Up the stairs with Cord’s help, Missy walked over to the seat Cord had turned into a bed and sat down “There was something I needed to know.” She swung her legs up and laid down on the plush seat.
As Cord propped her foot upon a pillow he continued to scold her.
“There is nothing that important to cause the pain and possible risk of further injury to your foot.”
Missy looked up at him with her big blue eyes and smiled.
“There was…” she smiled sweetly “there was…”
Chapter 9.
Wes had checked in with Red as to the progress of the engine repairs, in case they should have to retreat back to the other end of the line without notice. Red informed him there was little chance of a sound repair, and whatever he managed to fix would at best be temporary and unreliable. He needed a machine shop and tools and that was something they didn’t have, a corner machine shop.
That pretty much confirmed what Wes had feared, thus the axe he carried.
“Well, you stay on that Red, but one of the night guards told me he saw a few of the big critters come out into the burnt plain a mile or so, but the fresh ash seemed to puzzle and they went back.” he sighed worriedly “Figuring there could be some of those raptor dinos out there somewhere, I’m going to cut some of this brush over to the bluffs over there to make spikes for protection…and a wide path. If all else fails, it looks like we could climb up to get away over there near where Missy was attacked. If we can go up those rocks to what looks like a path, those bluffs are high enough to get up away from even the bigger rexes.”
“Looks from here they’re too steep for any dino to get up.” Red agreed with a nod.
“See ya about lunch…and don’t strain anything cutting a path through that brush.” he paused “Which brings me to…why straight?”
“So we can have a straight shot through the brush to the path Red…doh!” he chuckled “Not to mention one of the guys can cover us, assuming he can see us, when we head over to the water supply the girls found. See ya later.” Off Wes went with axe slung over his shoulder as if he was in a world with no danger.
The man on the gondola kept a close eye in the general direction Wes had gone, but the brush in the area between the train and the bluffs was well over seven feet high in places. The further he went, the less Wes could be seen. Trying to watch his area and Wes at the same time, the guard called for Sarge to come up. By the time Sarge got on top of the gondola, Wes was at the bluff face waving from a large boulder.
He pointed upward indicating that he was going to the top of the cliffs and look around. Sarge waved him off, but Wes grinned and pulled out his radio.
“We have to know what’s up there and on the other side Sarge and you know it. If something happens, we just can’t run blindly up there.”
Sarge sighed and nodded to his man. He then stood and radioed back.
“You keep the radio on auto so I can hear everything…channel three.”
“Just keep an ear open Sarge, I’ll call if I need to say something…can’t waste our batteries just to keep radios on auto.” There was a slight chuckle in his voice “Let’s face it, if I get attacked by a dino…I’ll either be dead really quick, or I found something and need to let you know…either way I can manually turn the radio on…no auto voice activation. Look Sarge, you brought some top notch radio gear with ya, but this is all we have. What say we don’t take chances with it?”
Sarge’s reply came back quite bluntly “What say you just do what I fuckin’ told ya Lt, the fuckin’ radio you have won’t do us a fuckin’ bit of good in the guts of a damned dinosaur.” there was a pause as Sarge thought and then added “Look, on auto, it’s voice activated…” he chuckled “…this way you won’t have to search for the talk button as you’re running away from a hungry dino, screaming like a little girl, we’ll hear ya.”
“Sorry Sarge, I’ll chance it. To use the voice activated feature I have to use a wired mike and I’m going through some really tight brush down here and probably up there by the looks of it. I will call once I get on top and if there is less brush, I’ll think about auto…Wes out!”
Sarge looked at his man and frowned “He was just like this in Afghanistan, never asked a thing from anyone that he wouldn’t do himself.”
The guard nodded “That’s a good leader Sarge, just like you are.” he slid to the front of the gondola and grinned “Well, I’ll send Boots over to relieve you in a bit, I need a nap.”
