Chapter 4

(Spring Year Two)

Spring announced its arrival with the crackling of our frozen stream and the reappearance of tiny buds poking out of the snowy soil. The girls and I had been cooped up for far too long, and we all felt a rush of spring fever. Although it made no sense at all, one day we all trooped down to the river and had a cold water bath. It was like we were washing the old winter away along with the filth and tight quarters. It was also cold as hell, and didn't last long at all until we were all screaming and running back to the camp mostly naked. Still, it was fun.

It took me forty five minutes of chop and rest, chop and rest to fell a good strong tree. Add to that a couple of minutes to hook up the cant-hook and set the chains, and a good ten minutes to drag the log to the saw buck. Then, it took another thirty minutes to an hour to top and dress the log, drive the setting piton into it, and get it ready for setting. Then it took another few minutes to drag it to the big frame and begin hoisting it in position. Once it's up in the air, it took about five minutes of fiddling to get it positioned right. Finally, the pile driving took a good hour plus to drive one piling into the wall. That all adds up to about two and a half hours to three hours per log I was adding to the palisade. That's not a bad clip, and it gave me time to take some meat every other day or so. Over the course of a week, working six days and farting off on the seventh, as any self-respecting GodOfKillingBoulders should, I could pretty readily extend the wall by about thirty six feet per week of work.

By the time real spring had come, I'd guess by mid-April, I had succeeded in putting up about three hundred feet of wall. On average, the wall was twenty five feet high. That's a fucking high wall, bucko. It wasn't all that straight and it wasn't all that pretty, but given the presence of smilodon and cave lions and giant bears and wooly rhinos and mastodons, and giant sloths and ... and who the HELL knows what else, I went for big. I knew I would be happy about it. My three hundred feet of wall completely enclosed a seventy-by-seventy inner 'retreat' that held the supplies, the supply box, the meat storage chamber, and our fire and wood supply. I built the 'gate' out of a frame of stiff angle iron filled with full sized logs, hung on stainless steel eye bolts that rotated free, and were counterweighted to close by themselves with chromium steel chains and center bored granite weights. On the back side or inside - camp facing side of the wall I built angled bracing that allowed me to set up ladders and a couple of shooting platforms in the corners of the walls. I built a crude log lock beam to fix the swinging doors shut when barred from the inside. Let me tell you, I was so damned glad that first night that we all slept behind closed doors. I knew that I had added significantly to our ability to survive in this place.

The next really big project on my schedule was going to take me a lot of time and work, but it was so important that I was dead eager to get to it. After farting off for a couple of days after finishing the first hunk of wall in my compound, I started staking out a new section of wall. This section would extend from the middle of the Eastern wall that ran North-South, due East to the stream, across it, then north on the other bank for a damned long two hundred and fifty feet or so, and then back due West across the river and then South to tie back in to the Eastern wall. All in all, I'd need to log in well over an acre of new compound. But once this was completed, I'd have unrestricted access to the river, all year round, in near complete safety, I could put in a vegetable garden, and I could get to work on laying out the water-wheel and the lumber mill. Those were my two big and really pressing needs. The work was going to take me most of fourteen weeks, and a couple more weeks for dressing all that out. After that, the work of the mill could start.

Now, while I'd been working through the winter, I'd also been busy with the girls as well, on a couple of fronts. I've mentioned that I taught them to do felting, and they'd been busy with that for a while. We'd taken in a lot of animal hides, and when they're carefully shaved down, cleaned and combed, you get a lot of good felt out of it. By the time spring had come, we'd gotten close to three full felted blankets and enough felting for making clothes out of our hides. With the hides themselves, the girls taught me how to tan it their way, using urine and brains, and I taught them the book way with lye, ashes and urine. The two methods resulted in surprisingly different feeling leather. With all the hide scraps and scraping, I'd shown them how to boil down and clarify hide glues. We'd let the glue slugs set and dry in the snow, and once they were fully dried out, the girls learned how to drill them out and string them to dry. Our soap making improved over the winter, and the girls got pretty used to being clean.

The bigger project for the women though was archery. About mid-winter I'd dragged out a few of the low draw-weight traditional style long bows and taught them the basics of archery. It was pretty funny.

"Almost, this is called a 'bow', it is a tool for hunting." I said, showing it to her.

She looked it over. "Where is the sharp part, GreatOne?"

I held up an arrow for her to examine. "The sharp part is like a small spear, and the bow throws the spear at the animal."

She looked the two parts over for a moment and then smiled at me. "You are funny, GreatOne." She laughed.

"Why do you laugh, Almost?" I had to smile in spite of myself.

"Only you, GreatOne, would have something for throwing away perfectly good little spears." She poked the end of the arrow and looked at the tiny spot of blood. "They are sharp! Why throw them away?"

"Well Almost, after the bow shoots the arrow out, you go get it again."

She looked at me. "Then why throw it away at all? If you have to go get it again?" Then she smiled. "Ah. GreatOne, our men have a good way. We hold onto the spear when we poke things with it, then we don't have to get it again. Would you like me to show you?"

