“...Ahh...babe? We still don’t have a runway.
Marti kind of shied away from the rest as she gave a nervous grin.
“We...uh...don’t need a runway...” she winced fearing their reaction.
But before she could finish, Jim rolled his eyes, sighed and said... “Good God babe! You don’t need a runway...because you intend for us to do a dead drop from the hanging position on the cliff... Don’t you?”
Marti gave the guys the sweetest smile she could come up with and with a confident tone, simply said... “Yep!”
The guys that were standing slowly sank to a sitting position, but there was one huge sigh from every one of them. What they had heard left no other way. It was dropping off the cliff, catching enough air to get them gliding. Once they managed to glide away from the mountain and low enough to start the small engine, they hoped it would give them extra time to fly eastward over the mountains below. Eastward enough to find some sort of settlement, or even a river. Anything would beat crashing into jungle trees that could be a hundred feet or more tall.
Armondo wiped the sweat from his brow. “I hope you all don’t mind if I close my eyes on the way down...and I think, maybe I’ll scream a little bit too.”
Jim grinned at Armondo and snorted, “I have a sneakin’ hunch you won’t be the only one Armondo.”
“I won’t be screaming Jim.” Marti smiled self-assuredly.
Jim looked at his love and smiled back, “I was referring to me honey. You know the odds of us actually being able to glide away from the mountain face?”
Marti rolled her eyes and turned to walk back into the cave.
“Men!” she giggled, “Any one that screams on the way down, has to surrender their man card!” She turned her head just enough to look over her shoulder and shouted, “Are we going to get started, or are you all just going to sit there looking like scared little boys?”
Three of the four guys got to their feet and started after Marti, but Jim just sat there and grinned, “Hey sitting here like a scared little boy sounds...”
“NOW!” Marti shouted.
Jim leapt to his feet and with a teasing laugh shouted. “Yes mommy.... right now mommy.” This rewarded Jim with a behind the back, one fingered salute from Marti as the rest laughed loudly. They had a plan...even though parts of it tended to scare the crap out of them.
The next few weeks, parts were cut and assembled, the parachutes from the aircraft cut, stretched and ‘painted’ in a homemade glue to stiffen the nylon and slowly the parts became a reality. As each section was finished it was checked to make sure it fit on the assembly it was intended to fit. Then it was removed and safely stored to the other side of the cave.
Sam when he wasn’t welding or helping with the tail section controls, managed to find the time to create a usable propeller out of the few sheets of aluminum flat stock they had left. He balanced it and with help from the guys hefted the small generator motor to the back of the dozer and all work stopped.
Sam had welded a test engine frame to the dozer so the motor’s shaft pointed over the rear of the dozer. He backed the dozer to a high spot on the ledge so the propeller wouldn’t hit the ground as it rotated. After attaching the new prop to the engine, he cranked up the motor. Spider had built a throttle control for the engine and now the motor was slowly brought up to nearly full speed...and it held!
“Prop’s holding guys!” Marti shouted, “Hardly no vibration...”
Sam walked up to the rest and shook his head. “Naw! Can’t be any vibration at all. If I add a weld for balance, it ruins the airflow... I’ll just have to grind a bit off here and there until it...”
There was a loud “SNAP” and the propeller flew over the edge of the ledge and to the rocky ground below as Sam looked at the rest of his friends.
“Oh yeah... and I’ll have to work on a better way to attach it to the shaft too.”
Spider laughed and shut the motor down as he and Sam prepared to go back to the drawing board.
Nearly a month had now passed and the five, bone tired decided to take a day off. Only the two lower wings had to be fitted and Jim hoped to be off the deadly mountain within a week.
Dropping straight down from a thousand foot cliff was risky enough without the updrafts and winds that constantly blew upward into the valley. The big problem was how to get away from the cliff face. And that was what Marti worried about more than anything.
“Honey?” Jim nudged her as they lay on their narrow mattress that was meant for one miner.
