Chapter 6

(The Summer of Year Two)

I'd wandered up and down the river many times before I chose the location of my wall. As the stream came down from the North it headed West toward the compound inner wall, then turned and flowed back South-East. It was at this bend that the terrain dropped a few feet in a series of three rills. Each small drop wasn't more than three or four feet, but when taken together, the river dropped at least ten feet as it made that turn. Twenty feet further back from the top of the first rill, the stream dropped another four feet in a gradual slope as it approached the first drop. At the end of the last drop, it sluiced away toward the small pool that had collected when we built the wall. All in all, the stream dropped fifteen feet in the space of twelve yards. As soon as I'd seen that spot, I'd known that it was the perfect place for my water wheel. At that point, and near enough around it, the stream was about twenty feet wide and three to four feet deep. So that's a rough sixty square feet of water head.

One day last year after the diversion of the stream was completed, I'd dropped a leaf in the river and walked along beside it as it flowed downstream through this part of the river. I counted of seconds to myself as I walked, and roughly, the water flowed through this part of the river at approximately four miles per hour, just slightly faster than a fast walk. That was during the fall. During the winter, it slowed to a near crawl at around one and a half miles an hour, and during the spring melt, it sped back up to almost six miles an hour. Each cubic foot of the water-face weighs 62.4 pounds which is 28.3 kg. The total potential wheel size was fourteen feet of drop or 4.2 meters, and gravity (sure felt the same as normal) was 9.8 meters drop per second. That meant roughly that the ballpark energy potential was around 1200 Joules of energy potential per second for each diverted cubic foot.

Before you can build the wheelhouse, before the mounts, before the wheel itself, you have to rebuild the river flow itself. Part of the river has to be diverted into a man-made channel that will feed the wheel. Let me tell you, doing that was one cold assed job. Where I could make it work, we drove small oak pilings into the river with a mattock, and then dug out the river bottom to accommodate the wide oak planks that would serves as the new bottom and sides for that part of the river. For the initial re-routing, I only diverted a third of the stream flow.

The kind of water wheel I intended to build would be a 'back-shot' wheel, where the water enters from above, but instead of pitching the wheel forward, it would pitch the wheel backwards, thus in theory capturing both the potential energy of the stream as well as a part of the momentum. A modern, well built wheel of that type can capture almost 80% of the stream energy potential. I was hoping to capture anything above 50%. Because I intended to divert up to ten square feet of water face per wheel, I could in theory build something capable of generating 11 kilowatts of power. But that's the entire mechanical energy of that part of the stream. A better figure would be something more like 5 kilowatts.

To make this work in the longer term, I would need to build a minimum of two wheels, side by side. Each wheel would need to be geared to produce mechanical, gear and belt driven energy, but should also be able to be tapped for electrical generation. What I'd have to start with would be a single crude wheel and then improve it as my equipment came on line.

What I was aiming to build was a series of wheels over time, each of which could possibly generate somewhere between a low of five and a possible high of fifteen horsepower of usable mechanical energy, and could also possibly be tapped for a couple of kilowatt/hours of electrical generation. If I could get it built I'd be so much closer to a modern lifestyle that it made my skin itch, just thinking about it.

Once we had diverted the stream into an oak floored catchment, we needed to build a base for the wheel, and a structure to support the weight of the oak water channel and the vertical superstructure. In order to do that, I would need relatively dry access to a flat spot at the stream side where I could build the foundation. That was going to require a lot of digging out. You see, the area of the encampment was subject to deep winter freezing, and in order to make certain that the foundation didn't crack and shift, I'd have to dig down below the frost line under the river bottom. Because I'd once shot the shit with a friend from northern Minnesota, I knew that the frost line there was about five feet deep under the surface. Just to be safe, I wanted to count on the same depth here. That was going to require a lot of concrete. I knew that the concrete work would be long and involved, so the first thing was to get a small wheel up instead of a final wheel. The compromise wheel I ended up with was build on top of a pair of angled pilings on each side driven in at an angle. The wheel hub rested on a pair of angle braces that I made of carved oak. The paddles and frame I carved up and cut from my planking. That was about as far as I could go that week without a couple of critical items, namely Lignum Vitae and clinker.

...

Summer was underway, the days were long and hot. The girls worked on their home-crafts, taught the new women my peculiar ways, and learned how to tend the vegetable garden. But, as we all knew, winter was going to come again, so we were going to need more meat to get us through. Accordingly, we were going to need to go on a big hunt. I didn't want to waste a lot of time hunting each day, and I needed to do some searching in the forest and out on the plains.

