Chapter 7

I was embarrassed by Alice's description of "my" fight with the two fools who had tried to harm us. I was also amazed at my family's reaction to the whole thing: that was what they expected of me! Oh, they were suitably impressed with Alice's description of the fight (I think she cribbed a part of the story from Homer's battle between Achilles and Hector), but they were now used to my "miracles," so they expected nothing less. Shit! How was I going to live up to all that? Strong Arm and Sharp Eye now wanted "Daddy" to teach them all about how to fight; I stalled them until after breakfast.

Actually, I wasn't as helpless as I might have just implied. The ETs had given me a lot of knowledge on fighting with clubs, spears, knives, and "empty handed," so I was well equipped to instruct the boys in self defense. Alice was just a hell of a lot better at it because of her robotic nature. But Alice was a "woman," and such training had be done by a male. Oh, well, it was something to do during the worst of the weather.

All three of us improved our fighting skills that winter, and we were in good shape when spring finally came. We didn't have any more visitors that winter, so we were left to our own devices. Green Leaf had done an excellent job of stocking our larder during the previous summer and fall, so we never lacked for adequate nourishing food. I was proud of her, and she blushed every time I told her so (at least once a day).

Gentle Rain was working on her own project very diligently: her baby was due in a few weeks. By now, she could barely waddle around in the cave. The other women were busy preparing for the blessed event. I knew that I shouldn't be worried because I knew that Alice was as competent a midwife and doctor as could be found, but I couldn't help those feelings that every expectant father has. Gentle Rain presented her child on the appointed day with no problems and very little pain. To everybody's delight, it was a boy which she wanted to name Gift Of The Gods. I agreed, provided that we could call him "Gift" for short.

By this time, Green Leaf and Moon Glow were also pregnant. I knew that I had been busy, but I really had not planned on having my own population explosion. However, neither one was due until late summer, and I hoped that we would be in Wolfton by then.

With this in mind, I sent Alice to Wolfton to see if Big Foot was ready for us to join his group. She returned with a horror story. Wolfton had been attacked by the invaders just the week before she arrived and the situation was a hideous mess. Over half the residents of Wolfton had been killed during the attack, including Big Foot. Many of those who were not killed had been wounded and not expected to live. She had done what she could for the survivors, but most of them had internal infections from the arrows that she could do nothing for.

The atlatls had been effective in the defense until they had used up all their spears, then they were helpless to defend themselves. This was a bitter lesson for me, I had not wanted to believe the Army doctrine that there was no defense against a determined offense, all other things being equal. The defenders had fought hand-to-hand and had been able to keep the invaders out of the cave, but this had been the only consolation in their defeat.

Alice said that Wolfton needed our help, the sooner the better. The horses had survived because they had been stabled within the cave during the cold weather. Lefty and a few of his helpers had survived uninjured, because they had been ordered to protect the horses, so I sent Alice back to bring all of the horses so that we could move all our people and supplies to Wolfton.

It was nearly a week later before she returned with Lefty, 4 helpers, and 14 horses. These were enough horses to enable us to move all of our people and supplies in one trip. With every horse pulling a travois, we had no problem getting everything packed up, including our gunpowder and hand grenades. We abandoned my unsuccessful weapon experiments, but we did knock down the onager and take it with us. I was proud of the way Strong Arm and Sharp Eye acted as our flanker scouts and Alice worked as point.

By cutting straight cross country, we made the trip in 4 days. I was shocked when I saw the disarray at Wolfton. The people seemed to have abandoned all hope and were just listlessly going through the motions of living. If the invaders had come back now, they could have taken over without any resistance. No one was in charge; the people were desperate for some direction. I had hoped that I wouldn't have to do it, but I had to take over and give orders, or the people would soon starve.

The first thing I did upon arrival was to organize a full hot meal for everybody. This took 3 or 4 times longer than it would have under normal circumstances, but we finally got hot food inside every man, woman, and child in the community. That night, the last of the infected wounded died, and I held a funeral service the next morning. Now, like it or not, I was the political leader (king) and religious leader (priest) combined into one for the cave community known as Wolfton. I would separate state and religion as soon as I could, but now was not the time to quibble.

Counting Strong Arm and Sharp Eye, we now had 7 men, 22 women, and 16 children. I wished that we had some automatic rifles! My thought was that we needed gobs of gunpowder. Fifty hand grenades were simply not enough. Alice would have to lead an expedition to get more guano, and women would have to be trained in extracting the saltpeter (potassium nitrate) and the other tasks in making gunpowder and hand grenades. Meanwhile, we'd make hand grenades from the gunpowder we had on hand.

Once we had the hand grenades, she would have to lead other expeditions for sulfur, copper, and tin. Damn, I wished that the ETs would get their budget woes straightened out, because I sure could use all the help I could get.

Luckily, the invaders had overlooked the foundry and forge in the adjacent cave. Boar had not survived, but Stork had. She was not a full blacksmith, but she had picked up a lot of the skills by working with her husband. I asked Stork to survey the cave and see what we had to work with. I was determined to cast some cannon for firing cannister shot. I knew that it would be a while before we could machine cannon barrels, but I hoped to cast barrels good enough for charges wrapped in leather. If I had a chance to work on it, I also planned to try for grape shot, but I would settle for cannister.

I got a few volunteers and we started making hand grenades. The first thing we needed was a new kiln to make the pottery pots for the the grenade charge. I told my volunteers that what we needed was a combination kiln to cure the pottery and to make charcoal for gunpowder and for the foundry. I described what I wanted and left it to them to build it. They had a workable kiln inside of 4 days, so we got to work on the next steps.

I put Cool Breeze back on duty "making" lighter flints. Before long, we had nearly a thousand of the little flints. I didn't want to waste them, so I asked Cool Breeze to stop for a while.

As soon as the pottery bottles were ready, I showed the women how to make the hand grenades. They learned quickly and seemed to enjoy the work. I wondered if it was the work, itself, they enjoyed, or if it was the thought of blowing up their enemies. I didn't care as long as they made good hand grenades.

While the women were making new hand grenades, I had the men who were going with Alice practice throwing the dummy grenades. My first task was breaking them of the habit of trying to hit the target with a direct throw instead of lobbing the grenade so that it fell more or less straight down onto the fuse striker rod. When I finally got through to them that the fuse striker rod had to hit the ground at the proper angle, we started making progress. With some practice, they were able to throw accurately a consistent 75-100 feet. I figured that this was plenty good enough, because it was the range the invading bowmen had generally used. The grenades had a killing radius of 12-15 feet, but the fragments could wound beyond that.

Alice took 4 men and all the horses to get as much guano as they could carry. I expected that they would get back with around 1500 pounds of guano, which, hopefully, would eventually yield at least 200 pounds of gunpowder. We were going to need a lot more than that, but it was a start.

Meanwhile, I still hadn't given up on my idea of a recoil dampener for the onager, so Stork and I cast 3 leaf springs from the bronze we had on hand. We took turns pounding on the springs until I thought that we had done all the hardening we could. We assembled the onager and constructed the recoil absorber for it. We practiced by hurling some large rocks and the contraption worked plenty well enough. Now, I had my mortar!