Chapter 23

Ten minutes later I discovered I'd told a fib. It wasn't intentional, but once again I'd underestimated Rose's ability to think ahead, both for Rayta and for Daro. Apparently Rose had hit every age on the blue jean scale. There were two pair which fit Rayta almost perfectly and the same for Daro, plus there were several more which were close and could easily be altered to give service.

"We can dress them both in clothes like ours and there are even boots they can use. Do you want to help with the fittings?" Catla asked, and grinned.

"I believe you and the others can do a decent job. I'll delay the shooting lessons for today and take a ride around to check on things."

Jake was still close out front since he was hobbled, but he didn't appear all that happy to be saddled again. Tough shit for Jake, he was a working horse now. I took the M1 with me this time and headed to see what had become of things while we'd been gone.

Everything looked mostly normal. There was a minor squabble going on in the first horse pasture/canyon since Red was back and Jethro had assumed control of the mares Red had been forced to leave, but I figured they'd get things sorted out.

When I came to the next canyon, the one Jack liked to sneak into, I found the source of the pork we'd acquired. I actually saw two small hogs sneaking out under the brush pile we'd used to stop up the entrance. I left them alone though and opened the gate to pass on through and then closed it behind me.

I rode to the end of our shelf where the other path to the upper plateau and down to the river marked the end of our exclusive space. The first thing I realized was I'd been a complete dumbass for building the fence/wall where I had. I could have easily taken in the whole shelf with not more than fifty yards of fence at this end.

Well, live and learn. We could still close this end off and take over the whole shelf we lived on. Instead of the one canyon for horses we'd have five. I'd have to do more exploring to find out whether there was a way down from the top into them, but a quick look around hadn't showed one.

For a few minutes I was almost overwhelmed by the amount of free land I had for my ranch. This end was between eighteen and twenty miles from my cave. Including the five different blind canyons leading off from the path we had several thousand acres and probably nearly two thousand of them were grassland.

I was only guessing, but after casual looks I thought we had probably at least a hundred aurochs captured and maybe two hundred bison. I didn't have so close a guess on the horses, but I was sure there were more than a hundred we hadn't even trained yet.

We were rich as far as meat animals were concerned, but our gathering had been mostly curtailed. I saw a few of the guineas on my ride and doubted they'd had much more trouble, still, eggs were not vegetables. Next spring we could plant a garden, and a big one at that, but this winter we needed a little help from our friends, and they hadn't seemed all that friendly when we left.

No matter, we were going to close off the other end of our shelf and then do a couple of days of concentrated gathering. We had horses and travois to help us and while things up here weren't exactly abundant there were some things we could harvest.

Back at the cave, supper was on the fire after I made it inside after hobbling Jake. It wasn't the best part though. Chiqa was on a lion fur and she smiled and raised her arms to me as soon as she noticed my entrance. Of course I picked her up at once. A mere mortal can't ignore a summons from his princess.

She even giggled when I sat in my chair with her and spun us around a time or two. The giggle was followed by vomit since I'd made her dizzy with my antics, but you can't have everything and a quick shot of puke didn't upset her at all.

Daro and Rayta seemed to find it very funny too and they spent a little time laughing and pointing at me since Chiqa's aim had been right down my neck. My mates joined in on the laughter then and it seemed everyone thought it was funny except me.

Supper was great and after it was nearly over I broached the question of gathering. Catla said we could take a trip for more guinea capture and could concentrate on gathering while we waited for them to blunder into our traps.

Keeta nearly said something then, but was hit by a massive attack of shyness as soon as everyone turned to look at her.

"Don't be afraid Keeta, we all want to hear what you have to say," Catla said.

"We still have time for much gathering, but with the weapons we can gain food much more quickly. I understand I'm not completely familiar with your ways yet, but Jack gives away a lot of meat we could use to trade for gathered food. Gathering food is much easier and safer than hunting for anyone except us," she said.

"But who would we trade with? Routata and his people are very busy now trying to take care of their new horses and their new members," I said.

"Hunting will be very hard for Goondoe and his people this year, especially since they lost so many young hunters when they attacked you. I was the only woman they lost though and I'm sure the women have been ranging far and wide to gather so there will be food for the winter.

"The men will also have to go to watch over the women and protect them while they gather. Goondoe is often disagreeable, but he is not stupid. He would trade other food for meat and if he has put aside his anger he will also realize how much horses could help them," Keeta said.

"Even if he is still angry he would surely trade for meat. There were many women in their camp," Catla said.

"Yes. The men can only hunt by chasing animals down and they are often hurt or killed doing it," Keeta said.

"Maybe we should go for another visit. It's possible they would make better trading partners than Routata or Cartallow," I said.

"I am sure they would after I have seen the other two camps. It is almost as if Routata and Cartallow expected you to help them. Believe me, Goondoe does not expect help from you. He will be very surprised if you come back and do not attack from the start," Keeta said.

I could tell we were all agreed on the goal if not on the plan. Catla thought we should go right away and in fact most of the women did. I wanted a few days to get things more settled here though. I also wanted to put handles to our scythe blades before we left. The horses wouldn't care who cut the hay we needed.

After our family meeting was done Daro and I took over the table and I gave him his first shooting lessons. Of course no shooting took place, but I gave him plenty of safety instructions and also went over the details of iron sights.

The next morning we had our first real Texas style breakfast. I was nearly in heaven as I shoveled in real bacon, fried eggs, and biscuits. Catla was afraid I'd burst before I stopped. As usual, while I was doing something I really enjoyed I was thinking of ways to make it come around more often and taste even better.

"We need to trap some of the hogs!" I said, almost shouting.

"What? Why?" Catla asked.

"Do you remember the biggest one?"

"Yes."

"We could build a pen and feed them until they were all that large."

"But what would we feed them?" Catla asked.

"Anything. They will eat almost anything. We could throw in the remains of cats and other predators we have to kill and they will eat them."

"But we don't kill so many cats," Catla said.

"Maybe, but we can throw almost anything in the pen with them and they will eat it. We won't try to catch any before next spring, but then I want to catch at least two or three."

"If you say so we will do it. You know more about such things than we do. We have never heard of anything like it, but we had not heard of riding horses before you came either," Catla said, and they all agreed.