I really had to laugh then. She laughed along with me. About then, Shining and Ashes came out to see what we were laughing about. I said. "No. I am not being clear. See that log?" I asked, pointing to a piece of the then unfinished wall.

"You mean that tree-that-is-dead-but-still-standing, mighty TreeKiller?" Ashes said.

"Yes." I drew the bow with an arrow in it, and of course ... I missed the target. However, I am indeed good enough with a bow to actually hit a log wall, so it flew fairly straight and thunked into a log close to the one I had pointed to.

They all looked at me, at the arrow, and then back at me, uncomprehending.

"Girls. Think. What if that log was a deer?"

"How can a log be a deer, GreatOne?" Shy asked. "Will you use your magic to make the log a deer?"

"ARGH!" I said in frustration. "No! The little spear flew through the air! It sticks in the log. If the log was a deer, the deer would be hurt."

"You will make the log into a deer, and the deer will have this spear in it?" Shy asked.

"No!"

Almost looked a bit alarmed. "Should we all go get in the river now? Are you angry?"

I took a long deep breath.

"Come." I said. I led them out of the camp, of course carrying my rifle and pistol, but also carrying the bow and a quiver. We walked out East, towards the defile that led to the hills. I walked as quietly as I could, going slow, as we neared the slope that led out to the plain itself. They walked with me, casually being completely silent, of course.

As we passed a branch of the river, I spotted a beaver about twenty five yards out, working on its dam in the middle of a wide spot. I quietly set down the rifle and took aim with the bow. The first arrow was off by a few feet, but flew over his head, and he didn't spook. The second arrow hit him in the back leg and buried itself in his guts. He made some grunting noises, and I handed the bow to Shy. She looked at me, at the bow, and at the beaver.

"It is ThrowsDeathWithoutThunder?" She asked.

I nodded. "Yes, exactly."

"When does it turn the beaver into a deer?"

"Forget the deer, it doesn't turn the beaver into a deer."

"Then what does it turn into a deer?"

"Nothing." I said, putting my hands over my face. The beaver expired noisily.

"Then why we talk about deer, GreatOne?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, okay." She gave me a thumbs up that I had taught her. The other girls smiled at me tolerantly, and jabbered back and forth about ThrowsDeathWithoutThunder known as Bow. They each very politely introduced themselves to the bow because anything that cool must be alive and it's only polite to introduce yourself.

When I led them back to the camp, I set them up with a target and some arrows. I taught them how to hold it, how to practice with it, and how not to graze their inner forearms with the string. They of course mostly ignored all of it, but no one died. After a few practice shots, all three went completely apeshit for learning how to use a bow. I do mean apeshit. Those women of mine spent a LOT of time practicing with those bows. When they got good enough, I introduced them to new set of far more powerful recurve bows. Bountiful was a big girl, and could draw the 55 lb. The other two both picked 45 lb bows. When I saw how good they'd gotten that winter with those bows, I was damned impressed. If it was within a hundred yards, all three of them had a better than fair shot at hitting it with their first arrow by the time spring arrived. I knew they'd crap themselves when I brought out the compound bows, but first things first, I thought to myself.

So, between felting, soap making, hunting, logging, wall building, and practicing archery, it had been a productive end to winter and early spring. With the arrival of spring came lots of cold, drizzly and rainy days. The frozen ground turned muddy and soft. While this made my progress in log planting go faster, it made everything damp and dirty. I know I've spent a fair bit of time in this journal talking about filth, but that spring was the worst. The mud got everywhere, and I was hard pressed to get the girls to understand that I wasn't kidding about mopping and sweeping the floor of the supply box. On a few days when the rain was especially heavy, I damned near gave up on keeping dry. For a while, I did give up on staying clean. One of my other projects during that period was to lift the supply box up onto logs. Given the A frame and the winches and hoists, it was straightforward enough of a job, and it led to the camp staying cleaner once it was done. My long term plan was to be able to log roll the box if I needed to. So, that work was useful even if it was backbreaking.

One more digression, and then I'll get back to the narrative. If you've been following this work, you can imagine that I wasn't quite the lard ass I'd started out as. By the time spring arrived, I figured I'd been in this world for about six months. During that time, I'd been working my ass off. Literally. I didn't have the scale out of storage yet, but I guessed that I'd lost damned near forty pounds of fat, and traded in another forty for muscle. When I'd started out on this adventure, I could barely do one pull up and maybe ten sit-ups. A long walk for me was a mile. By that spring, I felt like a new man. I could easily do a hundred sit-ups without breaking into more than a mild sweat, and I could do at least forty pull ups. All that logging and walking and dragging and lifting was good for me, damned good. Hell man, I could see my abs, and I was getting close to having a six pack. It was around that time that I figured out that my abductors had done something to me. As time passed, I became clear that my body really wasn't the body of a fifty-something man anymore. I would have put it in prime of life mid thirties.

Now, for no particular reason I can think of, this train of thought leads me to write for a minute about tooth brushing. Cave women have bad teeth, and worse breath. Part of my whole ThunderGodOfCleaning routine also got used on their teeth. I spent some time fiddling around with boar bristles and carved wooden handles and hide glue. Eventually, I ended up having usable, but most importantly repairable, tooth brushes for all of us. Getting them to brush took a lot of patience and determination. It was like herding cats. In the end though, after a trip to the site of BoulderDeath and a long speech about not kissing them anymore, they all caved in. Full basic hygiene had become the law of the GreatOne's Compound.

