Chapter 4

This was my first trip without Alice since I had met her, and I actually felt lonely. Hell, I needed to grow up and act like a man, there were a lot of people depending on me. I didn't dare screw up!

We reached the place where there should be horses, and, sure enough, there they were. This was an area with lots of steep hills and many small caves; a few were ideal for shelter for a short time, though they were too small to be home for a large number of people. We set up shop in a convenient cave and ate supper. It was too late that day to do anything about the horses, but I hoped to get an early start the next morning.

After a breakfast of jerky and pemmican, we started looking for a suitable place for our corral. It wasn't long before we found a place which was ideal for our needs. It was a small 3-sided valley with water and plenty of grass. This meant that we only needed to block off one exit with a brush fence. Now was when I wished that I had my machete, or, better yet, an ax, but we were able to cope by using some flint axes I had managed to put together. It took all day, but we were able to block the entrance to the valley with an adequate fence. We had left a gap in the brush fence and rigged a funnel-like guide to take the horses where we wanted them, once we got them to move.

We four men were enough to drive most of the horses into the fenced in area after a few false starts. The lead stallion escaped, but I didn't want him, anyway. I figured that with my inexperience, I'd have a hell of a time taming him. I decided to concentrate on mares this time; uncut males would be just too much of a challenge!

With some false starts and some ludicrous mishaps, we were still able to get six of the younger mares to accept us as riders after 18 days of effort. We didn't have much in the way of tack, so we all had trouble staying on the horses even when they were just walking. Several times, I heard the mumbled comment, "I'd rather walk!" I assured the other 3 men that everything would be easier when we got back home, and I had a chance to make us some decent tack. I don't think they really believed me, but I did get the benefit of the doubt, at least.

It was going to take a lot of work to make the saddles, but I had my always-sharp knife as a tool. That was certainly better than having to sweat the job with flint tools! I could see that I was going to have to make a foundry so that I could push us into the bronze age ASAP in order to have some adequate tools. Shit, I was going to have to train some assistants; there was no way around it.

I had travois made for the two horses we weren't riding, and we were carrying our gear on them as we rode home. The journey out had taken 3 days, but we made it back in only 1 day, so that proved something to my 3 companions. I hoped that they would become more enthusiastic about horses after they had gotten some experience with proper tack.

We made quite an impression as we rode into camp in time for supper. Most people had not understood what we were going to do with the horses after we had caught them, so there were many cries of amazement as we came into sight. The women were particularly impressed with the travois pulled by the horses; that they could appreciate—no more carrying heavy loads when it was necessary to travel.

We rigged a rope corral for the horses before we stopped work for supper and the welcome-home celebration. All 4 of us were looking forward to tonight and the breaking of our 3 weeks of celibacy.

With all the other things I had to do, it took me nearly a month to get the first saddle made, but finally it was done. The horses weren't all that happy with the saddle, but, with persistence, they accepted the necessity. My 3 assistants on the first horse breaking expedition learned how to use the saddle and actually began to enjoy horseback riding.

We were moving into the winter season, so there was not much to do beyond the necessary hunting. Therefore, I was able to recruit some help with making saddles and some of the other stuff we needed as boredom set in from the enforced idleness. By the time spring finally broke through, Bear had become an accomplished saddle maker, and he appeared to enjoy the job. I hoped that he would stick with it. We had 8 full sets of tack ready by the time the weather had warmed up enough for us to go back for more horses.

I had learned my lesson, and this time we took our wives with us; yes, I had formally married Alice, and she seemed to be happy about this—I certainly was! The women were pleased that all of our equipment and supplies were transported on 4 travois. Naturally, the men rode horses and the women walked, but I planned for the women to ride on the way home; we had enough saddles for 8 people.

Now that we had some trained horses to help, we were able to train 10 more mares on this trip. The women could now appreciate the full value of horses as mounts and as draft animals. Now that the women were on my side, I had no doubt that the men would put up with the horses.

The acquisition of horses pushed us onto a lot of paths the people had never considered. For example, the use of stirrups was a lot easier if the rider had shoes with a hard sole, but such shoes had never been made before. To make things a little easier to fabricate, I designed some flip-flops which could be worn over the usual moccasins or even bare feet. We used a stirrup with a closed front so that we didn't need high-heeled shoes. The women started competing with each other to see who could produce the best quality items as the need came up. Thus, we developed a very useful division of labor in which a woman concentrated on the things she did best.

The men became jealous at the attention the women were getting for the products of their labors and looked for things that they could do better than the women. I knew that this wouldn't be a problem as soon as we started farming, but I kept my mouth shut, letting the men stew for a while. I figured it was good for them, it certainly was good for the egos and morale of the women!

As soon as I felt it was safe to do so, I wanted to go after some of the copper and tin. I asked Big Foot to assign 6 men and their wives to come with Alice and me on an expedition to fetch the copper and tin. Alice had told me that we could find both metals on the surface in sufficient purity for making my first bronze. It was a beautiful day when we finally set out on our grand adventure.

I had the men bring their atlatls, and both men and women bring stabbing spears which I was now calling "lances." I wanted both sexes armed in case we were attacked by humans or animals: the horses made very attractive targets. We were going to hunt for most of our meat, but our tubers and greens were brought along on a travois. We had some jerky and pemmican along for emergencies.

Even with the horses for transportation, it was going to take several days to reach the tin, the first item on my shopping list. The first day was spent shaking everything and everyone down into traveling fitness, so we didn't get very far.

As it turned out, we didn't have to make a special effort to hunt. We ran across some elk who dismissed us as not dangerous, I assume because the sight of people on horses was so far outside their experience that they didn't know how to categorize us. Anyway, one of our men was able to bring down a fat doe with his atlatl without even leaving his saddle.

The women had the doe skinned and hung up to bleed-out in record time while we set up camp right there. There was a lot of laughing and joking at supper, and it turned into a grand celebration. I suspect that some babies were started that night.

There was some grumbling, but nothing serious, when I set up a guard schedule. Alice, who really didn't need to sleep, said that she would unobtrusively keep watch to make sure that there was no goofing off, and that nothing could sneak up on us. So, after our nightly romp where Alice continued my education into the finer points of sex, I went to sleep and she stayed alert.

We were visited by a dire wolf that night, but it must have been out of curiosity more than anything else, because it left when the guard shouted and waved his spear at it. Other than that, we had an uneventful night and rose with the dawn.

We managed to travel a reasonable distance the next day, and Alice said that we would reach the site of the tin on the following day. The hunters had to go out this time, but they soon returned with an elk. The whole animal was dressed and cooked, so that we would have plenty for tomorrow. This was turning into a long picnic outing!

The next day, we reached the location of the tin and found some lying on the surface, so I was able to show the people what we were looking for. For this trip, I was sure we would find all of the tin we needed lying on the surface, so that we did not need to dig for it. The women were, by far, the most skilled in finding something on the ground, so I had them form a line to scour the surface for tin nodules. While they were at it, I asked them to pick up anything edible they came across. The men were set out as guards.