From Book 5
Dol and his searchers continued their effort to locate the scattered humans surviving in the surrounding mountains, they nearly doubled the population of Haven. Dol married the girl of his dreams and they started a family almost immediately. Little Bic became the big brother to twin boys in less than a year.
Corky asked to assist in the school and by the following summer, all three teachers were just barely keeping up with their students! Carey sent teams to all the nearby before people settlements to collect books and teaching supplies for the school.
Most of the medical supplies were a complete loss, but some of the equipment could be salvaged for the hospital. A find of great importance was the discovery of an old warehouse filled with seeds and gardening supplies. These treasures were brought back to Haven and incorporated into their daily lives.
The wolves, in their close association with their humans, seemed to increase in intelligence., Carey was almost positive that they could talk among themselves and that they understood human speech!
Civilization was slowly climbing back, more will be told of this journey.
Chapter -1 - TRADE ROUTES
Dol and his team combined their search for other people with trading with other small communities of humanity, struggling to survive. Haven was blessed with an abundance of water and fertile soil. In the fall they had surpluses of corn, milo and peas. They carefully dried the surplus and Dol and his Searcher/Traders would carry backpacks of dried produce to trade with other villages.
Perhaps, what he carried that even was more important, was news. He would tell those in the villages about what was happening in other villages and would occasionally carry a personal message from one village to another. He and his team were welcomed in every village and the fame of Haven spread.
He was in a small village far down the canyon, its inhabitants called it Fork, because of the fork in the stream at that place. A mother and father came to him, carrying a small boy. The mother was in tears and the father not far behind his wife. The father said, "Please, Trader Dol." His language marked him as a before people. The man continued, "May we accompany you as you return to Haven, our little boy has an illness inside him and we cannot cure him. We hope your healer can help."
Dol replied, "Us Haven go. Yus wit us com go Haven be." The traders helped the man make a small litter for the child and offered to help the parents carry him back up the canyon. One of Nel's yearling wolf pups had accompanied Dol and his team for the last several trips and he sniffed the little boy and licked his face. The child giggled and clapped his little hands in delight. The wolfling, Cor, adopted the little boy and kept him entertained during the long trip back to Haven. At night, Cor would be found curled up against the child, keeping him warm.
As they neared the gates of Haven, Cor let out a series of yips and a howl, suddenly, they were surrounded by young wolves, intent upon sniffing and licking the little boy. The traders carried the litter into the village and escorted them to the hospital. Eddie had been alerted by Shado, who barked at him until he came to the door. The traders left the boy and his parents with Eddy and they went to give the farmers, whose goods they had traded, their share of things traded by the other villages.
Eddy examined the boy and said, "I believe he has a low-grade inflamed appendix. I do not have the antibiotics to treat such, I can only remove it. If we leave it, it might get better, but more likely, it will become acute and the child will die."
The parents were undecided, but Cor was not. He shoved his nose against the child, pushing him towards Eddy, as if to say, "Get Busy!" The boy's parents finally decided to let Eddy operate on their son.
Verona had found wild hemp growing along the creek, she had laid in a supply of the carefully dried leaves of the plant. She crushed a handful of the leaves and put them in a small clay pot, then placed glowing coal from the stove on top of the crushed leaves. As soon as smoke started to curl up from the smoldering leaves, she placed it under the child's nose. He coughed and sputtered, until drowsiness overtook him and he fell into a deep sleep.
Eddy and Millie were ready to begin, the child would not stay asleep very long. Eddy made his incisions swiftly and exposed the inflamed organ. Millie was ready with the needles and sutures that Verona had woven from milkweed fibers, and Eddie sutured the seat of the excised organ shut. He then closed the wound in the same manner, the whole operation taking less than 20 minutes. They painted the wound with Verona's willow bark paste and let the boy sleep off his hemp smoke.
Eddy said, "We will keep the boy here for a few days, then you may take him home carefully. In a couple of weeks, he will be as good as new." He was!
The next time the trader/searchers headed down the canyon, the young family traveled with them. Cor and the little boy had become "best buddies" and the young wolfling stayed behind with "his boy" when the traders left.
