Chapter 37

We had a wonderful supper that night and my mates energetically welcomed me into our new home. I slept like a baby after it was over.

We would have all slept in the next morning except for Nosey. He came into the cave just after sunrise and commenced braying. Lanita told me that Nosey had assumed the job on his own. It was all I could do to keep from laughing at our alarm donkey. He was doing me a favor though, since he woke all the cooks right on time.

Lanita and I needed a few tries to work out a suitable morning routine here. Our walk to the outhouses was now a walk out into the edge of the woods since we didn't have any outhouses yet. Pissing behind a tree still got the job done though, even if it did remind me of the work to come.

Shaton came by our hut right after breakfast and had some news for me. I was elected to get the new shithouses erected since I had designed the process in the first place. I didn't mind because I grabbed a few of the horse wranglers, gave instructions, and then I went on my way.

It was more nearly fair than it sounded. I intended to get the arrangements for the cashda and thaka sorted out. Of course we would need a fairly long fence to close them into the blind canyon near our cave but we would need some other pens too. Not least of which would be a large one to stack hay in. A barn was out of the question before winter but we did have to make sure the cashda and thaka couldn't get to the hay ahead of time.

The list of things we had to get done seemed never ending, and most of it fell on the men. The women were as busy as one armed paper hangers themselves, what with looking for what grew where and gathering whatever was ready to be gathered.

It was nearly six weeks before we had the place in acceptable shape for practically permanent residence. The shit houses were in operation and the fences and pens were built. I hadn't made any progress on a forge yet; in fact I was still trying to decide what to do about firebrick. I knew they were different from normal brick but didn't know how to make them.

Progress was being made in the bow department. Almost all the men knew a little about working with wood and when I explained what they needed to do to make their own bows several of them said they'd try first, understanding that it was going to be a trial and error type of thing.

Shaton and I slipped off for a couple of hours every third or forth day. I gave him fighting lessons. He wanted to resume his natural duties as gatekeeper for the Calak and I was happy to make him even better at his job.

My first real job was breaking him of the habit of grappling at the drop of a hat. A few times of depositing his charging ass on the ground got him the message. The next trick was teaching him a few throws. A sidestep and a yank on an outstretched arm or a large foot pushed between the legs of the other idiot as he went by seemed good enough to me. I explained that moves like this were for when he had a lot of time and didn't particularly want to damage the challenger.

For other occasions, when damage to the opponent wasn't a concern, I taught Shaton the value of a fist applied to a nose or jaw. We did not use any live fire demonstrations for this. I liked my nose just the way it was and I was pretty sure that Caloe and Mayta would not be pleased if I brought Shaton back to camp with his nose broken and bloody.

After a few days of shadow boxing I talked Caloe, Mayta, and my mates into constructing a heavy bag for practice. I didn't think that a normal speed bag would help much. Shaton wasn't going to run into any boxers and fast combination punches weren't going to come up. I envisioned a two hit fight at the most. Shaton would hit his challenger and the challenger would hit the ground, likely staying there for quite a while. Regular use of the heavy bag did increase the force of our punches though, even if it didn't make us quicker.

Actually, I didn't think that fisticuffs would be needed very often, since doing damage to the challenger was usually not in the plans, but you could never tell when an asshole that needed a lesson in manners would show up.

Lo and behold several assholes showed up at the same time. We'd been at our new camp probably three months when it happened. They weren't the first to come around wanting to join us. In fact two young men had petitioned us already and they'd both been accepted even though they had zero chance of winning their entrance battle. Since they'd been game and seemed healthy and respectful Shaton hadn't even used any of the new tricks I'd taught him. He just did the normal thing and won because he was so damned big and strong.

We knew from the first that our new guest weren't going to be acceptable though. In the first place there were eighteen of them, which was not normal in any sense. Along with numbers they all had shitty attitudes. They seemed to be spoiling for more than an entrance fight from the get go. To a man they were insulting braggarts.

Shaton and I had a short talk before the formal fighting began. He'd already decided that none of them were going to be allowed to join us and he wasn't going to give them the fight they were probably expecting. He planned to just throw the first one around unless he felt he just had to use his fist.

Of course the whole camp came out to watch the festivities. Thankfully our people stayed fairly clear of the group that wanted to be accepted. This was normal behavior but I was glad about it today. I could almost feel that something was going to go wrong and I wanted a clear field of fire if trouble started.

Almost from the first things went to hell. Kowtal, the first in line for the tussle, was nearly as tall as Shaton and didn't miss matching his weight by twenty pounds. He did the normal thing, running at Shaton like a madman. Shaton sidestepped, grabbed one of Kowtal's arms and flipped him ass over teakettle.

Kowtal took offense right away and pulled a knife from under his tunic. This was clearly against the universal rules, and since Shaton and I had not practiced unarmed combat against a knife-wielding opponent, I pulled my Glock and gave Kowtal a little present in his abdomen when he charged Shaton again.

The new group didn't have any idea what the loud noise had been but they did know that their leader was out of it now. It didn't seem to give them pause though, and almost at once they began advancing with their spears at the ready. They must have been pretty stupid. They were heavily outnumbered for the type of combat they seemed to expect. Of course they had zero chance with me along for the fun.

I just turned to face them and started knocking them down. I think I'd already shot three of this bunch before they realized that I was making the noise and that every time I did one of them fell down and started bleeding.