A longer chapter this time: Dawn.

Stone

10. The dam

As the new group appeared over the ridge, Carlson noted the numerous armed men and called out for the Militia. But even before the dozen or more men were armed and mounted, he could see the huge body of Stone on his big horse and relaxed. He rode out to meet the incoming group.

“Hail, Captain,” he called to Stone as they got within shouting distance. “Welcome to Greenstone. Things are a bit rough here, but every day we make more progress. I apologize that the militia were not so quick in reacting, but I doubt they would have been much use against such a huge force.”

There were now 15 militia behind Carlson, with more putting down their tools in the town and joining in.

“Your militia will be needed less now,” Stone replied. “These are men from the Duke’s guard, and many fought with me in the late war with Kona. Have you needed to call your group out before?”

“We had a small slave train come through last week,” Carlson reported. “Only 23 slaves and four other wagons. The four guards and the slaver were killed, and the slaves freed. The goods on the other wagons were much needed by the town. We are short of so much.”

Stone told Sgt. Pothman to take charge of the military component of the party, and told Carlson to assign one or more of his men to take charge of the former slaves in the party. Carlson rode along between Rayla and Stone as they entered the town with the former guard pointing out various buildings, mostly canvas tents.

“That is our saloon,” Carlson said of the largest tent. “It has a wooden floor already. We have many men working in the forest, harvesting lumber, but it is slow work without proper tools. We hope to build a lumber mill, but it will be some time. We need to get a rip saw, as well as finish damming the river to create a mill pond. This next tent is our smith, who spends much of his time making nails for the construction. Hail, Neil, look who comes.”

The smith looked up, and put down his tools when he saw who appeared. “Milord … I mean Captain. And Milady. Welcome to our little town, still under construction. I fear that I have not been able to accomplish your task of making swords from the slave chains. I can shape them, but they have not enough strength for swords.”

“Hail Neil,” Stone said. “I bring a smith from the Duke’s castle, with his two freed assistants.”

Neil perked at the news of three more experienced smiths. He had only two townsmen working for him pumping the bellows. But they were little more than apprentices. Even if the other two were merely journeymen, they would be able to take over the production of nails, freeing him up for other tasks. And the new smith proved he was a master in the next few seconds.

“I see your problem, master smith,” the man on the wagon said. “You have been trying to shape the chain into a sword, and the strength will never be there. Instead you should open the links and straighten them, using the rods left to form the sword. Then you have linear strength, and not cross weakness.”

“Of course,” Neil said. “I would have figured it out eventually, but swords are not my forte. But you must have much experience with weapons at the castle.”

Harrold nodded, and the two started talking shop, discussing the color of the heated steel. Stone turned back to Carlson. “I know those words, but not the meaning. Let the smiths talk. I was worried that the two of them might be competitors, but there is much work for all. They will wind up as partners, or comrades, I expect. But I did notice that the fire was heated by coal, I think.”

“No Captain,” Carlson said. “It is coke. There is coal north of town, and five miners digging it out. Many of the people use coal for cooking, but a man set up a coke works with two helpers. The smith is his main customer and uses all they can produce. We use coal for the communal supper fires, or wood. There is a great deal of branches that result from the lumbering operation.”

“What about farms?” Stone asked.

“About 50 farms have been established in the area,” Carlson reported. “There are another 15 or 20 vacant ones. Both sheep and goats went feral when the original farm owners were taken. Men have gathered them up. There are now three sheep farms, and a great deal of wool was sheared from them. It is pretty dirty, but some women are trying to clean it up. A woodsman is trying to build a spinning wheel, but it is slow going. The goats provide milk for the children, although cattle would be nice.”

“Aye,” Stone agreed. “There are cattle in Greenwood. We should send a troop down there and try to buy some. I’m not sure if they are dairy or beef, but that will result in another farm or two. What other farms are there?”

“Many grain farms,” Carlson said. “The farmers found that the crops left when the slavers came are coming along nicely, and should provide a crop this fall at harvest time. One family has planted potatoes, although it is a late crop. And there is an orchard. A man knowledgeable about pruning says that this fall the crop will mainly be crabapples good only for cider, but says after he prunes the trees back there should be a good harvest next fall. There is another family that is keeping bees, and hope to have honey for sale soon.”

“So what is there to drink, other than cider?” Stone asked.

“Water, of course,” the river is very clean. “And the saloon owner has tried brewing beer. The first batch was so vile it had to be thrown out, but the last two batches have been getting better. I suspect that his next attempt, which I understand will be available tomorrow, might actually be good.”

“What of food,” Rayla asked. “Are there hunters?”

“Yes there are five out with bows right now,” Carlson said. “They have mostly bagged small game, which augments the stew each evening. There is a free communal meal each evening. A smaller breakfast is available for the children, as well as a lunch. Adults wanting to eat at that time must pay, and there is not much coin in the town. Much is done through barter.”

