Chapter 1
People were much more accepting back home and while discrimination against dinosaurs were not unheard of, it was much more common out here where I live. Everyone in our small settlement hated those beasts. They call them uncivilized savages. Ever since I was born, my parents taught me to stay clear of dinosaurs unless you were hunting them. They told me how these massive beasts would not hesitate to kill my fellow humans, even if their targets were innocent children.
Naturally this caused me to fear them and it made me not want to run off into the woods without escort. My first hunt gave me most of my adventurous spirit back. I felt safer with a gun in my hand, knowing I could defend myself should I be attacked. Papa and mama allowed me to bring my gun around. Heck, they required me to take at least one gun with me whenever I decided to venture into the forest.
His two preserving bags filled to the brim with dinosaur meat, Ramirez returned from the woods with a firm grin on his face. Samuel McClemont and his wife Aurinda rushed over to their son and took the bags off him. Despite their worries, his first hunt was a resounding success, giving the family enough meat to last them a couple of weeks while still having extra to sell. Compared to beef, chicken, fish, and even seafood, dinosaur meat was extremely valuable.
Just one 15cmx15cm slab was worth over five hundred dollars, though most traders preferred to trade using silver mint since currency inflation would only drive their value up. The value of the day was ten dollars per ounce, which meant the McClemont family would earn more than a few tins of silver mint if they sold off the extras. Samuel and Aurinda were extremely proud of their son, his prowess with the antiquated flintlock especially.
Ever since the advent of percussion caps, flintlocks have fallen out of favor and while people still used them, these guns were usually made on order. Ramirez chose a flintlock Minie rifle over a percussion cap version because he wanted something he could use should he find himself stuck in the wild. Percussion caps may be waterproof but he would need a steady supply of these to keep the gun running. By comparison, a flintlock rifle only needed flint, powder, and Minie ball to work.
"Your son is shaping up to become a fine hunter, Aurinda!" A market trader remarks as she hands over the tins of silver mint.
"Thank you, Mary." She smiles. "Frankly speaking, neither Samuel nor I thought he was going to bag anything this big."
"Probably still has some hunter instinct from his past life."
"Perhaps."
A short walk from the market, Ramirez sits quietly in the front porch of the large(compared to the other houses)yet simple home he and his family resided in. In his hand was a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Like his father, Ramirez was a history buff and despite his age, he loved to read stories and poems about great battles of the past. The epic told the story of a man called Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk who was two-third god and one third human.
Next to him, his father was practicing a tune on his guitar. While pianos were very popular back home on the continent of Elysium, the simpler guitar was more prevalent here as it was easily acquired and did not occupy a large space in the home. Life was just too simple out here for something as grand as a piano.
"Ramirez, have you cleaned your gun yet?" Aurinda asked as she approached the front porch.
"Scrubbed the bore; cleaned the action; oiled everything which required oil." He answers. "Everything's done, mama."
"Good."
"You don't have to worry about our boy, dear." Samuel smiles. "He's already more independent and mature than most of his peers."
"True, but it's always good to give a reminder. We are all humans at the end and we will forget things every now and then."
"Can you tone it down a little? I'm trying to read something here."
Yeah, I can be quite direct when it comes to talking. That's just who I am. If I want something done, I'll just ask you directly. I just don't understand why some people will say a bunch of absolute nonsense only to ask you the same question which would've been asked an eternity ago. Something tells me we are going to be a sensitive lot within a matter of years.
Anyways, we're getting a little off topic here aren't we? Let's get back to it all.
Life out here in the wild can be an adventure, it can also be a dangerous one. Home might seem to be the safest place you can possibly be, but sometimes that safety has to be fought for. Because dinosaurs out here don't seem to understand the meaning of territory or borders.
It was around six in the evening when the gates of the settlement were literally ripped off their hinges. Almost immediately, a large group of Utahdons burst in with their killing claws extended. Those out on the street began running for their homes when they saw the approaching threat, screaming in fear. Though the settlement did not possess any form of heavy artillery and had very few punt guns, the Theropods have failed to account for the fact that everyone here was ready to fight to the death.
