After a few hours ride through paradise, with pine and cedar stands thickening around us, we arrive at the pass. As we stop to rest our horses the view is breathtaking. Through the notch created by the trail we can see a green park widening out below us and there before our eyes is a herd of buffalo beyond the scope of imagination. They are plodding slowly along, eating, pawing, old bulls fighting, young calves playing, cows giving birth, a moving nomadic scene from antiquity.
Even though many are stopped, feeding, rolling, calving, mock fighting, sleeping and just plain scratching, the pattern of the whole herd is motion at all times. Slowly, inexorably advancing together across a seemingly limitless sea of grass.
“Nature’s playground,” says Sir Jacob. “Just as the stories of old Earth relate, the Great Plains, a huge space like no other. One wonders if the grasslands of the Old World ever hosted such a sight in the time before the written word. The Sahara, the Gobi, the Kalahari, the Atacama, of course, the plains of Argentina and others. Quite possibly, I say. Each with their own species living as lords of all they surveyed.”
“You know a lot about it,” I say.
“I am something of a student of Earth that was. The parallels with the Rock here are amazing. It was terraformed in Earth’s image. Of course Earth was what the original terraform designers and builders knew, so that follows. Nostalgia on their part, one could say, repeated throughout the Galaxies.”
On the other side of me as we ride along, Wolf is saying, “Our quest was to find new worlds and live Injin, not white way. Injin be free like before Columbus time. Injin be own boss, hunt buffalo. Have horse, so maybe after Columbus time, but before rest of white man come. Injin, horse, buffalo. Paradise. Good life, Wolf like to relive. Try agin. Make right, all rich, full of food, happy, no cavalry! Injin Paradise.”
We top out on a hill overlooking a beautiful slow movin’ river and stop for our horses to blow.
“And here it is,” says Wolf sweeping his arm across the horizon.
“Holy shit, look there,” whispers Michael.
Just a ways downstream a herd of buffalo is fording. We watch in awesome wonder as they wade and swim en masse. Many float a good ways downstream before reaching the other side.
“Must be a thousand of them shaggy motherfuckers,” says Spud.
“’Tis a sight for this Injins old achin’ bones,” says Wolf.
“Yeah, what are you compadre, all of 24?” I ask.
“My ancestors’ bones then. Hey ya hey ya hey,” continues Wolf. “They say if you sit by the river long enough you will see the body of your enemy float by.” He looks meaningfully at the white folk around him. Us.
“Those words, my heathen friend, are attributed to Sun Tzu,” says Sir Jacob.
“Yeah, no doubt that old fucker stole it from a’ Injin,” says Wolf.
We all laugh, and shake our reins. The horses move out. We’ve miles to cover before we sleep.
“Which quadrant of our vast Cosmos do you hail from, Annie?” asks Sir Jacob.
“Triassic, born and raised.”
“Dinoland?” asks Lone Wolf.
“One of the dinosaur planets.”
“There’s more than one?” asks Wolf.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Once old what’s-his-name figured out how to regenerate them, he and his followers filled a whole solar system. Each planet has a different time shot of the Dino Eras. They colonize them then study how they evolve.
“They started with a team of experts to study their creations, then they figured out it would be cheaper to bring agricultural people in to supply them rather than sending ships of food and supplies. Along with everything else, they wanted regular meals. So they opened up the land to homesteading, enticed farmers, ranchers, and the like.
“My people settled there, ranchers, done good for a long time.”
“So you learned to cowboy herding dinosaurs?” asks Sir Jacob.
“No, the scientists thought ahead, they put the agricultural types on a different continent from the dinos. Like most of the planets, it had lots of oceans between the land masses. The dinosaurs were established on Alpha, we were on a big Island called Omega. Long swim, a thousand miles maybe from Alpha.
“Anyhow, it worked out real well. Hell, I was a fifth generation Rockefeller. I grew up cowboyin’, birthin’, brandin’, chousin’ predators, fixin’ fence. The whole ball of wax. Hell, over the five generations my family had built up a hell of a nice place. Big house, big barns, fenced pastures, we had a ton of open range, miles. We looked out the window, everything we could see belonged to us. We done good.
“But we finally had to leave.”
“The dinosaurs acquired long distance swimming skills?” ventures Sir Jacob.
“Nope.” I pause to give ‘em time to figure it out.
“Well?”
“Learned to fly.
“Suddenly instead of coyotes, bears, and wolves, it was velociraptors and their 20 ton cousins. Big chickens, we called ‘em. Once they found out how easy cows was to catch, though, and what beef tasted like, they wasn’t chicken no more.”
“Yeah, I been there, like going on a wild goose chase. Only place in the galaxies where the geese chase you and they ain’t geese, they’re much bigger and mighty hungry,” adds Spud.
“They purely love beef.
“Them suckers swoop down, they don’t even have to land,” I continue. “Pick you right up in their talons and wing away. Calves, too. Foals. Hell, full grown animals even. We tried everything, throw nets, guns, booby traps, even had a Gatling gun going, fun to play with, but the suckers bred like rabbits. It was war. We lost a few folks, too, after they discovered long pig. Rough times.”
“Gave ‘em hell, eh?” asks Spud.
“We tried and tried but we lost. We had to quit while we still had the money to get off the planet. They literally ate us out of business.”
“You divested yourselves of your properties?” asks Sir Jacob.
“No buyers, ain’t no one that stupid. We ain’t the kind to lie about the situation.”
“Now that,” says Sir Jacob, “is a classic example of Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory deals with the unpredictability of complex situations.”
“Yep, clone up a bunch of giant extinct creatures, turn ‘em loose. Yeehaw!” I say. “Happened on Cretaceous too, the tourist planet. One day the dinosaurs got their fill of gawking humans and attacked.
“And Mesozoic, often a whole group of pioneers will disappear, not one will be heard from again. Ships go in to deliver supplies, nobody home on a whole planet.
“Occasionally, a ragged group of survivors will emerge scared shitless. Hop on the ship, never to return.
“Time passes, people forget or just think they are tougher than the previous bunch and it’s deja vu all over again.
“I figure eventually the dinosaurs will grow thumbs and send out their own trade delegation.”
Michael laughs and says, “If dinosaurs wore t-shirts they would say: ‘Send more pioneers, the last ones were delicious’.”
“So what did you do?” asks Spud.
“Hopped on a ship while I still had money for a ticket. Traveled to a few places, worked a lot of jobs. Finally got a job workin’ cattle in the Center. On a 1000 acre place! Got sick of being crushed by humanity real quick. Only good thing that happened there? Ran into Michael. He started out in Dino country too. Couple of cowhands, lost our way. We struck up a friendship right quick.
“Feller passin’ through told us about the Rock. Said there was space to think out here and work for experienced hands. So we worked there another season, saved up space fare and beat cleats out here.
“Mighty fine planet y’all got here.”
Michael joins in, “You know, the comic book guys have their own galaxy, too. I visited a planet there once. Those folks need scads of planets for all their imaginating. One advantage, nerds don’t hunt and kill each other. At least I don’t think they do.”
We laugh.
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Cowgirl Thrillers Page 33