Chapter 7

I thought some more about the wood that I would be using to repair my home. I had come across this wood when growing up with my elder parents. It was unique in that it was water resistant, lighter than all other woods, never had bugs go through it, and could bend into any shape without breaking. It is known as Teaka wood, and only grows in a certain part of the forest. It was mostly used for the boats that the village fisherman used in Fardun, but I had noticed its qualities, and figured it could be used for other things. Due to the distance, most never bothered; however, that was from Fardun. From Cartha, it was only an hour of travel time, while the nearest stand of them was nine hours travel from Fardun. As I reached the area where the Teaka trees grew, I started scanning them to find suitable ones to cut down.

I had to look for the right height, and confirm the right maturity. An elder Teaka tree can grow to be roughly fifty-three feet tall with an eight foot diameter trunk. Diameter was more important than length of the tree right now as I need to be able to make as many boards as I could from the logs. I needed them to be old enough that I could get multiple boards from a single section. There were five that matched my needs that would not be too difficult to cut down. Their trunks were three feet wide and roughly twenty-six feet tall at the moment. I only needed three at the moment but if I continued to collect some I was sure the village could use the wood for other purposes. In fact, the uniqueness of the wood would make sure that they could be useful to the town.

I started with the farthest of the five trees, I hacked away, at the lowest section of the trunk, making sure it would fall without hitting and damaging any other trees. Since it was three feet in diameter, depending on how dense the wood was, it would probably take me fifteen to twenty strokes to get to the centre from one side. First I started with making a notch on one side with five or six strokes to prepare it to tip, then switched over to the opposite side and chopped the rest of the tree. Once I had enough of the tree cut, I then pushed with all my strength to topple over the tree.

Once a tree had crashed down, I put down my axe and grabbed my cross saw. I cut the trunk into four-foot logs, leaving me with roughly six sections per tree. I had to shave off the half foot where I had cut the trunk off, and there was a foot and a half remaining from the trunk still in the ground. Once that was done, I took my smaller saw and removed all the various branches from the top of each log to the bottom. I used the rope I had brought with me to tie up the limbs into bundles and placed them next to my wagon. Once I finished, I moved on to the next tree. I repeated these steps until I had eighteen sections of trunk and five piles of limbs. It had taken me six hours to complete the job.

I collected my tools and stuck them under the rope of two bundles, before picking the bundles up, putting them into the back of the wagon. I then grabbed the other three and placed them inside as well. Securing the bundles and the tools to the side walls before dealing with the logs. I would need the ramp boards for the wagon that were back at the house. And I would need all the room I could get in the wagon. I got in the seat and began my trek back to the village.

As I reached the gate, I could not help but laugh at the looks on the guard’s faces. One of them yelled to open the gate. As the gate rose, I could see a crowd had once again come to see what the yelling was about and what it was I was bringing back. I felt their eyes on me as I brought the wagon through the gate and made way to my home with the wood. I placed the bundles behind the house, and stacked them near the stable. They would make good firewood for the coming winter. I then returned to the wagon and collected the rest of my things and brought my tools inside. When I returned to the back of the house, I was surprised to see Violet waiting for me.

“I heard you went to the forest to collect wood,” she said softly, “is this all that you have collected?”

I smiled, and replied, “No, Violet, I am afraid it is not. I will have to return to the woods a few more times. There are about eighteen logs I must bring back and they are quite heavy, so it will take a while. In fact, I am not sure if I will be done until sometime tomorrow afternoon, maybe longer.”

This must have upset her, because for once, a scowl came across her face, and then an instant later, it was gone.

“I will stay here to make sure nothing happens to your things while you are gone,” she said, sternly. “Brant has been upset since you challenged him, and I would not be surprised if he tried to damage what you have brought back, while you are gone.”

I thanked her, since I knew there was no point in arguing with her and gave her a big hug. We heard a cough behind us and I released her from the hug. She laughed a little and looked to be blushing as I turned and found her father and two others with him.

“Hello Davik,” Ruben said warmly, “This is Grant and Jasik. They work for me, and are here to help you to bring in all the wood.”

I smiled and nodded, “Thank you Ruben, I welcome all the help I can get. The faster I get all of this done, the better.”

I shook their hands and explained how we would be getting the wood back to the house. We put the boards for the ramp into the back of the wagon and got on. We then made our way to the gate. I gave a hello to the guards, went back to my collection of wood. We got off the wagon and prepared to load the wood in the back. We lowered the back by releasing the latches on either side. Once the back was lowered, the ramps were moved down and hooked to the ends, making them secure for lifting the wood onto the back of the wagon. I gathered my rope and signalled the boys to follow me. We made our way to the farthest of the pieces. I had them each grab a side while I grabbed the centre. On the count of three, we lifted the log off the ground. With me stabilising it, the boys quickly wrapped the rope around the tree and helped me to lay it back down.

I had Jasik bring the wagon over to where the piece was, making sure the ramp was facing the wood. We then grabbed the rope and slowly pulled the log onto the wagon. Due to the nature of the wood it was almost half the weight of a normal log its size. Getting it to the wagon was the easy part, getting it up the ramp was the more difficult prospect. I had the boys pull as I pushed from the bottom. It proved the best option based on our relative strengths. It took a lot of focus and energy, but we were able to get the wood up on the wagon. We then went to the next log, with my next bundle of rope. We repeated the process, and after another half hour, we had two logs on the wagon. We strapped them down, ensuring that they would not roll around or fall out. Next, we collected the ramp pieces and placed them between the logs.

Once that was taken care of, we locked up the back of the wagon and made our way back to town. Due to the weight we made it a slow trek, that way the horses would not be tired too quickly.

The look on the guards’ faces on our return was priceless, I do not think they had ever seen a sight quite like that before. We made our way to the house, to the looks of everyone in the village. When we got there, I found Violet sweeping the front porch. I waved a hello as we made our way towards the back of the house. Once we reached the back area of the land, which was large, we proceeded to unload the logs onto the ground, making sure they sat vertically. We then went right back out and repeated it for the next two logs.

After another hour, we had another load ready, and made our way back to the house. When we were leaving I had noticed another path to the house that would not take us through the village and allow us to get there a bit faster. We took this path the second time and found it as useful as I had expected it to.

When we arrived back at the house, I noticed Violet had gone home, and I was surprised when I saw that Ruben had taken her place. He was as amazed as everyone else with the wood I was bringing back. He was no doubt glad I was not bringing it back on my own.