Chapter 3

DAY 14

Thila, Ayoki, and I set out after breakfast, headed north for an area where I’d seen horses twice before. A quarter mile to the north of our cave, the cliff where our cave was located curved to the east. That part of the cliff was where the limestone deposit and the flint were. Beyond that was a wide, flat box canyon with a stream running through it. We found that the stream entered the canyon via a spectacular waterfall at the east end of the canyon. There were quite a few trees in the canyon, but it was mostly covered in tall grass. The canyon was over a mile long, and half a mile wide near the middle. This end of the canyon was barely a hundred feet wide. I was disappointed that the horses were gone but took advantage of their absence to start enclosing this end.

Using as many of the existing trees as possible, I augmented them with sturdy posts where no trees were available. The final fence line would look like a drunk had built it, zigzagging back and forth between the available trees. By nightfall, we’d installed ten posts cut from large sapling trunks. The posts were buried four feet deep and extended seven feet above ground. The dirt around each post was replaced, supplemented with rocks, and tamped down thoroughly. I hoped that tomorrow I could get a lot of the crosspieces attached. I planned to leave open the section that straddled the game trail the horses used, allowing them into the canyon. That section would eventually become the gate.

When we got back to the cave, I could tell that something had happened while we were gone. My mates who stayed at the cave were still shaking. Evidently, there was a village some distance to the south of us, right on the ocean. The men of that camp would form raiding parties and attack other villages in the night, stealing women. They usually sent out a group of men for an attack. Feshe had been up in a tree on guard duty when she spotted them. She sent one of the children to warn the others, who were busy cutting grass for Bessie.

They hurried back to the cave, but not before the men spotted them. Fortunately, the men were so intent on the fleeing women that they didn’t see Feshe in the tree. Even though she was shaking, she started shooting the men. At first, she missed every other shot because she was shaking so badly. By the time she hit five of them, though, the men were upset. They couldn’t figure out what was happening and kept advancing. The closer they got, the better Feshe’s aim became. They ran almost directly below Feshe as they chased the escaping women.

After picking off the last of the men, it had taken Feshe a long time before she stopped shaking enough that she could climb down out of the tree. I hugged her and held her tightly as I thanked and congratulated her for protecting our family while I wasn’t there.

I also realized that, at some point, I had come to care a great deal about the new women in my life. I knew I didn’t feel as close to them yet as I had to Beth, but I could feel the bond growing daily. I was even beginning to think of the adopted kids as my own. I also realized that, while my competitive nature drove me to not only survive the challenge, but to win it, I was doing it as much for my mates as I was myself. Every day, they made it abundantly clear that I was their mate, and they were damn proud of the fact.

The kicker was when they showed me the chainmail shirt one of the raiders had worn. What was even worse was that the man also wore the body sock and clothing of one of the contestants and carried the hatchet and machete. I shuddered, worrying at first that one of the former contestants had gone rogue. The fact that the man had been carrying a wooden spear instead of the alien gun made me reconsider. I figured that they had probably killed one of the previous contestants and had taken the belongings he wore. I wondered what had happened to the contestant’s weapons and other belongings.

I decided to leave the twenty-two bodies of the raiders where they lay for the night. If predators got them, oh well. The women were horrified when they learned that I intended to burn the bodies tomorrow. They believed in burying a person with their belongings so they would have them in the next world. If they were burned after they died, every day of their next life would be spent in a fiery inferno. When I reminded the women what type of men these were, they decided that burning them was a good idea after all. I wanted to burn them to remove any evidence of them being here, and to get rid of the bodies to keep predators away.

The men had already been stripped of everything useful, especially their weapons. Their clothing would be washed and saved for possible future use. After taking Bessie inside, we locked up tight and went in for the night. I had Ifia milk Bessie tonight. It took a while, but she finally caught on and did a passable job. There was no sex tonight, but we all cuddled Feshe to show how much we appreciated what she’d done today.

DAY 15

Evidently, each contestant faced similar challenges at the same time. The raiders could have been a serious problem had we not been prepared and alert. Six quick rounds of Another One Bites the Dust started my morning. I guess other contestants had been caught unprepared. That meant we could go another two weeks with no contestants dying to necessarily reduce the number.

At the same time, I knew that I had won both the highest contestant score and the viewer favorite vote for the second week. Somewhere, two gifts were waiting for me.

Last night, I had drilled holes in the cave door and barn door about three feet above the ground, and closed them with pegs. I had left the exterior light on all night. When I checked this morning well before dawn, I saw several predators working the bodies over. A saber-tooth had claimed one body and cave lions several others. I guess there were enough bodies to go around, so they weren’t about to fight each other. Opening the door slowly and quietly, I started picking off predators, starting with the biggest. When they were all down, I watched and waited. By dawn, the final count was two saber-tooth cats, nine cave lions, eight cave hyenas, four wolves, and one cave bear, although not as large as the original cave bear I had killed. I hoped that I had made a large dent in the local population of predators.

