Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 (10 page)

           
“Is this part of your medicine?”
inquired Otter politely.

           
“It is a medicine of the white
blacksmiths,” Sam said. “Now
comes
harder work.”

           
With his knife he flayed the hide
from the flesh, both ways from the slit. He had to cut up the carcass piece by
piece, to pull it out from the inside. The leg meat he freed without damaging
the skin, peeling it away like four stockings. As he brought out each piece of
venison, Otter took it from his hand and hung it to the branch of a tree
outside. Finally Sam stood up, with the deerskin dangling from his fingers like
an empty sack.

           
The work had taken a large part of
the afternoon, but it was not finished. Sam turned the skin wrong side out and
began to scrape its inner surface clean with his knife.

           
“I will cook some of the meat for
our evening meal,” Otter said, “and I will make a smoke fire to cure more. But
can I help with what you are doing now?”

           
“You can do another thing,” said
Sam, without glancing up. “Is there a tree near this cave, a tree with sticky
gum?”

           
Otter left his butchery and vanished
into the woods beyond the cave. Sam, too, paused in his work at the skin. He
went to the river and poked here and there until he found a patch of soft red
clay. He carried several double handfuls up to the cave,
then
a gourd filled with water.

           
Sitting down, he worked the water
into the clay and made several attempts to model a hollow cylinder. None of his
trials pleased him. Finally he took his tomahawk and sought out some stout
canes, from one of which he cut a section as long as his arm and as thick as
his wrist.

           
He carried it back and made a tight,
thick layer of wet clay around this piece of cane. He built up the fire and set
the clay-covered cane near it to dry.

           
He also cut pieces of the deer fat and
heated them on a forked stick until oil oozed out. This he rubbed hard into the
inner surface of the skin, working in the oily fat with his fingers.

           
Otter returned, with a bundle of
rough chunks of resin wrapped in two big leaves. “They will soften in the
fire,” said Otter. “What are you doing now?”

           
Sam had rubbed in the oil tried from
the fat until he judged that the skin would remain supple, for several days at
least. He turned the skin right side out again. On one flank, close to the rear
leg, he cut a round hole about an inch across. From his pack he produced a
spare moccasin and examined its stout, hard sole. Finally he whittled the sole
into a paddleshaped piece, somewhat larger across than the hole. He fitted it
inside the opening and used a thong from the fringe of his shirt to fasten it
tight, making slits in the skin for the thong to pass through.

           
Otter knelt to examine the cylinder
of drying clay. “Is this more medicine?” he asked.

           
“You will see how it works soon,”
Sam promised him. “If it is dry, put firewood around it so that it will burn
hard, like a pot.”

           
He sliced more thongs from his shirt
and bound the open ends of the forelegs. Then he chose two
round
,
strong sticks from the heap of firewood. He pushed one of these into each of the
empty rear legs, and lashed it firmly in place. Finally he divided some of the
back sinew of the deer into threads, and sewed up the opening down the belly of
the hide. With the resin that Otter had found he sealed the seam tightly.

           
The clay cylinder baked successfully
in the fire, and the inner piece of cane burned completely away, leaving a
smooth, empty tube. Sam raked it carefully from the fire, cooled it by fanning
and by judicious drippings of water. When he could take it in his naked hands,
he slid one end of it into the open neck of his deerskin and once more made
strong, tight lashings to secure it.

           
The whole arrangement of wood, clay
and deerskin he now carried with the utmost care to the primitive hearth he had
made on the floor of the cave. He set the skin on its back, with the throatlike
pipe of baked clay extending into an opening between the rocks. Finally he
filled in around the pipe with smaller pebbles and more clay.

           
“That is my bellows,” he informed
Otter. “Now watch. To make a hot fire for my medicine, I must blow upon it with
wind. I can make the wind blow this way.”

           
He took the two sticks in his hands
and moved them up and down, first one and then the other, with swift strokes.
It was as though he worked two churns at once. The empty hide swelled, then
shrank, and the simple valve he had fashioned made a soft, rhythmic rattling
noise as it opened for air, then closed to make the fabric tight.

           
Otter came and held his hand inside
the structure of rocks. Thoughtfully he felt the gush of breeze from the clay
throat.

           
“That is like nothing I have ever
heard about,” he confessed. “My brother’s medicine is strange, and it is
strong.” He smiled his praise. “Is everything as you want it?”

           
“Yes, I have my forge now.” Sam
looked out, toward the earth-covered pyramid where the charcoal burned. He saw
the plume of smoke above, and smaller threads puffing from the holes in the
sides. “I will soon have what I want, to make a hotter fire than I can make
with wood. Now—”

           
“Now,” broke in Otter, “we must eat.
The sun is going down, and the meat has been cooked for a long time.”

to
work. He built a fire of wood on the hearth
and experimented with his bellows. Plainly he was able to bring a considerable draft
to bear. All he needed was to wait for his charcoal to burn out under that roof
of earth and pine needles. Then he could heat his rifle barrel and—

           
“Wait,” he said, half aloud. “What
will I hold it with, to work on it?”

