Chapter 4

Paul couldn’t believe his luck.

Trae had so many projects on the go he was hard-pressed to keep up with some of them. When Paul realised that Trae had built everything he saw, by himself, in five years he was flabbergasted.

He suspected he wouldn’t have time to get bored while Trae was away. Trae had sat him down and they worked out a rough schedule of jobs. Trae had indicated the ones that had to be done, those he would like done and those that if Paul had time, he could have a go at.

Paul got his first lesson on milking a camla and then his first at feeding Kitty. Kitty for her own reasons decided she loved Paul and Trae was surprised how quickly they had bonded. If she couldn’t find him, she found Paul and was just as happy.

Paul for his part was fascinated with the baby cuttail. She didn’t get under his feet and liked to find a spot where she could watch him, and if posable Trae, work; and work they did. By the time, that Paul fell into bed each night for the next three weeks, he slept like a rock.

Trae had even let Kitty sleep in Paul’s room once she was a bit bigger since he was going to be her companion for the month while Trae was away. Paul soon learnt to have his sleep interrupted by a hungry cuttail cub pawing at his head with her sharp claws.

When the time came, Paul helped Trae pack the newly covered cart that he had built. He also told Paul that since he didn’t have to hurry back now that he was going to be here, he might be a couple of weeks longer, since he planned to take the cart to Wing City this year instead of using the carrier.

Paul was fine with this. Trae had written up lists of how to do some tasks and Paul had his schedule of jobs. Since Trae didn’t have to hurry the drying of his fruits, they had packed half of what he planned to dry into his cold room. Paul would keep adding them to the drying ovens over winter as well as picking the late-ripening fruits.

Trae had also harvested a lot more fruit than he expected to, with Paul’s help. They had bumper crops of mangos and pomelos. Paul had shared his mother’s mango chutney recipe and had cooked up several batches for Trae.

Trae told him he was more than welcome to make more after tasting it and loving it. It was a delicious condiment to add to cooked cold cuts for lunches made with Trae’s bread. Paul even made sure Trae had two cases of jars to go in the cart since Trae could take more to sell this year.

Paul would also collect more hay since they harvested the grains late. He knew how to fill the feeders, but he wouldn’t stack them as high since he could come and check on them. He would also let the camlas and lankys into the fields to clean them up further.

He’d also be able to collect the eggs, so not all of the cluckers went clucky. He told Trae he had a great pickled egg recipe too. Trae had no problems with Paul helping with the cooking, as he was quite good at it. The two young men were surprised just how quickly they settled in together.

Trae had told Paul that if he kept milking the two camlas that still had milk, they wouldn’t lose it over winter. Since Paul had to feed Kitty a couple of times a day that wasn’t a job he planned to neglect. They had even rolled the fat calf and Paul had plenty of meat in the cold store.

They had both enjoyed the fresh camla steaks that night. Trae had smoked some of it and even pickled a haunch to take with him for Jim. He had the cuttail meat and other cured meats that he that he planned to take to sell in Wing City.

Trae hadn’t realised that he had so impressed Paul with his work ethic that Paul was loath to let him down. Paul was also going to miss Trae. Trae always seemed to find something interesting to teach him, and he wasn’t stingy with his praise. This bolstered Paul’s self-confidence and self-esteem. Paul had found a new home in Trae’s Valley and he wanted to stay.

David and Mark had come out to visit after two weeks and found themselves put to work. They even stayed two nights. Paul and Trae both chuckled as they found plenty for the lads to do since they were getting the last of the grain off the paddocks and two more hands sped up the job.

Mark was delighted that Paul had settled in with Trae and was amused by how enthusiastic Paul was. He guessed his brother just needed to feel useful and Trae certainly used him. He found Trae was a patient teacher and treated Paul well. He and David both left with even more respect for Trae than they had before, which was already very high.

By the time Trae was packed at the end of the trial period, Paul had suspected he’d need the break from Trae just to let all that he had learnt sink in. He was glad he had the notes to refer to. Trae finally got Moe, one of his lanky’s, harnessed to his cart, and had Sage tied on behind.

After hugging Kitty goodbye, and shaking Paul’s hand, he headed to Wing City.

Trae knew he would take a couple of extra days to get to his destination this year.

Normally, it was three days of travel to Wing City using the faster carriers, but it would be slower going with the cart and most likely take him twice as long. However, he had a lot of items to sell this year. Thanks to Paul and the boys’ help, he had made up a lot more of his travel rations and jerky.

Mark and David both loved the rations that he had made from the cuttail meat he had dried over the shukra and even took some off his hands. Trae had also packed a lot of his dried fruits and some of his fresh supplies to take with him. He didn’t forget the chutney either.

He had taught Paul how to change the blades on the wood mill to his finest blade, and they cut a lot of thin planks to make half a metre cubed crates to store his produce in for travel. He had packed the fresh fruits and vegetables into straw into some of the crates.

They had spent several nights sewing the fine cloth bags he placed his dried fruits in before packing them into crates. He was glad he had hauled the electric sewing machine home from Clawton when he found it on a trip earlier in the year. It had come in really handy. The merchant he was escorting was happy to find room for him on one of his carts. He had gotten two cuttails on that trip as well.

