Chapter 13

Early to bed and early to rise and all that crap. I woke before sunrise the next morning and I'd had plenty of sleep. I don't know who'd mended the fire during the night but someone had and it was still going strong. I dressed and went outside to water a bush, making sure to strap on both Glocks and carry the Marlin in hand. I spied a spent cartridge case on the way out and bent over to pick it up.

I'd have to organize a hunting expedition soon for those we'd used in all the excitement here. Here to fore I'd been religious about keeping the spent brass and I didn't want a single one to get away from me. It wasn't like I'd hidden the facts from Carl, but I'd suggested we bring along a portable reloading setup. I can still remember him asking "What the fuck for?"

Of course I didn't mention it was mostly for the hope I'd get to keep it all after the trip was over, but I'd told him we might get a chance for me to teach him how in our spare time. I'd made sure that our portable setup was well equipped and well supplied. A rough estimate was I had enough bullets, powder, and primers to reload every spent brass or shotgun shell at least ten time.

Of course I didn't have dies or primers for the Barrett's rounds, but I hadn't known about them until after the crash. With the stupendous amount of rounds Carl had bought for them I didn't think I could use them all in a lifetime anyway - still I was keeping up with their spent brass.

We needed a semi-permanent privy pretty badly, but I thought we needed a front door first. After breakfast I started installing it. It was slow going since we didn't have suitable fasteners and I couldn't dig holes in the cave floor to set posts. There was five inches of dirt before I hit rock and that wouldn't do. I'd have to build a wall with uprights and then double it with a horizontal layer. I could use dowels to tie it all together.

It was time consuming though, especially putting up the uprights. I did a custom fit for each one of them, driving them into place with a big hammer where I could. Even Chris and Mary wondered what I was doing after I had us completely enclosed with no way out.

Everyone figured it out when they had to help hold up the first cross piece while I drilled for and installed a dowel at each end, and then went on alone to dowel every upright to the first cross piece. After that was done I cut out a five-foot wide door opening.

Lunch had come and gone before I had the opening cut, but the work went faster after that. I was nowhere near through with the wall before supper though, and I called myself done for the day when food was available again.

You're not scrimping on strength for the door, are you?" Mary asked, just as we finished the meal.

"No, I can't. Just think about the last residents. What if they have friends who want to come for a visit?"

"Point taken. How soon will it be finished?" Chris asked.

"Tomorrow I hope. Is there something else I need to be planning?"

"Some one eleses is more like it. There are seven widows in Jockat's camp. I think we should invite them all to come live with us. They only get meat by gosh and by golly. They could be a big help here and you don't seem to need any help with game," Chris said.

I was getting wound up to try and talk my way out of it, but then she hit me with the low blow.

"Four of them have young children that go hungry sometimes," she said, and then smiled.

There was a battle lost before it could get started, and I knew it. It was my weak spot, as she was well aware, but I didn't mind that she got the point across before any real hand wringing. Hell, I wouldn't let a grown man go hungry if I could do anything about it and children even more so.

"I'd better get that wall stable enough to hold out for a day or so. I'm going to need to get right on the privy afterwards. I believe I'll go a little farther toward privacy than they're used to though," I said, and smiled myself.

It was easy enough to get the horizontal cross pieces in place and secured by lunch time, up to the one atop the door anyway. I was confident things would stay in place now but I still intended to keep it up all the way to the top. I let it be after lunch though and took time off door building for privy construction. Luckily I was able to find a spot where I could dig a deep pit without moving far from the nearly solid-rock mountain.

There wasn't time to build the privacy enclosure I wanted before supper, but at least I made a serviceable bench to sit on before the sun started down.

After supper I was ready for bed and some fun and games. I wasn't the only one. If anything they were more enthusiastic tonight and I didn't let them down. I idly wondered how it would be with seven more women and four children living with us. Maybe we wouldn't disturb them too much until I had a partition or two built for some privacy. I hoped like hell my women didn't expect me to go without until we had some sort of privacy-screen in place.

Then again, after tonight's workout I wasn't really worried about it at the moment. I slipped off to sleep almost at once.

All the women were out of bed with breakfast nearly cooked before I woke. After giving the new outhouse a trial run I found my plate ready and for a change I had coffee this morning instead of the primitive but delicious tea. By now the coffee's main benefit was its sharper jolt of caffeine. I wondered if they thought they needed to get extra action out of me this morning.

Apparently they did, since they were anxious to get moving toward Jockat's village. Our sleds were loaded onto our travois and the travois were manned, or femmed as it were. They waited for me to grab my Marlin and come along for protection. I still thought I should be doing some of the heavy work but knew better than to even try. When I nodded they were off.

Keeping a careful eye out for danger didn't require a lot of mental calisthenics and my mind wandered as we went. It seemed colder to me today and I assumed it was just a spring thing - a short last minute cold snap before things started thawing. I was sure it would pass in a few days but I did wonder if there was a chance we'd get a late snowstorm. I didn't worry about it much since it would probably melt away before long even if we got a good one.

The women we were coming to see didn't have any idea what we were up to and really nobody in Jockat's camp did. When we arrived it was easy to tell Mecha wasn't the least bit worried about that details. Apparently my schedule had already been discussed among them because Chris let me know I should go find Jockat and act like I was trying to have a visit.

It suited me so off I went. Jockat seemed glad enough to see me, and he called something to one of his women that had her making tea in a few minutes. He had a couple of short stool-like contraptions made from tree trunks that seemed to have been smoothed off just for the purpose and he gestured for me to have a seat as he did the same.

We did our own version of trying to learn each other's language while we sipped the tea and we didn't care whether we were making sense to each other or not. Apparently his women had told him to get lost too.

We hadn't been at it very long before Mecha, Chris, Mary, and the seven women came over. A short discussion ensued and before I knew it Jockat seemed to be pleased and thanking me profusely. Maybe he was happy to get rid of the women. Chris told me to say my goodbyes and I did, following the women to whatever destination they had in mind.

The widow's huts weren't all in the same area nor were they alike. Some were small and some fairly large. I had no trouble deciding which were the huts of the widows though, since work was going on at each of them. Possessions were being packed and brought to the travois and sleds and then loaded.

Mecha found me another sort of stool to sit on and then with Chris helping translate she asked if I wanted her to be auctioneer again. Of course I did. There weren't as many potential buyers this time. Plenty of men were standing around but she only made three sales, and they weren't even the largest huts. I thought something was fishy but couldn't figure out what.