Chapter 11
“Isn’t it interesting we always spring out of bed at the same time?” I asked.
“I seriously want some coffee,” John said.
“2121,” I sang.
“Look! The sun is out. Let’s go outside. Let’s go let’s go let’s go.”
“Hold your horses,” John said.
“You got it,” I said and ran outside.
While John made breakfast, I fed the chicken-ducks, the sheep, the cows, and the horses.
John hadn’t taken the saddle off our prefer rides. John mostly rode Tex, while I rode Rusty . I pulled myself up and rode the loop. The ‘loop’ was a fence that went around our home, like a second barrier to keep skeletons out of shooting range. It also gave us a chance to recover chicken ducks and sheep determined to escape. John called it the airlock. I completed a circuit. I went around again a little faster. I went around again, really fast. I shouted ‘whoo hoo.’ I love horses. John came out into the front yard. He did a motion and Rusty came to a halt.
“Aww,” I said. “I was having fun.”
“Come eat,” John said.
“My hunger bar says I am full,” I said. “Off the horse. Inside,” John said.
“His name is Rusty,” I said.
“Do I need to count?” John asked. He hadn’t used that phrase in a long time.
I climbed down from the horse and came inside. We had a little breakfast nook of a table that sat in an alcove with windows that let us see in directions. There was a bowl of mushroom and egg soup, dried fish, a bit of bread, and an apple sliced up for sharing.
“Fish again?” I said.
“I am happy to make us some lamb chops,” John said.
I sat with John at the table. We ate together. He was watching me. I stared back.
“What?” I asked.
“You are riding well,” John said. “Born in Texas,” I said.
“True that,” John said.
“Do you remember when I was a baby?” I said.
“I will never forget that,” John said. “Are you up for a little adventuring?”
“What do you have in mind?” I said.
“We fill a pack with food, and take the horses out for a long walk. We’ll head west and find what we find,” John said.
“Not a good idea. It’s safe here. You said we should wait,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I did. Now that we’re comfortable, I want to extend our map,” John said.
“What if we don’t make it back before dark?” I asked.
“We’ll take beds. Enough wood to make a shelter,” John said.
“This sounds dangerous,” I said.
“Yep,” John said. “It is. But you’re good with a bow. You’re good with a sword. You have armor. You have shield. We have horses. It’ll be fun. It will be like camping.”
“And if you die, I will be out there alone,” I said. “I am not going to die,” John said.
“How many times have you died?” I asked. “What if it’s like Jumanji and you have a limited number of spawns?”
“It is not. You have a compass. You have skills. You have knowledge. You will survive and come home, and I will head to you.”
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“It will be fun. There might be treasure,” John said.
“You can have it,” I said.
“I guess I could go and you stay here,” John said, musing.
“You’d do that?” I asked.
“We can talk via our tech, just like always,” John said.
“What if I fall in a well?” I said.
“You’re not going to fall in a well,” John said.
“How come they have so many wells in Heartland?” I asked.
“Plot contrivance,” John said.
“What if we fall into a plot contrivance?” I asked.
“We’ll just contrive our way out,” John said.
So, after breakfast, we geared up, slung our bags, and mounted our rides. Rusty said something funny. I patted his neck and said, “I know, but John is getting stir crazy.”
“Let’s do this,” John said. We went from the loop to the stretch of space that led to the bridge. Wheat was doing nicely in the space to either side. We had a nice bit of sugar cane and bamboo growing, just outside the loop that gave us a little more privacy. A horse stepped on the pressure plate. Pistons sheared off the sugar cane and bamboo that then fell into a stream that took it to a hole that feel into a hopper and then a chest in a trolley that brought it up to the storage room. I liked how high the bamboo got. If the mobs don’t see you, they don’t obsess. Chester kept up, running a head, coming back.
The bridge was west of the home. We headed west. I tried to race, but John slowed me up and instructed me not to tire Rusty out. Go slow, watch the terrain for holes, that kind of stuff. It was rather uneventful. Trees. Bushes. More flowers than you can be contained in a book. I wanted to collect some for die, but John kept us going.
“We could at least sing a song,” I said. “Guess so,” John said.
“Chitty chitty bang bang,” I said.
John looked at me. “No,” he said. “We need a cowboy song.”
“You only know one cowboy song,” I said.
“I know lots of cowboy songs, but yes, I am thinking of the one I taught you,” John said. I sighed.
“Your idea, sir,” John said. “It’s that, or Baby Sitting Blues.”
“Fine,” I said.
So John started the chorus. “Rollin rollin rollin…” It’s not just the theme from Rawhide.
It’s from one of John’s favorite movies, “The Blues Brothers.” If there is a movie with a soundtrack, John is on it. We concluded the song. He tipped his hat at me. We came out of the flowery fields and headed across desert. I kind of wish I had a hat like John’s.
“I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name,” I sang. I repeated the verse. I repeated the verse. I repeated the verse.
“Seriously, Eston, enough,” John said.
“I don’t remember the rest,” I said.
“It felt good to be out of the rain,” John sang.
“Oh, yeah. Thank you. I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name….” I began.
