Chapter 9

At breakfast, I made up my mind about what to do today. “If I stay here, I’ll end up going over to look at the house, upsetting everyone working on it. I think I’ll take Missimo and scout the hills just south of the Zingha River,” I announced. I could see that Kazani and Saraki were torn, but they decided to stay home with the rest of the women since their brother was still here.

I packed a lunch, grabbed a skin of water and my weapons, and headed to the horse barn. I didn’t even have to call Missimo. Once he saw me head for the barn, he was there. I saddled a horse and at the very last moment, decided to take a pack mule, too. Since the caravan was leaving today, I said goodbye to Estebo who was also preparing to leave shortly.

I was at the bridge over the Zingha River before the workers at the other man’s sawmill even started working. I wondered how he could make any money with workers who were so lazy. Everyone working for us, clan, and slaves alike, was already working.

Once I crossed the bridge, I was in unfamiliar territory. The land south of the river all the way to port Zamfara used to belong to Bajasan and had been ceded to Morilia nearly twenty years ago after their attempted invasion was soundly defeated. Since then, aside from Anzikar’s chalk quarry, the land remained unsettled and, as far as I knew, unexplored. When I asked him the last time I was in town, Anzikar told me that he had noticed the chalk deposit during the war.

Like the hills east of our place, the first row of hills was short and covered in grasses and weeds, all of which I recognized. I continued riding up and down hills to the south and east, noting how similar these hills were to ours, which only made sense. My horse and the mule easily climbed to the well-rounded top of four hills before the hills began to get steeper and rockier. Missimo ran all over the place, seemingly to pee on every bush and rock that breached the surface.

I finally had to dismount and continue on foot to the top of the northernmost hill in the third row of hills, although it was far from being as tall as the mountain I had just explored. This hill was as tall as the one selected for growing poppies, about six hundred feet.

I noticed a nice rocky vantage point just below the peak and sat down to survey the hills south and east of me. I’d just stuffed a pretty green and red rock in my pouch when I saw movement in tall brush about a hundred feet away, nearly the only tall brush I could see. I watched carefully as I slowly strung my bow and nocked an arrow. It turned out to be some sort of huge deer-like animal with thick, broad antlers.

“Ah, yes, a moose,” I thought as I remembered Father’s description of them, although I’d never seen one. Father had said that they were rare this far west, but were more numerous deeper in the mountains.

I decided that the moose would make a good meal for many of the people in our clan and drew back on my bow, glad that the wind was blowing more to the northeast so my scent didn’t alert it. I was also glad that I’d practiced so much with a bow lately. Just as I released the arrow, another motion caught my attention. My arrow hit the moose in the neck, and he bellowed for a heartbeat or two before a large spotted animal similar to a large mountain lion pounced and ripped his throat out. The animal was tawny with black spots, and had a white belly with black spots.

While I’d never seen a live one, I’d seen the pelt of a jaguar before. In fact, I saw it on the wall just inside the front door of Zuela’s childhood home. Tlemcar must have killed it during the war. This jaguar was longer, taller, and much more heavily muscled than the mountain lions I’d seen, probably half again as big as each of the mountain lions I’d killed.

The big cat still hadn’t noticed me, which was good. However, I wasn’t about to sit here motionless while he ate his fill. Glad for the poison on my arrowheads, I slowly pulled another from my quiver and nocked it. My movement must have alerted the cat and he stared right at me as I released the arrow. I aimed for his body, but he crouched at the very last moment and the arrow penetrated his skull, dropping him immediately.

I watched for several heartbeats before deciding it was safe to collect my kills. Just as I stood, a second jaguar appeared. This one was about the same size as a mountain lion. Before it could spot me, another arrow was on the way, striking it in the side. It shrieked and turned to bite at the arrow, snapping the shaft with its powerful jaws. As the jaguar turned to look for its assailant, it stumbled, then stumbled again, and finally dropped, unmoving.

This time, I waited for a while before heading for my horse and mule. Neither animal was particularly happy when we got close enough to my kills that they caught the scent of the two cats. I finally tied them to a sturdy tree and walked over. All three animals were dead, but I still slit the throat of the smaller jaguar. I noted that it was a female and the larger one was a male. Missimo made sure to check out the three animals, growling a warning to each cat that it had better behave.

I was hot, tired, sweaty, and covered with blood and other messy things by the time I finished skinning all three animals. I made two large, sturdy travois and cut the moose carcass into four pieces.

