“Agreed.” Sarge replied as he looked at Snake who was just standing there taking it all in. “And let’s see if Snake can whip something up that’s better than those pneumatic canister tossing, dino chasing stink bombs, that apparently don’t work very well on critters that move fast or fly.”
Snake, along with Luke their weapons expert, looked at each other and the grins broke out.
“You got it Sarge.” And with the ship’s Master at Arms in tow, they hurried below decks to see what they could come up with.
From the higher bow, came a shout and the lookout pointed. All eyes turned toward the south and a flock of large pterodactyls swooping in and out as they dove for something. Within seconds came the first wagon as it rumbled over the hill to the south followed by the second that was obviously having wheel problems. Still two miles away, the wagons hurried along as quickly as the two ‘stinkers’ as Boots had come to call the Dillos could move.
They watched in horror as one flapper would get too close and slam into the wagon shaking it violently before falling to the ground, wings shredded, body bleeding.
Several times a flapper would dive at the Dillos, glance off its hard bony plates, and soar back up into the sky as the Dillo seemed completely oblivious to the attack.
One flapper slammed into the arches with such force, it nearly tipped the wagon over.
Another flapper seemed to sense a design weakness and dove at the first wagon from nearly parallel to the earth.
“Oh God!” Mary shouted as she pointed toward the attacking creature “I think it’s going to try to flip the wagon.”
Wes was about to tell her that there was no way in hell, but…
“BANG!” a shot rang out and all eyes turned toward the very bow of the Cyclops to see Cassy standing there with her Sharps propped up on the railing.
The flapper tumbled to the earth, rolling and trailing a spray of blood as it finally came to a rest, fluttered it’s wings, and died.
“BANG!” a second shot echoed over the ship and a second flapper slammed into the ground ten feet from the second wagon. Sarge and Betty were sending a clear message to the flappers.
That shot was followed by a third and fourth shot and two more of the flying monsters fell to earth. Sarge and his ‘Betty’ had begun to sing and the flappers didn’t like it and in a flurry of wings flipped nearly over and headed back the way they had come.
Cassy wasn’t done yet as she had reloaded her single shot rifle and fired…and killed the last flapper in the flock before it could climb high enough to escape. As it fell to earth, she turned and smiled at Sarge.
“You might shoot faster, but let’s see you take a shot like that, old man.”
“Hey! …I’m no older than Wes.” he shouted back with a grin.
Sarge grinned and patted the teen on her head.
“Nice shot lass. If those things have an ass where it’s supposed to be, bet we wouldn’t find the entry hole.” Cassy flushed slightly and then burst out in laughter…she got it. Both turned back to their weapons and watched the skies as the wagons limped into a spot alongside the ship where two makeshift booms and hide canvases stretched out from the main deck to provide shelter to the wagons as the port side gangplank was lowered.
Jeb and his crew lowered a series of smaller steel cross beams into place to provide a sidewall of steel and hides to shelter the rest before the gangplank got to the ground. It became obvious to Wes that these people had been through things like this before and admired their efficiency. It also reaffirmed his faith that people could survive in this hostile environment.
Everyone walked over to the boarding area as crew helped the injured below decks and finally the Wagon Master climbed on board. He was an older grizzled man with a salt and peppered beard. His thin weathered face looked at Sarge as he and Betty came down the bow stairs.
“And I would be owing you a debt of gratitude sir.” He clicked his heels together and shook Sarge’s hand, but Sarge nodded behind him to the small teen and her huge rifle.
“The lass is the one that fired the first shot…and that last remarkable one. She’s also the one that grabbed her rifle and told me to do the same.”
The Wagon Master cocked his head and a huge grin beamed over his face as he held out his meaty hand and shook Cassy’s hand.
“Well, well, now little lady, if you can shoot that good, you need to hire on as a guard…” he looked sadly as the last of his wounded was carried below decks.
“I seem to be a might short of them right now.”
“We all will be coming with you, if it’s alright.” Bryce interjected into the conversation.