“I should go and look up those hunters,” Rayla said. “Arthur has already spotted them, as well as a herd of deer that they will miss entirely if they continue on the same course.”

She rode off on Beauty, and Carlson headed to the river with Stone. “This is the big project in town,” the guard said. “We are damming the river to make a millpond. The children who are too young to work are playing in the mud down river.”

“Mr. Stone,” a shrill voice called out. Lillibet, the little girl from the river, was running towards the horses as fast as her little legs could carry her. “You came back!” She grabbed onto his boot, the only part of him she could reach, and hugged it tightly.

Stone reached down with a hand, and lifted the small child into his saddle in front of him. “Hi Lillibet, what are you doing?”

“I was playin’,” she lisped. “I gets to play in the morning’. After lunch I gots to go to school.”

“School?” Stone said. He hadn’t realized that there was a school already. “What are they teaching you?”

“Readin’, writin’, and doing sums. Look, I can make an ‘ell’,” with that she traced a crude L onto the saddle. “What is the letter for your name?”

“It is an S, and it goes like this,” Stone said, tracing an S on the saddle in front of the girl.

“I like it, it is a pretty letter,” she said, tracing it several times with improving accuracy each time.

“Where is your Daddy?” Stone said, enjoying the refreshing little one.

“He is at the dam,” she said. “I can’t go there because it is dane-ger-us.”

“Well then, I guess I should put you down, and you can run back to your friends,” Stone said, bending over to help the girl get to the ground. She hugged his foot again, and said: “I love you Mr. Stone. Thank you for teaching me your name.” Then she scampered off.

“She is quite a cute little one,” Carlson said as they reached the dam. “We hope to be able to run two mills off this single mill pond. When harvest comes, three quarters of the power will run the gristmill, and other times it will be three quarters for the sawmill. The problem is we have a shortage of equipment: we need mill stones for the gristmill, and blades for the sawmill. We aren’t even sure where to order them from.

The dam was now about 12 feet high. It was made of trees cut in the forest, and then dressed to have five sides. Three of the sides were at right angles, but the fifth side had two sides removed, to make a point at the bottom. Once a log was set, men would gouge out a V into the top, and the point at the bottom of the next log would fit into the notch making a stronger connection. The water level was about three feet below the top of the dam, leaving enough room for the men to work.

“Are you blocking all the water,” Stone asked.

“Right now we are,” Carlson said, “we hope to have the pond full when we complete the work, or soon after.”

“But there are other communities downriver that depend on the water,” Stone pointed out. “You are draining their supplies. I want the dam gates open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Those are the hours the mills will run once they are operational, and hopefully they will provide enough water for the towns downriver. Your pond will still fill during the other 15 hours in a day, hopefully enough to rise to full level. What about the pond? Is it eliminating good cropland?”

“No Captain,” Carlson said. “It is a rocky area up there. We sent prospectors up there as soon as we settled, and found nothing of value on the valley floor. We found the coal seams, up above the level the pond will reach. There are other materials up there. Several men are experimenting with the slate rocks. It would be nice if we could cut out slate roof tiles. Our thatchers are overworked on roofs now, and the nicer buildings will want slate. Plus we can export them, and get some cash into the town. There is also marble up there. And the prospectors haven’t given up on their dreams of finding gold.”

“The marble could turn out to be as good as gold,” Stone said. “If you can cut it into slabs of an inch or two, it makes wonderful countertops. Beautiful and hard wearing.”

“What is that building?” Stone pointed to a frame building under construction.

“That is going to be the sawmill,” Carlson said. “Ranston, the one whose wife had twins on the way up, is building it, although he doesn’t know much about mill work. He is crafty with wood though. He saw all the edgings that were being split off to square the dam boards and gathered them up and brought them down to where he wanted to site his mill. They were waste to everyone else, but he has been using them as boards.”

They approached closer, and saw that the D-shaped pieces of wood were being attached to upright posts. Ranston explained that he could only get enough nails for every other row, and the intermediate ones were lashed to the others with deer gut. “I’ll come back and nail the others when more nails are available,” he told Stone.

“You are quite some distance from the dam,” Stone said. “How will your mill work?”

“I will build a big sluice that will run from the top of the dam, or dam near it,” Ranston quipped. “That will turn my wheel, which I still have to build. I’m not sure about getting a blade though.”

Stone looked back, and saw the men on the dam had stopped working. “Is it noon already?” he asked Carlson. A glance in the sky made it clear that there would be another two hours of working time.

“No, I think the men are trying to figure out how to move the big spruce log into position. All the logs so far have been 30 to 50 feet long with two or three on each level. But you can see that the dam is already bulging a bit. They felled a big spruce tree that was 200 feet tall, with 140 feet usable, enough to span the dam in one piece. It will shore up the layers below it and above, and make the dam secure. But it is so big that the men can’t move it. They are probably trying to come up with a way to get it to the dam.

Stone slid off his horse and went to what he thought was the middle of the log. He bent, and grabbed the wood and strained. The wood didn’t even budge.

