Page 34 of Runaway Hucow

“Okay,” Tess said, returning his smile.

For a moment, an uneasy silence settled over the barn. Tess decided to break it. She turned to Peyton again.

“You said you’ve already taken this airship up for a few test flights. How did you get it out of here?” It obviously wouldn’t fit through the barn door.

Peyton pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and grinned. “I’ll show you. Follow me…”

They went down the stairs to the ground floor and walked to the back of the barn. On the way, they went past the airship’s gondola, which was about the size of a railroad caboose. It was made out of stained and lacquered wood with big glass windows running down the sides and a control station at the front for the pilot. Heavy hempen mooring lines kept the whole thing from floating away.

At the end of the barn was a set of big metal gears with a crank and a large chain running up to the ceiling roof.

“Watch this,” Peyton said.

He turned the crank, and the gears began to rumble. After a moment, a ray of sunshine broke through from above and widened, filling the barn with light. Tess tilted her head back and gasped. The whole roof of the barn was opening up like the lid of a box. In less than a minute, it was fully open, and there was nothing but blue sky above their heads.

“That’s amazing,” Tess said. “Did you build that too?” She knew he must have, but she still couldn’t believe it.

“I can’t take all the credit,” Peyton said, grinning broadly. “Spike and Roscoe helped me.”

“But Peyton designed it himself. I told you, he’s the Joe Coppelius of Colorado.”

“I’ve seen pictures of Coppelius,” Tess said. “He isn’t nearly as handsome.” It was difficult to tell, but she thought she saw the bespectacled bisonman blush.

Spike tilted his head back and squinted up through the open roof at the sun, which was creeping higher in the sky directly overhead.

“Hey, it’s getting late. We’d better get a move on.”

“Where are we going now?” Tess asked.

“I want to take you to meet our neighbors,” Spike said. “The Walkers.”

As Peyton cranked the roof shut again, Tess stared at the airship. It made her feel good knowing that thing was here. The bisonmen were true to their word. After fourteen days, if Tess wanted to go, they would fly her down to Arizona to live on Shannon Duffy’s ranch.

But would she even want to go? Tess wasn’t sure anymore. Even though she’d been in this valley for only a short while, she was already quite fond of the two bisonmen.

Oh well, she still had time to think about it, and at the moment, she was more nervous about meeting the Walkers. She wondered what the humans were going to think about the runaway hucow who was now hiding in their valley.

CHAPTER 18

Tess soon learned that her nervousness about meeting the Walkers was completely unwarranted. Most humans did not view hucows as people, but the Walkers were not like most humans. They welcomed Tess with open arms and treated her just like another member of their family.

The Walker farm was located about four miles away, nestled into a little bend in the valley. It looked a lot like the bisonmen’s home, except everything had been built on a smaller scale that was more appropriate for the humans who inhabited it. There was a barn, several fenced in acres of pastureland, a windmill with an electric generator that Peyton had built for them. And of course, there was a farmhouse. The house was actually bigger than the bisonmen’s cottage, because even though the Walkers were of a smaller stature than the minotaurs, there were more of them.

A lot more.

There were three strapping men who were brothers, and their three beautiful wives, although Tess had trouble figuring out who was married to whom since they all bore the Walker family name. Between all of them, they had a small army of children ranging in age from their early teens all the way down to two months. Tess thought they were the happiest, friendliest family she had ever seen.

And they were obviously very fond of the minotaurs.

The family treated their guests to a huge lunch consisting entirely of vegetable-based dishes, and while they ate, Tess was able to learn a little bit about the arrangement between the minotaurs and the humans. In addition to protecting the herd of wild buffalo who lived in the valley, the bisonmen also protected the Walkers’ livestock from coyotes and wolves. They chopped and split wood for the humans to burn in winter, and they lent their immense size and strength to the numerous construction projects around the farm. Tess learned that the bisonmen had built the sturdy wooden fence surrounding the Walkers’ pastures, erected a new barn after the old one burned down, and even built several additions onto the farmhouse to accommodate the ever growing Walker family.

In return, the humans were happy to share their crops with the bisonmen, and whenever they made a trip to one of the distant towns to purchase supplies, they would always bring back any goods the bisonmen might need. That was how Peyton had amassed his collection of tools for his workshop.

When it came time to leave, the Walkers insisted that the bisonmen take some food with them as well as some clothing for Tess. The Walker women weren’t quite as buxom as Tess, but with a few alterations, their dresses could be made to fit. Tess had thanked them profusely, but the women had told her to think nothing of it. Any friend of the bisonmen was a friend of the Walkers, they told her, and here in the valley, everyone was happy to share.

The women had invited Tess to come visit them anytime she wanted, and she told them she would do that. It felt good knowing there were other women nearby if she needed someone to talk to—someone who wasn’t a giant male with fur and horns.

As Tess made her way back up the valley on horseback with her belly full of good food and her two strong bisonmen striding protectively on either side of her, she reflected on what it would be like to live here in this secluded valley. Not only would she have her physical needs met—food, water, shelter, clothing—but she would have friends as well, female friends to keep her from getting lonely. And not only that… she would have freedom too.