Trae knew that even if Paul only got half of the fruit that was left dried, he would still have plenty to sell in Clawton or Catton after winter. They had even managed to get quite a bit of milling done, so he had a plenty of his special white flour.

He knew the baker, Jenrry, who had his shop across the road from Jim’s shop, would happily take it off his hands. Jenrry had been whining about the quality of flour he had been getting and Trae was sure that he had gotten the new process as good as he could get it.

He also had eight fine cuttail pelts and six wolf pelts to sell. In the hidden compartment of his cart, he had a good supply of the gold, copper and silver that he had mined from different parts of Erin Valley. He had smeltered the metals during the year.

He had collected gems for Jim from his other mines. He had found some excellent amethysts, some nodules of agate and some rose quartz crystals. There were still plenty more for him to collect in the years to come, as he knew adding too many to the market at once, affected their worth.

On his last trip to Clawton, he had even had a dig around is some of the river scree in the crater at Mt Ear looking for gold. He had found a small horde of beautiful emeralds, some rubies and to his surprise, different coloured sapphires. He hadn’t brought them all with him, as he planned to teach Paul how to cut them and other gems when he got back home.

He’d even had a go at making some of his own rings and had added the strange gem to some of them before Paul turned up. He found he liked to set the crystal in the middle and often added two small gems of the same type on either side. He’s got some strange feelings when he made them.

He still wore the odd one he felt compelled to make. It had an agate, a ruby and an amethyst surrounding the green crystal. He even added a new bigger crystal and the same gems to the medallion that he had always worn. He had noticed that it has tiny pieces of crystal embedded in it, but he didn’t try to remove them.

His medallion had always had a diamond above the square hole in the middle. It even had a faint marking with it that he fancied looked like an open book. The hole took a green crystal without any trouble. He had dropped one in the hole to see if it would fit and had found that he couldn’t remove it. He had left it there since he felt that the crystal belonged there.

As he rode along on the cart, he thought about some of the things that had changed since he found the strange crystals. In the four weeks that he had been home, nothing had broken down. That in itself was strange.

Also, for some reason, the ovens seemed to have better temperature control after he placed a piece of crystal inside each of them. He still wasn’t sure why he did it. He had even placed them on the house and in the storage rooms and the wheat and oats silo. He had felt a bit silly telling the crystals to look after his produce and to keep it healthy.

When he had been checking the batteries for his electrical system, he had put the pieces of one of the broken rods that were still in his coat pocket onto the copper connection bars between the cells. They had welded themselves to the bars just as they had to his medallion.

He had noticed that the odd power fluctuations he often had when he turned the slicer on had stopped happening after that and he didn’t seem to run out of electricity anymore. He had suspected the crystals could store electrical charge and now he was very sure that they did.

He did wonder if they were like the crystals that he had heard that the travellers needed. If they were, he knew they were worth a fortune, as they had been very hard to come by in recent years. He was sure that Jim would tell him what they were worth.

He stopped at the cavern on his way to Catton. Taking a dozen leather sacks that he had sewn for this job, he headed into the cavern and collected more of the crystals. He had barely made a dent in what was in the cavern and knew he would be able to come back and collect a lot more in years to come.

He also suspected the other crevice he had found led to another lower cavern. He had smelt a whiff of sulphur from that crevice. He planned to come back and investigate the system more when he had time. As a safeguard, he even shifted a few rocks to cover the opening he had used to access the inner cavern and hoped it stayed hidden.

He found no evidence of any more cuttails moving in or that anyone else had used the cave since he had been there, so he happily went on his way.

Trae spent the first night of his journey in Catton.

Mark had told him to come and stay with him since Paul was at his place. Rayleen had already moved in, and Trae guessed she was already at least ten weeks into her pregnancy. When she leant over him to place the dish of vegetables on the table, Trae got an unusual impression in his mind.

He smiled at Mark and asked, “So what are you going to name your daughter?”

Rayleen said, “It’s a boy.”

Trae shook his head, “No, it’s a girl. She will be as pretty as her mother, but she will have her father’s lighter coloured hair and eyes.”

To Rayleen’s surprise, Mark chuckled, “If Trae says so, I’m going with him.”

Trae looked at Mark in amazement, “Why?”

“You have told David and me several things in the past that have always come true, so I believe you. Paul also said that he believed anything you tell him, and he trusts your judgments better than mine, even after he had only been staying with you for a few weeks,” Mark said, while he loaded up his plate with Rayleen’s fine cooking.

Trae was a little shocked at his friend’s admission. He knew he had an innate sense of danger, and on several occasions, he had steered Mark and David away from dangerous situations. As to other things he may have said, he hadn’t realised they trusted him as much as Mark was implying.

Rayleen shot him an odd look as she joined them and Trae found himself answering their questions on why he went to Wing City in winter. Trae saw no harm in telling them that he had an old friend who lived there and he had been teaching him about cutting gems and smelting metals.

Rayleen mentioned that they hadn’t picked rings for the joining yet, as a hint to Mark. Trae got another of the odd feelings he had been getting lately and found himself digging into the fanny pack that held his cut gems and the rings he had made. He didn’t like to leave them in the cart, so he had made the pack to go around his waist.