Chapter 11

The women were absolutely enthralled by the growing squash. They loved the idea of having the plants right where they could find them easily and not be in danger from wild animals while gathering the produce. I knew I had a winner when I got the women on my side—now the men would go along just to keep peace in the family. Next spring, I planned to have a full fledged garden in operation; I now knew that the women would support me.

My next project was to get the kids interested in having some "pet" rabbits. I got some of the older boys, 7-10, to help me build pens to hold the rabbits they caught. I figured that all we would need was 1 male and 2 females; soon after that, we should have all of the rabbits we could eat. The men were interested in this, because of the prospect of fresh meat during the winter without having to brave the bad weather to find and kill it. Maybe, it was going to be easier to get farms going than I had thought!

In the meantime, the crossbows made it easier to hunt, and the hunters were bringing in more meat than we needed to get us through the winter. I figured that this was a good time to go after more recruits for joining Wolfton before the weather got too bad. We put Lefty in charge, and Alice, Sharp Eye, and I set out to see if we could find anyone else who wanted to join us while there was still decent traveling weather. This time we took a wagon, thinking that the extra carrying capacity might come in handy. We took some bronze knives for incidental gifts and trading items; we planned to kill elk as our friendship gift.

It was a bright, sunshiny morning as we drove out, and Alice predicted that the weather would stay clear, but cool, for the next few days. We went toward a section we had not visited before and found an inhabited cave on our first try. Alice had killed an elk for us to use as our gift shortly after we left home, so we were ready for our first meeting. I had learned a lot from my previous trips, so I sent out Alice to make the first contact before we pulled up in the wagon. My theory was that a woman would be less threatening, and she could not be hurt if the people she met were too hostile. Sharp Eye, an obvious boy, was driving, so this was not likely to be a war party, and I was lolling back, prepared to light a cigarette for the smoke if worse came to worst. All-in-all, we were about as non-threatening as we could get!

Alice had everything under control when we pulled up to the front door with the wagon. It was an instant sensation and everybody wanted a ride after we presented our elk as the friendship gift. They gave us some jerky in exchange, hardly an equal swap, but it was the thought that counted. There were 12 people in the group, so it was a tight squeeze to fit everyone in the wagon at the same time, but a grand time was had by all. We had fun that afternoon. Alice and Sharp Eye demonstrated the crossbow to prove that even a woman or a boy could handle a weapon superior to a stabbing spear. The men were very impressed with what I could do with a sword, so we all three made a big impression.

I was getting a little pickier about the recruits than I had been before when we needed every hand we could muster. I still wanted to take in everybody we could, but I was now on the lookout to eliminate troublemakers before they were even invited to join. Therefore, we spent the night in order to get to know everybody a little better. All these people were acceptable, so, after supper that night, I put on my shaman persona, lit a cigarette, and gave them my sales pitch about joining us. All but one of the people, a woman, was ready to go right then, and she wanted to wait until morning. I sided with her, so we spent the night at this cave.

The next morning, we loaded up the wagon with the stuff the people wanted to take to their new home, and put those too old or too young to walk into the wagon. By cutting cross country, we were home within 3 hours with all of the goods the people had wanted to salvage, so they were ready to move right in. We introduced the new people to the "old timers," and I went over the rules about the water supply and the garderobe. The first thing the new people wanted to see was the garderobe, they had never heard of such a thing. They then picked out their new apartments and got settled in. We picked up two couples and one unmarried man who found a mate within 2 days. It was definitely a successful trip.

A few days later, we tried again to find some new people. We had to travel a little farther to find new people this time. This was just a small cave with 1 man and 2 women, but no children. I was a bit suspicious, but had only a feeling to go on. We showed off our usual stuff and prepared to spend the night. I made my pitch, and the women looked interested, but fearful. The man was very enthusiastic, too much so, I thought.

That night, I was awakened to the sound of a scuffle and a grunt of pain. Alice had caught the man trying to kill me with one of the bronze swords. She had crushed his chest with one blow of her fist! Sharp Eye had slept through the whole thing and was disappointed when he finally woke up. The two women fell all over us with gratitude for rescuing them from the man. He had stolen them from another cave and was keeping them prisoner. He raped one or both of them several times a week, and one of the women was pregnant with his child. They begged us to let them join our community, and we couldn't refuse.

There was nothing of any importance in the cave worth saving, so they climbed into the wagon the next morning and headed for their former home. I figured it was too good an opportunity for more recruiting for us to miss. It took more than a day to get there, since we had to make some detours to get the wagon around some rugged country. The two women were welcomed home with laughter and tears, and we three were greeted as heroes. This was a very large group with 33 adults and 23 children. They were going to have to move pretty soon, since they had pretty well cleaned out the food sources for their area, so they were very receptive to moving in with us at Wolfton. We spent the night and found that everybody was acceptable.

Alice and I discussed the logistics and decided to move several people with the wagon the next morning. When we got back to Wolfton, we would unload the people we had brought on that trip and send all of the wagons and carts back in a convoy to pick up everybody else and their goods. If necessary, we could make one more trip to pick up the last few items. I would stay in Wolfton to get everything ready, and she would lead the convoy back to make the pickup.

This scheme worked out very well, and we had all those people settled in, in only a few days. We now had picked up all of the people I thought we could assimilate in one winter, so I called it quits on recruiting trips for this season.

It was a very busy winter, what with getting everybody organized with enough to do to keep from being bored. Of course, one of the things we did was contribute to a population explosion. I think that Alice was the only one of the women who didn't get pregnant or deliver a baby that season. Alice was really busy, and was going to need a midwifery assistant the way things were going. In fact, we were growing so fast that I asked Alice to look into opening up another chamber for growth next spring.

Alice followed the water upstream through its channel and found another chamber not quite as large as the one we were currently using, but quite usable. I asked her to cut the exterior windows/vent holes in preparation for opening it up, but not to cut any doorways, yet. I also asked her to put in a garderobe if there was a good place for one. With all the children here and on the way, we would probably need the room by the end of the summer.

We were going to need a lot of salt when we started preserving food and for other uses, so I asked Alice to print out a map for me of the various mineral sources that we could tap without undue work or travel. I was amazed at what was available for our use when we needed it. For one thing, I wanted to mount an expedition to the Ruhr to see if I could get an iron mill started. I wanted to keep the secret of steel to myself for a while, but I thought that iron was safe enough, since we could make all of the bronze we needed.

I also hoped to get a glass factory started pretty soon. All of the raw materials were near enough, and we had enough tin to make the pool needed for pouring plate glass. I knew it was just a personal quirk, but I was looking forward to regular windows so that I could see outside without having to stick my head out the door to do it.