“There are three ways to naturally preserve a hide. These are the vegetable tan, oil tan, and rawhide. A vegetable tan yields stiff and firm leather suitable for such things as saddles, sheaths, and belts. It is not weather resistant, will absorb water, and needs to be dried if it gets soaked or it will harden, crack, and become brittle,” Joe explained.
“Rawhide is a thoroughly dried and dehaired hide made without any preservation agents. It is dried on a stretching frame in the sun until extremely hard and stiff. It is good for rope, lashing material, shoe soles, and other uses where a hard tough piece of hide is needed.”
“If it gets wet and stays wet, it will rot. It can be wetted and stretched, and it will shrink upon drying making for a self-tightening lashing.”
“An oil tan uses a fat or oil to preserve the hide. A person can use animal fat, animal brains, vegetable oil, or even motor oil to preserve the hide. It produces a soft leather suitable for clothing, pouches, and bags,” he finished.
Joe personally didn't enjoy even the thought of brain tanning, which isn't even a true tan, though it is often commonly referred to as such. He mainly used true tanning methods based upon utilizing bark, nut, or vegetable derived tannin.
He had explained that either coffee or tea could be used as well for sources of tannin if one had enough of either, as both contain high concentrations of the chemical. Otherwise acorns, oak bark, sumac bark, or walnut hulls as are all easy to find and simply used.
“Black walnut hulls work well people, but are also a serious dyeing agent that will stain your hands black if you are not careful.”, he stated, grinning.
Joe called a break to give them time to absorb what he had just taught them, and time to work out kinks in their back and legs. The whole group had spent most of the day in continuous study, and were starting to rub their backs sending an age old signal.
Enjoying the break, Sue found herself examining a squirrel track, noting the direction and speed of travel without even realizing what she was doing. Looking up at the sky, she noted a mackerel pattern of clouds in the sky.
“A storm is nigh,” She said to herself softly, then smiled and shook her head.
She really wanted to go out and 'make' something. Joe had indeed done well. Sue was also more observant now. Sue saw a squirrel scolding a robin, and a rabbit sneaking through the yard. Then she noticed movement in the field across the road, a peculiar waving in the grass, with an occasional tawny shape appearing occasionally, then disappearing like magic.
“Corporal Haskins!” Sue shouted with a hysterical tinge to her voice.
Haskins came running flat out around the building, eyes darting seemingly in all directions at once quickly scanning the immediate environment. Not seeing anything of immediate concern, he dropped to a knee next to Sue with his M-16 at the ready.
He did not know what was wrong, but he did know that Sue was not one to panic over nothing. Nor did she have a habit of screaming like a little girl.
“What is the problem ma'am?” Haskins asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Your nine o’clock. Out in the field. I think it is coming. Watch out!”
“That’s no mountain lion!” Sue screamed.
A bone chilling bass roar sounded which rattled the windows of the house. It was a sound which had inspired terror since man had walked the African plains, the mere sound of which could melt the strongest spines. Whipping his M-16 around, he was already thumbing it to full auto as he beaded in on the massive shape barreling straight at him at an unbelievable speed.
He just had time to pull the trigger and hold it down, causing the staccato machine gun bark of the gun before the beast had him in its jaws.
Blended with Sue's horrified screams of terror were the sounds of two more M-16's opening up upon the terrifying beast. A nonstop and overlapped ‘crack-crack-crack’ filled the air. Each weapon paused only long enough to drop clips and slap in new ones. Finally, the beast went limp, laying on top of what had remained of Haskins body. The African lion had torn out his throat, severed an arm, and raked his midsection to the backbone with a hind foot effectively and quickly disemboweling him.
With the guns stopped, only Sue's screams still echoed over and over in the still air. It was like the entire world held its breath. Nothing prepares one for something like this, and Sue had just been hit hard. Haskins had been a good sort, and she had liked him.
She had just watched from a front row seat the same thing that the ancient Romans enjoyed in amphitheater… A lion tearing an armed human apart. She finally calmed down, then imagined another tawny shape in the grass and started to scream again, clutching herself in terror. She was now irrationally terrified of open fields of grass, seeing tawny shapes and whipping tails. Private Nicolson tried hard to comfort her, but even after she quit screaming, she was still wide eyed and shaking in terror.
Fifteen minutes later, Dave, Joe, and the Sergeant came hauling butt in as fast as they could run, hearing the gunfire from Dave's farm on the still day. Dave ran straight to Sue, and hugged her to him after making sure she was not bleeding. Joe took one look, and his jaw dropped when he saw the cat. Zeb looked angry and started to chew out the first Private he saw.
“What in the he... Oh my word!” the Sergeant blurted, not ready for the sight and taken aback by the carnage.
No-one had moved since Haskin's death, and Sue was still shaking uncontrollably. The soldiers were dazed at the death of their friend, and more specifically the manner of his death.
