhauser now since they had bought the mill and all associated timberland shortly before my uncles death. It was basically mine to do on as I wished now since they had hired me to keep and eye on it to make sure it didn't become the hunting place of choice for locals who were sure to get drunk and let a campfire get away from them before the timber made a good comeback from previous logging.

I was as happy as a pig in a mudhole as I left the paved road down around Bivins Texas and unlocked the gate leading back into the woods.

When I made it to my prearranged campsite I unhooked the horse/camping trailer and let Red and Mose out for a little hobbled grazing. I built a campfire and cooked a steak and warmed up a can of Ranch Style Beans for supper. I washed it down with a couple of Lone Star longnecks, put the stock back in the trailer and gave them a scoop each of whole oats and a bat of alfalfha hay in the feed shelf in front of their stalls then I shucked off my clothes and climbed into the back of my pickup and crawled into bed.

I already knew the weather tonight wasn't supposed to be the best for camping since a cold front was coming through or supposed to be around midnight. Still cold weather wasn't expected and the only thing to worry me was a projected thunderstorm.

I planned on skipping the excitement by sleeping through it and by ten pm I was in my bed and dropping off to sleep.

Apparently warnings of a thunderstorm weren't exaggerations since the wind got up and the lightning and thunder got started around eleven pm. All I could do was snuggle down into my covers and hope. Soon enough I dropped off to sleep and let the storm take care of itself. What the hell. I couldn't do a damned thing about it anyway.

I woke early the next morning and even though I could hear birds singing outside things just didn't feel right. I managed to drag on some jeans, my boots, and a shirt and I even strapped on my double holster gunbelt with both Ruger Super Blackhawks in .44 magnum in place. I crawled through my slide open rear window into my pickup seat and got the first hint that I wasn't where I'd gone to sleep.

The first clue was the sight of the giant hardwoods outside. There'd been plenty of yellow pines when I pulled up yesterday and there wasn't a one in sight now.

At first I thought I'd been invited to a tornado but a quick glance showed me my pickup and my trailer were still on the wheels. I had just decided to get out of the pickup and look around and had in fact opened the door when what I saw changed my mind. I scared up my Marline right away andd made sure it was fully loaded since there were four or five wolves sniffing around the back of the horse trailer.

Once I was armed and dangerous I stepped out and commenced firing. The wolves surprised me by not running off at once and I cashed in all seven of them and then made a tour around my truck and trailer to make sure I had done away with all of them. With all of them dead I started dragging them off from my camp a few yards while examining the surroundings a little more closely.

I knew at once I was as lost as Hogan's goat since I didn't see one thing that looked familiar. I hooked my pickup and trailer back together and then parked them in a half circle before starting a fire for breakfast. I fried some bacon and a couple of eggs and then gobbled it down since I knew I'd need a good meal before I got started looking for a way out.

After I ate I brewed a pot of coffee and filled one of my insulated mugs to drink on after I'd set out a lawn chair to take a look from a seated position.

Things looked almost like I'd expected except for the lack of yellow pines and the addition of hardwoods. I seemed to be in the very edge of a forest with a wide open plain stretched out beyond the trees. I went back to my pickup and grabbed my binoculars and took a closer look out over the plain.

I spotted what looked like a giant herd of cattle of some sort grazing on the plain, but a closer look showed me it wasn't any type of cattle I was familiar with. In the first place they seemed much larger than normal. I dragged my chair near the edge of the horse trailer and sat down for more looking.

Soon enough I spotted a group of people near the edge of the herd but they were a shock of their own. I could see six men and eight women, but they were all dressed in hides and damned if the men didn't look like pictures I'd seen in my school books of Neanderthals. The women looked similar but they were one hell of a lot more attractive than my schooling had led me to believe. I was about to saddle up Red and ride out to meet them when someone appeared near me and it was a real shock since he just seemed to pop up.

"Greetings John," the tall guy said.

"Hello to you too," I said.

"Perhaps it would be better if I were to provide a little explanation." he said.

"It might be at that since I don't have much to go on here," I said.

"My name is Artimus and as you can probably guess I and others like me have something to do with you being here." he said.

"Could you tell me just where I am?" I asked.

"I can for a fact though it might be hard for you to believe. Currently you are in prehistoric Europe. We were planning to recruit someone like you to come here but you happened to be in a handy place to acquire and you seemed nicely supplied for what we had in mind. I guess you might say you were shanghaied into our service. I'll admit it was rather rude behavior on our part but you are perfect for our needs and we will reward you well for your service. After a year or so we will put you back where you were if its what you want. You will be well paid for your time if that is the case. In fact we will raise your current salary to fifteen of your dollars per hour including time and a half for each hour more than eight perday and double time and a half for the normal holidays. We will also pay you for every hour you remain here.

"Hell, that sounds fair enough to me and if you'd asked me to start with I would probably have begged you for the job," I said, and I'll admit I was thinking of the money, mostly.

"Your duties will be different from the steel mill," he said.

"Even I could tell there was no 988B rubber tired loader here for me to use," I said, trying to inject a little levity into the situation.

"Oh, there can be if you feel like you need one. We realize you weren't allowed to pick up other equipment before you were put on the job site as you might call it. We can provide nearly anything you think you might need since we will be leaving a ship in orbit to watch over you for the first six months." he said.

"That sounds wonderful, but exactly what would you like for me to do while I'm here. And that's another thing. I doubt you'll be staying with me down here on site so how will I contact you to request other equipment later?" I asked.

"We took the liberty of installing a communication device connected directly into your brain during the time you were being transported here. We have also set up a cave nearby for your use as a residence."