“I was just worrying about take off baby. I’ve rigged up a quick-release for the drop, one pull and we freefall. It’s just getting away from the cliff that worries me.”
“Aw babe, it’ll be ok. I’ll just pull back on the stick and we should pull out within a few hundred feet or so with these winds.”
“And there’s no possibility if you pull back too hard the tail will hit, or the winds might not be strong enough to get us air born in time? What if we catch a strong gust that blows us right into the cliff?”
Jim laid his head back onto the pillow. “Well, it did start to be a nice day...” he sighed softly “Marti, all that has been in my mind for weeks, but I didn’t want to bring it up... It’s just something we’ll have to face. Hell, we can’t even start that small of an engine up until we get out of the thinner air. If it wasn’t for all the factors that keep this atmosphere here in this valley, it would have never started here.” Jim rolled over on his side and placed his hand over Marti’s waist as she ‘spooned’ into him.
“It isn’t like we can throw ourselves over and away from the cliff.”
Marti snuggled into her loves embrace tighter and gave a soft sexy moan....
Then sat quickly up, nearly pulling Jim’s arm from the socket.
Jim sat up and looked over to his girl and frowned, “Holy Christ, you acted like I farted or something. I...”
Marti turned and gave Jim a quick kiss and jumped out of bed. Her breasts teasingly bounced as she pulled on her clothes and tore open the covering to their private room and vanished.
Jim sniffed the air... “Nope, didn’t fart...” he sniffed his armpits, “Hmmm....maybe.” Still puzzled he got dressed and walked out into the main cave to find Marti frantically scribbling on the side of a torn box in the flickering firelight.
She looked up and smiled and then pointed to some of the left over aluminum framing.
“Baby, we can’t start the engine and take off, it’s too weak, and we have no airstrip. But I think I can build us a long rail out of that...framing. We can anchor it to the cliff in at least six points with lags and wire. Once the rail is in place at a forty-five degree slant out and away from the cliff, we can bring the body of our plane and mount it to the rail. I’ll show you the changes to make for the quick-release and Sam and I can make an undercarriage for the plane’s body so that it can fall away from the plane once we leave the rail.”
Jim sat next to Marti and hugged her as he gave her a little kiss on the cheek while she scribbled away.
“Babe! Sliding away from the cliff face even at fifteen degrees would be great... But forty-five? Wow!”
“I can make it so the rail is at ground level for easy loading of our plane. Then a frame for the ledge to hold it at the proper angle. It’ll mean someone has to attach another support while dangling from a rope...” she glanced up from her scribbling, “...Oh baby, it’ll work!” She went back to her drawing.
Sam and Armondo, still half asleep wandered over to the fire pit.
Without looking up Marti quickly drew while the half dressed guys watched intently.
“See the rail’s frame will be down on the ledge next to the waterfall Jim was on. I’ll make the top of the rail to be even to the valley’s surface, so we can just tip the body slightly and slide it onto the rail. We can lower it so it’s out of reach of the critters that prowl in the night...or day. We can then anchor it in place until we’re done assembling it. I’ll have Spid
er make a support frame to affix to the ledge to hold the rail at the forty-five degrees you need.
When we finish with the assembly, we remove the anchors to the plane. Jim pulls the quick-release and we shoot off at an angle better suited for gliding.”
Jim grinned, “Now assuming we don’t get a flood that destroys everything, we should be off this mountain...” he looked at his love, “...let’s say what? One day to anchor the ramp and aircraft’s body so it won’t blow away. And what another to assemble the lower and upper wings and make the connections for the struts and wires?”
Marti nodded, “Pretty much! We can carry everything on the big dozer below. That huge safety cage on it should support all the weight if we make two or even three trips.”
Sam grinned at the rest. “What say I make a couple of rails that run from the top of the cage to the front of the dozer’s blade? We can use that to slide the heavy body down to the rail Marti designed. Sure beats lifting all that weight from that height. That way we can install the propeller just before we lower the body in place.”