Sarge grabbed his man’s arm “Whoa, if you see Missy…”
“Jesus Sarge, which one is that?”
“The blonde…Anyhow don’t say a word to her about where Wes is, I think that little gal has a serious crush on Wes.”
That got a double look from the guard named Luke “You mean Wes would be interested in a damned teaser like that? Christ Sarge, that gal has probably had more dicks thrown at her than a guy named Richard.”
Sarge laughed “I didn’t say Wes was interested, I just don’t want her to get panicky. Seems she’s calmed down since Wes snubbed her, but he also reassured her. So for now, let’s just say he’s out making rounds.” Luke nodded and headed into the passenger car for some shuteye.
Sarge on the other hand saw Wes wave from atop the bluff and hold up his radio, Sarge listened.
“No go Sarge, brush is thicker up here out of the shade of the bluffs. Lots of trees in the distance, but for now, will keep it handy but off. I’m signing off now.” and with that Wes waved once more and vanished over the lip of the rolling cliff top.
Wes had been in many parts of the world, but somehow this all looked different and had a different feel, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
There was some familiar plant life, but a lot looked like the strange plant life he had seen in museums and Hollywood movies. There was one tall tree just in from the bluff where he had climbed up to, and he kept a good eye on that as it was his way back marker.
The top of the bluffs as it turned out was normal ground like he would have seen in the northwest US, brush and scattered trees leading to a forest in the distance. The train and the prairie it was in, turned out to be a wide, flat valley. As he topped a second set of rolling hills he found he was on high ground…and what he saw was breath taking!
In the distance to the south lay grassy plains as far as the eye could see on this glorious sunny day. Hardly a cloud in the sky, the sun beat down on a savanna-like scene with scattered trees that spotted the landscape. Several places there appeared to be small wooded areas with trees that reached the sky. Grazing in small widely scattered herds were dinosaurs of all kinds…and water. Water in the form of a moderately sized lake, and even better a fairly large river that he could see no white water in, but then he was still quite far away, he put his binoculars away. It was time to continue on.
Another set of rolling hills and Wes Connors put his hands on his hips and stared out at the beauty of all he beheld…he was awed!
He was also unaware of two raptors stalking him from the tall brush less than twenty yards away and to his left rear.
“Jesus, wait until I tell everyone about this.” he muttered softly “I’ll bet that we cou…” there was a flurry of activity in the brush and Wes turned just in the nick of time to see the raptors heading directly for him. The closest now barely fifteen feet away jumped to the side and stumbled as Wes tossed his axe at the hungry reptile. The second was charging only a few yards behind his companion and Wes drew his 9mm and fired at the neck area. As each bullet hit the raptor’s neck it winced and jerked, but kept its charge at full.
In Wes’s head he kept count of the shots…15…16… Wes swore and fired the last shot…as the raptor stumbled and fell at his feet sending up a cloud of knee high dust and grass.
Wes never had time to see where the first raptor had gone and now as he looked to his right, he could see it coming up the hill it had stumbled down and had a bead directly at him. A look at his axe had him doubting that he could r
each it before the raptor reached him, but he went for it, knowing the nearest tree was a good football field away.
The axe was almost in arms reach and as he rolled to his feet and then stooped to grasp the handle at a dead run through the ankle-high grass…and then he tripped!
The first thing that entered his mind, was he could try rolling down the hill toward the plains…too far away.
“Hell I’m even further away from the hill down than I was before all this started.” He looked around quickly.
Maybe find a branch or limb and hold it use to skewer his attacker…there was nothing near.
“Crap!” he muttered as he saw the raptor that had overshot him slow and aim directly for him.
His last thought was to key the radio and tell Sarge he was now in charge…he had wandered too far from the train and doubted the signal would reach Sarge.
“Well dammit…” he muttered “…think I’m gonna really hate this next part.”
