Chapter 7

Back at the cave I helped the girls drag the travois right on inside the warehouse-cave's entrance. The snag now was no place to hang our meat for skinning and mostly to let as much blood as possible drip out of it. At least I thought of it as a snag.

They didn't. Apparently they weren't worried about letting the blood drip out, and I guess that made sense since most of the blood left with the entrails. They didn't seem to need or want to hang them up to skin them either. After another short rummage through their things they spread out a couple of bloodstained hides on the floor, moved the deer to them, and commenced cutting.

Even though my Wyoming Knife gadget had been a bust, Wyoming as a gadgeteer made a comeback with the Wyoming Saws I had. Even the new knives weren't up to snuff for cutting the deer up and when I saw Saytha dig out a stone head hatchet from their belongings I grabbed the saw and gave a short demo. They were thrilled again and in nearly no time they were sawing like pros.

Like a total dumbass I'd forgotten that we'd have to do something with the meat to preserve it. I had a chest type freezer but it was already full, thanks to the greenies. I figured the best thing would be a smoke house, and I even knew how to build one, but there wasn't time this time.

The girls didn't have any such doubts about preserving the meat though. They asked me to come out and keep a watch while they used their new knives to cut some saplings for drying racks. Hell, did I have a deal for them? I picked up my chainsaw and told them time was a wastin'.

Now, I know you're asking yourself - "Just what in the hell did a software guy need with a fucking chainsaw?" The gadget gene, remember.

At one time I had decided that I needed to return to the camp-out days of my youth, since I remembered how much fun I'd had back then. Of course I was already fairly well off when this mood struck, so buying a chain saw to go along with a couple of axes, a good bow saw, and two nice camp hatchets just made good sense, kinda. What the hell, it was only money. I bought a Stihl chain saw, top of the line MS 880 STIHL Magnum no less. Be Prepared was the Boy Scout motto and I wasn't about to let those little bastards out prepare me.

Of course the dealer tried to steer me to something a little smaller than that commercial monster I picked to use for camping but hell, I was the camper here and I knew what I had to have, didn't I? I had it now anyway so I led the girls outside and had them show me the big trees that needed a good felling.

The hardwood saplings they chose were a little bit of a let down, seeing as how not a one had even a two-inch diameter, but I'd have to make do. They screamed and ran when I started the damned thing but they were amazed at the way it dispatched the saplings. I even cut them to lengths so it would be easier to make drying racks.

Teechi had a leap of inspiration then and asked me if I could cut a deadfall she pointed out into smaller pieces. She explained that it was the best wood for smoking. I noticed that it was hickory and I agreed with her smoking wood selection but now it was my turn to worry about my saw. Hickory can be hell on saws after it's been down for a long time. What the hell, I'd bought one of those handy dandy saw-chain sharpening tools that would work off the car's cigarette lighter plug. No matter that my friends hadn't bothered to send along my truck, I'd get twelve volts somewhere.

I made twenty-four inch pieces of the hickory and even while I was doing it I cursed my gadget gene for letting me down on a portable wood splitter for my camping. I could even remember looking it over and finally deciding it would be silly to buy one just to split wood on a camp out, especially when I bought my firewood for home delivered for the living room fireplace. Around Dallas there just aren't many places to go out and cut your own.

At least I had two good sledges and a young host of wedges and Wood Grenades. No, I'd never really used these but I'd split wood a little when I was a youngster. There's just not a lot of technical details to keep straight about pounding hell out of a steel wedge. So I cut and split firewood while the three of them butchered the deer and cut them mostly into thin strips, hanging them on the racks.

At first they were going to put the racks and the meat outside but I made them try a fire in the cave first and sure enough there was a vent to the outside somewhere because the smoke went straight up to the ceiling and then moved toward the back of the cave and left. It would be a hell of a lot easier if we didn't have to worry about something coming up for a free sample while the meat dried.

We hadn't finished fucking with the venison by twenty minutes when some asshole came sniffing around looking for Clocho. Apparently he wasn't looking toward the cave or didn't know where it was or something, because he never paid us any mind at all. He spotted Clocho and went to him, giving him a good checking and then he started looking around.

"I hope you liked him well enough to haul his dead ass off and bury or something," I yelled at him, through the barrier.

The girls were slightly behind me and I guess they were pretty sure that he couldn't get in since they hadn't been able to at first without my help. That didn't mean they knew about its spear stopping capabilities though, and when the new idiot sent his flying toward me they yelled, at me, or at someone.

Hell, I didn't even flinch. The spear chucking genius was flummoxed over whatever had happened, and when we didn't come out he walked up, no doubt hoping to see what went wrong. He retrieved his spear and I'm sure he was out of sorts over the broken flint point. After he picked it up he charged toward me flat out. I'd have thought he would have bounced farther back, but you can't have everything.

After he regained his feet he began shouting at me, and since I couldn't make out a lot of it, I assumed it was serious cursing in their language and probably whatever was translating wasn't quite sure what kind of a motherfucker he was calling me.

I thought about just going into the house and brewing a pot of coffee and then coming out to watch him rant an rave, maybe bringing out a lawn chair for comfort. Finally I decided he wasn't that interesting and pulled my Glock to let him have it. He wasn't really any danger right now, but after the girl's demonstration of moving around silently in the woods I figured if he already wanted to kill me there was no sense in letting him have another chance later.

"Who was that Teechi?" I asked.

"Lotcaw."

"Was he a friend of Clocho?"

"Not friend, but not enemy either. They hunted together sometimes," she said.

"I wonder why he decided he wanted me to kill him too."

"He didn't think you could, or maybe hoped you couldn't," she said.

"How dumb could he be? I know he's one of the bunch that helped bring Taachachi here. He'd already seen me kill some of the others," I said.

"Yes, but they don't know how you did it. They can't understand it and they probably come to think they miss something. Then they try again," she said.

"I just don't understand that either. How do they think they're going to learn how I did it when I do it to them? If they figure it out right at the last they won't know it for long."

"Some men are not very good at looking ahead, to what comes next," she said.