by Hondo Jinx
They built the stable’s roof as they had built the cabin roofs, with saplings and sod and a good deal of pitched mud. The following summer, when the big logs they had elevated dried, Braddock would turn his attention to cutting planks for stronger, tighter roofing.
He was pleased to see only faint and tattered rags of smoke rising from their homes.
That had been Elizabeth’s idea, too: weaving a latticed cap for each chimney to disperse the smoke, making it less visible from a distance.
Her cabin stood next to Braddock and Philia’s on the other side of the water pool with a short, roofed passage that also gave Elizabeth access to the springhouse. Her home was equal to theirs in size and quality and contained the iron stove. She kept everything spotless.
Building the second cabin cost Braddock valuable time, but everyone had pitched in, and Elizabeth, good to her word, had speared and smoked many salmon.
He forgave her highhanded play with the tools. Cooperation and compromise are marks of manhood, as is respect for personal property.
But Elizabeth had put them at risk to get what she wanted, and that was a thing to remember. Braddock needed to train her to see the truth. If she shared their vision of community, her relentlessness would be a powerful asset. Otherwise, sooner or later, she would become a major liability.
Philia planned on doing a lot more than gathering seven handmaidens. Once word spread that a true man inhabited the meadow, she expected a steady influx of petitioning monster girls.
She wanted to carve a town out of the wilderness and create a sanctuary for these females.
Braddock was willing to build a town. The notion appealed to him, in fact.
But again, they couldn’t do it without Elizabeth’s help.
He had to admit that Elizabeth’s attitude had improved over the weeks since they had squabbled about the cabin. Perhaps her improved attitude was a result of Elizabeth having her own space, but he reckoned there was more to it than that.
Because they were all changing, Braddock included.
The pioneer life had enlarged their spirits. They worked hard and slept well through the cold nights, sheltered within cabins hewed by their own hands.
The days were growing short. Having finished their gorgeous color transition, leaves now filled the forest with the soft, ticking flutter of their falling.
Braddock took a swig from his canteen and studied the land. Every time he hunted, he scaled the ridge and scanned the country for goblins and other threats and to learn the lay of the land.
He committed to memory the hills and ridges, the cliffs and streams, paying attention to the ground closest to their home and the canyon to their east, where Philia’s former Meadow Mother, Hortensia, ruled.
In his mind Braddock was building a map and highlighting things he could recognize from the ground, even in deep snow, landmarks such as large outcroppings of stone, peculiar trees, and the waterfall a short distance from his current position.
Being able to recognize these landmarks and orient himself in darkness or during a bad storm might end up saving his life in the future.
Climbing back down, he turned his attention to the hunt.
Having left the mustang and rifle at home, he carried the revolvers in case he ran into goblins or some other emergency he couldn’t handle with a spear or tomahawk; but as usual, he would do his actual hunting with the primitive weapons.
Before disappearing to join the fur folk in their annual winemaking, Chundra helped Braddock build the spears. He was a deft little craftsman, adept at napping stone and fire-hardening straight, well-balanced shafts.
Braddock carried two spears. In recent days, he had used them to kill a large doe and one of the turkey-like birds that sometimes roosted in the shadowy pines east of the meadow.
They had eaten the organs. The meat itself was drying in the smokehouse or curing in the brine Elizabeth had made.
They had turned the crypt into a root cellar, but the small horde of fruits and vegetables they had managed to store so far looked pitifully small in contrast with that gloomy expanse.
Braddock moved silently through the forest at the edge of the cliff, heading north. To his right, the world tumbled away into the canyon.
Ahead, the woods sloped into a ravine where this ridge met higher ground to the north. Runoff from both peaks formed a stream that ran out of the ravine, spilled over the cliff, and dropped a hundred feet to the bulging elbow in the river below.
Doilies of ice laced the stream’s edge.
One more sign of impending winter. One more reminder that they were not ready.
And yet Braddock smiled. Because fresh hoofprints had churned the muddy creekbank.
Lately, game had been scarce. Animals were on the move, heading for warmer plains to the south.
The prints and scat were deer-like, but a few seconds of examination told Braddock these were sheep.
The droppings weren’t steaming, but they and the tracks were frost free, telling him they’d been made this morning.
Hoisting a spear onto his shoulder, he followed the tracks up the creek, moving slowly and keeping well back from the creek bed, where stones might clatter.
His moccasins were silent on the mossy ground as he crept through ferns into a gloomy stand of evergreens. Higher up, he could see a break in the forest.
The tracks scaled the piney bank toward the well-lit field beyond, where morning sunlight was vaporizing the night’s frost into shimmering mists.
Halfway up the hillside, Braddock paused.
There.
Movement.
He stood as still as a stump.
A ram strolled into view and paused in a gap between trees, cropping grass at the edge of the field.
He was a big one, two hundred pounds of meat on the hoof, sleek and fat and tawny with thick, curling horns, standing broadside to Braddock and feeding obliviously.
But the ram was thirty yards away.
Too far for the spear.
The ram lifted his head, chewing a cud of grass. His nostrils twitched, and his hide rippled.