John brought us to a halt. Up ahead was a village. Chester sat and panted. It looked deserted. John was puzzling over it. It didn’t seem to be built on level ground. There was a house on a small mesa, with no evidence that one could get up there or back down. There a house in a lake. We drew up closer. There was ravine that cut the village in half. There were spider webs in the windows.
“What do you suppose happen?” I asked.
“Earthquake,” John mused.
“That’s great, it starts with an earth quake,” I sang.
“Birds and snakes aero planes,” John echoed.
“Who’s Lenny Bruce?” I asked.
John climbed off of Tex and tied him to a hitching post. He drew his sword and kicked open the door to the nearest house. A dozen cats flew out of every opening and John screamed. I laughed so hard I fell off of Rusty.
“OMG, that was so funny,” I said.
John glared at me. I held my shield up in defense.
“Your powers are no match for my mirror shield,” I said.
John hid a smile and went into the house. There was a chest. It was the same kind of tech as ours. “OH, GOD, thank you. Carrots. Beets. Beet seeds. Potatoes! French fries! Yes.” There was also some cooked rabbit, cooked rabbit stew, and some suspicious looking stew. John will eat it. He will eat anything.
“Let me have the carrots,” I said.
“No. You can have some after we grow some,” John said.
“Do you suppose I can lure a pig with a carrot?” I asked.
“Maybe,” John said. He collected the chest.
“Do you think I can ride a pig leading him with a carrot hanging off a fishing pole?” I asked.
John looked at me. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
“I don’t know. People get bored. Do you suppose you can fly a pig?” I asked.
“What?” John asked, opening the next door.
“You know the saying when pigs fly, well, wouldn’t it be cool if we could ride a flying pig?” I asked.
“No,” John said. Nothing of interest in the house.
“I will give you a badge if you ride a pig off a cliff,” I said.
“I don’t need a flying pig badge,” John said.
“It might be fun,” I said.
“You know what would be fun? You go harvest those melons over there,” John said.
“And don’t feed any of these cats.”
“Having a cat might be nice,” I said.
“Yeah, no. We have a dog, chicken-ducks, sheep, and horses,” John said.
“You like cats,” I reminded him. “Remember Darrin and Samantha?”
“I love cats. I don’t want another mouth to feed,” John said.
We looted the entire town. We found stone cutters. A weave machine. Several slightly used anvils. Tools. Lots of emeralds. Some paintings, which gave me ideas for making my own. A cartography stand. Some maps. Enough books to fill our library. And, inside the church, a brewing stand with several energy rods. John was singling ‘hallelujah!’ “Finally, we’re going to have some coffee.”
“Don’t you have to have coffee to brew coffee?” I asked.
“We’ll figure something out,” John said. He gauged the sun.
“We’ll set up camp in the church. I’ll put down a fence while you go get the horses,” John said.
I went and fetched the horses and brought them to the church. John closed the fence in behind me. We made a camp fire and I had a baked potato and rabbit stew. John ate the suspicious stew. He seemed happy with it. The first creeper arrived on the scene. He saw us, started for us, and a dozen cats stood their backs up and hissed. The creeper ran away.
“In the morning, you can feed as many cats as you like,” John said. We retired to the church and lay on our beds. I couldn’t sleep.
“Can we make a deck of cards and play cards?” I asked.
“Sleep,” John said.
“We should have brought the chess board,” I said.
“The sooner you sleep, the sooner morning will be here,” John said.
“I can’t sleep with all these monsters nearby,” I said.
John broke the beds, took us up to the top of the church, put the beds down, and we went to sleep. Morning was here before you knew it. We had breakfast, filled our inventories with as many items as we could carry, and John was about to take up the fence when he decided he was going to climb up and check out the last remaining house we didn’t ram sack.
“And, just how do you propose to get up there?” I asked.
“The same way the Egyptians built the pyramids,” John said.
“With tech, one block at a time.”
And that said, John taught me a trick. He jumped and before he could fall, he placed a stone underneath him. In this manner he went all the way to the top of the mesa. The house was empty but for a bed and a chest.
“You are so going to love this,” John said. “What did you find?”
John came down from on high, retrieving one stone at a time till he was down. He had me close my eyes. When I opened them again, I didn’t see anything right away.
“Fine,” John said, collecting the fence. “Mount up.”
I went to get on Rusty and discovered he was wearing diamond armor! “Yes. Awesome.”
“Don’t forget to throw fish at the cats,” John said.
“We’re not rolling doggies today,” I agreed.
You probably never seen anyone herding cats, but by god, we must have drove about hundred cats across the desert. We paused only to catch some rabbits in a trap.
“Don’t kill them,” I said.
“Not these guys,” John said. “We’re going to mine some rabbits.”
“A badge for every breed of animals we keep,” I said.
As we approached our home, we added a herd of donkeys. John didn’t have time to tame them before night, so he just lassoed three with ropes and we pulled them along. All in all, we had like the most successful adventure of all time! We added to the mystery. John couldn’t read the books, but they went on the shelves anyway. We couldn’t have carried more stuff. Even so, I was glad to be home.