The Great Ones
by
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Shortly after breaking camp on the ninth day, they rode up on a ridge going across their line of travel and looked down on a river valley. The ridge they were on was about three hundred yards above the valley floor, and it looked like about a mile across. From where they sat, the river was just a few hundred yards from the bottom of the ridge. They were just looking over the terrain and giving the horses a break when Jim suddenly turned his horse, "Get off the skyline Dad!" Wess didn’t ask any questions, he just tuned his mount to follow Jim. As soon as they were just below the ridge top, on the side they had just climbed, Jim jumped from the saddle, handed his reins to his father saying, "Watch them for a minute. I think I saw something." Taking his field glasses and rifle, he bellied down on top of the ridge. After a few minutes he said, "Dad! Stake the horses and come up here." Wess pulled two pickets pins and a hammer out of the saddlebag and staked Twister and Josh. He left the packhorses tied to the saddles as they were. Then taking his own binoculars and rifle he crawled up beside his son. Coming up the valley, on their side of the river, was a line of people. As they got closer it could be seen that they were attached to a chain by collars on their necks. Walking along with them were what was obviously their guards. The guards didn’t look human. Wess looked up and saw Joe standing by his side, "Damn it Joe, get down." Joe quickly dropped down. Wess went back to studying the approaching column. The guards were reptile looking things that stood a good head taller than the men. The only clothing they wore was an armor breastplate and a wide belt with a sword scabbard on one side and a quiver full of cross bow bolts on the other. They all carried a cocked crossbow in one hand. A few of them that were walking along side the prisoners carried whips. Wess counted fifty guards and nineteen prisoners. Of the prisoners, eight were men and the rest were women and children. All were shackled to the long chain with iron neck collars about six feet apart. Their clothing seemed to be made of leather. "I hope you don’t plan to get involved with this," Joe said. Jim glanced over at Joe. He spoke with anger in his voice, "I guess those lizards are the Garkers you told us about. They belong to the so-called Great Ones." "That is correct," Joe answered, "they are property of a Great One and so are those prisoners. This is none of our concern." "I’ll tell you something Joe. People don’t belong to anyone. Dad, do you think we can take them all?" "I don’t know son. I count fifty of them, but they would have to come up hill to get to us." By now the approaching line was about two hundred yards away and to their right. A little girl near the end of the line fell. Jim judged her to be about ten years old. The man behind bent down to help her up. A guard ran up and began to beat both with his whip. Jim put down his binoculars, picked up his rifle and shot the guard through the head.
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About the Book
Deep under a mountain in Northwest Montana, two miners break into a cavern and discover an ancient space ship. Inside this ship is a space-time gate controlled by an extremely intelligent computer. This computer has self-awareness and can project any image it wants. It projects an image of a man and introduces itself to the miners as Joe.
It tells the miners it wants to hire them to enlarge the tunnel they made from the outside of the mountain to its cavern so it can get its spaceship out. The computer is in the shape of a small crystal. It tells the miners to detach it from the spaceship and take it with them through the space-time gate, and it will lead them to where it has thousands of tons of gold, stashed on a primitive planet. The gold would be their pay for enlarging the tunnel.
The men go through the gate and find themselves in a number of dangers that they hadn’t bargained for, including a war.
How the ship got under the mountain and how the computer knew English is all explained in the book.
About the Author
John Lang was raised in Ajo, Arizona. He grew up working cattle on a ranch belonging to a family friend. Hunting was, and still is, his favorite sport. After graduating from high school there in 1956, he journeyed to Houston, Texas and joined the Merchant Marine. For the next five years he traveled the world on ships and deep sea tugs. Between trips he managed to train and fight twenty one times in the ring. His record was seventeen wins four loses with fourteen knockouts. He then returned to Ajo and went to work at the open pit copper mine. In 1966 he moved to north Idaho and went to work at the Sun Shine, an underground silver mine. Over the next thirty years he followed the trade of an underground miner. He retired in 1998. He now lives with his wife of twenty-three years on a small farm in North Idaho, along with two dogs, six cats and forty cows.