Had he scented Braddock?
A second later, the ram dropped his head and started grazing again.
If Braddock moved at all, the ram would hear him and bolt. So Braddock practiced hunting’s most important skill: patient stillness.
Eventually, the ram moved forward, eating his way out of view.
Braddock crept slowly forward, silent as a killing frost.
He had always hunted and was a good rifle shot, but this mode of hunting, stalking prey with a spear, was new to him. It demanded more of the hunter. Most attempts ended in failure.
When he did make a kill, it was satisfying. Mostly for the meat, of course. But there was also pride in this sort of kill. It wasn’t like making a hundred-and-fifty-yard rifle shot. This was close and personal.
So Braddock moved stealthily forward with his primitive spear, feeling more like a wolf than, say, a man with a buffalo gun.
Eventually, he halved the distance to the field.
And at that moment, a short, plump female stepped into view. She was half the ram’s size, but meat was meat, and the ewe’s flesh would be tenderer and less gamey than ram meat.
She lifted her head, chewing.
When it dropped again, Braddock rose and drew back his arm.
The ewe lifted her head.
Braddock waited, visualizing the throw.
When she dropped her head again, he hurled the spear with all his might.
The ewe tensed at the last second, but it was too late for her. The long, razor-sharp spear point took her behind the shoulder.
She humped up hard and lurched out of view, moving jerkily.
Braddock got his other spear ready but didn’t advance yet. He knew he had made a good shot, right through the lungs. Maybe the heart, too.
If he ran up there, terror might give the ewe a second wind. In situations like that, even a heart-hit beast can sometimes run of
f and steal your meat.
Better to wait. Let her bleed and tire, get used to the idea of quitting.
Braddock saw the flock shooting off across the field, but the ground sloped up from where he hit her, and no wounded animal likes to run uphill.
After several minutes he crept forward, and sure enough, there she lay, fifty yards uphill at the end of a short yet enthusiastic blood trail, steaming in the chill morning air.
At the edge of the woods, Braddock retrieved his spear. Red from tip to butt, it had gone clean through her.
Thank you, Chundra.
The shaft was sticky with blood. He would wipe it down soon enough. But first, he would finish her off.
Braddock killed without hesitation or remorse but never let a wounded animal suffer unnecessarily.
So he moved forward, spear in hand, ready to finish the job, until he saw her stillness and empty eyes and realized she was already gone.
He patted her flank and uttered a silent thanks for her sacrifice. Like most hunters, Braddock loved and respected the animals he killed. His time among the Indians had only deepened those emotions.
There was no pity in his acknowledgement. Only gratitude.
Her death meant life to his people.
Her flesh would feed them.
Her hide would keep them warm. He would tan it using her brains. That was yet another thing Braddock had learned from the Indians. The brain of every hide-bearing beast is just large enough to tan its hide.
He spread the hind quarters, slipped the point of his slender hunting knife under the hide, and went to work, smelling blood and fur and musk. He opened the abdomen, careful to use a shallow cut. Nothing stinks like a pierced stomach.
He removed the entrails and pierced the diaphragm. A warm and foamy flood of lung blood gushed free. Careful not to cut himself on splintered ribs, he leaned close, reached into the chest cavity with both hands, and cut the heart free.
He laid it on the grass and was about to fetch the liver when the sound of snapping trees across the field ruined what had been shaping up to be an excellent morning.
What happened next happened quickly, as things are wont to happen in the woods, especially when meat grows scarce.
One second, Braddock was happily field dressing a fresh kill in a scene that might have occurred on his former planet. The process, the dead ewe, the field and woods, the breeze and the faint chattering of squirrels and morning birdsong; it was all so familiar.
But there was nothing familiar about the huge beast that emerged from the tree line two hundred yards across the field, but Braddock knew what it was all the same.
The beast ambled forward on its four thick legs, staring right at Braddock. It was easily fifty or sixty feet long, heavily muscled, and armored in gray scales from between which sprouted patches of thick brown fur that waggled like hummocks of grass as it trotted forward, spread its immense, leathery wings, and released a terrifying caterwauling wail that froze Braddock like a frightened rabbit for a few beats of his suddenly hammering heart.
That wild screaming cry settled it.
This was the woolly dragon they had heard so many nights.
Not a true dragon, Philia’s voice echoed in Braddock’s mind, but as he rose to his feet, he had to agree with something else she had told him about woolly dragons.
To their prey, it didn’t matter whether they were true dragons or not.
Because either way, they would kill and eat you just the same.
These thoughts raced through Braddock’s mind in a fraction of a second.
Thank goodness the dragon was so far away.
Then, as if it had been waiting for him to have that exact thought, the dragon hopped into the air and started racing toward him, gliding over the grassy field like an enormous hawk about to strike.
There wasn’t time to draw a pistol. The creature was already halfway across the field.
Besides, Braddock doubted a bullet would even penetrate the beast’s thick armor. Philia said arrows and spears bounced off woolly dragons without leaving so much as a scratch.
