Chapter 21

The next day started with me riding Lola and leading Red on a long rope while both pulled one of the narrow log travois. Six women rode three each on the travois. Mary, Chris, Reela, Keela, Shantee, and Welta came to help me get the logs loaded. They were going to stay in place while I took the last six logs back to the cave. They'd spend their time looking for small diameter straight trees I planned to use during the winter for making furniture. The long logs we were taking back now were also for winter use.

All the women and even the children had been making a point of getting familiar with Missy for the last few days. I'd asked them to pet her and give her treats whenever they could. I wanted Missy to look at them as parts of her pack. She stayed with the six women while I moved the logs back to the cave.

We wanted to get our morning chores finished as soon as possible and then we planned to pull a trick on some of the free roaming horses that were hanging around to stay near Red and Lola. I couldn't catch them in all this free area. Even though I could ride Lola and Red and I figured I could rope them off either of their backs - my saddles weren't ready yet and my best guess was dropping a loop over one of the wild horses would lead directly to my unanchored ass being pulled off and dragged several feet before I could let go of the rope.

I had it in my head we could tie Red and Lola inside their cave near the back and they'd soon get at least some company in for a visit. We'd just hide behind the closed door in our cave and see what we could see through a few peepholes I'd bored. I knew the wild ones visited during nights when I tied the two inside, but I didn't know whether they'd try that during the day. In hopes of success we'd installed four snubbing post to use if we could capture new prospects this way.

After lunch we did the deed. Red and Lola were tied as far away from the entrance as we could get them and we left the double doors I'd just finished building last week wide open. I pulled rank and watched from the peephole with the best view of the other entrance.

It wasn't the happening spot, but then again none of the peepholes were. Left to their own devices horses spend a hell of a lot of time moseying around, pulling up a mouthful of grass here and a mouthful there. They do not bolt down their food unless it's grain and they're really hungry.

Finally a couple of them made their way inside, but they were yearlings at best. If we caught them we could train them fine, but we couldn't ride them for eighteen months or so and maybe not for two years. It took almost all afternoon but finally there were five fully adult horses inside besides Lola and Red.

I gave it another half hour to make sure they'd move on into the back and then walked out front and closed the doors almost all the way. I'd intended to go inside and do most of the work myself, but the women raised hell about it, so Chris, Reela, Keela, and Dela came with me. Mary and Mecha both wanted to come too, but the others vetoed that idea, because they were our healers and were best at treating sickness or injury. I'm sure at least some of them and probably all were sure I was going to be injured, a little at least. I didn't intend to be injured at all.

Our first job was getting the young ones out. Marita and Welta took over the doors and I told them to slam them shut if I yelled. I wanted the youngsters to vacate, but I didn't intend to let any of the adults loose. We only got about half of them out before it was so dark outside there wasn't enough light coming in to do things safely. We shut the doors, latched them, and headed for supper.

Of course Missy had lost her bedroom in the other cave, but she didn't look very upset about it. She and her pups were ensconced on a big bear fur. Apparently the pups had gone on a nursing spree lately because they were piled together sleeping it off while Missy looked pretty well fed herself and was just laying down and watching what her humans were up to. She didn't even think about coming to sniff around and beg for handouts while we were eating.

No, I hadn't gotten around to making a table yet, but I was going to get right on it, as soon as the weather got too bad for us to go outside. One of the reasons I hadn't started yet was I didn't have the first damned idea about how to proceed. How would you turn logs into boards? Without the help of a sawmill I just knew it was going to be a bitch.

After supper we played with the kids a little and then with the pups for a while. After the kids and pups were worn out I spent a good bit of time playing with the mothers. It was a nice ending to a semi-productive but mostly boring day.

For once I was the first one out of the furs the next morning. I got the fires going good again and then headed outside for the privy. I was damned glad I'd done such a good job on it as soon as I opened the cave's door. It was snowing moderately outside and we had what I guessed was a ten to fifteen mile-per-hour wind. I knew it must be more than a little colder today when I actually felt warm once I was closed up in the shitter, out of the wind.

Back inside the cave I called Missy to me and took her out to take care of business. She didn't waste any time watering, fertilizing, and heading right back inside. I wondered if we were the only people on earth who had a cave-broken wolf. Hell, of course we were. We were probably the only ones that had a tame wolf at all.

Cooking was going on but there was also a steady stream of women taking children to the privy and using it themselves while they were at it. We also had one of the chemical potties set up inside in case of emergencies, but hardly anyone used it unless it was time to go NOW. It was just too much trouble to clean.

When we ate breakfast I noticed there was an extra large pot of tea to start off with and with this weather I hoped it would stay full all day. At least I wasn't worried about having to sit around on my ass doing nothing. We had enough horses to get started with the initial training and we still had a few to escort out into the cruel world before we could even start.

It was four hours later before I had enough free time to even think of getting cold. It was easy enough to release the unwanted stock and it wasn't hard at all to rope a prospect for training, but the easy part was over then.

We didn't have a handy confined trail to run the captives down or a snubbing post close enough for quickly wrapping the rope around before the captive understood what was going on. It was a bitch to get a freshly roped one settled down by main strength so we could get them outside and wind them up around their new friend the post.

The whole time I wondered if they were working up a sweat and would get sick or even badly stressed by having to settle in to standing around tied to a post in the cold wind and falling snow. I knew it wouldn't be good for them, but I hoped it wouldn't do any serious damage.

We broke for lunch when it was ready and then caught the forth one just after. It left one new student without a post to be snubbed to and I said fuckit and let him out after I took Lola and Red out to see about a little grazing.

As the afternoon passed I mostly just watched the horses in training. Luckily it warmed up a little and the snow petered out. By the time sunset rolled around I was convinced the trainees would be fine during the night, but we decided someone needed to go out and check on them every once and a while to make sure nothing bothered them.

With fresh snow on the ground and colder temperatures of course something bothered them, or intended to. Luckily it was only one something. Since it was a young cave lion I felt damned lucky it was only one and I was proud of the luck that had let us capture Missy, because she smelled it out, or knew about it somehow, and she raised hell before it was within a quarter mile of the cave. I didn't feel too happy about an impromptu night-hunting trip, so I took a Barrett with its night vision scope and shot the damned thing as soon as it got within three hundred yards.

It still made us uneasy for the rest of the night and caused us a lot of tossing and turning. It didn't do much for the trainees feelings either. They'd redoubled their efforts to get loose after they'd smelled the lion, just after Missy had, and Lola and Red both had hobbled toward their cave.