“They say it weighs over 600 pounds,” Carlson said. “I doubt even you can move it.”

Stone tried again, and as he strained, he felt power flowing into his body. Finally the log moved an inch, and then two. Finally with a gasp he lifted it a full two feet off the ground. Men at several points along the log through short cross logs under the big pole, so that when Stone dropped it, it was resting on those.

“My God,” Carlson said. “That was magnificent. The men will be able to start dressing the log now. Each side they take off to square it up will reduce its weight more, so it will be lighter when it is completely dressed. But I suspect that only you will be able to turn it, probably by lunch they will have split one side off.”

Stone was exhausted, and his arms were burning. He could barely get back on Doug for the ride back into town.

«Rayla has found the hunters, and they have killed three deer. All by her arrows: the men are not quick enough to bring down big game. She is giving them lessons in archery as she goes,» Doug said, apparently relaying a message from Arthur.

«There is a beaver pond on the way back, flooding a great part of the forest,» Doug said. «She wants to know if you want it cleared. Arthur said there is a mostly dry creek bed that will run into the Green about a mile above the town.»

“Tell her yes, and then to hurry back.” The creek would provide more water for the mill pond. Although it would mean the beavers would have to find another area to live. He wondered if there was a business for some in trapping.

Stone decided to head out to meet the hunters: he found he was missing the pretty redhead. They met several miles out of town, with three of the hunters carrying carcasses on their pack animals. The men looked proud of themselves, even though Stone knew it was Rayla who deserved the credit.

“Good work,” he told her.

“Not just me,” she replied. “It was a team effort. Arthur spotted the game, and the men circled around to scare them towards me. I managed to get three quick arrows off. Lucky hits.”

“Like you ever make an unlucky hit,” Stone said. He noticed the respect the men were giving her, especially in sharing the glory. It intensified when she got into the communal supper area, and announced that “the men” had shot three deer, to the cheers of the women. Up until most of the meat in the pot had been old goat, or old sheep, and not much of it when divided up in the stew. Tonight’s meal would be heavy on meat.

Stone took Rayla on a tour of town, on foot, showing him what he had learned in the morning. “What is that building?” Rayla asked when she saw someone taking venison strips into it on a platter. “That is the smokehouse, milady,” a woman passing by said. “With so much meat coming in today, we need to preserve some before it goes bad. People laughed at Tyler for building it, but when they get good meat in a few weeks, they will be glad he built it.”

They gradually worked their way to the dam site, where the men were just finished splitting off the first slab from the log. They saw Stone, and urged him to turn the log so the flat side was down. Once it was turned, the men would be able to slice off the two sides, and then dress the peaked top, which would be the bottom when the log was placed.

Stone took off his shirt this time, and grabbed the log in the middle. It was lighter now, and not stuck into the muck of the forest floor. But he still had to strain mightily before he could lift it and rotate it with the flat down. When he finished, he was sore again, but Rayla came up and rubbed his aching muscles and helped him put his shirt back on.

“Wow, you have quite a set of muscles on that body,” she said. “I guess I didn’t notice, when we started out and you were naked. Or else I didn’t care.” She continued to rub his arms, and Stone realized that he had taken off his shirt to show off. It didn’t bother him that she was so impressed. For some reason impressing her was important.”

The two just wondered the town after the noon meal, which Stone paid for both Rayla and himself, to get a bit of coin into the pockets of the women making the meal, and feeding the little ones. He also requested that the five hunters also get a free meal, since they had contributed to the stew that was already being prepared for supper.

In the afternoon they wandered the town, stopping in at the tent being used for a schoolhouse. They had aimed at a quiet peek that would not interrupt the class. But fate decided otherwise: as soon as they popped into the room, a small shrill voice cried out: “Mr. Stone. And the pretty lady.” It was Lillibet, and soon the entire room was in an uproar. Stone stepped into the room, where an elderly man who apparently knew his letters led the class. “Quiet, all you lot, or there will be no supper tonight,” Stone shouted, and the excited children quickly obeyed. “School is important. You are free, not slaves, and you need to know your numbers and letters, and how to count money if you want to be successful. I want you all to promise to work very hard and do as your teacher asks. He is very smart, and wants you to be smart too.”

“But I want to be a soldier when I grow up,” one of the older boys, nearly 10, said. “I don’t need any of this for that?”

“Oh really?” Stone said. “You saw the soldiers that came in with me today? Almost half of them can read and write, and the others plan to come to the classes here this evening to learn. And if you become a soldier, you will want to be paid, won’t you? How will you know you aren’t being cheated if you don’t learn your numbers? Even those soldiers who can’t read and write yet know their numbers.”

The chastened boy promised to work hard and listen closely, and Stone went to the door.

“I understand the older children take the morning class, and as I said, there will be one in the evening for adults,” Stone said to Rayla. “Remind me that I shall have to pay the teacher. I think we should pay two silvers per class, or six for the week. Those are long hours and he deserves to be compensated well.