Jim was about to congratulate the two on their ideas, when Armondo came out of the bathroom cave wrapped in a towel and covered from head to toe in soapy lather.
“Senor Jim, we don’t have any water. Now dawn had broken, I climbed up and looked out the hole we made in the cliff to put the pipes into the waterfall... The waterfall is no more than a trickle.”
Jim slapped his knee, sighed rose to his feet. “Well Spider and I will go see if we can center the catch basin a bit better. The rest of you get to work on Marti and Sam’s ideas.
Jim and Spider stepped out the door into the brilliant sun light and left the door to the cave open as he jerked his hand back and with a curse looked at Spider with a frown.
“Watch that door... That corrugated metal sure heats up fast now we don’t have the parachute awning to keep it out of the direct sun.”
The pair walked along the ledge toward the bend where the mountain arched slightly northward. As they approached the waterfall, they saw Armondo was right. The beautiful falling water was now just a trickle in a few places and the ledge under it was now dry in places...and much wider than they had thought.
“Well, guess we should have expected it, no rain for weeks.” Jim grinned back at Spider and noticed a puzzled look on his face. Spider’s hand extended past Jim’s face as he pointed to the far side of where the waterfall once fell. There the ledge was nearly non-existent, but passable...and in the cliff face was a narrow opening. Jim muttered, “Another cave?”
Spider strained to see into the dark maw he had discovered, “What do you think my friend?”
“Could be a way down... Could be dangerous.”
Spider nodded, “Guess there’s only one way to know for sure. You’d better stay here, you are our pilot.”
“No freakin’ way!” Jim snorted, “We have each other’s backs, or we don’t go at all.”
Spider looked at Jim, then the cave. Jim was right and he was their leader. It was going to be his call.
Chapter 17.
“Guess we really should check it out Spider. Run back, and get the flashlights.” Jim muttered as he reached up and adjusted the catch basin to catch what little water was falling.
Within a few minutes Spider came back with two flashlights, checked them, and handed one to Jim as they approached the narrow slit in the cliff face. Clicking on their lights to the highest setting, they slowly entered the narrow cave and found it had a slight ‘up’ incline.
“Well this explains why the cave is dry beyond the entrance.” Spider stated as he swung his light around.
The cave widened to a good eight feet and the men slowly worked their way along the winding rock corridor until the beams from their lights vanished into the darkness. It was a long chamber and it widened to nearly fifty feet. Jim shined his light down.
“Careful Spider, there must be a couple of inches of dust on the floor. We’re going to choke ourselves if we don’t tread carefully.”
“Jim!” Spider began moving his light over the wall they were closest to. “Look at this!”
Jim turned and flashed his light to follow Spider’s and both their lights stopped on the same spot.
“Spider...can you make it out?”
Spider moved closer. “They’re much older than the old temple paintings Jim. Looks like they were scratched into the wall with harder rocks... I can make out....uhh...looks like someone hunting with a spear of sorts. Look! Here’s another...wait, a group hunting...it’s very faint.”
“Yeah, Spider look over here it goes on... See here, it appears to be a campfire and maybe a village of...are those caves?” Jim frowned at the faint images as he pulled his phone and took a few pictures of the clearer of the images. “Let’s try the other wall the images fade out here.”
Spider got to the other side first and froze for a second, then frantically motioned for Jim to hurry. Jim froze when he saw the images Spider’s light was bathing.
There before them was the entire wall of images that Jim began taking pictures of...much more detailed drawings!
There were cave drawings of hunters hunting dinosaurs, of others skinning and drying dinosaur hides. There were images of figures building huts of wood... and riding on dinosaurs as they hunted other dinosaurs.
“Spider! This has to be where the old ones came...” Jim slowly moved on taking pictures as he went...he stopped in mid-sentence.
“Holy Shit!”
“What?” Spider ran over to Jim and shined his light where Jim’s was. “So...more hunting?”