The next time Dol's team visited the village, there were four little wolf puppies sitting at Cor's feet, intently watching everything that was going on. They were carrying seed corn that trip and they traded for bits of old sheet metal and broken metal tools. The little boy's parents came up to Dol and pressed a package into his hand, saying, "This is for Healer Eddy." Dol was unable to read the words on the package - "US ARMY FIELD SURGERY KIT".
The Traders were the only communication between the villages, they carried messages on their travels, they traded goods, not only from and to Haven, but also between the villages. They escorted those who wished to go to Haven or travel between villages and they alerted villages of problems like raiders, marauding animals and sickness. With Carey's help, Dol set up a message service to carry messages to particular persons or villages. He charged one handful of dried corn or peas to carry a message to the next village, two handfuls if the message was to go to Haven. He also charged to escort people from one village to another or to Haven.
Rici and his hunters brought a beast back from one of their hunts, he called it a "Not Cow". It turned out to be a young horse! Carey remembered that there had been an old wagon in a barn near the old town of Foresthill. He sent some warriors to see if it was still there and they reported that it was. Carey and a couple of before people boys who had lived on farms, hiked down to Foresthill, leading the horse. The villagers still called it a "Not Cow", no matter what Carey tried to tell them.
After a furious morning trying to convince "Not Cow" that he was supposed to pull the wagon, not kick it, Not Cow finally got the idea and he pulled the wagon, with Carey and the boys riding in it. Carey presented Not Cow and the wagon to Dol to carry his trade freight in. Dol was NOT enthused with Not Cow! Two wolflings, Flic and Chan decided their place was sitting beside Dol as he drove the wagon. Soon, Dol with his traders and the two wolflings sitting beside him, were common sights traveling between the known villages.
Only once did anyone try to steal anything from the wagon. After the two wolflings got done with him, he would never even come close to the trade wagon again! Dol and his traders were the only communications there was between the far-flung villages of the mountains, they carried trade goods, messages and occasionally, people. Besides all that, they were gossips! Tales of people and happenings were spread throughout the villages by the traders, who got married, who had a baby, who ran off with whose woman and not least of all, language! The language was evolving into a patois borrowed from both the before people and the present-era folks. As new words crept into the language, it was carried from village to village by the traders.
Chapter -2- MANUFACTURING BEGINS
Pali had asked Dol to trade for pieces of metal and bring them back to Haven, two before people farm boys, Gordy and Daniel had been taught blacksmithing by their father and told him that if they had metal, they could make knives. In two summers of trading, they had accumulated a fair stock of old metal. They had been experimenting in making charcoal and had perfected the process reasonably well, They shaped two logs into boards and made a leather pocket bellows. They made a stone and mortar forge and had found an old anvil down in Foresthill. They paid Dol some of their hoarded wealth of dried corn to haul the anvil to Haven and they were ready to try their hand at forging knife blades.
To say that their first efforts were a success would be a far stretch of the truth, but, in reality, even those first attempts were better than knapped flint in durability! After several weeks of pounding hot metal, they were turning out very acceptable knife blades for Pali and Rici to attach bone handles to. They had a going business, Haven knives brought a premium in corn or peas. Dol shared half of what he got for the knives with the brothers, who also shared some of their "profits" with Pali and Rici. Their critical concern was obtaining the metal needed to fashion the knife blades, but sufficient supplies trickled in to keep them in business.
Dol's two wolflings, Pok and Shel, brother and sister littermates, seemed to know when Dol was carrying a valuable cargo, they were extra alert and patrolled the wagon when it was parked in a village. Stories of the would-be robber had circulated, nobody was sufficiently brave to dare the snarling teeth of two nearly full-grown wolves!
The coalition of villages, all tied together by the traders, formed a frontier society. Occasionally, a young man would travel with the traders to another village, seeking a wife or looking for an opportunity. Many villagers sent their children to Haven to attend the school during the winter months. Allen and Lee had dormitories built for visiting students and Corky was appointed Dorm Master! It was a job he hated, but, with the wolves, he kept order. It was in that job that he met she, who was to become his wife. The older sister of one of the boarding students came for a visit and it was "love at first sight"! Before the semester was over, Carey had spoken "THE WORDS" over him and Terlika.
