Chapter 7

Dora taught me much of the ways of relations between men and women during the long nights and short days of winter. I taught her some happy frolicsome pleasures, which I had learned from Winnie, Mistress Barkley's native maid from the Sandwich Isles. Dora was uncertain at first, but the pleasures I induced in her convinced her to reply in equal measure. She worked diligently at domestic tasks also, and I had warm clothing, extra pairs of soft boots, and several pair each of my knee britches and leather shirts. I liked the design, a pull over with a lace up neck, as buttons often come loose and get lost while navigating the brushy woods. There were plenty of leathers for skirts for her, as well. I didn't try to gather many furs, as they hadn't the value here as they did aboard a ship sailing for Macao. I needed no more furs than warmed my clothing or draped my bedding, all else was extra weight to drag across the mountains.

We had to wait for the snows to melt and the spring torrents to subside, before we could continue my journey. Kodaco offered to journey with us, as he had the wanderlust of youth fermenting in his blood, and desired to see new places, and perhaps find an exotic bride amongst a far people. I welcomed his company and keen skills, having been born to this existence. I had constructed a hunter's bow, and had become proficient, and had traded extra furs for arrow and spear heads of chipped stone, and learned the craft of attachment of said items to straight sturdy shafts of cured wood. Dora and Kodaco showed me the trick of heating and steaming arrow shafts to straighten them using a hard wooden circle with handle to lever with, ensuring more accurate flights.

We had as many arrows as we could use for awhile, and could construct more as we went, as we took bark containers of pitch sap, and pulled lengths of smoked sinew for fletching and sewing. My most valuable gift to Dora was an iron needle I had kept in my fraying shirt collar, as most sailors do. It was her most treasured possession, and she guarded it with zeal. It increased her efficiency at sewing greatly over using a bone awl or needle, and she also took charge of my iron awl as well. I was happy to leave it to her, as she kept me in clothing, and that in good repair. She was a seamstress, a cobbler, a cook and a wife! Not to mention, she knew all the remedies and notions, and the roots and fruits of the earth.

I made a spear of a type not seen before, a boar spear, very stout, ten feet long, with a cross piece half way back to keep a charging animal from running up the shaft and goring or clawing me. I didn't think there would be boars about, except for boar bears! From what I could see, they could run faster than a man, and it wouldn't do to have empty hands or turned back when they caught him up! I didn't think any number of arrows would kill one quicker than he could overtake and savage me. The Alderman, who called me "daughter's man" instead of "Scotty", was interested in my project, and thought that perhaps two men could keep control of the shaft if a 'spirit bear' as they called the larger browns, were to charge. He said there were tales of a man killing a bear with a knife, but not of surviving the experience. The 'cousin bear', the black bears, were easier to kill, and there were living hunters who had done so without help, of need.

Finally the rains slackened, the torrents fell, and it was time to begin our journey across the high mountains. I was told that these were small mountains, and taller mountains lay across the dry lands beyond, and beyond that, a great grass sea stretching far, many moons walk, or about five months, as I understood it. Winter would find us still walking toward the far ocean, and unless I veered south into the land of dangerous men, I would have to hole up and wait it out. I resolved to start veering southward as I went, to extend the time before the snows. If I headed too early southward though, I was told I would end up in a waterless waste of sand and rock, where there was no good hunting or streams to drink from. I expected if we could keep moving along, we would get by that obstacle before we had to angle south to miss the snows.

With God's help, to protect us from hurt.