I showed the women and two of the hunters from the old cave, QuietlySneaky and FartsALot how to rig and drag a travois for the meat, and we set out on our great hunting expedition. I closed up the compound tight, as I didn't want Seeks and his crew poking around while we were gone. I left DeadAndBack in charge with instructions to be lazy and help the women make sure he stayed fed and happy. He seemed to like this idea.

As we travelled in a big arcing loop over the next couple of days, I tried to make notes about what territory we passed through and what we found. After a couple of pretty damned pathetic attempts on my part to act like a geographer, I gave up. If I'd been navigating, we'd all be damned lost. Luckily FartsALot, while he may have been one stinky bastard sure did have a good sense for navigating by blind reckoning. Know what 'blind reckoning' means? It means wandering around by gut feel. Sweet, huh? So anyway, we walked down onto the great plain, and out over the hills that came down there. Off to the south side of the plain, the group started acting all kinds of weird. I first noticed it when they began to get a lot quieter and move more slowly. A couple of hours later, I noticed that as I watched my compass, we seemed to be avoiding a generally large area of forest off to our west. When I asked about it, the conversation got a bit hard to understand.

"Hey. Why not go that way?" I asked Farts, whose name was actually ListensToWind, but whatever.

"No, GreatOne. You do not want to go that way. Look, over there ... probably auroch."

He'd just done the caveman equivalent of yelling. "Look, Shiney!" But, I didn't bite.

"Yes, but what's over there?"

"Not a good place, danger."

"What kind of danger?"

"Big danger."

"Okay, but what kind of big danger?"

"No, GreatOne. Big danger that walks."

I shrugged and headed off that way. The girls and the hunters all hung back for a moment, and then all jabbered at me for a while, trying to convince me that going another direction was a good idea. Me, I'm a genius, so I ignored them and continued on. Once we were in that large stand of woods, they all got VERY quiet and moved slowly and carefully. Of course me, being the utter genius that I am, I ignored all their fear and caution. Real goddamned smart, I am. I was wondering if they were worried about forest hogs, or something. Man, was I wrong. After wandering around for a little while, seeing nothing unusual in particular, three things happened in rapid succession. One, I tripped over an exposed root and fell forward into a very large pile of semi-warm goop. Second, as I rolled out of the goop I realized that the 'goop' was a four foot wide, two foot high pile of manure and that the 'root' I had tripped over was not a root, it was a tusk. The tusk was about ten feet long. Ten feet. Allow me to write that one more time, just so you can visualize it. The fucking tusk was ten feet long. Third, off in the undergrowth to our left side, I heard a distinctive trumpeting noise. I looked at my crew. They looked at me. Without a word being spoken, we all turned as one and started trying to sneak very fast back out the way we had come.

About the time that we made it to the edge of the woods, I could feel the ground begin to shake. Thump, Thump, Thump. I unlimbered the rifle and turned, beginning to walk slowly backwards as the group around me streamed back toward the open plain. As I backed up, out of the woods came a shadow. It was dappled with the dark greenery and moving light under the trees, and then without any transition it suddenly was there out of the protective canopy. Now let me tell you, nothing can prepare you for seeing a twenty foot tall mammoth. Nothing. This beast was bigger than a goddamned house. The top of its head was at least twenty feet off the ground. Its tusks were at least fifteen feet long, and curved upward in this massive sweep of ivory. It had to weigh at least ten tons. That's twenty THOUSAND pounds. As it stepped forward out of the trees my erstwhile companions and even my women began running like batshit crazy for the other side of the plains, a couple of miles away.

As they ran, and as Jumbo and I slowly moved back onto the plains, what should come out of the trees but three more of the giant bastards. The new three were females, but Jumbo was absolutely and positively a bull. The new three were smaller, just maybe the size of a dump truck instead of an apartment. Jesus. Jumbo and I were separated by maybe 150 yards. He raised up his head and trumpeted. That was so goddamned loud I thought I was gonna piss myself. I turned and looked behind me, and I was alone. Jumbo lowered his head. That looked bad. So, I shot him in the skull. He trumpeted again and started charging me. I shot him again. Then again. Then a fourth and a fifth time.

I started screaming. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ... DIE."

He got so close I could actually SEE the bone blasting off of the front of his head. Then, not more than fifteen feet from me, he sort of slowed to a stop and looked at me. Then his rear end just sort of sat down. I heard trumpeting from behind him. Then he collapsed.