When I first got to where the dead moose was, the branch of the poplar tree that I saw from my vantage was the same height as the withers of the moose and was a good foot taller than I was. I made sure to save the paws and skulls of the two cats, along with the pelts; more teeth and claws for necklaces.

By the time I finished with the moose, I was almost sorry that I shot it, and definitely wished that Kazani and Saraki had come with me. We could have had the moose field dressed and ready to transport much sooner and could have put a quarter of the moose on a travois behind each of three horses and the mule. As it was, I had to walk, or I’d need to leave behind one quarter of the moose--or the skull. No way was I leaving those monstrous antlers behind. I planned to mount the skull and antlers right above the doorway of our new home.

Almost every home in Mokoko has a pair of antlers mounted above the doorway to bring good luck to the household. Supposedly, the bigger the antlers are, the better the luck. The head of the household has to be the one to kill the buck, although a son who inherits his parents’ or grandparents’ home may leave what is already mounted. Father has a pair of antlers with fourteen points on them, the biggest that I knew of in Mokoko. Many homes have antlers with twelve points on them and the rest have between eight and ten points. The homes without antlers are households where the husband never hunts, usually because he’s a fisherman, craftsman, or shopkeeper.

Someone from our sawmill had just accompanied a load of cut sections of a tree to the other sawmill and saw me trudging across the bridge over the Zingha River. He quickly rode to our sawmills to get some men and a second wagon to help me. My horse and mule were both exhausted by the time the men rode up with the wagon. They knew immediately what the moose was because they had them in Nordland. They were impressed that I field dressed it and wrestled it onto the travois by myself. The skins of the two jaguars impressed them even more.

Exhausted, I quickly fell asleep in the back of the wagon. Excited shouts roused me some time later. I sat up and looked around to see that we were approaching the estate. Two of the military guards looked to see why the men were so excited. When the wagon stopped, I climbed out of it and took my horse and mule to the barn. I was so tired that I didn’t even argue when the men there took both animals from me.

“Give them both extra oats, they earned it today,” I instructed wearily. I’d just dropped into the cold water of my favorite watering trough when my family arrived. At first, they were worried about all the blood in the water.

“Not mine,” I managed to say wearily.

Just then, the men from the sawmill returned with the pelts, heads, and paws. “Harazar has been busy today,” they laughed as my family stared in shock.

“I’ve only seen one jaguar in my life. Tlemcar killed it just north of Port Zamfara,” Father said.

“These were just south of the river on the third hill. The big jaguar went after the moose I just hit. The female showed up shortly after I killed the male,” I explained.

“No wonder you’re so tired, doing so much woman’s work, skinning the animals, and cutting up the carcasses,” Mother Sofala teased me. “Although you did do a passable job,” she added, still grinning at me. She was never going to let me forget a comment I made when I was much younger about skinning and dressing animals being a woman’s job.

“I think Harazar has finally realized how hard women work,” Mother Nykeea interjected as she tried to keep from laughing. “After all, look how many women he’s collected to help with all the work necessary to maintain a household.”

Even I laughed. I finally headed for the house, dripping water all the way. I was ordered to strip just outside the door so I didn’t drip water through the house. While I stripped, Zuela brought me a towel to use for drying myself. My wives used a second towel to help dry me thoroughly before I entered the house.

I barely managed to stay awake through dinner and fell asleep even before the women could try to start anything afterwards.

“What’s that?” Zuela asked as I got dressed in the morning, pointing to the fist-sized bulge in my pouch caused by the green and red rock I picked up yesterday. It was big enough that it distended the pouch sufficiently to be noticeable. I was so tired yesterday that I’d forgotten about it.

“It’s a rock that I wanted someone to look at. The green reminds me of the way copper looks sometimes, and when I scraped the green with my knife, it looked like copper in the rock,” I replied.

“It does look like little chunks of copper,” Zuela agreed, as did the other women after they looked at the rock.

“Look what Harazar found yesterday. He thinks it may be copper,” Zuela announced proudly at the table, showing everyone the rock.

“Sure looks like it,” Father agreed, passing the rock around the table. “We should let the miners look at it,” he suggested.

“Did you find this in the same spot as your other three trophies?” he asked.

“Close, I’d just put the rock in my pouch when I spotted the moose,” I replied.

“If that’s copper, you really did have a productive day yesterday,” Father commented. Our planned early-morning departure was delayed long enough to find the men who were miners.

“Definitely copper,” commented Berndt, the man the other miners deferred to. Squinting closely, he said, “And I think that might be silver,” as he scraped at a tiny, whitish spot with his knife.

