Epilogue

Settlement, OWME Security Headquarters, a week later

“Kids, Ah don’t rightly know how we can properly thank y’all,” Behind an expansive desk of native Forest wood, the Colonel rocked back and forth in an old-fashioned swivel chair. In fact, he did have a pretty good idea. A team of construction engineers was already assembling for just that purpose.

Mike and Jenny were seated across the desk from Forest’s number one Security Officer. Mike reached over and took Jenny’s hand.

“Colonel,” he asked, “if OWME wants to express its appreciation, I may just have an idea how they could do it.”

“And how would that be, son?” the Colonel asked. He had an enigmatic grin on his face.

 “How long would it take for a team of engineers to clear all the junk out of that meadow and help Jenny and me rebuild our cabin?”

Colonel Davies leaned back in his swivel chair, an expansive expression on his broad face. “Well, son, seein’ as what you and the Missus have been through, and how y’all warned us about these here Gru-Gell landing on our planet, well, mind you Ah can’t speak for the Company, but with mah favorable recommendation, Ah imagine the Company will most likely approve y’all’s request. In return, son, for mah favorable recommendation, can Ah prevail upon you to perhaps give trespass permission and guide an old boy on a huntin’ trip up in those mountains of yours sometime?” He motioned to the five-by-five elk head on the wall over his desk. “Ah’ve got some mighty fond memories of the last time y’all guided me on a hunt, son, and Ah’d be delighted to repeat the experience. Ah’m right pleased y’all found your way here to Forest, boy!”

“I’ll take you on a hunt anytime you like, Colonel, but they aren’t our mountains,” Mike replied. “I’d be happy to guide you, but you don’t need my permission.”

“Ah, boy, that’s where you’re wrong,” Colonel Davies grinned. He produced a framed piece of paper from his desk drawer. “Kids, the OWME Forest Project Board O’ Directors met this very morning, at which meetin’ Ah was privileged to be a guest.” 

“It didn’t take the Company bigwigs long to resurface once the shooting stopped, did it?”  Mike chuckled. 

Smiling, Colonel Davies got up now walked over to a large map of the area on his office wall. “You should know, boy, that executives never do any of the dirty work. Not in a big company like OWME! Anyway, now, at this here meeting, the Board voted unanimously to give you and Mrs. Crider clear title to the land from the big river here,” he pointed, “To the divide of these mountains on the north, over to the coast on the west, and down to an east-west line here,” he concluded, drawing a line with one finger what had to be fifty kilometers south of the cabin site. He’d just outlined a stretch of land approximately the size of the American state of Ohio. “Now, since the Company has rights to land apportionment under the Settlement Act of 2169, Ah’m pleased to say this document yields y’all full legal title and all rights to the land described, without lean or qualification.

“Congratulations, kids. Y’all are unquestionably the biggest landowners this old boy’s ever met.” He strode over to shake Mike’s hand. He extended his hand to Jenny as well, but she ignored it, choosing instead to kiss the Colonel on the cheek. He blushed.

“Colonel,” Jenny said warmly, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You kids are the heroes of Forest,” the Colonel replied, still a bit embarrassed. “Hadn’t been for you, the Gru-Gell could have landed a whole army before we’d a known what was what. You told us what they were up to, and where they were, and you risked your lives to get here to tell us. Hell, you even brought in the first P.O.W.! ”

Clomonastik, having been summarily abandoned by the Grugell Occupation force, was still being held in a security cell in the Security Headquarters two stories down. He was rapidly learning English and, as the old Earth saying went, ‘singing like a bird.’

“In that case, Colonel, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got one more errand to run before we catch a ride back home,” Mike said, and shaking the Colonel’s hand, he ushered Jenny out of the Security Headquarters and towards a large, white-painted structure across the dusty red-dirt street.

An hour later, Mike and Jenny stood, facing each other, in front of a gray-haired, black-robed Magistrate, who smiled broadly as he concluded, “You can kiss the bride, son.” Mike did so, for all he was worth.

Two years later, in the mountain meadow

The battles fought for Forest seemed far away as Mike stepped out of the cabin on a bright, warm morning for another session of archery practice. As he walked towards his practice field at the far edge of the meadow, his thoughts were drawn back to the two years gone by since that great turning point in his life.

Colonel Davies was now a regular and welcome visitor to the mountain home of the Criders. Mike and Jenny had been thoroughly surprised one morning only two weeks earlier when the Colonel had showed up with two Security troops and a subdued Clomonastik in tow. 