Whipping around, Braddock abandoned his knife, his spears, and his kill and sprinted into the trees, hoping the dragon would see the ewe and give up the chase.
No such luck.
Apparently, woolly dragons preferred to kill their own food, because the monster gave another caterwauling scream and crashed into the trees behind him, hurtling after him, snapping branches as it smashed through the forest like a massive boulder.
Hearing those snapping branches, Braddock had a horrible realization.
The dragon was faster than him. Even on the ground, even having to smash through trees, some of them as big around as Braddock’s thighs, the dragon was gaining ground.
And that ground was shaking now beneath the claws of its pounding feet.
Braddock reached the creek, rejected the notion of running up the opposite slope, which would have slowed him too much, and sprinted downstream, leaping from rock to rock, knowing that a single misstep would mean falling, and falling would mean death.
Behind him rocks clattered, creek-side saplings snapped, and the great jaws of the terrible dragon snapped shut like an enormous bear trap.
Only this monster wasn’t hunting a grizzly. It was coming for Braddock, determined to make him its breakfast.
Braddock risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the dragon was only forty feet behind him now, its great white eyes glowing like twin moons signifying the hour of sacrifice.
Its impossible huge mouth stretched wide open, displaying fangs as long as swords, and the world shuddered beneath another of its horrifying screams.
Braddock leaped along the stony bank in a skipping sprint, pursued by a nightmare, scanning the land ahead for anything that might save his life as the galloping dragon pounded closer every second.
Then, suddenly, the world before Braddock disappeared. The creek spilled over a cliff, beyond which yawned the canyon.
Leaping from stone to stone with only a short stretch before the creek bed disappeared, Braddock scanned the creek banks, took one more look over his shoulder, and saw the dragon a mere ten feet behind him.
The dragon lurched at him with its jaws spread wide.
Braddock made his choice. Without even breaking stride, he sprinted straight off the high cliff, launched into the open air and dropped into the mists of the waterfall, tumbling toward the canyon one hundred feet below.
15
The dragon jumped, too.
It soared past Braddock, snapping its great jaws and missing him by inches before gliding out into the open canyon.
For Braddock, there was no time to celebrate his narrow escape. With the roar of the waterfall in his ears, he punched through the lower mists and slammed into the frigid water, moccasins first.
The impact buckled his legs and slammed his knees into his chest. His arms flew up as the water enveloped him, knocking the air from his lungs.
Braddock resisted the automatic reflex to gasp for air, which would have filled his lungs with water.
Racing through the depths, shocked by the cold, he flung his arms wide to slow his descent. A second later, his rump hit bottom with a jolt of pain to the tailbone.
He kicked off and started for the surface, but his clothes, heavy with water, weighed Braddock down, anchoring him to the bottom of the churning, cold pool.
Ripping at the buttons, he escaped from his coat and struggled up through the green swirl of the deep hole, lungs screaming for air as he clawed his way toward the faint, wavering light far, far above.
When he at last broke the surface, he hauled in a desperate gasp of air that burned his empty lungs like sweet fire. He arched his back and floated faceup, gasping for air and taking inventory of his body as he flutter-kicked away from the glittering cascade over which he had just leapt.
He had to get out of the water and make a fire or risk hypothermia.
Pain throbbed in his legs and back, tail
bone and ribs, but he didn’t think anything was broken, so for several seconds, he laughed through his desperate gasping.
He had done it.
That thing, that huge, horrible woolly dragon, had nearly caught him. Another few seconds and he would’ve been monster meat.
But he had run out of mountain, survived the long fall, and pounded not into rocks or bare earth but a deep waterhole in an otherwise shallow river.
Luck. That’s what it was. Pure, foolish luck.
But struggling onto shore, Braddock didn’t feel all that lucky. The pain in his legs and tailbone was ebbing away, but his back and ribs hurt worse with every shuddering breath.
Staggering onto the stones, hunching with the pain, he realized something else. He had submerged his pistols and spare cylinders in deep water.
Braddock cursed through chattering teeth, knelt on the mossy stones, and hauled a revolver from its holster.
His fingers were clumsy with cold. He stretched and flexed them and clapped his hands together, willing his fingers to work.
He gave the pistol a good shake, laid it on the stones, and repeated the process with the other weapon. As he pulled the spare cylinders from his pockets, someone laughed behind him.
He turned to see the head and shoulders of a beautiful young woman bobbing in the swirling pool twenty feet away.
Beads of water glittered upon her light blue skin and the long lashes of her playful blue-gray eyes, which gleamed with delight matching the bubbling gush of her laughter.
Braddock would’ve touched the brim of his hat and said howdy, but his hat was gone.
The girl smoothed slender, slightly webbed fingers over the delicate features of her face, smiled brightly, and slicked back her long, wet hair, which shone like polished brass.
Her girlish face radiated mirth and health and youth, but there was nothing childish about the generous swell of bare, blue cleavage half revealed as she bobbed up and down.
“You’re a man,” she said.
And just like that, Braddock realized two things.
First, Philia had been right. Bonding had empowered him because he could understand this strange water woman.