Chapter 10

With the dishes done I left the half pot of remaining coffee to cool and decided I was tired of getting up to let the wolves out in the morning. Thinking of a doggie door I remembered there was still something potentially useful left up on the plateau.

After hobbling Dolly outside, I looked around in my things and found my rechargeable jigsaw. I handed it to Catla, grabbed the Marlin and then Catla, the wolves, and I headed up the path to see if the pallet and its sidewalls were undamaged.

This was as far from the cave as the young wolves had ever been allowed to venture. Mama kept a careful eye on them, but they tried her patience often as they sniffed everything on the way up.

When we reached the top level the dunnage from my freight was just where I'd left it. I could tell the plateau was no surprise to either Catla or Mama, but Catla didn't know what to make of the pallet and its sidewalls.

Getting the large pallet back to our cave didn't worry me, but the sidewalls were all in one piece. Don't ask me how they were made that way, because I don't have the slightest idea. My first task was going to be cutting them into four eight by eight by eight pieces.

They were made of some type of tough plastic, but the jigsaw cut them easily if not rapidly. The pallet wasn't very heavy even though it was tough. I stood it up on its edge on the dolly and then leaned my four sheets of plastic against it and we headed back down. Thankfully I'd already taught the wolves about coming to me when I whistled.

Back at the cave I set to work on my real job. I cut the bottom two feet off two of the tree uprights that made up the door and then cut out a piece of the plastic to fill the space. Attaching it along the top with a pair of small hinges so it would swing open either way was the most painstaking part, but even it didn't take too long.

Mama didn't wise up to her entrance at first, but the pups caught on with only one or two tries and Mama finally learned by following them in or out.

Our new wolffie door did create a small vulnerability, but I figured the wolves would at least raise an alarm if something else tried to use it. I spent another hour splitting the pieces I'd removed and then nailing them together to make a solid cover for the hole if we ever all left at one time.

Since that was the end of the honey do jobs I had in mind for now I figured it was time to teach Catla to ride. Since Dolly was already with us she was elected. She'd be best for the job anyway because she was the most cooperative of them all.

By far the hardest part was getting the idea over to Catla. She had some notion I was a shaman or a spirit because I was already riding before she even knew it was possible. I was finally able to get her aboard by herself though and she did give it a good try.

With our language barrier the going was slow. Things would have been impossible without patience from Dolly too, but we did make progress and finally we were to the point we could ride together. Getting set up for our first ride showed Catla something I hadn't even thought about.

Of course I had to unpack another of my three saddles so Catla and I could ride together. When Catla noticed I had two more saddles she put one extra together with one more extra and came up with two, as in two mates for me. I wasn't absolutely sure what she was thinking, but by now she was a hell of a lot better with my language than I was with hers.

There was no way in hell I could explain Rose's ideas about at least three of everything important, and it would only have been more confusing if I'd mentioned the completely disassembled saddle Rose had sent, complete with instructions for copying and reassembling. I didn't worry about things though and Catla and I started to spend half the day riding and the other half teaching her to shoot a Marlin and a Glock.

Explaining how iron sights should be used was difficult. I finally had to resort to making her examine the sights in detail and then making up drawings to explain the important parts. It was well worth the effort though and after she caught on it took her little practice to do an acceptable job. The effort of teaching her paid off handsomely too.

Catla had training in an aspect of living in this time I'd probably never be able to match. The landscape and what it looked like was something she had mastered completely. If we went riding she would notice two to three times the things I did.

We were both proud of her when she killed her first deer with the Marlin. I was especially proud because I hadn't noticed it and didn't even know where it was until it fell from her single shot.

Three days later she spotted something else and shot it before I'd seen it. Luckily for me she had been on her toes, because she'd killed a saber-toothed cat before it managed to hop onto Red's back with me.

I'm not sure who was happier, Catla or me. This particular kill meant a lot to her, but I didn't find out why until that night in the cave.

As with any cat, wolf, or other predator we killed, Catla saved the teeth and claws. She seemed almost reverent with the long daggers Smilodon had owned. After we'd tended to the hide by stretching it on a rack and scraping the inside carefully Catla set to work on the teeth.

Finally I figured she was trying to make a necklace, but it would be a tedious and cumbersome job since she had to attach the teeth by tying a sort of holder around their bases. I stopped her when I realized the problem and let her know I wanted to show her something.

I found a suitable small drill bit, put it in my rechargeable drill and put a hole through the base of one of her new trinkets. I'm sure they understood boring holes of some sort, but obviously Catla hadn't even considered drilling through something so hard. She took to it like the proverbial duck though and was thrilled to complete her necklace in one afternoon.

When it was done I got a shock of my own. She'd made it as a gift for me. I considered refusing and asking her to wear it, but decided it would make her feel bad over the whole thing so I wore it, but we took the next day off and I made her a necklace and two bracelets out of my abundance of cave lion teeth and claws. I was just glad it made us both happy.

We even hit the sack early that night for some extended celebrations. Catla no longer ended up sore the next morning after we did the nasty, and she'd taken to the missionary position with relish, especially after I showed her I could do more than one thing at a time, namely suck nipples and give simultaneous meat injections.

Catla was up first the next morning and she had breakfast nearly ready by the time I was up and dressed. I could almost feel something was nagging at her, but I didn't quiz her over things. I ate breakfast when it was ready and merely kept my mouth shut except for a few pleasantries we exchanged.