#25: You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry

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It turned out that coffee was entirely possible. Strangely enough the long tailed children, both the bear riding boys and the Griffin riding girls, were intensely curious about the acrid brew. One sniff and they took to it immediately. Sgt. Halsey was a bit concerned, there were only a couple of hundred pounds of coffee in the cook wagon. What would they do when it was gone?

After about an hour everyone re-assembled. It was to no one's surprise than there were no dissenters. Where would they go? No one said anything about skin color and the subject was NOT brought up again.
The Texan spoke.

"Ok...welcome aboard everyone. As you'll get to know me you'll find that I'm a hard ass who expects a one hundred percent effort. So no slacking." The Texan grinned over a cup of coffee as he spoke.

“Slackers make me angry. Like I said earlier, you won’t like me when I’m angry” he grinned, held up a large fist and made a slight punching motion.

"First order of business " he shouted so all could hear " is clean up this mess. There must be dead animals stretching back to where we fell down the rabbit hole. That's a long ways back. We killed all the Demons so they are no longer a problem. We might have other problems. I don’t know yet, we need to be prepared.”

“As soon as we can find a good place we’ll make a camp. Once we have a safe haven we’ll decided what our long range plans are. In the mean time retrieve all the rolling stock possible and gather up all the meat we can save. We’ll need the food. We can smoke some of it while fixing the wagons. Sergeants post guards, I want security tight, divvy up the work, There are other critters out there who may want a piece of us, so stay alert. No telling when more Demons might show up either. First Sergeant Halsey and I will be available for any serious problems. Dismissed"

He then turned to First Sergeant Halsey and Sgt. Hobbs

"Which brings to mind the question on everyone's mind" said the Texan turning and point to where the Trolls had gathered. Slowly, one at a time, the Trolls had joined the human group. They were clustered together off to one side a little.

" Why did they turn against the Demons for us. What do we do with them? I guess I’d better go and find out."

"And Sgt. Halsey? Please immediately send out scouts to find a good camping spot. I might not have made clear that it’s a priority. We need it right now. There’s no telling how long we might be here.”

The big man then muttered to himself. " Trolls. The problem won't solve itself. I guess I'll just go see what I can do.“

The Texan addressed a nearby soldier, “Go find me a blacksmith, tell him to bring a hammer and chisel. I got some chains I need him to cut."

Moments later the soldier returned escorting another big man. The BlackSmith came to an approximation of attention before the Texan. He looked sleepy.

“BlackSmith Smith Sir, reporting as ordered” he said.

The Texan raised an eyebrow at the artisan. The BlackSmith Shrugged. The Texan nodded. That settled , Lamar said…

“Come with me, there’s some chains in those Carts that need cutting.”

BlackSmith Smith looked toward the huge carts. Each was harnessed to a pair of Wooly Rhinos. He’d only seen one Rino before at a large city zoo. He didn’t recall horns that long or hair.

The presence of the huge Trolls in each cart was fairly obvious. The BlackSmith looked back at the Texan and asked.

“After I get done cutting the gorillas loose will they be needing shoes for their harness animals?’

Once more the Texan gave the BlackSmith a level stare, which fazed the big man not the slightest. The Texan gave a slight chuckle and replied. “I suppose we’ll have to ask them won’t we?”,
and began walking toward the Trolls.

“Very good sir” replied the Smith named Smith as he fell into step beside the Texan.

The two big men had not taken more than a few steps when Lamar noticed that they had flankers. Kraki and a few of his fellows were along for the fun. They were riding their bears. The bears were following the two men in a crescent shaped formation. There were Gryphons circling low overhead.

The Blacksmith didn’t bat an eye.

Next Episode
#26: Should We Help Them…
Previous Episode
#24: Who's in Charge…
First Episode
# 1 : In the beginning…

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