Chapter 14

Even though we'd been hard at it last night, for the first hour or so at least, we were up just before sunrise today. We weren't the first ones moving though, since I saw Charga - Jekaycey's father - leading Denac out toward a nearby stream for a bath and some father-in-law type advice.

This morning also brought my first chance to see some of the mate-to-be's preparations. I don't know what went on in that hut, but there was a constant stream of women in and out of it.

Of course most of the women were working away on the bear from last night. My mates seemed to have acquired the duty of dealing with its hide and they both were scraping hell out of it while I mostly stood around.

Denac came back toward camp about an hour or so later and I'll swear he was shining like a new penny. I don't know if his new father-in-law had told him to bathe or to polish himself. I stood near him while he waited anxiously for Jekaycey to join him. He tried to keep up with conversation, but it was easy to see he was just too nervous.

Denac was tongue tied again when Jekaycey came to join him and then they were off to face Zakat and Matatu for the ceremony. It was over in what seemed no time, and I wondered about that a little. It had seemed a lot longer to me both times I'd gone through it. No one else looked like anything had changed though. Shaeta and Katia stood by me while the newly mated couple headed to the feast first.

I did get a bit of inspiration from the ceremony though but it was the oddest thing. I was looking at Jekaycey and trying to imagine what she would have looked like with an earth type bridal veil. Thoughts of a veil made me remember the small rectangle of screen wire that had been with my recent gifts. Now I new exactly what it was for.

It was so I could make a veil for Denac, or a bee helmet anyway. I guess they weren't really called helmets but with tanned skin for a covering, I could sew the screen wire in place and we could eventually cover Denac almost completely to keep the bees away from him while he did his thing. I was pretty sure he was going to love this mating present.

The rest of it was almost exactly like the two times I'd been mated. They ate, had a little talk, and then Jekaycey took him around and introduced him to all the women. Shaeta and Katia ran me off before their time came and then let me join them again when it was done.

I worried about the gajee drinking but decided that if Denac wanted to drink like a fish at his mating ceremony I wasn't going to do anything except make sure he didn't fall into a fire. He only wetted his lips with the cup Jekaycey offered him though and then she followed suit. I'd known the women were the smarter ones all along, but she was just rubbing it in.

Later, as the drinking progressed, Katia, Shaeta, and I joined Jekaycey and Denac to talk while we all watched the rest get shitfaced. Right at sunset Denac and I did have to snatch up a man that had fallen into the edge of a small fire. As soon as we had him on his feet again he went back for another cup. We headed for our huts after that and I was asleep almost at once.

The next morning we were out for breakfast even earlier, or at least we were out so my mates could help make it. Many of the women had been as drunk as the men the night before and just weren't able. Of course this was slightly ameliorated by the fact that most of last night's drunkards didn't want anything to do with breakfast.

Denac and Jekaycey were out almost as quickly and he stood around with me while she helped the others putting the food together. I gather that it was only the second time Denac had been in any shape to get a good picture of what the morning after looked like when you weren't hung over. We tried not to laugh too loud.

After we'd finished eating, we asked our mates what we should be doing this morning and I think Katia and Shaeta had been giving Jekaycey some advice, because she spoke right up.

"It would be wonderful if you did whatever you need to do a little farther from camp. We have things to take care of and we don't want you two underfoot," she said, and then smiled a killer one at Denac.

"We can take a hint," I said, and asked Denac if he was up to felling an X bee tree today.

We went by my hut for my cart, wedges, sledge, and the new saw. Denac was very curious as we started toward the tree and even more curious when I told him he needn't bother going for his axe.

Just take a second to think about what a pain in the ass it would be to try chopping down a large, fire hardened, hardwood tree with and axe that had a stone cutting head. Get the picture?

He didn't ask any questions, but when we got to the tree and I started explaining how we were going to use the saw he was amazed.

Whoever made my saw had done a damned good job of sharpening it before they sent it to me. We had that fire hardened oak sawed nearly half way into in less than an hour. Then my mistake came to me. We hadn't pulled the pegs I'd installed to drain any remaining honey.

We went back to camp for a couple of bags and went right back to the tree. Denac placed his short trough and I pulled a peg, and the honey draining was on again. There was a lot more than I'd thought there would be, but we didn't worry about running out of bags this time, since we had kept the pegs handy.

We used them when the first bag was full, while Denac tied it off and replaced it, then we pulled the peg again and nearly filled the second bag.

I put the pegs back even though the honey had stopped coming, and after Denac had the bag tied off we took them back to camp. Caloe was very proud of us, not to mention Shata's big smile.

Back at the tree we didn't tarry and an hour later it was time for someone to yell timber but we never. The damned tree didn't even break up; all it did was fall over and lay there.

Even with the tree down we needed a way into the hollow. I tapped around on what I thought was the hollow part and got a better idea of where it was exactly. We used the saw again to make a deep cut across the stump end and then another one about six feet on up the trunk from there, and the wedges worked fine to split up along the edges.

It worked better than you'd have thought it would and in another hour we had what seemed almost like a lid we were lifting off a box, albeit it was all rounded. The hollow part was enormous. Of course it was no bigger than the tree, but it was so big from bottom to top.

We didn't really have all the honey out either, though we'd thought we must have. The comb wasn't melted on the side that had been away from the hottest part of the fire and I knew that there was probably a quarter as much honey in the tree as we'd already taken out.

"I don't think there are enough old bags to hold all that honey," Denac said.

"You're probably right, but it doesn't really matter. We'll just cut the hollow part out of the rest of the tree and take it into the camp on my cart. Believe me, Shata and Caloe will find a way to store the honey," I said.

"You're right, but I would never have considered that."

"I am always trying to think of a way to make things easier on me," I said.

"That is very good. I believe I'll be trying to spend more time near you, except when you are finding vadeesey. I hate to admit it, but I was secretly glad when Zakat told me to stay in camp to try protecting the women if it bypassed all of you.

"I knew it wasn't going to bypass anyone. I hoped no one would be hurt too badly, but I never thought it would be possible," he said.

"That was very wise of you, Denac. I would have preferred if no one had come with me for the vadeesey. If I had been alone I would have climbed a tree before he ever noticed me. My rifle could have dealt with him just as easily from up a tree, and they can't climb them," I said.

"Maybe you should have told the others," he said.

"I considered that, but I was afraid they would think I was bragging. I did tell them to leave it alone and let me deal with it though. All's well that ends well anyway, and we will be enjoying the vadeesey for some time," I said, and it made him howl with laughter.

It was even easier to saw the hollow portion out of the downed tree, since it was horizontal now and we could use the saw more easily. I cut the end walls as thin as I thought I could get by with and what we had left didn't weight more than about four hundred pounds. It was nearly easy to push it into camp on the cart, especially since there were two of us.