Chapter 20

“I was a little careless when I planned this raid,” I confessed. “If I had been planning an operation for a real infantry patrol, we would have rehearsed everything. After the plans are made, you walk through what you intend to do and try to refine the plan, and then you rehearse it again with all the changes. You look for weaknesses. For a night raid, you practice executing the plan at night! You plan for unexpected things like the sentry, even if you’re not sure there’ll be one. I just made careful plans, and this time they were good enough. Besides, I didn’t have an infantry patrol, it was just me and two women on their first raid.”

I examined the tools and found that the shovel needed sharpening. I used the file, but sparingly, because I didn’t want to wear it out. After sharpening the blade, I used a rock I’d found to smooth out the file marks. The axe got the same treatment, then I started on the saw. This one was a hybrid, with a wide, heavy blade that was designed as much for cutting with the grain as for crosscutting. The oversized handle resembled the one on a carpenter’s handsaw, and the saw-teeth stopped two inches before the blade’s end. A second handle for two-person use could be added at that point, using holes already punched through the blade. For now, installing the second handle could wait.

I worked carefully, trying not to damage the set angle and shape of the teeth while I lightly filed the dull edges.

“Tomorrow I’ll start cutting a narrow road to haul wood back,” I said. “I’ll remove underbrush and small trees, down to ground level. I’ll need it as smooth as possible.”

“Why a road, Matt?” Lee asked. He got a nod from Sandra. I had noticed that she usually agreed with what he said!

“I can drag a lot more weight than I can carry,” I answered. “It’ll take me a little time to build a stone boat anyway, so...”

That got an interruption from Millie. “Why in the world would you worry about a boat now, Matt? And one made of stone is certainly not going to float!”

I chuckled along with the rest. “A ‘stone boat’ is a sled that’s used to move heavy weights. People used them originally to haul heavy stones out of fields and that’s how they got the name. Most of the time they hitched horses or oxen to the sled, but we don’t seem to have those. We’ll attach ropes instead, which will allow two people to work as a team. I’ll use it to haul wood, not stone, so it should work. But if the loads are still too heavy, we’ll add ropes so that three or four people can work together.”

“They’re simple to make and they work, which is why they were still being used on farms downtime. Select two trees, say about eight inches in diameter, and cut them to about six feet long. These will be the ‘runners’. Cut the front edges at an angle of something like forty-five degrees, and if you do the same to the back you can drag the sled in either direction.

“The two runners are the only thing in contact with the ground and they’re round, which reduces friction. The next step is to fasten smaller limbs crosswise between the two runners, that’s what the main logs are called, to hold the runners parallel with each other. You can attach as many cross-pieces as you want, or weave ropes into a net and stretch it between two crosspieces.”

I got nods as they visualized what I was talking about.

“You use the axe or my camp-axe to rough-shape the top and bottom of the runners so that they’re easier to drag. You’ll also have to chop notches in the runners’ undersides to protect the ropes you use to tie the crosspieces on. We’ll make our version about three feet in width. I can carry about a hundred pounds, maybe a little more if I’m walking along an animal trail, less if I’m carrying stuff cross-country, but the stone boat should be able to move ten times as much weight—if I first make a road for it. The road, which will likely end up more of a path, only has to be wide enough for the sled not to hang up on obstacles.

We settled in for the night. Morning would come early and we had no trouble falling asleep. I noticed that Lee and Sandra were a few feet apart from the rest of us. Sandra had been providing the primary care for Lee as his wounds healed, so maybe that was why they’d separated from us. Anyway, it was the way it was, and there was no need for me to worry about it.

That worry came with the dawn. We were finishing our simple breakfasts when I heard a shout from outside, “Hello, in the cabin. Can you understand me?”

We scrambled for weapons and I moved to the window. There was a man standing across the clearing, perhaps twenty feet away from the cabin door. He was armed and dressed much as the men that we’d fought, and he had the same sort of small shield although his appeared to be better made. I couldn’t see anyone with him, but that meant nothing; others could easily be hidden in the woods.

“I can hear you,” I yelled. “What do you want?”

“I mean you no harm,” he called back. “Can we talk without fighting?” With that, he took his short -word from its scabbard and stuck it point-down in the ground by his foot, making a production of it to make sure I saw what he’d done.

“All right,” I answered. “You can come up to the cabin. For now, let’s just talk through the window. I won’t take any hostile action unless you show that you’re an enemy.” I had no idea what was happening. The first two men who’d come to the cabin had clearly been enemies. The others we’d encountered on the trail had also grabbed weapons as soon as they’d seen us, but this one hadn’t done any of that. And how had he found us? Had he somehow managed to follow our trail?

The stranger approached the cabin, then stopped. I estimated that he was four feet away from the window

I examined the treeline for others, but saw no one. I cautiously eased the shutters open, while waiting for him to make the next move. If he reached for a hidden weapon...

But he didn’t. Instead, he spread his hands wide to show that he was unarmed, then slowly turned around to emphasize that he had no weapons hidden. He sat down on the ground and waited. Keeping my voice low and my face turned to the side, I passed instructions to Lilia. “I would like you to watch through the window when I go outside. I don’t like it, but I don’t have a better idea and we need to know what’s on his mind. The rest of you, bar the door after I’m out and stay alert! I’ll leave my weapons inside so that he understands that I’m peaceful.”

I got nods from everyone—they looked as nervous as I was feeling—so I stood next to the door and waited while the others took their positions. I nodded that I was ready and Sandra unbarred the door. Millie opened it just enough for me to slip through and I stepped outside, hearing the thunk as the bar dropped back into place.

I watched the stranger as I slowly held my arms away from my side, then turned around as he’d done. I folded my legs under me and sat down, hoping he would do the same. Lilia was my hidden ace, armed with her bow and with an arrow on the string, and Sandra would also have the crossbow ready. One or both could put an arrow through him before he could regain his feet.

“You the one that raided us?” he asked. After a brief hesitation, I nodded. If he’d followed us here, as I suspected, he already knew the answer. “I’m one of the mine foremen,” he went on. “The people I work for sent me to find the people that raided us, see if I could talk to you.”

I simply nodded. Mine foremen? The mine looked like something that might be in use downtime, and he’d now told me he headed a crew, so there were probably other crews.

“Who do you work for?” I asked. “I’m guessing you’re local.”

“I am,” he agreed. “I was already here, which is why they hired me and a few others from my tribe. The mine owners pay us in metal tools, but they refuse to give us anything more complicated than hand tools. I don’t think they want us to have anything better. As for weapons, they give us what you see, the long knives. It’s not an equitable bargain by any means and we would have refused, but we really needed the metal. Bears, dire wolves, cats ... even the bovines and the deer variants are dangerous! We lost men every time we went out to hunt, and the lions and sabertoothed cats had gotten bold enough to take people right out of camp! So when they offered metal points and the swords if we would work for them, we said yes.

“We had already been working on improved spears, but we didn’t bring them to the mine. I figured it was better if the mine owners didn’t know, and anyway they told us we’d get what we needed when we got there. I brought seven men and one woman with me to the mine. We get fed, clothed, and housed, plus they gave us a few metal tools that we sent back to the tribe. We kept the knives for our own use.