Wes dove, rolled on his back with the fire axe in hand and realized there was no way he could get to his feet in time, so he let out the most primal scream he had ever made and awaited the end as he held the double bladed axe between himself and the charging raptor.
The raptor jerked strangely, stopped and looked to its right…and keeled over dead. Not even a snort or a huff, just a weird sounding plop in the grass.
Slowly Wes got to his feet and moved to where the raptor had fallen. A strange puzzled look fell over him.
“Ok, what the hell just happened?” He cautiously raised his axe and slowly proceeded toward the still carcass. Step by step, sliding his feet so he wouldn’t stumble if it moved, it didn’t.
He poked the raptor with the head of the axe…nothing…nothing but a hole the size of a quarter just behind the eye.
He slowly knelt and pulled the head up and back to see a large hole the size of a fist from the rear of the skull.
“Can’t be Sarge, wrong side of the cliffs.” he muttered aloud, but softly.
“You’re damned straight!”
Wes nearly swallowed his tongue and spun so quickly, he wound up on his back looking up at…
“Holy shit, you’re a little girl!”
The cute lass frowned “A little girl by your standards, maybe, but a little girl that just saved your life asshole. Maybe a thanks, or maybe a wow that was a great shot?” the slim dishwater blonde girl chuckled as she unshouldered a huge gun, with an even bigger bore than Sarge’s…and aimed it directly at Wes.
“Let’s start this over again, and do it quick enough before those two people munchers it was with try to find their pal. I’m Cassidy! Yes, I shot it with my rifle.” She wiggled the rifle that was pointed at Wes’s head.
“Now I guess I should ask, who the hell you are and where did you come from?”
“Well I came from back there and…” there was a loud bellow from behind Cassidy.
“Crap!” she shouted and waved the gun back in the direction Wes had come.
“We get back into that brush and the rex won’t see us…” she sighed “Guess I’m gonna have to trust you.” She reached down and gave Wes a hand and then nodded back toward the dense brush.
“Follow me and run like hell…whatever you do, don’t pass me or…well, don’t pass me.”
With that Cassidy turned and ran as fast as she could with Wes on her heels. It seemed as if they were running forever and Wes began to realize how much ‘out of shape’ he had become.
“Just remember, do not pass me, no matter what.” she panted.
The lass took a sharp turn and headed toward a small hill and upon reaching it, crawled in the grass that was nearly chest high to her…and vanished!
As Wes reached the spot he frantically looked around when a small hand shot out of nowhere and grasped his ankle.
“In here asshole!”
He looked down to see the hand was poking out of a small crack in the rock and the small voice laughing.
“No silly, not here…there!” her finger pointed to Wes’s left and within a second her hand shot out of an larger opening in the grass about four feet away, and thankfully for Wes, a much larger crack. This one he fit into, but just barely. With one final push of his legs and a tug from Cassidy, Wes tumbled into a small cave.
“Don’t worry, it’s all granite on top of us and at least five feet thick, I had an allosaurus run right over the top of me here and it didn’t even pop a rock loose.” She smiled at the panting Wes.
“By the way you can call me Cassy, most do.”
“Hi Cassy, call me Wes and… Saaayyy, did you say others?”
“Yeah, but before I say more you start by answering my questions?”
Wes smiled as he sat close to one of many beams of sunlight that penetrated the small cave.
“Just one question first Cassy, why did you tell me to stay behind you and not to pass you no matter what?”
Cassy giggled like the little girl she appeared to be.
“Silly, if that rex hadn’t stopped to eat the raptors, I wanted someone behind me when he caught up to us.” She laid the rifle to one side and wrapped her arms around her bent legs and laid her chin on her knees.
“You’re a good looking man Wes, do you need a good mate? I can cook, hunt, and as you know I am a fine shot.” She straightened her legs out and thrust her small chest out for Wes to see.
“Ok, I know I’m only sixteen, and I haven’t developed like some of the other women in town, but…”
“TOWN!” Wes sputtered “Where?”