Private Hitch felt a cramp in his hand, and realized he still had his trigger finger clenched tightly on the trigger of his weapon. The rifle itself was still aimed at the dead lion.
He let go, but only with an effort of sheer will, forcing the clenched hand to open in short spasmodic jerks.
Joe gagged when he saw the remains of Haskins, but choked it down and examined the scene.
“I assumed wrong, and I know better than to make assumptions at all. I thought that track was big for a mountain lion..... How was I to know? A real African lion?,” he said plaintively, looking at his friends for justification.
“Just where in Sam's heck did that thing come from anyway?” Nicolson asked.
“Probably a local zoo. Only place I can think of where they have them,” Dave stated.
“Or a private reserve. Heard of one somewhere here in Kansas years back, come to think about it. The place had tigers too. Remember an article, some teenagers got mauled by a tiger or something,” Joe replied.
“This could be very, very bad,” Dave thought out loud.
“How bad are things getting if animals are escaping from the zoos?”
“What other dangerous animals could we be looking at a midnight visit from?” Sergeant asked Joe.
“Let's see. If they are escaping from the zoos? Lions, tigers, cheetah, jaguar, mountain lion, bobcat, lynx, some other mid-sized exotics...that's just the cats.”
“Worse is rhinos, elephants... American, water, and cape buffalo. Bears from grizzly to black, and every description of wolf. All cute in a zoo, but all death on wheels face to face,” Joe replied.
“They may not be escaping. Someone without half a brain may be taking pity on them and letting them out,” Waite added.
“I hadn't even thought of that,” Dave replied.
“Just what we need,” Zeb grunted sarcastically with his gruff voice raised.
“Now we have to watch for both enemy combatants and dangerous zoo animals. Just great. That really makes my day!”
15. (Joe to the Rescue)
Zeb stood in the middle of the dirt road as the Hummer approached. His Humvee, one of the two from the pole barn, was parked cockeyed and innocently blocking the road with its hood up. Privates Daniels and Cross were wearing their military BDU's and pretended to tinker with the engine.
The Sergeant never seemingly wore 'civvies', as he called them. They had chosen this hummer for the bullet holes which led credence and obvious believability to
a probable engine failure. Just to make sure, the Sergeant had used his sidearm to make a couple of carefully placed holes to ensure the illusion.
Now the trap was set, with Waite, Nicolson, and Hitch hidden nearby in the field next to the road using home-made wheat-straw ghillies for camouflage. They were placed so as to cover the scene and provide a crossfire. Waite had thought it amazing that a ghillies could be made with and old outfit.
The materials consisted of a pair of pants, a long sleeved shirt, a bunch of elastic bands out of old underwear, a needle, a spool of thread, and a bunch of grass. It had required numerous pairs of old underwear to provide enough elastic for each suit.
Quick, cheap, and made to fit ghillies.
Joe had shocked them when he asked if they wanted ghillies. John's old clothes provided the necessary materials, as jeans might fit someone else, yet no one wanted to claim old used underwear. Surprisingly, it hadn't even taken that long for him to make each set.
The Sergeant raised his left hand, signaling the vehicle to stop. The 1911 appeared in his right hand as soon as the commanding Lieutenant stepped from the vehicle. The barrel of the forty-five did not even waver as it aimed center of mass at the officer. Everyone present heard the racking of hidden bolts as the three soldiers in ghillies rammed a cartridge into the breach for effect. It was an effect noticed but not really appreciated by the Lieutenant and the other men in the Humvee.
Not one of the men appreciated being caught like a rabbit in a snare.
With the multiple sounds of the bolts racked in close proximity and in unison, the soldiers couldn't tell exactly how many hidden soldiers were present, or where. The sound was obviously more than just one or two, but equally obvious there were less than ten.
Still, the men in the trap did not know if they were outnumbered or not. They also questioned at this point if it really mattered, being as not even one soldier had a weapon in hand.
The Humvee was still as death, none of the four men still inside daring to move an inch. Besides a shocked Lieutenant, there were three privates having their M-16's slung, and a corporal standing with his hands carefully away from the grips of his top-mounted fifty caliber ma deuce machinegun.
Surveying the scene, the Sergeant did a double take on the gunner, then his insignia.
“So you finally made Corporal? I thought you would be PFC forever, Hewitt.”
The Corporal looked at Zeb carefully, not recognizing him at first.
“I'll be... A jerk when I was in boot, and still a jerk. Master Sergeant,” he said while staring the Sergeant in the eye.
“You are right there son. You were a jerk in boot camp,” Zeb quipped as he lowered his weapon.
The Master Sergeant gave a loud laugh, and holstered his pistol. Daniels and Cross looked at him as if he had lost his mind, and by the looks on their faces the men in the hummer were obviously agreeing.
“Lower your weapons boys, these are friendlies,” Zeb ordered, and the men under his command took defensive positions around the perimeter.