           
He looked at Otter, thinking.
Finally he said, “Brother, I will have to ask you for something I gave you.”

           
“Ask,” Otter bade him at once.

           
“The tomahawk from
my town.”

           
Unhesitatingly Otter drew the iron
tomahawk from the loop in his girdle and gave it to Sam. Then he went outside
to fetch evergreen boughs for a couch.

           
Sam held his own tomahawk beside
Otter’s and examined both blades. They were broad at the edge, narrow at the
point where the eyes pierced the metal for the handles to fit, and at the back
each had a round, blunt projection. This projection was hollow, as with most
tomahawks made by the English for Indian trade. The addition of a handle
pierced lengthwise would allow that hollow projection to serve for a pipe.

           
Finally Sam worked the handles loose
from both tomahawks. He put the blades together, first side by side, then one
on top of the other.

           
“What do you want to make?” asked
Otter.

           
“A thing the white men call tongs,”
replied Sam. “Only iron will stand the fire. Tongs will be like an iron hand,
to hold my fire-weapon when I heat it to make my strong medicine.”

           
“Sleep now,” said Otter, his eyes on
Sam’s weary face.

           
Sam spread his red blanket on the
expanse of green boughs and stretched out. He felt that he would never close
his eyes. There were too many plans to make, too many problems to solve, in
perfecting his forge. To make it of the roughest and rawest of materials, with
only Otter’s
help
. . . .

           
And then he was waking in the early
dawn, groping around for his moccasins and hunting shirt. The early sunlight
came in at the doorway of the cave. Otter stood there, looking at him.

           
“Come,” Otter said. “I will show you
something.”

           
Sam pulled on his moccasins and
followed Otter outside. The first thing he saw was that his coneshaped charcoal
oven had ceased to give off smoke and flames. The next thing he saw was that
great round tracks lay near it.

           
“Giluhda came in the night,” said
Otter, pointing to the tracks. “He walked all around that burning wood under
the dirt. He was trying to find out about your medicine.”

           
Sam seized a sharp stick and raked
away some of the earth. The charcoal was undamaged. Giluhda had not touched it.

           
“He knows that fire will burn,” went
on Otter. “He did not dare try to hurt the medicine.”

           
“If he had done that, his hair would
have been set afire,” said Sam. “Probably he would have run so far away that
your people would never need to fear him again. Help me pull this dirt aside.”

           
Otter got another stick and helped.
When cleared, the pyramid of branches showed black and shiny, each stick
keeping its original form. A few of them still glowed, and Sam fetched several
gourds of river water to splash on these to cool them. Then he went and washed
his face and hands, and he and Otter returned to eat a breakfast of thin
venison slices, quickly toasted.

           
When he had finished, Sam returned
to his charcoal pile. He picked up a cooled chunk,
then
threw it to the ground. It struck with a clinking sound, and broke into several
pieces. Sam took one to examine. It was black to the very center. Otter, too,
came and looked.

           
“This part of the medicine is
ready,” said Sam.

           
He and Otter quickly made two big,
crude baskets of willow twigs. They carried several loads of fuel to the cave,
heaping it near the forge. Then, with plenty of kindling, Sam built a charcoal
fire. He left it to glow idly, while he returned to the tomahawk blades.

           
Taking a stout branch of green wood,
he wedged it into the hollowed back of one tomahawk. He thrust the edge of the
blade into the fire, and spoke to Otter again.

           
“Brother, help me with my medicine.
Take the sticks and make the bellows blow wind.”

           
Otter crossed the floor, knelt down
and began to churn the two sticks. Under the blowing draught, the fire grew
hotter and burned furiously, but without smoke or flame. The edge of the
tomahawk grew dark red, then bright red.

           
At the proper moment, Sam lifted it
out on the end of his green branch, laid it firmly against the anvil stone, and
began to pound it with the hammer Woodpecker had given to him. He saw the
glowing iron change shape under his blows. Then the iron darkened and hardened
as it cooled, and Sam lifted it to return it to the fire. The blade dropped
from the stick to the anvil—the wood had charred through with the heat of the
metal.

           
Sam fairly groaned his disgust.
Otter eyed him calculatingly.

           
“The wood will not hold the
tomahawk,” explained Sam. “The fire makes the iron hot, and that burns through
the wood.”

           
He went on a tour of exploration
around the cave. Otter, too, moved away from the bellows. He fumbled among some
smaller pieces of rock in a corner, and selected a big splinter, nearly a foot
and a half long. Squatting, Otter examined the splinter carefully. He tapped it
experimentally with a stone the size of his fist,
then
rubbed at it as though to smooth its roughness.

           
“What are you making?” asked Sam.

           
“I do not know yet,” said Otter, all
his attention on his work.