When I went out to milk Bessie, I found a scythe, two sickles, and a post hole digger in the barn. “Yes,” I hissed excitedly when I found a dozen meat hooks. They were sturdy enough to hold half a carcass of everything I’d found so far except a cave bear or a megaloceros. Of course, that also meant more work for me. I’d now have to find a way to support two or three beams near the top of the freezer room to attach the meat hooks to, and then build it. I also wondered about building heavy plank shelving to set chunks of meat on to make more space on the back wall of the freezer.

While I milked Bessie, the ladies started on the cats with Feshe guarding them. They were skinned, defanged, declawed, and their brains removed to use for curing the hides. The bear was next, and I was excited to see how much fat he was carrying, despite it being early spring. The fat ended up in the cold room in a twenty-gallon soup pot as well as piled on top of an older animal hide. Once the bear was cut up and stored in the freezer, the remaining predators were added to the funeral pyre.

With Feshe again guarding us, we spent the afternoon building a funeral pyre of dead wood and bodies. Most of the bodies had been severely gnawed on during the night. Several had been dragged away up to a hundred feet. Just for jollies, I put the first three clay bowls in the middle to see if they fired properly. As warm and sunny as the last several days had been, I was pretty certain the clay was completely dry.

Just before dinner, I lit the pyre, and we watched it burn while we ate. Afterward, we left the glowing coals and flickering flames to finish their job. I sure wished I had some marshmallows right about then, and then changed my mind when I remembered what we were burning!

We worked on various tasks until it was time to go to bed. Feshe worked on braiding ropes. She had finished four that were fifty to sixty feet long and was working on the last one that we had enough cut thongs to complete. The first four had been soaked in water and set out in the sun each morning to dry. I told her nearly every day that her work was exquisite because it was. I’d never seen a more perfect braid. Ayoki got her hands-on training milking Bessie, and then I began working bear fat into the dried, braided ropes to help keep them supple. The rest of the women knapped spearheads, knife blades, and scrapers until we finally retired for the evening.

DAY 16

After a trip to our bathroom, I peeked out of the cave door and saw nothing out of the ordinary. While the rest of the women started breakfast, Thila got to milk Bessie.

After breakfast, I warned my mates about the sharpness of the scythe’s blade and gave them a demonstration of how to use it. I warned them to wear their gloves, and to trade off occasionally. Thila, Ayoki, and I returned to the box canyon to work on the fence. It was unnecessary, but I reminded the women staying near the cave to watch out for more raiders.

Unless there had been a second group sent at the same time as the first, I didn’t expect any problems for at least ten days. Considering that it probably took them several days to get here, I figured it would have taken them a minimum of four or five days for them to return home after their raid, and probably longer if they had prisoners and were carrying loot. Their village probably wouldn’t start worrying for a day or two beyond that, and it would take at least four days for a search party to get here, and probably longer.

I thought the tools yesterday morning had been my gifts. I was half-right. The second, and bigger, half of my gift was in the box canyon where I’d seen horses before. The indigenous horses on this planet were about the same size as modern Earth horses. In the canyon this morning were two dozen horses that looked suspiciously like Earth horses, even though the only things on this planet from Earth were supposed to be the contestants. I saw quarter horses that seemed a hand or two taller than I remembered, and Clydesdales that were also a bit taller than I remembered, standing at twenty to twenty-one hands.

The aliens had made a big deal about letting us know that everything on the planet was naturally from this planet, or constructed by the aliens from materials found on this planet. My question was answered mentally almost immediately. These horses were genetically manipulated versions of the breeds normally found on this planet, maintained elsewhere on the planet, and transported to nearby locations for contestants knowledgeable about horses who wished to capture one or more.

I didn’t care how they got here. I was just excited to have them. Their musculature was exceptional, far better than any horse I’d seen or ridden previously.

Farther back in the canyon, I could also see quite a few of the native horses grazing. I quickly began cutting down saplings to use as crosspieces. Thila and Ayoki would carry them to the fence and tie them in place on the inside of the fence posts about four feet off the ground. I knew the quarter horses could jump that with a running start but hoped that it acted as enough of a deterrent to keep them penned up until I could put up a second, higher rail. I had no idea how high a Clydesdale could jump, and figured these taller horses could jump even higher.

By dark, we were all exhausted, but had at least one railing clear across the canyon mouth and a second one at seven feet in places where the horses could get a running start to jump it, including where the game trail was. The girls did find enough hinges, latches, cable, and turnbuckles for four gates while they were attaching the pieces across the game trail. Near lunch, I heard the strains of Another One Bites the Dust.