Corky had always had a special bond with Shado and when he moved into a house with his new wife, Shado moved in with them. The wolf was there for the birth of their first child and also their second, both boys. She transferred her loyalty to those boys and was a second mother to them. Like all little boys, their curiosity knew no limits, they were into everything. A sometimes frustrated nanny wolf would drag the boys into the house and lay across the doorway, not letting them leave!
The cow herd grew slowly, they had four cows and two bulls. Milk for the children of Haven was plentiful, as were dairy products, like cheese and butter. Nelli had taught several boys and girls how to milk the cows and churn the cream into butter. Her cheese was her own secret that she guarded. Her cheese was valuable, whenever Dol could talk her out of some, he always came back with his wagon loaded with treasures! He took a large piece of her cheese with him in a trip down to the valley. He came back with a load of scrap metal and a young mare tied to the back of the wagon. After that, she was glad to send cheese with him on his valley trips!
The Haven pack of wolves kept wild predators away, only the bravest and largest would dare tangle with a pack of timber wolves numbering more than 100 beasts! Even human visitors walked carefully when visiting Haven. The wolves were slowly spreading out, a few at a time would transfer their allegiance to someone in another village and another colony of wolves would establish itself. Their loyalty to their humans was unquestioned, they especially loved small children.
Parents soon learned that it was perfectly safe to send their children out to play, guarded only by a wolf or two. The wolves seemed to understand which child belonged to which family and would bring the children in from play and nose the child into the correct house. When a child was hurt, a wolf would come to get the parent, tugging either on their clothing or even taking their hand gently in their mouth and leading the parent to the hurt child. More than one older boy learned the hard way that the wolves would stand for no bullying, even in play!
Rattlesnakes were very rare in those mountains, but whenever one was encountered the wolves would attack it with a fury, the snake almost never survived the encounter. The wolves were an important part of the "post-event" society, loved and respected by all, feared by those who hurt their humans. Children would come to school each day, those who walked from nearby communities would be accompanied by a guardian wolf, those who boarded in the dormitories had a wolf bed set up in their rooms. Each day, as class was held, there would be a line of wolves patiently waiting at the doorway for classes to be over.
Chapter -3- RAIDERS
Dol returned from a trading trip, thoroughly alarmed and went directly to Carey to report. The small community of Briar had been destroyed and all the people were gone! Carey sent out messengers to all the communities telling them of what happened and to be on the lookout for trouble. Slowly, word began to come back and a pattern developed, there was no question, there were RAIDERS working the area!
The demand for knives skyrocketed. Gordy and Daniel tried their hand at making swords. They had some old automobiles and truck springs that made excellent swords. They also developed an axe-like blade that could be fitted on the end of a long pole, like a medieval pike they had seen once in a book.
Dol started taking six of Pali's warriors with him on his trading trips and he urged each village to build a wall around their community. Carey was worried, Haven was the center of Mountain Society and would be a choice plum to be snatched! Several more communities were raided, each one closer to Haven. The wolves sensed their humans' anxiety, each night there were a dozen wolves patrolling the wall.
Summer was turning to fall and the schoolchildren were arriving to be boarded in the dormitories. Carey spotted a couple of suspicious people, who claimed they were checking out the dormitories for their children. He became worried they were being spied upon in the preparation of an attack. Pali doubled the warriors on duty at night and they began locking the gate during the day.
The attack came two weeks later, Nel was dragging him out of bed and all the wolves were padding along the walls. Pali reported that someone had tried the gate, he had all his warriors on duty and there were over 100 wolves pacing Haven. A timber wolf is a large creature, adults frequently were over 200 pounds! Nel was huge, even for a Timber Wolf, standing on all four feet, he was chest high to a grown man!
They heard someone ramming the gate with a log, Carey rang the alarm bell, an old brass dinner bell salvaged from Nelli's Diner down in Forest Hill. The warriors began passing out pikes and swords to the villagers and they rounded up all the small children and put them behind closed doors in the schoolhouse. The older teens were given buckets full of water, should the attackers try to burn them out.
They had built a secret small door in the wall, big enough for the wolves to come in and out. Nel was scratching at the door, followed by twenty huge males. Cary ordered the door to be opened for them and they raced out into the darkness. Soon, there were screams of terror and fright from their attackers, the pressure on the front gate loosened and then relaxed completely. By daylight, the warriors climbed to the top of the wall, all they could see were dead bodies and a pack of timber wolves waiting at the gate to be admitted, Nel at their lead! The attack was over and not a single wolf missed out on treats by a grateful people!