This now leads me to talking about our latrine. Great. Retarded cavemen don't use latrines of any type, advanced cavemen do. Big deal. All that means is that some of the bastards will walk a few feet from where they sleep to shit. The others will walk a little farther. That's the extent of human progress in that area. Not so for my camp, no goddamned way. For the winter, we'd used a chemical toilet frame hung over a lye and ash pit that got stirred and re-dirted every week or so. And I re-dug it about every eight weeks in a new spot. That still wasn't a great solution, certainly it wasn't long term, but it was way better than what they were raised to do. Wiping their asses and using a water bucket to wash off afterwards took more training, but surprisingly, the girls understood my desire not to have shit on their hands or on me, and complied with the potty program pretty easily.

Alright, enough digression, back to my story.

I'm guessing somewhere around late April or the beginning of May, I was making good progress on the log palisade, working longer days and hunting on the 'weekend'. Members of the extended family had dropped by a time or two, but I could tell that they were becoming superstitious around me, even more than normal if possible. I could tell that the finish of phase-one of my new homestead impressed the hell out of them. These days I made it a habit of greeting them near the rocked-in fire pit by the double hung log doors. So, one day SeeksWisdom and StinkyLimper arrive, with sour faced Wrinkled Evil in tow. They are all real quiet after passing under the two smilodon skulls I have mounted on the frame over the big log doors. I do have to admit myself, if I was a caveman, I'd be impressed. They come in, and I notice that Stinky is wounded. He's got an infected gash in his side.

"Greetings, Great One." Said Seeks, looking at the ground in front of me.

"Hello Seeks, hello family." I said, and sat on a log bench. They sat down as well.

"You're hurt." I said to Stinky, and was completely unable to remember his name.

"Yes, GreatOne." Said Seeks. Evil was busting to say some crap to me, but I could see that Seeks had her under control for the moment. Me, I'm guessing that he's read her the riot and sedition act before they arrived here.

"What has happened?" I asked. The girls drifted over and sat down around me.

"Others have come!" Evil burst out. "BraveOne will die tomorrow."

Seeks looked daggers at her. "Yes, GreatOne. Others have come."

I looked over, toward the big doors, and I could see shadows moving on the other side. When I walked over and opened the gates, there was the rest of the family, and they've dragged BraveOne here on a piece of hide. Mustache is holding a new baby in her arms, and the teenager I called CowEyed is missing. I waved them all in.

I walked back to Seeks. "Where is the young girl?"

"SmilingFace?" He asked. I shrugged.

"The others have her." He said.

"Fuck." I said. The girls looked at me confused. "No, we're not going to fuck. I just say that when I am mad." They nodded, and Shy looked at me and said. "I am also Fuck mad."

So. I closed and barred the gates, and sat down to examine BraveOne. He'd been hit in the head with something, and had a big swelled up and bloody knot on his head. But even if he was concussed, that wasn't what was deadly. It looked to me like his right leg had been crushed by something.

"What happened, SeeksWisdom?"

"The others came in the night, GreatOne. They rolled rocks down on us from above, and BraveOne was hurt. Then they came with spears and took SmilingFace. We ran from the cave. Tomorrow, death will come for us all. Please." He looked pretty goddamned forlorn, and the women were crying. Hell, even my women started in on crying.

"Shit!" I said, hating the words that were about to come out of my mouth. "Alright, I will help."

"All of you. Stay here, and do NOT come over to the HardHouse. Understand?"

They all nodded.

"Good. Ashes." I nodded at her, because she had the steadiest nerves. "Go strip down in the stall and wash up with the special soap. All over. Use the boiled water. Then don't touch anything and wait for me." She nodded and ran off.

I dragged BraveOne over to the supply hut on the hide. Leaving him there, I took the other two girls inside and handed them supplies to set up. I took out a folding table and set it up on the rough log floor outside. I spread a plastic tarp over the top of it, and dragged BraveOne up on it. He was barely conscious, and I didn't much need to strap him down. I got the two girls to strip him off and wash him from head to toe on the table while I put a rough tourniquet on his right leg below the knee. I had them use the harsh lye soap, and made them wash him twice. Down below his knee, the wound was seeping blood slowly, and he looked pale. I was about to use a lot of medical supplies on his and the bastard had probably already lost too much blood. Bastard.

I spread another couple of tarps down on the ground, and laid out my medical supplies. When I was ready, I told Bountiful and Shining to stay back, and to keep the family away. Then I walked over to the shower and joined Ashes. Now normally, I'd be soaping her titties and playing hide Mr. Happy with her in the shower, but all I did was get us both damned clean with harsh soap and then get dressed in those pull-on sterile gowns over the top of newly cleaned clothes. I led her back and told her not to touch anything. When I was ready, I poured most of a good quart of rubbing alcohol over his mashed leg, and took a good long look at the wound. The leg was crushed. It would have to come off. My hands had already started to shake.