Chapter 25

Goondoe's decision to settle for waiting turned out to be much better than he thought. Even with the horses bringing the kills right into camp there wasn't enough time and labor to finish processing them all in what was left of the day.

Things were much less ceremonial the next morning and women were still working on stretched skins when my crew was followed up the path by six women leading the freight horses and travois while six men followed them to help loading the kills.

Daro and Rayta were pressed into service as soon as we topped out since there were over a dozen wolves fighting over and chewing on the remains of the wolves they'd shot yesterday. Some of Goondoe's women had skinned them for Daro and Rayta, but they'd left the bodies where they fell.

As we waited for them to do the job on the new wolves I was impressed by their strategy. They made sure to kill the strongest wolves first and the others were more than happy to rush in and get their own meal, never guessing they were rushing to their death. Daro was especially proud when he took down a bobcat that was trying to steal a snack too.

We gave the bison a break today since there was a group of more than a hundred aurochs not much farther away. They seemed rather calm and I figured it meant they didn't sense any predators near them. Thankfully they didn't see mounted humans as predators yet.

I took the six largest bulls and while it didn't panic the rest they did amble away from us. It made things much easier when loading and leaving time came around. We followed the freight crews down to the delivery point and after the first bull was off his travois we took command of Carol, the mare providing the locomotion, and led her back up to retrieve the bobcat and the dead wolves.

I was practically sure we could have begged for skinning help this time too, but we were basically done for the day and I thought a little practice would be good for Daro and Rayta. I also knew Mama and the pups were not a bit ashamed of their natural cannibalism. The Neanderthals weren't dispensing with nearly as many edible insides as we routinely did.

With the bobcat's insides and those of their brethren Mama and the pups had more than they could handle and we were collecting an alarming number of stretched skins to work on. According to our deal, half of the skins from the meat animals we'd taken would come to us sooner or later, but Goondoe's people were responsible for the tanning.

Catla, Keeta, and Shayta were helping Daro and Rayta with the wolf skinning and hide stretching while Layta, Leita, and Nanita were hard at work on the gifts we planned on presenting Goondoe. Thankfully it left me the duty of keeping Chiqa amused between meals. The two of us had a lovely time rolling around and napping on our furs. To make up for monopolizing her time I let the women pass her around for turns feeding her during meals.

My workload lately had been light and I'll admit it. Tonight, after we were in the furs I felt I owed it to my mates to liven up bedtime. Apparently they agreed since not a one of them had a headache. I did think I heard Daro and Rayta giggling a time or two between my bouts.

The next morning we weren't scheduled for any guests, but Goondoe did show up after I was down to seeds and stems again, or coffee anyway. He'd come to ask for a day's respite. Even with the men helping they couldn't keep up processing the kills. I told him it would be fine and we'd take today off and start hunting again tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, I organized an exploring expedition among my party. Keeta said she knew of a small blind canyon nearby where we might corner some horses and I was all for it.

After realizing my lack of teaching during Daro's aborted attempt to learn roping I'd given my girls a few tips and since we had a day off I thought it was time they got some real practice. The canyon Keeta knew of was perfect for the job too. There was only a narrow trail into it and after felling one tree there wasn't a way back out without moving it.

It held about sixty horses and several of them were yearlings. In real life we didn't have much use for yearlings, but they would make for excellent practice for the girls.

I'd already gone over dally roping with them several times, but before we did anything I gave them a refresher and reminded them not to let their fingers get into the works. Wrapping your own fingers up in a dally is a very easy way to lose one or more. I even made them practice by throwing a loop at nothing and then dallying anyway to make sure they had it down.

We spread out to haze our suspects into a tighter group and of course the herd stallion came up to confront us. I showed him about being roped and dallied then and for some reason he didn't appreciate the education. Since we were all mounted it was even easier to wrap him up around a nearby tree.

We had to burn an hour getting him secured so I decided to just keep him for our troubles. Alas, the lead mare didn't pay a bit of attention to his fate and she ended up doing her own penance on another tree.

The remainder of the stock was disorganized by now and so we started roping practice. Shayta showed she'd been paying attention right off the bat. She got one with her first throw and she did an excellent flick of the wrist to put her loop up around its throatlatch as she tightened it. Her dally was perfect too.

We let the unfortunate captive pull and fight for about fifteen minutes and after he'd given up I got down and turned him loose so we could do it all over again.

After everyone except Daro and Rayta made two catches we dismounted and had some pemmican and water for lunch. Daro and Rayta spent most of the time wheedling for a turn and I finally gave in after they promised they wouldn't rope anything but foals.

Rayta's first catch showed me the bad part of this plan. The foal's mother was upset over the whole thing and she rightly recognized it was Rayta causing her little one's distress. Nanita saved the day by putting a loop over her neck and then choking her down with an excellent dally. It made me realize we needed to take some time and teach our mounts to back up when something was pulling against their rope.

At least we were ready for complaints when Daro gave it a shot. Sure enough his catch's mother tried to be difficult too. When we left that evening we built a big fire just inside the entrance and we put the tree back in place to help keep visitors out and away from the four adults we left learning their lessons about staying where we put them.

I wasn't sure they would survive the night, but times were hard. They'd live until tomorrow after the hunt or they wouldn't. I wasn't about to release horses I had in training whether I needed them or not. We didn't mention our exploits around the supper fire that night.

We were up, had eaten, and headed to the happy hunting ground the next morning just after sunrise. I wanted to get the shooting lessons over and get back down to the horses we'd left tied. Goondoe was up with the travois leaders too, and he asked if we could kill bison again this morning. It was fine with me since there were some nearby unless they'd taken off during the night. We cashed in six of them right off the bat and we were all headed back to camp within less than an hour.

We escorted the meat train down the hill and then left to check on our new recruits. They were just where we'd left them and it only took a glance to know they'd fought the good fight, and lost. We had lead ropes on all four of the adults and were leading them around in less than an hour. While the girls were leading I roped and haltered the two foals also and turned them over to Daro and Rayta for lessons in follow the leader.

I had to stay around of course, because the foals hadn't learned about standing tied. I didn't think it would matter since they were no match for Daro and Rayta. Six months from now they might be, but they would be well trained by then.

We kept at it until about two in the afternoon. We took breaks for quick snacks, but mostly we went over and over the lessons. Our last move was pulling the tree out of the entrance and leaving with our new acquisitions following along on long leads.

When we rode through camp we made an even bigger impression than any we'd made so far. Goondoe showed up for a conference just after we'd hobbled all horses except the foals. They wouldn't go anywhere without their mothers.

I could almost feel Goondoe's reluctance over what he wanted to ask me. Figuring out how much help trained horses could be was a no brainer for him after he'd seen our's haul his kills down from the plateau. I was determined not to help him ask me for more help though.