The Wagon Master smiled at Wes’s group.
“Well that’s what the hell, I’m here for. We’ll leave just as soon as we can fix the axle and the arches. The professor seems to really want to talk at you…” he looked at them in earnest “He seemed desperate for some answers.”
“Us? Why?” John asked “I…uh, we…would be more than happy to cooperate with this professor.”
The Wagon Master looked puzzled “Are you the leader.”
John shrugged “We really don’t have a leader, more of appointed someone to lead us through the prairie to try to find you. But my brother and I are the ones in charge, we…”
Missy started to speak up, but Wes just grasped her arm gently and smiled as he nodded for her not to get involved.
Red leaned in and whispered to Wes “Can you believe that son of a bitch? Not even to Boulder yet and he’s already trying to make a power grab.”
“Don’t care.” Wes replied “Let him have his fun.”
About that time the grizzled Wagon Master pushed past the brothers and walked up to Sarge.
“Hmmm…nine, nine, you’re muscle and tactics…” he stepped to the two women he hadn’t seen before and tipped his hat to each as he passed. Finally he came to rest in front of Wes.
“See it in your eyes…yes, you’re the leader, not those two mouthy ones. I’ll talk to you about what you need to do before tomorrow.”
John walked up and grasped the Wagon Master’s arm.
“Hey! Just a second there, my brother and…”
There was a huge Bowie knife at John’s throat, just under his chin as the Wagon Master leaned in and snarled.
“Boy…when I want something out of you, I’ll rattle your chain, ‘til then, shut yer yap!” he slowly slid the blade across John’s neck, but never scratched him.
“Until we get to Boulder, you’d best be the one no one hears a sound from.” He turned back to Wes and latched onto his arm and walked toward the forward hatch with the rest following, all save the two brothers.
John looked over to Bryce “Jesus…did you see that? That brute nearly killed me.”
Bryce who had spent nearly all his life backing up his brother, shook his head slowly.
“Next time don’t ask for trouble, and for God’s sake, for once in your damned life, play it smart.” The slack-jawed John stood there with his mouth agape as Bryce headed toward the hatch.
Quickly a frown appeared on his face “Yeah! Anyway, thanks for backing me up…big brother.”
Chapter 19.
The wagons were worked on all night and by the crack of dawn Wes was informed that his group should assemble on the main deck.
The air was still reasonable, but they all knew it would soon be another sweltering day…and this day would be dusty as well.
Perhaps the others hadn’t noticed, but the day before Wes noticed that the creatures his group had nicknamed ‘stinkers’, had kicked up quite a lot of dust.
As they reached the railing and looked down, there sat both wagons and it looked like Sarge’s men had worked all night modifying the arches on the wagons. Now instead of the middle arches, sat cropped arches and between them wooden platforms for one person to stand. Over the platform at shoulder height was another wooden square with a large circular hole cut out and attached to the diameter of the hold, a metal ring.
As Wes looked on Snake grinned and nodded as he attached Sarge’s ‘Betty’ to a roller on the ring.
Snake swung the .50 in a complete 360 degrees and aimed it at various levels.
Wes smiled and gave Snake a ‘thumbs up’ as he looked back to the second wagon to see the same, but in the circle stood Cassy and her single shot 50-90. Missy had climbed down and everyone had boarded the wagons; even the Quads had been loaded.
Wes could see huge covered piles of supplies for Boulder and it seemed all they needed was Wes. He jumped off the first landing of the gangplank and onto the high deck of the wagon and for the first time he got a real idea of the size of this huge vehicle.
The Wagon Master walked over to Wes and nodded toward the huge steel spokes that supported the wooden wheel that was rimmed with more steel, it had to be heavy.
“Twenty-three feet high it is, top to bottom, deck sits ten and a half feet from the ground at axle height, too high for raptors to jump on, plus we have the four foot high sides and the wooden arches and steel spikes to stop any of the big ones from reaching in and chomping down on us.” He laughed in such a way he reminded Wes of jolly old Saint Nick…minus the rotund figure.
