Chapter 11

I'd have to think long and hard before I gave the mama a try at taming. What the hell, I had time, since she was going to be with us for at least three weeks. I could see where it would be beyond valuable to get her on my side too and from the way she was already seeming accustomed to her surroundings I was no longer dismissing the idea out of hand. It might be possible.

It was time to leave her alone for now though because on my way to her cage I'd noticed that we had some more prospects at the refuse pile. There'd been four or five porkers of some type nosing through things when I went by but I wasn't going to hurry with this job.

I went back to the kitchen and told the girls what I'd seen.

"You must be careful. Even though their legs are short they can run fast, and if they already have the big tusks they can hurt you badly," Saytha said.

"I don't intend to even go outside before they are all dead."

"I keep forgetting that they can not get inside. You should kill all you can then because the meat is very good," Caysha said.

"I intend to, but there are nearly a dozen little oinkers too, and I'd like to catch them as well," I said.

"What is oinker?" Teecha asked.

"The pigs. Oinker is another name for pig. I was talking about catching the little ones," I said, and should have been ashamed of myself.

"Why would you want to catch them? If they have enough meat already just kill them," Teechi said.

"It is similar to what I wanted the wolf's pups for," I said.

"You want to train them to keep watch for us?" Tarta asked, clearly amazed.

"No, I want to keep them in a pen and when they grow larger we can raise them for food. We wouldn't have to hunt them then, we could just wait until they are grown, kill them, and then eat them," I said.

"Won't it be too much work to bring them food," Bota asked.

"Maybe, but they will eat the things we've been putting in the refuse pile. I don't mind having it there for now but we wouldn't want to keep it here all the time. Soon we will not want to be attracting animals here to eat and get in the way," I said.

"You are right about that. It causes us to need you for guarding every time we go outside. Sooner or later someone will forget and they could be hurt if something dangerous is out there," Teechi said.

"That is true. Since we are in a cave and behind your magic barrier no animals even realize we are close. They are not afraid to come around our camp as animals usually are. You may be right about raising the pigs from little ones. I just hope they don't make it smell bad," Bota said.

"That is another bad job. We will have to clean out their pen from time to time. It might be more trouble than it is worth," I said.

"Maybe we could build a strong pen for them outside when they are larger," Caysha said.

"Maybe, we'll just have to try it out and see what happens. At any rate we can kill the large ones today and see if we can catch the small ones," I said, and then I went poking around in my stored things for some tow sacks. They were the best things I could think of for catching the oinkers.

It didn't take long to find plenty and of course all the children volunteered to try catching the little squealers. Dispensing with the adult porkers was no trouble and while the women started cleaning them, Biltee, Cowta, and I kept watch as the race between children and mobile ham got underway. Thankfully the escapees were very reluctant to leave the area where their parents were last seen alive.

Watching the pig scramble was hilarious. The children were dedicated to catching them and the small pigs were just as dedicated to staying free. Reluctance to leave their dead parents was their downfall though. Even that wouldn't have meant sure capture if it had been a one on one contest, but after the children learned to gang up on one pig at a time the deal was done. All the little ones were sacked up before I was tired of watching the show. It left me with more work though.

It was just as well that the morning's kills were cleaned and moved inside to be skinned and cut up relatively quickly. I needed to get started on a pen for the pigs and I needed to get it done so I could make a bigger cage for the mama wolf. Cowta, Biltee, Teechi, Saytha, and I took off to gather materials for the pigpen.

Saplings weren't on the agenda this time; I was looking for what I thought of as small trees. I wanted some about six inches in diameter and could use them up to eight inches. It let us stay closer to home, since we hadn't thinned this size out so. After about an hour of working I realized that we were ending up with a hell of a lot of stumps scattered around. They weren't that large though and would probably rot out in a couple of years or so. Maybe the spacemen would be back by then and could let me have something to do away with them.

We took a break when I thought we had about half enough of the small trees. It was time for lunch and after standing watch all morning while the others worked I was hungry, even if I had no right to be. Caysha, Teecha, and Meetee had the cure for that though. We had another bear roast for lunch and two types of vegetable that I didn't recognize. One was a sort of pasty dish that tasted like sweet potatoes and the other was some type of greens. It was good, but it reminded me that I needed to give them a mashed-potato making lesson.

There was no rest for the guard though and after a little sitting around we went right back to gathering pigpen material. We were done in another hour or so and it was time to get started on the building. Since we were back inside now I could work instead of standing around and watching.

Grabbing the posthole diggers I tried them right at the back of the cave. They were a no go here. Posthole diggers do not do well in a rock floor that only has a light covering of dirt, for appearances I guess. This would make things harder.