Dol took a small pack of wolves with him on his trade trips, he was never bothered, although he did see groups of armed men pacing him in the trees occasionally. A pattern soon emerged, the raiders were coming from the Two Peaks Campground area. Pali and Rici argued that the nest should be wiped out. Finally, Carey agreed and they assembled a force of 100 fighting men and 50 wolves. Pali refused to let Carey come with them, saying that he was much too valuable to risk. They loaded their supplies and extra weapons in the wagon and Not Cow was made ready to pull the wagon. Nel led the wolves as they exited Haven and then spread out as a screen guard for their humans.
The next morning, they were on the hill above the old campground. Looking down, they spotted the missing villagers being used as slaves in the encampment. They decided to attack immediately as the raiders were just awakening and moving around. Pali nodded to Nel, "GO," he whispered to the wolf. Nel led his wolves so that they completely encircled the camp, he howled and suddenly, the camp was full of enraged timber wolves, snarling and snapping at the barely wakened raiders.
Pali called out, "Pepls not raiders be, uphill com!" The raiders tried to flee and the wolves and warriors chased them down the hill. Screams were heard for several hours as wolves and warriors found them hiding. The captives were milling around, and Nel and his wolves started to walk through the frightened folk, suddenly, they would grab a man and tear him to shreds, he was a raider! Those few that survived by hiding among the captives tried to run, but there was no way they could outrun an angry wolf!
By mid-day, it was all over, the raiders had been destroyed. They patched up the injured among the captives as best they could and saw to it that they had a good meal from the stolen goods the raiders had accumulated. The next day, they began the trek back to Haven. A wolf walked beside each human that had been injured, allowing them to hold onto their back to steady them. The captives were used to having wolves around, but many never realized until that time, how protective the wolves were of them.
It took two days for the party to return to Haven, many of the captives were sick, injured and all were malnourished. As they approached the gates of Haven, Nel let out a howl and a series of barks that were answered from within the walls. Carey ordered the gate to be opened and the wolves that had remained with them raced out to assist the former captives up the final hill to Haven.
The Wolves of Haven were becoming legends of the mountain communities, most homes had at least one wolf resident and the children grew up knowing that the wolves were part of their families. No human would even dream of traveling without his or her wolf companion.
Chapter -4- THE TRADERS
A small herd of horses was captured from the raiders and Carey had wagons built for each of Dol's team. What had been footpaths between the villages, became wagon roads and hardly a week would go by that a trader did not visit a village.
The folks in the village of Fork discovered a bed of blue clay in the creek bank. After experimenting, they found they could make acceptable plates and cups. The best charcoal was made by Gordy and Daniel in Haven. A trader would haul charcoal to Fork and dinner plates back to Haven.
The community of Oak had captured feral swine and started raising them. In a year's time, they were doing a brisk business in smoked hams! Nellie's cheese brought premium trade almost everywhere and the seeds that the boys, Davie and Carl, had discovered in the old warehouse had been propagated and were brisk trade items also. Carrots, radishes, melons and potatoes were regularly traded between villages.
So many folk were coming to be treated at the Haven Hospital, Nellie asked Carey if she could build a hotel. He gave her permission and Nellie House became a reality, including a small diner. Eddy had to take on some apprentice medics, it was becoming more than he could handle by himself, Millie and Verona.
Dol had five wagons plying the trade routes, carrying goods and people. The wolves continued to guard his wagons, but no one was brave enough to risk an angry wolf. Besides, all the traders carried a small bag of treats Nellie had dreamed up. She mixed honey, cream and berries and boiled it until it became stiff. She then twirled short sticks in the mixture until there was a glob of sweet candy stuck to the stick. When it cooled, it became hard. When a trader appeared in the village, the children would crowd around him, begging for a Nellie Bar!
If someone would have dared to steal something from a Trader Wagon, they would have been mobbed by the children! Needless to say, when a trader wagon appeared in a village, all work came to a halt!
TBC
The village of Haven will continue to grow. More new children will be born and the seeds of a new civilization are sprouting. Two peoples are becoming one, using the best of each as humankind survives and flourishes. Read as THE COMMUNITIES band together to form HAVEN COUNTY!