“Those guns your people put on, oughtta keep the dacs out of our hair.” he grinned again and handed Wes a vial of a lavender colored paste.
“Dip yer finger into that and rub it under your nose.” he nodded toward the stinkers “It helps until you get used to it, hell, we don’t even need it anymore…by the way, just call me Kurt.”
“Now and then I detect a German accent Kurt…” he grinned “…and the fact that you used nine, instead of no.”
Kurt grinned “Gave me away did it,” he laughed “but picked up a lot of slang over the years. I’m afraid my teacher back in Munich would roll in his grave if he heard the way I speak now.”
Missy elbowed Wes in the ribs and giggled softly “You haven’t heard Wes and Sarge fracture the English language yet Kurt.”
He smiled, waved at Jeb, and nodded to the driver that sat on a seat covered by a large steel pole with steel spikes sticking out of it. The driver pulled a rope that ran along the huge wooden beam they used as the wagon’s tongue. Soon two poles popped up and to the front of the two stinkers that were yoked on either side. Kurt leaned toward the group and nodded to the bags that now hung in front of them.
“Crushed chili peppers.” he roared with laughter “We couldn’t keep those bastards out of our crops, so we had to start growing them inside the walls and out in the peninsula behind the walls. They graze on grass and brush mostly, but damned if they didn’t develop a taste for the hot peppers. Of course they be too stupid to realize they’ll never catch the peppers in the bags, but they follow whichever way we dangle them.”
“That’s mean.” Mary commented.
“Naw…little lady, don’tcha worry yer pretty little head, when we get to our destination we let them snack to their hearts content…” he roared with laughter “but if ya think they smell now, don’t ya be gittin’ behind them the next day.”
And just on cue, there was a loud discharge of noxious gas from the beast on the left and a lot of Wes’s people gagged. Kurt gently elbowed Mary.
“Thought I was a kiddin’ ya, didn’t ya?” he strolled up to the driver’s bench.
Snake held his nose and turned to go to the rear of the wagon “Damn sight worse than those god dammed beer and bean farts of yours Sarge.”
With a laugh Wes walked back to Sarge as he watched the skies.
“Not a thing boss.”
Wes continued walking to the rear tailgate of the wagon where on either side were long seats for passengers and sat next to Missy.
John shouted from the other side of the wagon.
“Could build an empire from supply wagons. Start routes to places like those Indians, that carrier, and back to the Cyclops.”
Missy laughed “Looks like they’re already doing it.”
John frowned “Well there must be other settlements, too dangerous for these wagons, if we build better protected wagons and armed them, with…”
Sarge shouted down from the gun turret with a laugh.
“Well me and Betty hooked up with Wes, so don’t count on us.” John turned slightly to look back at the second wagon and the slender teen in the second turret. Sarge and Wes both shouted at John.
“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!”
***************************
Hours passed and the lumbering wagons finally made the turn west in the direction of the eastern wall of Boulder. Even though the wall itself couldn’t be seen from the turn, they could see the well-worn wagon trail carved out of the prairie. It split in three directions, one to where they had been, one to this carrier that had been mentioned and the last headed to where they wanted to go…Boulder.
White billowy clouds drifted in the sky and the same hot breeze blew that had blown nearly every day since they had arrived in Pangea and soon everyone was lulled by the serenity of it all. For the last few hours there had been no sign of dino, nor flapper…yet.
“FLAPPERS!” came the cry as Sarge swung his .50 toward the east and skyward. A quick glance back showed Wes that Cassy had already spotted the danger and was aiming her Sharps in the same direction. Wes worried about the pretty teen as the flock of deadly creatures approached. Cassy swung her Sharps and aimed directly at Wes’s wagon and Wes screamed for everyone to get down.
They could feel the shockwave of Cassy’s bullet before they could hear the report a second later…and a single flapper slammed into the earth less than a dozen feet away near the left front of the wagon.
