Second Chances (35 page)

“Don't blame Sydney, Colonel,” Jake told him softly.

“I don't. I don't. Honest, I don't blame you or her. But I want to make certain this never happens again. Your mom would too,” he said. Sydney bit her lip, then came over, head down. He hesitantly reached out and stroked her hair. She started to cry softly, grabbing his arm and then falling into his arms. “I don't honey. It's not your fault. We should have known better,” he said.

“Why didn't she use the water here?” Jake asked, indicating the pump.

Miles shook his head. He'd asked himself the same question. They'd probably never know. It didn't matter anymore anyway. “I don't know, but we're going to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else,” he said. “Has anyone else gone missing?”

“No,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“Good.”

He set up his pump rigged with drive train to the water wheel made by Joe instead of using a motor. It was brilliant or so they said. Miles figured it was over complicated, but if it didn't use their fuel, he was all for it. With that setup water was pumped into the compound to a series of barrels they rigged in a tower next to the planned community center.

With central water the community could now do all of their washing and stuff inside the safety of the base; they no longer had to go to the river. Miles felt bad about it. There was nothing like locking the barn door after the horses got out and the place was on fire, but he didn't want to lose anyone else, especially the kids.

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They had their first initial harvests when Vicky and Moira started bringing in fruits and produce from the wild. Carlos tested the grain he'd planted and judged it fit enough to harvest. The corn he left out for another week or two.

Harvesting the grain had been hell, but they'd gotten it done thanks to Joe's invention. The machinist was brilliant; he'd rigged a couple old riding lawn mowers to do the work. They'd pulled the motors and rigged the things up to a yoke that was on a pair of Protoceratops. The animals didn't have to be urged to move; just the sound of the thing trundling behind them had been enough incentive to get them moving. Controlling them had been another story.

With grain they finally had something Miles knew he could use. The gauchos could bitch about agave, but he ran with the corn and grain. The second week after harvest he and Joe had made their first pot still. Alcohol from it was damn near wood grain in quality, but eventually they had something barely potable. The best thing was it gave Miles a chance to drown his sorrows...and put him in a lot of good graces with the spics. The ladies weren't thrilled, but he ignored the dirty looks.

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Once the initial harvest was in, the women fell to sorting out what they could while some of the men went back to wood cutting, hunting, gathering, and dealing with the animals. Carlos pulled in volunteers to help with the replanting, promising everyone a cut if they got off their ass and helped. He also threatened that anyone who didn't help wouldn't get a damn bean. Miles made certain the kids lent a hand, and he played guard when the teams weren't out hunting or cutting wood. Hell if his back was going to take bending over all day.

Carlos led the group of farmers to expand the initial farms and gardens near the base. But it was hard work; they needed to quadruple their acreage in order to have enough to last more than a month or two. Miles refused them mechanical support to plow or plant fields. “You'll have to use the dinos or your own backs,” he said dismissively. Carlos argued with the council but Miles was adamant.

Carlos and Diego appealed to Abe and Vicky at their next council meeting. Reluctantly Vicky and Abe agreed with Miles. “He's right; we need the fuel for the long haul. You don't want to be out on foot here, trust me,” Abe said, shaking his head.

“Yeah? And do you think we want to be out here in the sun with the animals? On foot pulling weeds and plowing?”

“You're going to have to. We can't spare the fuel,” Abe said. Carlos and Diego grumbled but left.

“Lord, I hope I made the right decision,” Abe said. Vicky nodded. Miles shrugged. From his point of view, the farms were just a waste of time and manpower. They had plenty of meat and no doctors around to tell them to cut back and watch their cholesterol or shit like that.

Abe divided his attention between hunting and food storage. He had a hell of a time, everyone wanted a cut, and no one was happy about the amount they got. The other problem was the wood; too much of it was being burnt. Green wood sucked at wood fires, and bonfires really didn't do a good job of heating. Most of the heat was just wasted. But everyone wanted fires to ward off the insects and any potential animals that got over the wall.

Vicky split her time between hunting and guarding. That left Raul Cedar and Kevin to manage the wood cutters. Raul remembered a few tricks from his time cutting wood in Colorado; he tried to leave the fruit trees alone and leave half their logs in the woods to dry out on top of branches. He figured a quarter of that might be useable for lumber. Both men and their four helpers used axes, chain saws, machetes, and hatchets to cut the logs down, then borrowed Diego's Protoceratops oxen to drag the logs back to base. Miles kept guard over them or helped out when someone bitched enough at him just standing around.

Hygiene had started to become an issue; mold from piss seemed to be everywhere. A lot of the women grumbled about it. Miles dredged up training, remembered classes on hygiene and dysentery. One of the first things he did was order them to stop peeing in the river at the next council meeting. “You're fouling our own water supply, and hell, I know no one wants to go near it with those things in the water anyway,” he said. A few people nodded.

“Next thing, stop pissing on the wall or any old place. Or hell, from the wall. I've seen a couple guys do it, and yeah, my son,” Miles said. “The ladies are right, it's bad. We're getting mold and stuff. That'll make you sick or the kids,” Miles said. “We don't need dysentery or infections to spread through the town,” he said, turning as he stood to address the watching community. He nodded to Rodrigo and Carlos as they interpreted that.

Vicky winced but nodded. Abe nodded as well.

“Finally, we've all seen the rains; we've seen how this area turns to a quagmire after a storm hits. We need to work on that.”

“How do you propose that?” Abe asked.

“We're going to need to work on drainage, grade some roads and dig latrines,” Miles said. “I know it's a lot to take in, on top of the wall, hunting, the farm, the ranchero, and everything else. We'll just have to rotate on the projects the best we can. If we don't have to hunt, we should be doing a little bit here and there to try to keep things going on the other projects,” he said. “Not just flaking out,” he said.