           
Sam went outside and picked up one
of the severed legs of the deer killed yesterday. With his knife he chopped off
the hoof, stripped away the skin and flesh, and cleaned the larger shin bone.
He brought it back and jammed one end of it into the empty back projection of
the tomahawk, which was cool enough to handle.

           
“Brother,” he said to Otter, “if you
are not too busy,
help
me again.”

           
Otter laid aside the stone splinter
he was shaping and took his post at the bellows. The bone-held tomahawk made
two trips to the fire and back, and its shape had changed somewhat under Sam’s
pounding, before the bone crumbled with the heat. Again Sam groaned dolefully,
and again Otter returned to fashioning his stone.

           
This time Sam cut a thigh bone from
a haunch of venison. It was larger and more massive than the shin bone. He
whittled the lumpy end, rubbed it with a coarse stone, and worked for an hour
before he shaped it to his liking. The tip of it he wedged into the back of the
tomahawk and returned to the fire.

           
Otter worked the bellows. The thigh
bone bravely resisted the heat. The tomahawk had been heated red and pounded
three times before it fell from the burned tip. Sam gazed down at it with an
expression of woeful disappointment.

           
Otter picked up his stone splinter
once more. While Sam had labored on the bones, Otter had shaped the splinter to
his own liking. Sam watched while Otter lashed it in the cleft end of a stout
pole, like the blade of a spear. He tested its firmness, put out his hand, and
took one of the tomahawk blades. Thrusting the point of the stone into the open
back of the blade, he pushed and turned it strongly to wedge it in place. Then
he held out the pole to Sam.

           
“I did not say what I was doing,” he
explained politely, “because it was your medicine and not mine.

           
But stone will not burn. It is slow
to get hot in fire. You can hold the tomahawk where the fire makes it red, and
the fire will not strike through the stone, to make the wood break off.”

           
“It is as you say!” cried Sam
joyfully. “You are wiser at this work than I am.”

           
“I watched what you did,” said
Otter. “I thought, and made a plan. I learned from you, and used my own
thoughts too. I made something that will hold the tomahawk and not drop it.”

           
He spoke with quiet pride, as when
he had told of saving Sam from Giluhda.

           
“It is as you said yesterday,” Sam
praised him. “Two brothers do something together. Each can think with the
wisdom of both, and fight with the strength of both. It is good.”

           
He held the tomahawk into the forge
fire at the end of the wedged stone point, while Otter worked the bellows. He
took it out, hammered it, heated it as before, and hammered again. Little by
little he shaped the iron.

           
Under his heating and pounding it
changed from the form of a broad, thin-edged hatchet blade to a thicker, curved
bar. For an hour Sam wrought, then cooled the iron in water from the gourd and
pried it carefully from its stone holder. He wedged on the other tomahawk and
fashioned it, with many heatings and poundings, in a somewhat similar way. When
the morning was nearly gone, he made a study of the work’s progress and found
it good.

           
The two tomahawk heads had been most
laboriously changed into two heavy, clawlike projections, with the eyes for the
handles and the open backs still remaining as they had been. When Sam held them
side by side and ran a twig through the eyes, the curved ends of the two thick
claws came together, like a tweaking thumb and finger. He now had the jaws of
his tongs.

           
But he needed a metal pivot to join
them so that they would move and grip. He had not taken time to decide on what
it would be, and he sat back to survey his few metal possessions. He could not
sacrifice the blade of his knife. The brass buckle of his belt was not heavy
enough. Finally he drew the damaged rifle out of its recess, carried it to the
door of the cave, and inspected it.

           
At the base of the split stock was
the iron butt plate, a long, curved oval piece fastened to the wood with two
screws. He could get along without that, he told himself, and with the point of
his knife detached the plate.

           
Bracing it as well as he could in
the cleft of a stick, Sam hammered it on the anvil without heating. He crushed
it into a narrower, thicker shape, a sort of loose cylinder, shaped it by
lighter tapping, and thrust it through the two joined eyes of his altered
tomahawks. It would serve, he judged. Then he built a fire on the anvil itself,
shoved the cylinder into this, and heated it as hot as possible by fanning the
burning charcoal with a corner of his blanket.

           
He managed to make it red hot, to
pound it until it was compressed into a fairly solid rod, and finally he fitted
the two jaws of the tongs upon it. They moved readily and accurately. Once more
he heated it, gingerly poked it into place, and pounded down the two projecting
ends like rivet heads. When the whole assembly was cool, he tested it. The
tongs opened and shut as he wished.

           
“Brother, it will do what I want,”
he told Otter happily.

           
Between his spells of duty at the
bellows, Otter had worked at chipping another piece of stone into a tomahawk to
replace those made into the tongs. He had also sharpened a deer bone for the
point of a small spear. Now, as Sam paused in his blacksmithing to consider the
next step, Otter took his bow and arrows and left the cave.