The former Grugell Occupation Commander was speaking excellent English now. “He’s smarter than Ah care to admit,” Colonel Davies informed Mike. “Ah hope, for our sake, that the rest of the Gru-Gell are a little dumber than this one.”

Clomonastik approached Mike that afternoon, after the Colonel and the Security troops had taken him on a tour of the area and explained the circumstances of his Occupation’s defeat.

“Ah, Mikecrider,” Clomonastik had grinned down at Mike from his nearly three-meter height. He leaned over to lay one white, long-clawed hand on Mike’s shoulder. Mike flinched, but there was no malice in the motion.

“You, my friend, were a worthy adversary indeed.  I’ve recently been made aware of some of your human scribes and philosophers. One of them, whose name I don’t recall – such odd names you humans bear – said, ‘the true measure of a warrior lie not in the loyalty of his friends, but in the caliber of his enemies.’ You, Mikecrider, are a worthy enemy. Since my own personal lot would now seem to be cast with your people, it is my wish that you will one day accept my own friendship, and find that the Grugell can be as faithful in friendship as we are in war.” Given that Clomonastik’s fate should he return to the Grugell would be disintegration for failure, he had quickly seen the wisdom in self-preservation.

“I guess that remains to be seen,” Mike equivocated. “Are they going to keep you here on Forest?”

“No, Mikecrider,” Clomonastik  made a weird sound – if bats could laugh, Mike imagined it would sound much the same. “It seems I’m too valuable to be left out here on the edges of space. No, in ten days’ time I will be placed on a ship returning to your home world, ‘Earth.’ What wonders will I see there, could you begin to describe them? No? Perhaps another time, then.” He removed his feather-light palm from Mike’s shoulder. The Grugell straightened up, looking around at the meadow that was to have been his Occupation headquarters. 

“I’m reminded of the words of another of your great philosophers, my respected adversary,” Clomonastik said at last. “This one said, ‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’ The Grugell will face your people again, Mikecrider. Be on your guard, always. My people are great warriors. I think that a great conflict will be our portion one day.”

Clomonastik turned, smiling and waving one thin hand to a scowling Jenny as she watched from the cabin doorway.

“You should have more than one wife to care for you, my friend,” the tall, thin alien chided him gently. “With this large home, you should have, oh, six or seven. A warrior of your caliber should have many females and children.”

Mike offered no comment.

Possible wars were far from Mike’s concern this morning, however. The morning sun was warm on his back as he sent a fifth arrow slamming into his leather target. Smiling, he tipped back his battered old Stetson and rested the lower limb of his longbow on the toe of his moccasin. His new batch of arrows was just fine. Twisting one handlebar of what was now a truly enormous Zapata mustache, complimented now by a dark-blonde goatee, Mike turned at the sound of the cabin door slamming.

The new cabin stood on the site of the old one, but was built of mill-hewn lumber rather than logs, and had four rooms instead of one. Water from a drilled well, put in place by the engineers sent by a grateful Company, replaced the two buckets Mike had previously used to haul water from the sparkling clear stream. A geothermal power source even provided them with electricity and hot water for a tiny shower stall in the bathroom.

His Jenny was walking towards him, dressed as usual in a knee-length leather dress. The leather tented over the swell of her six-month pregnancy, and behind her padding bare feet toddled their year-old son, Little Mike. Jenny had one hand behind her back and was smiling warmly at her husband. She kissed him warmly, whispering, “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

He complied, hearing her giggle as a hard, paper-wrapped object dropped into his hand. He opened his eyes.

“A Nutty Crunch Bar!”

Mike picked up Little Mike, seating him on one shoulder for the walk back towards the cabin. A heavy cargo flyer sailed overhead at high altitude, bearing for the new town of Edgewater, a growing community on the shore of the Northern Ocean. Docks were going up there, and a shipyard, to complete the exploration of Forest by sea.

Mike and Jenny’s new home planet of Forest remained, mostly, a primeval wilderness. The fearsome, dinosaur-sized rocs still stalked the lowland fern prairies, and travelers still had to exercise caution when moving through the haunts of the huge predators as well as the areas frequented by the giant, ill-tempered loggers. More people were moving onto the planet every month, roads were pushing farther into the wilds, and farms had sprung up as close as the base of the New Pyrenees. But in the mountain meadow, high above the hunting grounds of the rocs, the Crider family enjoyed their hard-earned peace and solitude.

“Life,” Mike observed to Jenny that bright morning as they walked hand in hand towards the cabin, “just couldn’t get any better than this.” Forest’s best-known family went inside their cabin as the flying freighter disappeared overhead, bearing north.

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.