Plans were swiftly changed, and we decided to leave tomorrow, instead. I quickly found myself leading ten miners, Father, my wives, and my two concubines in a procession. A wagon followed us and would follow our tracks once it crossed the bridge. Ten men with bows accompanied us since I found two jaguars in the area yesterday. I told the driver of the wagon to head for the gap between the first two hills and go east to the third hill. We’d be near the top of and on the south side of that hill.

Most of our group were still trudging up the hill when Berndt finished using his hammer and rock chisel on the outcropping and stood back up, agreeing that it was copper. Picks and shovels quickly appeared, and archers took up guard positions on the hill at the four points of the compass. Fortunately, most of the hill was devoid of tall brush or trees except for the tall grass. Only the tall brush and two lone trees near where the moose had been stood higher than the occasional outcrop of rock and the thigh high grass covering the hillside.

Once the wagon arrived, more men joined us. Berndt directed them as they searched the hillside. They formed a single line extending from the top to near the bottom of the hill. A loose formation of archers moved with the line. Some archers were in front of the formation and others followed behind it. The four archers near the top of the hill stayed where they were.

The men found six more places where the copper-bearing rock was visible above the ground. The two outcroppings nearest the bottom of the hill had a bit more silver than the ones higher up the hill. Looking at the rocks around yesterday’s vantage point, we were able to see the angle of the rock layers, much like the rock layers where I found the mica. It was also pretty obvious that the locations where we found copper were in the same layer, and that layer went clear through the hillside.

“I hope you’ve got a use for lots of rock and dirt,” Berndt told Father. “It looks like we’ll have to dig away half of the hill to get all the ore out.

A shrill whistle caught our attention. Several miners were at the foot of the hill just south of us, waving to get our attention, and motioning us over. “Considering that they are standing in line with the rock layer containing the copper and silver, I’m guessing that they’ve found more,” Berndt chuckled.

Sure enough, the vein of copper and silver continued through two more hills. “I wonder if it continues on the other side of the river,” I commented.

Berndt and his miners were quickly mounted and headed back across the river. Unlike the south side, our side of the river had trees, which seemed strange. They finally found the correct hill, the second hill east of where our rock and mortar flumes diverted water for the sawmills from the river. After a short search, Berndt gave us a thumbs-up. By the time we got there, they felt that the vein played out after the second hill north of the river. Either that or it went deeper. Fortunately, it was still far enough away from the area we used for the mills that mining it wouldn’t interfere with their operations.

“I suggest that we start by purchasing nine hills north of the river,” Father said to me. “We purchase the two hills we know have ore, a hill to either side to be a buffer, and another row of three to the north in case the deposit extends that far. I have no idea what is required to acquire land south of the Zingha River. We’ll ask Anzikar how he did it.

“For now, have men start first thing in the morning and build some sort of shack on the three hills south of the river with the vein running through them, as well as one more hill to the south in case the vein continues that far. Then do the same to one hill to the east and west of those four,” Father instructed the men.

“Once that’s done, start mining. I’ll leave it to you to direct that,” he told Berndt. “Make sure we have guard towers around the mine to watch for predators, both two legged and four legged. Let the sawmill know how much and what sizes of lumber you need for mine supports, shacks, and guard towers.”

Motioning for me to join him, Father and I rode home, grabbed some gold, and headed for town. Before talking to the Magistrate, we found Anzikar and asked how he bought the hill where he originally mined chalk. “The Magistrate told me just to claim the hill by building something on it,” he replied.

We were quickly at the Magistrate’s office where Father bought the nine hills north of the river. After looking at the crudely drawn representation of the area, we agreed and bought the eleven remaining unclaimed hills. Beyond those hills were the mountains. I couldn’t believe that we now owned all the hills except two that someone else had purchased previously.

“We’re leaving tomorrow for Harazar’s mountain valley, but our men will come here in a day or two to claim several hills south of the river once they build structures on them. I’ll have them make a diagram of the area like you have for our area,” Father told the Magistrate.

The miners were just returning and talking excitedly amongst themselves when we got back to the house. Father told them to let the Magistrate know once they had a structure like a guard tower on each of the hills south of the river. They might even be able to use some of the guard towers we set up along the Tattatoo River to watch for crocodiles. He also told them to go back to my vantage point and draw a rough map of the hills and the entire area between the ocean and the first range of mountains. That would give the Magistrate a point of reference for our claim and any future claims in the area.

