Chapter 29

I woke up the next morning pleasantly spooned into Lilia’s back. She had to notice my interest, but didn’t make any move to escape. Things were looking up!

A part of my morning interest had to do with the need to visit the outdoors, so I pulled on my deerskins while shivering in the cold cabin. I took the time to poke the banked embers in the fireplace and add a stick of firewood, then put my parka on, grabbed my weapons, and headed outside.

I took care of my morning needs and scraped snow over the evidence, then just enjoyed being outside. The inside of the cabin was close and not particularly fresh-smelling, what with seven people sleeping there. Not to mention assorted skins and other stored things. The morning was cold and silent except for the slight breeze, and dark clouds dominated the northern sky. Sensible animals were probably denned up somewhere, keeping warm.

We needed guide ropes before more snow arrived, and I had just the thing. I stretched the first rope from the cabin door straight ahead to the nearest tree. A second rope ran between two trees so that it lay across the first rope. Some of my thinner string lashed the two tightly together. Now, if we had to go outside after dark or during a snowstorm, the guide ropes might keep us alive. Just follow the ropes when you go out, do what you have to do, then follow the ropes back to the door. Simple, but necessary.

If I’d had more rope, I would have stretched it in a circle around the cabin to keep anyone from wandering away during low visibility. But I had used all the available rope, and finding more fibers wasn’t an option now. I’d get some of my ropes back as we ate the meat we’d hung in the trees, but I’d need to be careful with my supply until I could make more. But I’d done as much as I could.

I carried in several armloads of wood from the stacks, laying it in the cleared space by the door where it would be easy to reach. Finished for the time being, I went back inside and replaced the locking bar, then placed my weapons by the door where I could find them even in the dark. The cabin had warmed slightly, so I hung my parka on a peg and fed another stick to the small blaze now going in the fireplace.

The fireplace had a built-in rack that could be swiveled in or out, and that’s where the soup pot sat. A loaf of bread waited beside the fireplace on a table I’d made. It was time to sample Lilia’s latest creation, ‘eternal soup’.

She began with water fresh from the spring, dipped through a hole chopped in the ice. That went into the largest of the pots I’d traded for, then she swung the grate over the fire and set the pot into position. As soon as the water began to boil, she added several of the tubers she’d gathered during the summer. Whatever vegetables we had that she thought might taste good in soup, those went in too. Toss in several fist-sized chunks of meat, let the whole thing begin to simmer, and add salt. We would pour in another gourd of water when the level got low, and restock the pot with ingredients. The meat was usually the same, but changing the vegetables she put in gave us a little variety.

The embers had kept it warm overnight, so I dipped a gourd in and sampled the concoction. It was really more stew than soup by now, and just what I needed after working outside in the cold. The bread had been baked weeks before, then left in the lean-to to freeze. One of the women had brought the loaf inside the day before and it was now thawed, not fresh, but still good. Slicing a thick chunk took only a few moments and I laid my slice carefully by the soup pot for toasting.

There was honey in a pot with a honey-dripper. Millie had made the honey-pot, I’d carved the honey dripper myself, and the honey came from the second bee tree we’d raided. I let a small amount drip onto my warmed bread and took a bite. Wonderful!

I enjoyed my breakfast while waiting for the others to stir. The Futurists had provided three chairs, but they weren’t enough so we had made seats consisting of camel-leather slings and deerskin ‘cushions’, really only bags stuffed with grass. The slings consisted of leather suspended from a simple rectangular frame, just small branches tied together. Wrap the leather around the top of the frame, stitch it to hold it in place, allow the rest of the leather to hang naturally in a curve that ended several feet or so in front. Place the cushion on the loose end of the leather, then sit down. Weight held the leather in place, and the sling gave a comfortable back support to lean against. In essence, it was half of a downtime sling chair.

Sitting in the comfortable ‘chair’ I’d made and eating food I’d acquired was very satisfying. Except for the cabin and the outdoor oven, we’d made most of the other things we used in our home. The leather for the sling-chair had been tanned using brains from small animals, and smoking the tanned leather finished the job. It had been a smelly and labor-intensive task, but the end product would last for years, just like many of the things we made. I had cut the branches and lashed the frame together, while Lilia had added the back-support. It had also been her idea, but I was happy to take advantage of it. I leaned back against the leather and enjoyed the last of my honey bread before licking my fingers clean. Such simple pleasures had been rare downtime.

I lazily thought about how I could combine another frame piece with this, stitch the loose end of the leather sling to it, then tie the two frames together in an ‘X’. Downtime chairs used a metal pivot point where the two frames crossed, but we could use loops of rope instead. Our chairs wouldn’t need to fold up in the way that downtime chairs did.

Coffee or a cup of tea would have been a nice addition to my breakfast. Maybe my descendants would someday be able to taste those. Someday...

Sandra had promised a treat today; I wondered what she had in mind.

A heavy gust of wind shook the shutters over the window and I was glad I’d packed grass around the shutters. The cabin wasn’t airtight, but it kept the worst of the weather outside.

A small snowdrift frequently collected alongside the door but I’d decided we could live with that. Laz had cleared snow away from the door and had also shoveled a path to the woodpiles. I had stacked some of the firewood I’d brought up in one of the areas he’d cleared.

The spring was a short distance behind the cabin, in front of the lean-to’s door. Water ran out from the spring in a small rivulet, but we preferred to dip directly from the small pool that formed where the spring water emerged. We chopped the ice away each morning. Lee had cleared a path to it and it took work to keep the paths cleared, but we had little else to do. Keep the tracks cleared, bring in supplies from the lean-to or cut meat from the quarters hanging from the trees, carry in an armload of firewood. Then just enjoy the results of the work we’d done during the summer and fall.

Sandra’s treat turned out to be a variation of the ‘tea’ she’d made before. She had dipped boiling water from the second pot, then added a mixture of berries and grapes the women had collected and dried during the summer. Let the whole thing brew for a moment, then mix in a bit of honey for additional sweetening. It was simple, quick, nourishing, and hot to take the chill off.

Might I be able to ferment something like this, I wondered. Not now, but perhaps next year if we could gather enough fruit? A little experimentation might provide something drinkable!

Alcohol would also be useful to clean wounds. René had fallen victim not to claws, but to the microbes that lived on those claws.

Laz and Cindy asked if the two of them could visit their families in Robert’s tribe. I agreed, but had concerns about their safety. They were not quite the woods-wise experienced travelers that I was, or for that matter Lee and Lilia were. Lee quickly volunteered to accompany them, so I gave permission. They packed and set off early the next morning.

The cabin seemed almost empty with three people gone. But there were things that still needed doing, so my days stayed busy. As it happened, so did my nights. Lilia left me in no doubt as to what she wanted that first night, and I happily obliged her. Twice!

But there would be no third time that night, at least not for Lilia. Sometime during the night, Lilia got up and Sandra took her place. I don’t know how they worked out the rotation, but as a mere male the ways of women are beyond my understanding. Fun, though.