Men, women, and children who knew how to shoot grabbed their guns from the cupboards and began firing at the advancing dinosaurs. Most were armed with rifles, allowing them to hit their targets with the first shot and kill them. Two of the Utahdons somehow manage to avoid getting hit and attempt to barge into one of the homes. When they knocked down the door however, a very angry old man confronted them with a sawn off double barreled shotgun.
"You just entered the wrong home, pal."
BANG
BANG
His son and wife immediately ran for the door after he fired and covered the old man as he rammed two fresh charges into his gun(one in each barrel)and capped the nipples. At the Ramirez home, Samuel got ahold of his Colt 1855 Revolving rifle and was putting round after round into his foes. Most in the settlement have avoided purchasing the revolving rifles due to their tendency to chain fire but Samuel got around this problem by putting a wad in between the charge and projectile to keep loose powder from leaking.
Another advantage of the revolving rifle was its ability to swap cylinders quickly, allowing the user to quickly reload the gun by swapping the empty cylinder with one which was preloaded. As Samuel grabbed a new cylinder from his custom made leather pouch, he suddenly spots one of the Utahdons charging towards Parsons, who was desperately trying to reload his musket. Given how fast the Theropod was running, there seemed no hope for the old man.
Suddenly Ramirez, who had been standing right next to his father, shouldered his rifle and and pulled the trigger. To everyone's surprise, he struck the Utahdon dead center in its side, causing it to lose balance and fall over onto his right side. At first the shot seemed like a miracle shot but the boy repeated his feat more than twice as he fired at anything which was not human. One Utahdon thought it could outwit him by coming in close but Ramirez simply thrust his rifle forward, allowing the bayonet to do its job.
Despite the initial surprise advantage, the Utahdons were forced to retreat under the hail of relentless gunfire and worse still, they suffered heavy casualties for nothing. They might've caused panic in the settlement but none of its inhabitants were wounded or killed. They nearly got Parsons but that particular Utahdon had been denied his kill by a five year old boy. That's right, he was stopped by a kid who was more than ten years younger than he was.
"Your boy is a crack shot!" Parsons remarked. "I genuinely thought I was going to die."
"Neither of us anticipated him to be this good." Aurinda responds. "Shooting moving targets repeatedly is not a feat we can all pull off."
"Yeah, teach us a few of your moves, kid." Jackson said.
"I just aimed ahead of my target." Ramirez answers.
"Come on, it can't be that simple."
"It IS! All I did was estimate how fast they travel, aim ahead, and keep the barrel moving while I pulled the trigger."
"So basically the kid used the same tactic we used to shoot birds." The old man appeared from behind the group, still clutching the shotgun he used earlier. "Though I must say he's a heck of a shot, being able to plant a single projectile into such a fast moving creature consistently."
While the settlers congratulated young Ramirez for his amazing shooting prowess, the pack of Utahdons rejoined the main pack. Well, what was left of them. Out of the fifty which went out that day, only five returned and all but one were wounded. Three of them were limping by the time they reached their pack while the fourth had his right arm blown clean off. The one who wasn't wounded was the one who led them back to the pack and everyone was shocked when they saw the condition of their brethren.
They were even more horrified when they realized just how many they've lost in this single attack on the human settlements. Now the Alpha truly understood the power of a combined human force. Alone and out in the wild, they were vulnerable to attack if the attackers came en masse. But humans in a united settlement were nothing to sneeze at. Their combined firepower could wipe out a force with superior numbers even without weapons like heavy cannons and artillery pieces.
One of the younger Utahdons, a female by the name of Florence, lost her brother in the attack. He had been the one who was killed by Ramirez while charging a defenseless Parsons.
Hostiles attacked human settlements at random. On all occasions they would be repelled as gun armed humans were at their best when they had solid cover to shoot from. This time we were lucky to suffer no casualties, but it wasn't always this easy. During one attack, our settlement leader was very nearly killed, saved only when his right hand man decided to sacrifice himself for the sake of his boss. That man just so happened to be my late Uncle Thomas.
Honestly I never quite understood why the Utahdons kept attacking our charming little settlement. Mama and Papa told me it was because they were uncivilized savages but I think there's more than that. If only I could have a friendly conversation with a member of their species, maybe I would know more.