I ran right up to him, as his bulk was the only place to hide from Momma. I reloaded with shaking hands, dropping one clip into the space between my feet as I crouched there. Just about then, the lead female arrived and I started blasting away at her head. I used no aim or finesse. The giant bitch monster from hell was no more than ten feet from me, and I just hid between Jumbo's legs and shot the fuck out of her. She was still moving around, looking confused after one clip when I emptied another one into her. She dropped, resting up against Jumbo, and I had to run a few feet away and then back again to avoid her falling body. You can probably guess the rest. I hid between the bodies, firing at the other two confused mammoths and reloaded until all four lay dead on the plains.

I was pretty damned clear at that point that we had enough meat for the winter.

It took a while for the gang to wander back, and when they arrived, I was sitting up on top of Jumbo's head, eating an MRE and looking around. They walked up kind of quiet, and after a long moment, Farts said.

"GreatOne has killed MakesEarthTremble?"

I nodded.

He turned and looked at the rest of them. "GreatOne has killed MakesEarthTremble."

Bountiful looked at Ashes. "GreatOne has killed MakesEarthTremble."

QuietlySneaky looked at Shining. "He has killed MakesEarthTremble."

Then they proceeded to spend a couple more minutes telling each other that I had killed a mammoth or two. Then they started in again. They seemed to kind of have a hard time dealing with it. Then before I can say 'boo', QuietlySneaky nods at the rest and just turns and runs the fuck away like his ass was on fire. He ran straight toward the hills we'd come from, and he just kept going.

"Others will come now." Said Farts.

"Okay." I said. "Set up camp."

I spent the next day fucking around as the girls and the so-called 'captive' women started the unbelievable process of trying to skin and process the mammoths. Later that evening, Seeks and the whole gang of women and men from both camps arrived. Everyone but DeadAndBack came trooping up, bringing several travois, singing my praises. I am not being metaphorical. They came up singing my praises carrying ritual items and dancing around the mammoth corpses when they got there. The party really got started then.

For the next week solid, the women worked on hides, skulls, and meat. Several trips were made back to the camp carrying loads of meat and back again for more. I tried a couple of times to convince the folks that really there was NO need to drag four fucking wooly mammoth skulls ten miles or more, just to be able to brag on the size of my balls. They looked at me like I was nuts, and just kept working. In the end I just left and went back to work at the camp, but lots of meat had to be left to rot, there was just no avoiding it. We filled the underground meat cellar back at the compound with carefully packed seared mammoth meat rolled in charcoal. Most of the meat from Jumbo was inedible. It had this bitter nasty taste, probably from the testosterone running through his body. I'd read about boar taint, and this seemed to be the same problem. It was a shame and a waste, but no one could stand to eat it. The cavemen all ate parts of his brain to learn from his wisdom, but I passed. Jesus ... Sometimes these people were just vile.

Do you have any idea how goddamned big and thick a mammoth hide is? Jumbo's hide was most of an inch thick. It weighed almost a thousand pounds. Yeah, I can hear you now ... no way, you're saying. Look it up some time. A thousand pounds of hide. They dragged that shit back to camp. That, and a ton or two of dead mammoth delicacy.

I took another couple of days later on to go auroch hunting and bag a few for the larder. I was certain I didn't want to eat elephant all winter long. While all this was happening, the girls also brought in a big sow hog. I was glad for that later. However, right after the girls brought in the sow, I had to deal with WrinkledEvil. One day she came walking up to my compound, attitude in every step, with Seeks following along behind like a spanked puppy.

"Hello, ancient mother." I say, being nice but insulting as all hell at the same time.

"Hello GreatOne." She says, trying to look down at my feet and be polite, but I can see that she's losing patience, and would prefer to just boss me around like she does the other men.

"What brings you to this sacred place of mine?" I ask, another insult there ... as in, you don't belong, bitch.

"Sacred ways have been insulted, GreatOne."

"Oh, who violated the sacred ways, revered mother?"

"Your mate Bountiful has offended the Gods, GreatOne."

So I called Bountiful over.

"Bountiful," I said. "The ancient one here says that you have offended the Gods. Have you done something that pissed Me off?"

"No, no! GreatOne, she has offended the old Gods, not you." Said the crone.

I looked at Bountiful. "You have?"

Bountiful looked almost scared, but not quite. "I have hunted for game, GreatOne."