Chapter 418

The Prison Planet

With the hide finally stretched and scraped, which turned out to be almost as big a job as the tigers had been, Morales let out a resigned sigh and gathered up his mattock/pick and shovel. Shit, I’m still going to have to cut the beast up, at least to some extent. It’s just too big to move, and in addition, I want the hole I put it in well away from the cave.

At least the ground is soft under the trees, he thought a few minutes later as he began digging. Other than an occasional root that had to be dealt with, the excavating was easy, both because of the reasonably soft ground, and also because he was in better shape than he had ever been in his life. I do more physical work most days now than I did on Earth in – well, hell, never, I guess.

As he set about cutting the panther up, he grumbled to himself while Lobo stood watch. I guess I really should freeze the meat, but I would have to be very hungry to eat cat, no matter what kind. He did cut a chunk off for Lobo, who didn’t seem to mind eating cat one bit.

At the last minute, he saved one of the massive shoulders, taking it into the ice cave. “If we get low on food, you’ll still have something to eat, Boy,” he told his friend.

With the gruesome job of burying the cat’s remains finished, its brain in the big brain/piss bucket, he sat to drink a cup of coffee and relax for a moment. A grin touched his face as his gaze locked on the sugar cane. After cutting a section off a stalk, he peeled off the tough outer cover and sat chewing the sweet, crunchy center. A thought hit him and he offered the wolf a piece. “Don’t swallow it, just chew on it and swallow the sweet juice,” he told Lobo, opening his mouth to show the animal that he hadn’t swallowed the pulp.

Lobo tentatively took the piece. “Remember, just chew it and spit the pulp out,” Morales said, demonstrating. He had become so accustomed to conversations with the wolf that it never occurred to him that Lobo might not understand. They sat chewing the cane and spitting out the pulp for a few minutes – Morales trying not to laugh as Lobo worked on learning the skill – before the human came to his feet. “Shit,” he told Lobo, “I need to get off my ass and check on our pottery.”

The fire around the bowls and jugs had burned out while he was taking care of the panther, but as he leaned down to touch the various pieces, he found that they were still quite warm as was the dirt under them.

Have they dried enough? he asked himself. The article and video about the African women didn’t mention how long they let their clay dry before firing it, but from everything I’ve read, it must be absolutely dry, or it will break.

“What the hell,” he said aloud as he stood to slap the dirt from his hands, “I’m going to restart the border fire and let the pottery dry some more. All I have is time, anyway.”

While he was waiting for the pottery to dry more, he went to get another log for his wall.

Back at the cave thirty minutes later, he set about preparing the log. Time and experience had improved his skills, and stripping the bark, flattening two sides and drilling holes using the jig had become almost second nature to him; consequently, the time required was much less because of all the practice.

After the log was in place, he stood back to review what he had accomplished. “Won’t be long before I can put that last log into place and have a whole wall, huh, Lobo. But after that, I’ll have to construct a door and brace everything really well so the wall can’t be pushed over. Damn, some hinges sure would be nice to hang my door with, but I’ll figure out something that will work.”

Lunch was a pot roast he had been slow-cooking most of the morning. As he and the wolf finished their meal, Morales kept out some of the roast. Walking over, he picked up a startled Gertrude before sitting back down on the rock he called his chair because of the hide he had padded it with. The hen seemed to be a bit tense, but didn’t try to get away as Lobo stood looking at them, obviously wondering.

With Gertrude standing on his lap, he petted her before holding his hand out to offer her the food. She cocked her head to look at him, but hesitated to go for the well-cooked meat. “It’s okay. It’s yours to eat. I haven’t gotten around to thanking you for the warning this morning. I know you can’t understand me, but I appreciate how watchful you are. Somebody I know,” he said as he glanced at Lobo, “was a bit slow on the uptake when the kitty-cat came calling.”

Lobo dropped his ears and looked embarrassed, but Morales grinned at him. Going on, he told Gertrude, “But ... he’s saved my ass many times and is the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Running his hand over Gertrude’s head and on down her back several times, he offered the food again. She made her contented, “puck, puck, pucking” sound and went after the roast, tentatively at first, but gaining courage, she was soon devouring it.

“Good job, Colonel Chicken,” he said with a chuckle. Finished, Gertrude eyed him one more time before jumping down.

As Morales stood, he reached over to touch Lobo. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, but I had to tell her she did a good job. Even though you can’t be awake 24/7, you were at the bars ready to fight long before I could get there.”

The wolf’s ears came back up, but it was obvious that his feelings had been hurt because Gertrude had given the alarm before him.

Ruffling Lobo’s neck fur, then giving him a pat, “Are you really going to be jealous of a chicken? Come on; we have things to do.”

Outside, he stood looking at his bowls and pots sitting in the middle of the fire circle. Thinking about the process, he began mulling it over while mumbling to himself, “I’ve read about firing pottery until I’m totally fucking confused, and I’m still not sure of the best way to do it. But I keep coming back to those African women and their pottery. Chances are they didn’t know whether the temperature was nine hundred or eighteen hundred degrees, but they knew what the fire should look like. They didn’t glaze their wares and didn’t refire anything, but they were able to cook with their stuff and store water and milk in it. After dipping the hot pottery in their water/seed solution, everything turned a shiny black, but even the pottery they didn’t dip was a nice red, held liquids and withstood cooking, too.”