Everyone was excited when we got inside the house. My wives and concubines had told everyone what we found.

“Is it unusual to find copper and silver together?” Mother Nykeea asked.

I had no idea and looked to Father. “Berndt says that copper and silver are frequently found together. Sometimes they find lead or gold, too. All we saw was copper and silver, although the outcroppings nearer the bottom of the first hill seemed to have a little more silver than the ones closer to the top of the hills,” he explained.

“Now we’ll have even more copper to sell to the caravans,” Kazani said excitedly.

“We should find out if anyone here knows how to work with copper,” I suggested. “They could make copper kettles and all sorts of useful things. We’ll still have plenty of copper to sell but might not have as much coal to sell.”

We went to find Bjorgen and Tjorius after dinner. “We have to have the ten-foot wall we’re building around the one hill finished in three months. Other than that, anything Berndt needs built, made, or purchased is now a priority.

“We’re leaving for Harazar’s valley tomorrow morning. Most of us should be back in three or four days,” Father told them.

The girls were still excited when we got home and kept me excited until they couldn’t get me back up again.

After an early breakfast, we went out to find our horses ready for us, as well as a string of pack mules. Thanking the men who had prepared everything for us, we headed east. I groaned when we reached the spot where the road to the bridge over the Zingha River diverged from the road to our new valley. Someone had made a sign pointing towards the valley with the words “Harazar’s Road.”

“Great,” I grumbled while everyone else laughed.

We passed Mirikar and Torkelar and their now seven loaded wagons, as well as a string of mules loaded with chalk. “With as much flint as he’s getting, Mazrobar is teaching his two youngest sons to knap flint. They’re the ones who made the new spearheads for your wives and concubines,” Father said. I had noticed as we saddled up this morning that each of my wives and concubines now carried an eight-foot spear with a foot-long, wicked-looking flint spearhead.

“I’ll have to thank them. Those look far better than the ones I struggled to make,” I laughed.

Father laughed, too, but then commented, “The ones that you made were quite good. Mazrobar even commented on the quality, especially since nobody taught you. They definitely did the job when you needed them to,” he said.

We reached the valley well before midmorning. Missimo bounded ahead of us, probably hoping the two bitches would let him near them. We stopped by the main cave and greeted everyone before heading to the east valley. The road crew was working on the path when we reached the land bridge between the two valleys. We stopped so Father could tell them to start work building a new road south of the bridge over the Zingha River.

“Check with Berndt to see where he wants the new road,” Father advised them.

We stopped by the east valley cave and got our tents and other supplies. Watching Mother Sofala, Mother Nykeea, Father’s three concubines, my four wives, my two concubines, and Pia all picking poppy seedpods was amazing. They walked along the rows snapping off seedpods and dropping them into gathering bags while their conversation never waned.

Father and I set up the rest of the cording marking each row. We brought a lot more cording with us this time. I had to cut a few more long sticks to tie the cording to while Father stood guard, along with a contingent of wolf pups. Once I had the stakes in place, we ran the cord along each row and tied it off at each end. The women each had two rows done before we finished laying out the rest of the rows.

Confident that the wolf pups would warn us of any danger, Father and I followed the women, cutting down each plant at ground level with a scythe. We stopped briefly to eat lunch, and Father’s concubines stopped early enough to fix our supper. After supper, Father and I were both surprised when Mother Sofala and Mother Nykeea led a smiling Pia into Father’s tent.

“See you in the morning, if you survive,” I told Father, laughing.

Father grinned at me in the morning, having obviously survived the night. After a quick breakfast, everyone set right to work. By lunch, it was obvious we’d be done today so Kazani, Saraki, Mereesia, and Senna joined Father and me in cutting down the plants.

By evening, we were done. The seedpods were harvested, and all the plants had been cut down. Mother Nykeea said that the goats would eat the plants, even if they were dry.

In the morning, Kazani, Saraki, Mereesia, and Senna would join Mother Sofala, Mother Nykeea, and Pia as we began harvesting seeds and plants for dye from the mountain. Once again, Pia joined the rest of the women in Father’s tent for the night.

Half of our number returned home with Father this morning, taking the seedpods with them. The rest of them grabbed shovels, long knives, and gathering bags and followed me. I led them to the first patch of blue diffle, certain that the seeds were ready or had already dispersed. We managed to collect most of the seeds, filling two of Mother Sofala’s small gathering bags. Next, we collected the plants, cutting each one off even with the ground. We finished all three patches and still had plenty of time before supper.