Aside from cutting a lot of the tall grass for Bessie, my mates at the cave had an uneventful day. Some of the grass had been taken inside the barn for Bessie, but most had been left outside to dry. Folea and Jengo had split their day between cutting grass with the sickles and carrying grass into the barn.

Zurai had her turn learning to milk Bessie tonight. We had dinner and then spent some time soaking in the warm water of the bath before retiring to the bedroom. In the bedroom, we wore each other out. The women wore me out first and were still at it when I fell asleep.

DAY 17

While the women started breakfast and milked Bessie, I carried what I needed outside so I could show the women how to make soap today. After breakfast, they helped me finish gathering firewood and buckets of water. Finally, we put three buckets of bear fat and three buckets of water into the empty twenty-gallon pot and started the fire. I insisted on having four buckets of water nearby just in case. Wearing gloves and using a long stick, I started stirring the mix while explaining what needed to be done.

They had to keep the fire high enough to heat the contents and had to stir the pot constantly. When all the fat finally dissolved, the fire was to be put out, and three buckets of cold water mixed into the pot. The resulting mixture would be left outside overnight. I picked a spot to work where the smoke and stench from rendering the fat wouldn’t blow towards the cave unless the wind shifted and blew from a different direction than normal. I also found a comfortable tree for Feshe to use for her lookout duties and made sure that it was upwind. I dug the clay bowls out of the ashes of the funeral pyre, rinsed them, and was happy to see that they had turned out perfectly.

Thila, Ayoki, and I returned to the box canyon to work on the fence once again. I could tell that something had the horses spooked this morning. Ten minutes later, I saw a smilodon dining on one of the native horses and killed it, then dragged it outside of the fence to a place where I could both watch the women and cut more crosspieces. Once they had the big cat skinned, and had retrieved their trophies, they wrapped them back in the skin. Then they started helping with the fence again. We didn’t quite finish the top rail today, but it didn’t look like any of the horses had tried to escape last night so I didn’t feel too bad about it. The smilodon carcass was left out for scavengers, well away from the horses or our cave.

The mates who had stayed at the cave did a good job rendering the fat and were busy stretching and scraping skins when we got back. After dinner, I started the next part of the soap-making process. First, I started water boiling over our inside fire. Next, I drilled a half-inch hole in the side of two wooden buckets. The hole was right above the bottom of the bucket so that any water I poured into it would drain out. Those holes were plugged with a whittled twig. Taking the buckets out to the hardwood ashes we had saved from our fires, I filled the buckets halfway with ashes, and propped them at a slight angle on rocks so the holes I drilled in the buckets were at the lowest point. The largest of the recently fired clay bowls sat below and between the two buckets.

Slowly, I poured the boiling water over the ashes. My mates ooohed and aaahed as the water fizzed and bubbled, and then soaked into the ashes. I slowly split a bucket and a half of water between the two ash buckets before we went inside for the night.

DAY 18

After a quick visit to the bathroom in the morning, I snuck in a quickie with Feshe in the shower. Breakfast was ready for us when we made it out of the bathroom. Looking around at everyone sitting on logs or rocks, I put making a table near the top of my TTD list.

I was disappointed with the amount of lye that had leached out of the ashes. Since the volume of the ashes had decreased in the buckets, I added more ashes and more hot water, leaving it to drain until tomorrow morning. Before leaving the women to their tasks, I showed them the solidified fat that had formed on top of what they had heated and stirred yesterday. That needed to go into a ten-gallon pot. The remnant could be dumped out and the twenty-gallon pot filled with water to soak for a day to make it easier to clean.

With that, I kissed all three goodbye, thanking Feshe for watching over everyone and keeping them safe. I headed for the box canyon with my two helpers. With no surprises, we managed to finish the top rail and even put on a lower rail all the way across before heading home. Once home, I checked on the lye, and was satisfied that we had enough. Floating an egg from one of the women’s gathering excursions told me the lye was strong enough to use. Since the egg was only two-thirds the size of a chicken egg, I only expected an area the size of a nickel to stay above the surface, and that’s what I got.

DAY 19

After a quickie, breakfast, and making sure Bessie had been milked, this morning I continued the great soap-making demonstration. Once I scrubbed out the fat rendering pot with wet sand and a piece of buckskin, I dried it and started heating half of the fat until it melted again. When it melted, I began ladling in the lye from the clay bowl. Feshe had carved a long-handled wooden ladle per my instructions. When all the lye was in with the fat, I stirred the mixture as it boiled.

