Chapter 11

We breakfasted on fresh camel meat the next morning.

After eating, I went back to the kill site and recovered the hooves. Hair, scraps of rawhide, and chopped-up bits of hoof, boiled down, would make the glue. Lilia had already collected the camel hair for my experiment; it was useless for any anything other than making rope, and there wasn’t enough for that. We also had plenty of rabbit fur, but it was better saved for padding and according to her, making into felt boots for winter.

A clay pot, crafted specifically for the purpose, held the raw ingredients. Thinner than other pieces and with a separate lid, it had been slow-fired in the oven to convert the earthenware into true pottery. The lid would help keep the mess hot while it cooked down to glue. I opened both windows to allow what breeze there was to blow through, and I was ready to begin.

I heated water in the pot, slowly added the hoof bits, hair, and rawhide, then left the mess to boil. I stirred it from time to time while trying not to breathe in the smell. Water and more scraps went in as the mix thickened to a brown, semi-liquid mass. For some reason the women soon found things to do outside. Lee had already vanished, deciding he would rather explore the woods.

Coals covered the pot sides and kept the mix hot. I added more water and raked in fresh coals when needed, remaining upwind as I did so. Even so, it was an unpleasant job!

Between tending the glue as it cooked, I shaped blanks for a spear and three bows. The staves came from a hickory tree, selected for its desirable size and almost knot-free trunk. I used one of the captured swords as a makeshift froe for splitting the wood, and after sharpening it I planned to convert it into a drawknife. The other would make an excellent blade for a heavy spear, more useful for large animals than the lighter atlatl-shaft-dart throwing weapon. The sword metal was superior to anything I could chip from stone.

I carefully split the trunk into halves, then split the halves into quarters that I laid near the fireplace. While I worked on one, I turned the others to ensure they didn’t dry too rapidly. Warping or cracking would ruin my work and force me to start over. Stir the thickening glue mix while holding my breath, turn the staves, and breathe again when I was as far from the fireplace as possible.

Each hickory quarter formed a right angle, with the sides joined by an arc where the bark had been. The semicircle would be the bow’s back and shaving down the sharp angle would form the belly. The three best staves would be bows, the fourth would be my new metal-bladed spear. Shaving the quarter to make the shaft round wouldn’t be difficult.

For my drawknife, I used a thick fold of rabbit skin to cover the sword’s sharp tip. This gave me a safe place to grip. With one hand on the knife’s hilt and one on the rabbit skin, I shaved off thin slices of wood by drawing the blade toward me. I worked from the center toward an end, then switched. Clumsy, but necessary because I didn’t have a vise to hold the blank. I made do by tying it to a six-foot tree trunk we carried inside the cabin. We’d left four branches long enough to support the trunk at a convenient height. It worked—most of the time.

Chipping and slicing with my axe and drawknife, I rough-shaped the staves. People had used axes for a long time to make boards before saws became commonplace, I could do the same. Drawknives are more precise for lighter work, but the added precision comes with loss of speed.

I chipped across the right angle gently with the axe, then smoothed the cut surface by drawing the sword blade toward me. Shaving the spear-shaft round allowed me to practice draw-cutting before I undertook the more-demanding task of shaping bow staves.

Tend the fire, add water, shave the spear-staff to shape; I rotated the blank periodically and continued. My imitation drawknife was crude, but it worked and was easy to control. Axe and drawknife, chip – chip - slice, and tend the fire; the work went slowly, but I had time. By the end of the day I had three bow staves roughed in, ready for tillering and sanding, and a heavy spear-shaft that lacked only a socket or steel blade to be better than the one I’d found.

A stick with a chip of flint glued to the end would work for drilling the socket hole. It would be slow, but in a day or two I would have a weapon I could throw as well as thrust. It would work for now, but once I had a working bow and arrows I wouldn’t need a throwing spear.

My hide glue had boiled into an evil-smelling brown mass that wasn’t quite solid. It would require reheating before every use, and the surfaces I used it on had to be clean and dry. I stirred the hot mess to make sure it was thoroughly mixed. It was not the same as the hide glue used downtime, but it would work better than the milky sap I’d used soon after my arrival on Darwin’s World. Even if it wasn’t as strong as I hoped, it might kill an animal by smell alone! Best of all, I could make more by using animal scraps that otherwise would be thrown away.

The camel’s tendons, after separation, yielded long sinews. Lilia twisted them into long, thin cords that I could make into a bowstring by twisting two or three of the cords opposite to the direction Lilia had used. The counter-twisting would prevent the bowstring from unwinding.

The final string was long, but could be shortened by more twisting. In this way I could also adjust the string’s length if it stretched during use. The finished string would have a spliced loop at each end and a coating of beeswax to make it weather-resistant.

My arrow shafts came from small saplings. As they dried, they tended to warp, so I periodically heated and straightened them. Lee and Lilia helped. Her husband had made their bows and arrows, but they knew the basic techniques. Lee and I did most of the work because Lilia had other tasks, but she helped when she could. As we worked we talked, sharing information. Lilia and Lee knew more than I did about living on Darwin’s World, but their knowledge was based on experience. I had the memories of my previous life, plus what the Futurist had implanted; the things I shared would be important when we encountered something new. And talking made the work go faster.

I had my first bow and a dozen shafts by the third day. Not yet arrows, they had no flight feathers or points and only notches for nocks, but even so I could kill a bird or rabbit with one. For that matter, any small game could be killed—if I could hit it!

Stringing the bow, I adjusted the limbs to curve equally by careful scraping and smoothing, a process called tillering, likely implanted by the Futurist. The only part of bow-making I didn’t ‘remember’ was how to make the string, and fortunately Lilia knew how that was done.

I wrapped the middle of the stave with a long strip of wetted rawhide, double-wrapping one end for an arrow rest. The strip ends I secured by tucking them under the wrappings, a technique called blind-wrapping. This was the grip. The rawhide shrank as it dried, and as a final step, I rubbed warmed beeswax over everything.

The bow wasn’t as powerful as I’d hoped, but it would do and Lee had advised me to begin with a lighter bow anyway. It would be easier to use while learning, and if I liked the feel of this particular bow I could always add draw weight by gluing sinew to the back.

While I’d been working on weapons, Lilia had shown the others how to stitch smoked and greased camel skin into a quiver. It had a strap for my shoulder, and there was a loop to hold it to my belt. There was also a sewn-in divider, so that I could carry different types of arrows. Arrows for large game aren’t suitable for small animals or birds, so having different types made sense. Along with the quiver, the women had made a forearm guard for my arm. Bowstrings, especially when used by novices, leave bruises from the elbow to the wrist. I would appreciate the forearm guard when I began practicing.

And practice I did. I strung the bow, working to gain speed without losing precision. String in the right hand, held just below the loop, lower arm of the bow braced on the instep of my right foot; put my left leg through, between the bow and the string, then bend the bow using the muscles of my trunk. Stringing even this lighter bow using arm muscle alone wasn’t possible!

String the bow, practice pulling the string to full draw. Anchor the hand along my jaw, hold it for a moment, then slowly let off on the string. Draw again, imagine aiming, let off, relax. Releasing the string would only be done when I had a shaft in place. Unfamiliar muscle use left my back and arms sore for the first few days. Fortunately, this time there was none of the cramping I’d experienced before.