Page 20 of Runaway Hucow

Tess could tell from his voice that he was very proud of his home and excited to finally show it to her. As they emerged from the trees, she saw the reason for his pride.

The valley was beautiful.

It looked to be about eight miles long, and maybe half that wide, and it was surrounded on all sides by large hills covered in dense forests like the one they had just emerged from. It was already late afternoon, and the light of the lowering sun added a tinge of gold to the pale green of the rippling grass. It was the most pristine and secluded valley Tess had ever seen in her life.

But it wasn’t the valley itself that really took her breath away. It was creatures who were living there.

Bison. Hundreds of them.

From Tess’s vantage point on the hillside, most of the animals looked like little more than dark brown spots scattered throughout the valley, but some were close enough for her to see the shape of them, and their humped withers and enormous shaggy heads let her know these were not merely cattle. They were real wild bison.

“There’s so many of them,” she said with a gasp.

“Two thousand and eighty-two at last count,” Spike said.

The bisonman was standing beside her now, and Tess whipped her head toward him so quickly she nearly spilled out of her saddle.

“Two thousand?”

“And eighty-two, yes ma’am. ’Course, the last time we counted was a year ago, so I reckon that number’s changed a little. A few calves have been born since then, and a few of the old ones have passed on.”

Tess couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Spike, I read in the newspaper last year that there are only about five hundred bison total living in all of North America! That was the official estimate from the U.S. government.” She knew she was remembering that figure correctly, because she’d been shocked by just how low the number was.

“Well, that estimate is a bit off,” the bisonman said with a slight smirk. “I reckon whoever came up with it doesn’t know about this here valley.”

“I guess not…”

Tess still couldn’t believe it. There were more wild bison living in this one valley than in all the rest of the world combined. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

As they made their way down into the valley, Tess was able to get a closer look at the creatures. She’d only ever seen buffalo in pictures before, and seeing them in real life was much more impressive. She even got to see a few of the calves Spike had mentioned. Some of them stopped grazing and lifted their wooly heads to watch as she rode past. They seemed like peaceful creatures, but Tess knew those muscles and horns served a purpose too, so she was happy to keep her distance.

“There’s the cottage up ahead,” Spike said, pointing.

The house was larger than the typical cottage. It had to be, if it was going to accommodate three big bisonmen. The walls were clad in simple, unpainted pine slats that the sun had weathered to a pretty shade of silver, and there was a wide front porch with three of the biggest rocking chairs Tess had ever seen in her life.

A little distance away from the house was a structure which she took for a barn due to its large size and the rooster-shaped weathervane extending upward from the roof. However, it might have also been a blacksmith’s shop based on the loud, metallic clanging sounds coming from within. Somebody was hammering something in there.

Somebody big.

On the other side of the house, there was a small pond, and next to that a large corral for horses, though it was empty. Past the corral, a good distance off, stood a minotaur-sized outhouse with a crescent moon cut into the door for light. And in the center of the property, towering over everything else, stood a tall, three-legged windmill, which was spinning furiously in the afternoon breeze.

As they got closer, Tess realized it was no ordinary windmill. There was some kind of metal box affixed to the back of the turbine, and a tangle of rubber tubes were hanging down from the box and curling around the legs of the windmill like vines before disappearing into another, larger metal box near the base.

Now what could that be for, Tess wondered.

She didn’t get to wonder about it for long, however, as her attention was soon drawn away by other matters.

As they neared the house, Spike suddenly tilted his head back and let out a sound that reminded Tess of cattle lowing, only rougher and more guttural. The clanging noises inside the barn immediately stopped, and a moment later, a figure emerged from within.

It was another bisonman.

He was not quite as broad as Spike, but he was a little taller. He was dressed in the same knee-length britches that conformed tightly to his muscular legs, and his chest and arms were equally muscular, and entirely bare. Tess could see that his body was smudged with something dark like soot, or maybe grease. He wore a pair of large spectacles over his eyes, and the round lenses glinted in the afternoon sun. His face was every bit as handsome as Spike’s, and Tess felt her heart jump a little when his eyes met with hers.

She felt other things, too. Things that made her grateful once again for her loose shirt and dark blue jeans.

After a moment, Spike’s deep voice broke her out of her temporary daze.

“Tess, I’d like you to meet my brother Peyton. Peyton…”