Wes jumped up and shouted for everyone to watch in all directions as it seemed the flappers were trying to find a way through their defenses.
“Can’t be the same ones that hit us yesterday,” Kurt muttered as he dashed from one side of the wagon to the other “wasn’t that many of them left after your people got done with them.”
“Well it would seem that these things are hungry enough to attack...” before Wes could say more Snake ran to the side of the wagon carrying a long tube and aimed it at the flock of diving flappers.
There was a loud hiss and a blast of smoke and fire from the rear of the tube. A trailing column of whitish-gray smoke headed directly toward the creatures. It seemed that time stood still as the flappers looked almost as if they were frozen in midflight.
There was a tremendous explosion and three of them fluttered to the ground, wings shredded, as the rest scattered in all directions.
Stunned looks turned to Snake and his tube as well as Luke who was standing there holding two more packages. Luke grinned…
“Easy to make an igniter and explosive package. The hard part was making the booster and some sort of cone to pack it all in.
“You two made a bazooka.” Wes muttered with an expressionless face.
“Yeah, we made a bazooka.” Snake replied.
Wes broke out in a grin “Jesus Christ, I wonder if Pangea is ready for you two.” There were cheers from everyone as Kurt approached.
“We used catapults, and other devices, the Japanese used small rockets, but they mostly scare…a Panzerfaust very clever. I must congratulate your men for their ingenuity. ”
Luke reached into a knapsack and pulled out a hand full of broken bolts, glass and pottery, and assorted rocks and stones.
“Gathered these things from the ships scrap pile and ground last night.”
Kurt grinned “Shrapnel.”
“You know of shrapnel?” Luke asked.
Kurt snapped to attention and saluted Wes and his men.
“I’m Captain Kurt Von Krepple of the German Luftwaffe. I arrived her sixteen years ago in a Junkers Ju87. We had just attacked an allied Flying Fortress, my gunner was dead, and to be honest I thought I was as well. I know the crew on board the Cyclops told you about the Indians on the coast, well they’re the ones that found me and healed me.”
“Coast? You mean we’re nea
r the Pacific?”
Kurt laughed “Nine, er, no. The Indians live on the coast of I guess you could call it a vast bay of the Pacific. The actual ocean is about a thousand miles west of their settlement. You’ll see the map the professor has in his office, but the bay is probably where the continents are starting to pull apart. The bay is headed south, probably going to split something off…” he laughed “I’m an educated man and after he tried to explain it to me, I gave up. Maybe with you he’ll have better luck.” Again Kurt grinned, clicked his heels and headed back to the front of the wagon.
Missy gently touched Kurt’s arm as he passed. “You said you got here sixteen years ago, but World War Two was more than…”
Kurt smiled politely at the blonde “Young lady, don’t try to understand it, or even figure it out. People just seem to come from different times, but land in no particular order. For some reason that portal was locked to dump whatever it caught into this time period, why no one knows, although I’ll bet the professor has an idea or two. I actually vanished from my time about six or seven months before the Japanese carrier vanished. They got here about fifty years ago, and I sixteen. The Indian tribe that vanished about 1781 arrived here over two hundred years ago, or so I heard as they kept different times than we did back then. But they had already met and had been trading with Boulder that vanished after they did…I think…God it’s so confusing trying to remember all the differences.”
Wes chuckled “Agreed, no more talk about time and dropping here until we get to the professor. I’ll bet he has some answers…or hope so.”
Missy looked at Mary and smiled “Jeb said they have a large city with shops and other things in Boulder, Mary and I want to do some shopping.”
Kurt nodded “That’s right ladies. Just try to remember the city is more or less what one would have expected to see around the turn of the nineteenth century in your country I was told. We do have some more modern conveniences and contraptions, but for the most part, remember there are no modern electrical things…although we do have some electricity and lights.” he sighed “It’s all so very crude…we’re starting all over again. You see we have the knowledge, but not the technology.”
Last Train to Pangea: Death by Dinosaur Page 13