“No Spider, look closely at the figures that are doing the hunting...the riding...” Jim grinned at Spider.
“My God Spider, don’t you see? Look at the ovoid shape of their heads...and all of them have that protrusion on their rears...maybe remains of a tail?”
Spider’s jaw dropped and he slowly turned to his friend... “These hominids weren’t human were they?”
“Sure doesn’t look like it. I mean it does make sense doesn’t it Spider. This entire valley was cut off from the rest of the world. Whatever killed off the dinosaurs never reached this valley’s world. It has its own environment...so why wouldn’t evolution continue on, as if the dinosaurs never were wiped out. It would appear that some kind of reptilian being evolved from reptiles.”
Spider nodded in agreement. “Si, and by the looks of it, they did at the same time as our caveman ancestors did. They hunted, formed communities... Jim, look!”
There deeper into the cave Spider’s light fell upon even more detailed drawings yet. These showed the lizard men meeting what appeared to be humans wearing Aztec-like head dressings. They appeared to be coming out of the underground and meeting the lizard men and looked like they were shaking hands.
As the men walked deeper into the cave they looked for more drawings, this cave seemed to be some sort of history cave the lizard men kept track of their existence in. The drawings in each cave section had much improved and more detailed drawings. It was as if the more primitive creatures drew closer to the cave’s entrance and the more the race evolved the further back they drew.
The guys were amazed and Spider muttered, “This has to be some sort of archive cave, maybe one of their temples?” Jim just shrugged as he kept watching the wall and the history scratched or painted upon it.
Once again the cave narrowed so their lights could hit the other wall, so one walked with his light on the left wall while the other watched the right. “Spider here...look!”
On the wall before Jim were images of the lizard men and the humans both riding dinosaurs and pulling huge carved stone rocks and building a wall. Jim snorted and laughed...
“So it would appear the lizard men showed the humans that came to the valley how to train and use the four-legged dinosaurs...and helped them build their city...” again Jim stopped mid-sentence and looked at Spider, who in turn had picked up on Jim’s unsaid thought.
“My God Jim... T
hat would mean those lizard men were alive....what, about...two thousand years ago? Living up here when the predecessors of the early South American Indians came. Hell, these people might have been the ancestors of the Aztecs or Mayans...”
“Or many of the other races. Remember eventually these races all had large commerce routes... Sure why not? Perhaps they taught these lizard men a thing or two and vice-versa.” He chuckled. “It does show trade of sorts to the outside world, but we’ve seen nothing that would indicate an underground passage... If it still exists, it would have to be back past Rex’s territory where we haven’t been. If it still exists, that is.”
Jim shrugged, then a strange look crossed his face and Spider inquired as to why.
“I was thinking about the paintings back in the temple and old ones village. It showed only humans building, mining the boulders, riding dinosaurs...” Jim sighed, “I remember something that was once said, about ‘history books being written by those that survived’, or something like that. Why no paintings of the lizard men, why no signs of them around other than this cave?”
Jim couldn’t take his eyes off the wall and found he couldn’t stop shaking his head in dismay. Perhaps he didn’t want to know... That is until Spider’s sad voice came from the dark and Jim turned to see Spider standing at the end of the cave... His light lighting up a large pile of small sized rocks and debris.
Jim walked toward Spider, “Whatcha got there Spider? A cave in? Maybe the humans arrived this way originally....through this cave and it could be that...” Jim froze in his tracks!
The shoulder high pile of rocks were not rocks at all...but a huge pile of bones and skulls and century old leather clothing. Bodies with ovoid shaped skulls piled up against this rear wall of the cave. Spider and Jim stooped and looked at the skeletons closest to them. Some had their skulls crushed in, while others still had dusty old arrows and broken spear points laying within their rib cages. Some of the heads were severed and some bodies looked to be crushed... The remnants of a long past battle. Here the losers were piled unceremoniously for the ages.
Valley of Lost Time. Page 16