Abe grunted. Getting people motivated to do anything beyond the basics was hard sometimes. “I think we can work out some bathroom areas. I know we've got some port-a-potties around. We can put them in certain areas and rig some sort of drain,” Abe said.

Miles nodded. “I can help with that.” The council murmured to itself considering the idea. Miles pulled out a sketch he'd done of the area and then laid it out in front of them. That caused a pause. He turned and motioned to Jake. Jake got up and held one corner up.

“I've got a map here. We've got this center of our base as an open area, a common ground. We've got the wall around it, with the four gates. We've left these areas as roads connecting the four,” he said, pointing them out. “We build the proposed common building on one side here where you planned it,” he nodded to Abe. Abe nodded back. “I don't think we need the barn right now, but we can earmark that area later,” he said, pointing to an area near the west gate. “I suggest we have drainage going to the moat and from there to compost areas outside the walls. Carlos can then deal with it from there as fertilizer.”

“Agreed,” Abe said. “Good job on the sketch,” he said.

“My son did it,” Miles said, nodding to Jake. Jake grinned.

Miles grudgingly admitted to himself that some of the chickenshit he'd gone through in the army had a purpose. He was just glad he didn't have to deal with it now; he could delegate it to others. He remembered all sorts of things, like grading and slopping. Getting it right though was going to take trial and error.

The one good thing they found was that they could use the mountain of shit for fertilizer. Mucking out both the human piles and the animals was a chore no one wanted, but the council agreed it needed to be done. They agreed on doing it the next day to get it over with.

Since most were reluctant to do it without an incentive, Abe insisted on an all-hands effort to get the job done once, then they'd assign someone to do the clean out on a regular basis after that. Once things started rolling, some of the women became more interested in the project. They turned to a general clean out in the base and area, airing things out, and cleaning everything and everyone they could.

Abe got them going on building a community center. Miles wasn't sure about the wisdom of it, but he did agree keeping a lot of stuff centralized was smart. They used clay and rocks for the foundations, and wood and metal for the walls. They had plenty of screws from the junkyard.

Moira even got a couple spics who'd worked in a tile factory to make roofing tiles. They made molds out of metal, then got rows of the things drying in the sun. Once they had stiffened up they fired them in a stone kiln and then left them too cool overnight. The things were a bit brittle, but they did an okay job if they layered them properly on the roof.

Once people saw the building, and understood they too could build one, they wanted to copy it or build elaborate haciendas. Some of the women and even a few of the men started competing for the best design.

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A week after Nicole died the reports of the tentacle beasts dried up. They were replaced with something more ominous, reports of shark fins in the river waters near dark. The council ordered everyone to avoid the western side and banned anyone from going to the river. They even closed the gate on that side.

They heard bawls and screams from the animals the second night, then stampeding. The next morning Diego came running back in, looking green. “Something got in, tore some of the Barox apart, jefe,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Miles and the others went to investigate.

They found six of the Barox dead, torn apart. Half of the remaining animals had either escaped or were shaking along the fence furthest from the river. Their eyes rolled in fear, and they dribbled urine almost constantly.

A check of the strutter dinos found a dozen dead; apparently they'd crushed themselves in a corner in terror. From the look of it, they had gone to the corner furthest from the base and river. Miles shook his head. “Stupid feather dusters,” he grumbled. He waved to the gauchos to get busy pulling the carcasses out and slaughtering them so the meat wouldn't be a total loss.

“Dios Mio, what the hell happened?” Mya asked, making the sign of the cross in front of her.

“Damned if I know,” Miles grumbled. “Something got in. Either it stepped over the fences or it was small enough to get through it. We're going to have to do something, mount a watch or something,” he said.

“Rig spotlights,” Mya suggested.

“Good idea,” Miles admitted. “Cameras too,” he said.

“So we know what we're up against?” Mya asked. He nodded. “Good point,” she said. “I'll let them know,” she said.

“Make sure we get a headcount of people. And no, we're not bringing Diego's herds inside. I don't want whatever's out there to come knocking,” he said.

Mya shivered but nodded.

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A guard was startled by a sound later that night. He had the foresight to pull out his half-dead camera phone and hit record just as he brought up his spotlight. What greeted him was a thing out of his worst nightmare. “El Demono Tiburõn,” he said, over and over, eyes vacant.

He shakily handed Abe his phone. Abe swore at the sight of the purple and black sharks with legs feeding on a Barox. The light scared the animals off. The guy had been pretty shook up, but when he'd ducked the camera had picked up the glitter of eyes in the junkyard and surrounding area, and the silhouette of a couple of the beasts on top of some of the cars.

“What the hell? Oh hell no!” Miles snarled when he saw the video over Abe's shoulder. The thing didn't stay in the light long enough to get a really good look, but they could freeze frame enough details to get the gist of it.

Vicky and Abe had an artist sketch the animal based on the pieces they had seen and the shaken guard’s input. What emerged was a thing of nightmare, a hammerhead with a shark's mouth, lean legs, and a whip tail topped by the classic dorsal fin.

Immediately Abe ordered a curfew at night. Everyone was to be inside a half hour before dark, and they were to mount a double watch on the walls, especially the walls bordering the river and beach. The threat of the new predator had many people worked into a tizzy. They worked on making additional weapons and improvements to the wall. Holes were found and hastily patched.

The Demono Tiburõn or Demon Sharks as Miles called them were a problem. The animals raided the herds near the river every other night. “The problem is they've got an easy food source right here, so they won't go away until it's all gone,” Miles said in disgust.