Cross, now looking very nervous glanced back over his shoulder at the sergeant for a split second.
“Sergeant, how can we trust them?”
“Simple deduction. Hewitt there is the most outspoken libertarian you ever met, and absolutely couldn't keep his mouth shut about it. It didn’t matter if it meant KP, Latrine Duty, or the nastiest jobs I could imagine,” Zeb stated as a matter of fact.
“Should be dead by now with everything that’s going on. Fact that he is alive tells me more than anything else could about these men he is with and their loyalties.”
The Lieutenant eased his taught posture, having held rigid since the trap had sprung.
“And that tells me yours, Master Sergeant. Report Sergeant.”
The Lieutenant debriefed Zeb. He was given the cliff notes version of the events which had happened to the group, and then he thought for a minute.
“I think you were justified in your actions, Master Sergeant. Show me these survivors you have taken under your wing.”
“They saved our collective butts, not we theirs. Some pretty good people there Lieutenant,” Zeb replied.
Two hummers pulled into the driveway of John's old farm, and not just the one that had left. Joe had hidden himself in the belt with his Mosin as the vehicles approached. Hearing engines approaching, he had yelled a warning to Sue who was on watch then grabbed both his gun and ammo belt and ran for cover.
Peeking through the bristly boughs from behind the green cover, the little bluish berries in the green branches tingeing his side vision, Joe had pulled back the bolt to load the weapon. He then rammed the five rounds from the stripper clip he had taken from his ammo belt into the rifle, the clip popping out with a metallic 'ping'. The Chunk-clack sound of the bolt closing barely preceded the entry of the first vehicle into the driveway. He was ready.
After exiting the vehicles, a man behind the Sergeant ordered four men from his hummer to take guard positions around the property. Joe could just see their faces, but he didn't know any of them. His insides went cold as arctic snow as he prepared for battle.
…..................................
“Where is everyone?” the Lieutenant asked, having expected something other than dead silence.
Nothing but an apparently empty house met his view.
The Sergeant looked around, and waited a few minutes, starting to get worried. Just as he was about to answer, a familiar voice spoke softly as death from behind the Lieutenant.
“Drop your weapon... now,” Joe ordered, the muzzle of his Mosin pressing against the spine of the Lieutenant at the back of his neck.
The Lieutenant quickly removed his sidearm using only two fingers and eased down to set it on the ground. The Sergeant started to speak, but Joe cut him off as he circled around the Lieutenant, keeping the muzzle aimed directly at the man's head. The motion stopped, ending with the Lieutenant staring straight down the thirty caliber's bore.
“You ok Zeb?”
“Listen to me,” Zeb replied.
“Please put down your weapon very slowly, or his men will probably shoot you. I am fine, it is you I am worried about.”
“No they won't,” Joe replied with a quirk to his lips.
“Yes they will! Don't be stupid. Put the weapon down son or they will shoot you!” the Sergeant said sternly but slowly, as if Joe was mentally slow.
“It is extremely difficult to shoot anyone when you are unconscious,” Joe said with a grin that sent shivers down the Lieutenant's spine.
“Meet Joe, Lieutenant... this is the one I was telling you about,” Zeb replied, laughing.
Joe looked confused. His rifle was not, as it stayed centered on the officers eyeball.
“You can lower the cannon son before our friend the Lieutenant pees his pants. That would be nice,” the Sergeant choked out through his chuckles.
The Lieutenant did not seem to be laughing with him. With a look at the Lieutenants face, the Sergeant only laughed harder.
“Peculiar sense of humor Sergeant,” The Lieutenant stated.
“Joe is it? Are you going to shoot me, or can I move now? I would appreciate you aiming that thing somewhere else,” the Lieutenant asked with a strained voice.
Joe thought discretion was the better part of valor, so he lowered the rifle for the moment. It was easier that way, as Zeb crying real tears from laughing so hard was unnerving to say the least. It didn’t help that the officer looked like he needed some toilet paper.
16. (Wildebeest stew, and Joe Too)
After the Lieutenant had regained his composure, he asked Joe calmly but worriedly about his men.
“Do I need to call in a medic?”
“Well, I was in a hurry... Sergeant, do you have any ammonia ampules?” Joe replied sheepishly.
“Hopefully we don't have any cracked skulls,” Sergeant replied dryly.
Zeb sent Waite and Daniels out to check on the downed soldiers, figuring it might not go so
well for Joe if he woke them up. Especially considering the headaches which they would probably have afterwards.
“Just the fact that he took out your men so easily proves what I told you,” the Sergeant said to the Lieutenant.
“Let’s discuss this more inside Sergeant. After your men get back, have them stand Guard, seeing as Joe took out our watch,” the Lieutenant said rather disgustedly.
“And wipe that grin off your face soldier.”
“Yes sir!” the Sergeant said, grinning even wider.
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