Making up his mind, Morales grimaced before addressing his friend. “I’m going to gather some wood and brush, then pile that several feet deep over the pottery. I have no idea how hot the fire will be, but I’ll have enough wood for it to burn for quite a while, then let it gradually burn down over the afternoon. When everything is stone-ass cold, I’ll throw out what’s broken and see what is left. Seem like a plan to you?”

Lobo glanced at the pottery, then with a whine and a shake of his head, sat to watch. There were plenty of limbs left around from Morales having cut down hardwood trees, not to mention deadfall farther away. A half hour later, he had gathered enough wood and brush to have a fire that should burn for hours.

Some of the articles said to keep the fire near the pottery, but not touching. Others said to cover the pottery with combustible materials similar to the way the African women did. “Fuck it. It looks like I’m just going to have to experiment until I learn how. If it all breaks, I’ll make some more and try another way. Even if I never succeed in making pottery that will withstand cooking and liquids, I’ll eventually have something to store dry stuff in. Anyway, here goes nothing,” he told Lobo as he began carefully laying the brush on top of what he had learned was called raw-ware or wet-ware.

When he had what he thought was enough fuel, he set the wood and brush afire. “I plan,” he told the wolf, “to raise the temperature reasonably slowly, then after everything is hot, I’ll add more wood until I get the whole thing as hot as I can. But I need to be careful not to break the pottery while adding more wood.”

An hour later, his face felt blistered from the exposure to the heat while adding to the fire. He hadn’t risked throwing the wood on the fire for fear of breaking the pottery. As the fire gradually diminished and burned down some, more and more of the pottery began to show. If anything was broken, he didn’t see it, yet. Then just as his hopes built, there was a sickening “crack” – sickening to him, at least – and he knew that he had one less bowl or jug. He waited, tense, but didn’t hear any more ominous noises.

Putting a hand to his cheek, “Fuck, my face is stinging,” he told Lobo.

Inside the cave, he checked out his red cheeks in the mirror before washing his face in the cool spring water. In the process, he discovered that the backs of his hands were red too. “Well, shit. Those African women kept adding that tall grass to their fire and even sprinkled a little water on the blaze from time to time without any apparent problems. The long sleeve BDU shirt saved my arms, but not the back of my hands. Guess being a city boy has its drawbacks. My skin damn sure doesn’t seem to be as tough as theirs.”

He kept wetting his washcloth and holding it to his face until the stinging stopped, but he hadn’t taken a bath in several days. After butchering the cat and maintaining the fire, if anyone ever needed a bath, he did now.

He and Lobo went for a short swim in his waist-deep pool before he washed his clothes. “Shit,” he complained as he got out to dry off. “It sure must have cooled off in the mountains where this stream comes from.” Gotta figure a way to get clean in the winter ... or just get used to the smell, he thought.

On the way in, they stopped to check on the pottery now that the fire had almost burned itself out. All that he could see of his creations seemed intact, although covered with wood ash and soot. “It sure looks rough,” he told his friend.

Inside again, he booted his laptop and continued to read about making pottery. A few minutes later, he read something about burnishing. “Well, shit. Now I find it,” he muttered. “Burnishing is a form of pottery treatment in which the surface of the pot is polished, using a hard, smooth surface such as a wooden or bone spatula, smooth stones, plastic, or even glass bulbs, while it still is in a leathery ‘green’ state, i.e., before firing. After firing, the surface is extremely shiny,” he read to Lobo.

“Well, from the looks of it, mine certainly isn’t going to be smooth or shiny. Right now, all I can do is hope some of it isn’t broken. And if I’m extremely lucky, I’ll be able to cook in it and it will hold liquids. If it will do that, damn how it looks.”

Donning his gear, he grabbed the pull handle of one of the rolling cases. “Come on, Lobo. Let’s go see about the potatoes we found by the spring a while back. Since we’re going to be out that way, I might decide to check on the plains to see if the animals are still there. I know from the well-worn path we crossed when going to the salt lick that a lot of animals have traveled that way, probably for years, and I think they continued on past the salt area. I’m worried that’s a migration path. I just hope that all the meat animals don’t leave. That path also seems to tell another story, namely that the winter can be cold with probably a lot of snow; otherwise, why would so many leave? If not, seems like most of those big brutes would just tough it out. But then again, there are plenty of hogs here, and like everything else, they’re mostly big also. Do they migrate? I’ve never read anything about hogs doing that.”

As he secured the bars, he checked to see if there were any cracks or other indications that the barrier had been weakened by the cat. Satisfied that it seemed unharmed, he stopped at the brush fence to check on Gertrude and the chicks before heading toward the distant spring.

Later, he dug up the remains of the first potatoes he had discovered. Having gotten used to the size of the ones in the valley, he realized that these were smaller, and after thinking about it, he suspected that all the trees and grass around had probably contributed to their smaller growth. But slightly smaller or not, they tasted great, and he wound up with what he guessed was another fifty pounds of them.

When he was finished, he debated whether to go check on the animals on the plains. It would have to be a hurried trip, because it was already getting toward late afternoon, but he decided to go, anyway. “Search, Lobo. Let’s go check on the buffalo.”

As they neared the grasslands, he left the rolling case in order to proceed more quietly for the last hundred yards or so. When he reached an area where he could clearly see the valley, he stopped and grabbed Lobo. “Easy, Boy,” he whispered. Then his eyes focused on something totally unexpected. “What the fuck is that?”

The Retreat

Diana, Susan, Jennie, Melissa, Joyce and Caitlin escorted Ada and Charlotte to get their clothes in preparation for moving into the Matthews’ suite.