It took nearly six hours before the smell of the fumes from the pot stopped having a chemical burn when we cautiously wafted them over and sniffed them. After letting the mixture cool, I tested a small drop on my tongue, quickly spitting it out more out of reflex than anything. Noting that the drop didn’t have a sharp “bite” to it, I declared the soap almost finished. Normally, the liquid soap could be cooled and used as is. However, I slowly added a double handful of our valuable salt to the mix and stirred it in before we carefully removed the pot from the fire and left it to sit and cool until tomorrow. The women and I had each noted how much fat, lye, and salt we used in this batch. Tomorrow we could tell if we needed to adjust the mixture in the future.

To kill the rest of the day, we went to the limestone cliff and dug out a load of flint, leaving Feshe and Zurai at the cave to watch the children and to start fixing dinner. They would bar the house door from inside, and we would unlock and use the barn door when we returned. We locked Bessie inside and headed for the limestone deposit. For now, we left the smaller chunks of flint in a pile off to the side, concentrating on the larger pieces. Eventually, when we got better at knapping, and I managed to make to make a decent bow, we’d want the smaller pieces for arrowheads and such. When it was nearly dark, we hurried home for supper.

DAYS 20 - 21

Waking this morning, I knew I’d been the first contestant to make soap this time, as well as being the earliest contestant ever to make soap. Not seeing any gifts left by the aliens, I spent an hour after breakfast with the soap. There was a thick, hard crust on top of the pot, not unlike what you’d find if you cooked meat in a pot of water and refrigerated it, allowing the fat to solidify on top of the water overnight. The crust wasn’t fat, though. It was hard soap six inches thick, as hard as a bar of modern soap, the result of the salt added at the last minute. I had to use a knife to break it in half so I could pull it out of the pot. The soft layer beneath it was ladled into a wooden bucket, checking the consistency until the pot was empty. I had the women take the hard soap, and most of the soft soap to the bathroom. We filled one pouch with soft soap and took it with us.

Locking the caves and taking Bessie with us. We loaded the braided ropes, the saddle, the saddle pattern, my woodworking tools, our supply of hoof glue, and the remaining raw khitaa hides on travois for the women to pull. The awl was in my backpack. Other travois carried our sleeping furs, food, and cooking gear.

It was funny watching the four children walking alongside Bessie for the entire trip. Each would reach out to touch her and talk to her as if she could understand them. When one finished, another kid would start talking to her. I’m pretty sure they kept Bessie amused for the entire trip. I know they kept me amused watching their antics. I wondered if the aliens also found it amusing.

While some of my mates set up camp, Feshe stood guard over them. Ayoki and Ifia alternated between watching over me and dragging the saplings and branches I cut to where they would be needed next. For three days, we dug holes, set posts, and attached crosspieces as I sectioned off the front of the fenced-in part of the canyon. I made it so the gate opened into a corridor about ten feet wide and ran back from the gate for a hundred yards before opening into the back part of the canyon. I installed crosspieces across the back of the corridor. The right side of the front portion was a single huge corral. The left side was divided into three corrals. Between each of the corrals was a gate made using wide leather thongs as hinges. A five-foot wide chute ran alongside the three corrals, allowing us to transfer horses from one corral to another. Gates could be opened from the chute into each of the three corrals.

By closing off the back section and opening the gate to the chute, the horses could be funneled into the chute. From there, they could be separated into the center corral through the chute that was just wide enough for one horse at a time, or released.

Each evening, we paused long enough to wash ourselves in the stream. The baths were quick out of necessity since the water was near freezing. Still, the girls were awed by the soap, and now understood why I had been so anxious to finish it. The soft soap made a great shampoo, and I enjoyed washing each of my wives’ hair with it.

DAY 22

This morning, I woke up knowing that I had again been both the highest-scoring contestant this week, and the audience favorite. Yet, I’d not seen the last four gifts I should have received. I wondered if I’d done something wrong, if something had happened, or if I’d simply not yet found the gifts. If they’d been put inside the caves, we wouldn’t have seen them yet. Right after having that thought, I suddenly knew that the show’s producers realized there was nothing pressing that we needed right away and were waiting to decide what to gift us. The gift for being the audience favorite was still being debated. Evidently, the audience was flooding the show with demands for a gift that had never been allowed before.

Finally, I was ready to start catching, and hopefully training, individual horses. I entered the back of the canyon swinging my rope, chasing the horses counterclockwise. Eventually, enough of them ran into the rear corral.

Entering it, I closed the gate behind me and started swinging the rope again. As hard as they tried to stay away from me, inevitably several of them were close enough to the fence that proximity of the other horses funneled them into the chute taking them to the middle pen. The chute was blocked with three crosspieces before reaching the gate to the middle pen. When the chute was full, I blocked the back end of the chute the same way and Ayoki removed the crosspieces at the front so the horses could exit the chute.