Cassy frowned “Hey! We were talking about me!” she swung around to her knees and glared at Wes “Do you want me as a mate or not? I need someone to watch my back and…”
“I’m not in the habit of raping little girls.” Wes sputtered back at the pretty lass, and then his awkwardness returned as he stammered “Look honey…you’re a pretty little thing…and I owe you my life, but you don’t have to be my mate for me to watch out after you…” he smiled “…and have you watch after me.”
“Maybe someday you’ll get in the mood for some lovin’ and want me then? I’m not all that good and usually the guys that take me in, just call me over to their beds to make me do…”
Wes knelt across from Cassidy and looked at her eyes. There didn’t seem to be hatred, nor fear, just a simple acceptance of life as it must be in her world. All that ran through his mind was the fact that she had said what she had…and this was a sixteen year old…that looked thirteen, what kind of horrible world had he come to?
“Cassidy…honey, I’m not in the habit of having…uh…sleeping with little girls.”
“Oh…you prefer little boys?” she perked up a bit and smiled “Whew! I thought it was me.”
The flustered Wes sputtered and muttered before finding any words that managed to stumble out of his mouth.
“No…honey, I like girls…uh, females, uh…but not young ones. Look honey, you can come with me and I’ll protect you…like I was your older brother.”
“You’re too old to be a brother, maybe you could be like my real father was?” she asked innocently.
Wes sat back on his heels and sighed fearing what she considered a real father with the life she had apparently led, but that changed quickly.
“I’ll bet my real daddy misses me so much.” Tears formed in her eyes and glistened in the streaming sunbeam as it highlighted her face.
“Mom had passed a year before when I was twelve leaving just me and daddy. She had taught me to cook and clean and…well…we were sad, but we were also happy. I got on my bike my daddy got me for my thirteenth birthday to go over to a girlfriend’s house, we lived in the country. I stayed a bit too long and dark started to settle in.
On the way home that night, I could barely see because of the fog so I stayed in the middle of our dirt road. Things got kind of purplish and I felt funny. I thought someone had hit me with one of those automobiles or a carriage as my head spun like…” she sighed “When I awoke, I was here an
d the sun was out. If it wasn’t for an old guy that said he saw the purple drop me, I’d been dead for sure. He said he never had a name, but taught me how to survive here, all I had to do was cook for him and wash his clothes…he was like you, he taught me about sex, never even tried anything funny. He teached…uh, taught me…to read better and other things I still quite don’t understand, but he was kind and smart and…was like my grandfather.”
Wes smiled softly and started to speak, but Cassidy continued.
“The old man took me to town once or twice, so I’d know where it was at, but made me hide outside the walls. He said it was too rough inside and the people weren’t nice.
That’s also where I wandered to the day the teratosuarus’s came. I was down getting water and I heard the old man shooting with his 50-90 Sharps, the same one I saved you with I might add. I got home and found our cave plugged up with a body of one of the bastards that crushed the old man. I cried for nearly a day, but I couldn’t get in, nor get him out, so I went into town. I had nothing to barter with, but one man said he’d look after me if I did things for him…” her face changed “He wanted more than cooking and washing…but after the first few times, I learned to lay there and listen to his grunts. He died by dinosaur hunting and soon another took his place…I got used to it, I survived and they were good to me mostly.”
“Oh this isn’t your cave?”
“This?” she giggled like the little girl she was, or at least appeared to be to Wes. He eyed the huge rifle that she wielded with perfection and knew it was difficult to hold due to the weight, and now for the first time he had time to take note. The rifle itself had a pivot midway and one iron rod that Cassidy could shove into the ground to steady the rifle to shoot.
Wes finally stopped her, he had heard enough “On second thought, I don’t want to know where this town is right now…and for God’s sake, don’t say anything about a town or anything else when we get to the others.”
Last Train to Pangea: Death by Dinosaur Page 6