“It is good that you help, Kildar,” the man said, nodding formally. “It shows that you care for the land, as a Kildar should. But you have other duties to attend to.”
“I’ll stay for lunch,” Mike said as the women began unloading from the cart. “Then I’ll head back.”
The women of the Keldara were, as always, beautiful. But never so beautiful as when they were bringing beer. Most of them had buckets in their hands with beer packed in snow and Mike was as eager as anyone for some.
As he stepped forward, though, he saw Katrina swinging a bucket in front of her, a pout on her face. He realized that there was a protocol to who got beer from whom, and for some reason Katrina was being, effectively, shunned.
“So what did you do now, Katrina?” Mike asked, walking over to her and plucking one of the bottles from the bucket.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Katrina said. “It was Vasya’s!”
“And who is Vasya?” Mike said, struggling to get the bottle open. They were old glass bottles sealed with wax and a cork and after trying to pull the cork out, he cut the wax with a folding knife then pulled the cork out with his teeth.
“He’s my cousin,” Katrina said, shrugging. “I didn’t start the fire!”
“Not in the house, I hope,” Mike said, sternly.
“No, in the paddock,” Katrina said. “He wanted to see if horse manure would burn…”
“Was it dry?” Mike asked, wincing.
“Yes,” Katrina said with a sigh. “And it turns out it burns very well. We should use it for fuel!”
“And your part in this was… ?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I knew where there were some matches,” Katrina said, her head bowed and face working to try to pout. “But I didn’t light them!”
“Hmmm,” Mike mused, taking a sip of beer. “Let me ask one last question: How old is Vasya?”
“Five,” Katrina said in a very small voice.
“And were you supposed to be watching him and keeping him out of trouble?” Mike asked.
“But…”
“But, but, but,” Mike said, shaking his head. “But you bring me Mother Lenka’s beer, and I don’t believe anyone was harmed, so you are forgiven by the Kildar.”
“Thank you, Kildar!” Katrina said, her head coming up and her face shining.
“Your mother and father on the other hand,” Mike said, shaking his head. “They have to make their own decisions.”
“Oh,” Katrina said, frowning prettily. “You’re teasing me.”
“A bit,” Mike said. “But since I’m talking to you nicely, everyone will know that you’re forgiven by the Kildar and that will make them less likely to punish you. More. But you have to start to think.”
“I do,” Katrina said. “All the time. Most of the time very fast and very well. But sometimes I get… strange.”
“Thoughts feel like they won’t connect?” Mike asked, cautiously.
“Yes, like they are running around like horses in spring,” Katrina said. “Very many of them, but none make sense. I feel crazy at times like that. And sometimes I get very sad. Usually there’s a reason, but sometimes there isn’t any. I just don’t want to do anything but sleep and mother gets very angry with me. They all call me lazy, then. I’m afraid I’m going to become like Aunt Anjelike. I don’t think you’ve met her. She was very fun for a long time, my favorite aunt. Now she is… not right in the head.”
“Sounds like you need your meds adjusted,” Mike said, smiling. “Have a beer.”
“They say I’m a witch,” Katrina said, quietly, but smiling. “That I can be one, at least.”
“I’ve got a few friends that are witches,” Mike said. “Back in the States. Most of them, admittedly, are nuts. But that’s what medication is for. And they have access to psychiatrists.”
“I see things,” she said, looking around. “In my dreams. I told my mother just before you came that I had a dream of ice and a beautiful man who would be a great leader for us. She told me I was crazy, but here you are.”
“Well, there was snow,” Mike said, smiling. “I suppose that counts for ice. But you screwed up on the beautiful part.”
“You are very beautiful, Kildar,” the girl said, then ducked her head. “I am sorry I said that.”
“It… wasn’t a good thing to say,” Mike admitted. “You have your life and I have mine. I might be able to change yours, a bit, with everyone else’s. But you need to be careful or you’ll be in the position of being sent to town. I’ll prevent that, but if you make enough trouble, your life will be hell. You know that.”
“Yes,” Katrina said, quietly.
“Go spread your beer around,” Mike said. “I’m going to go put my empty in the cart and head back before I get you in trouble.”
“I will not get in trouble for talking to the Kildar,” Katrina said, smiling at him shyly. “Not out here in public, anyway.”
“You just wait,” Mike said, shaking his head.
Chapter Thirteen
Mike pulled the Expedition to a stop as he heard the sound of a chainsaw going full blast.
The spring thaw had passed and planting was well underway, with all seven tractors out on the fields breaking ground. The heavy tractor was drawing a single system that plowed, harrowed and planted while the other tractors were simply plowing. After plowing they would change to harrowing and planting devices.
Normally there would have been at least ten plows going at this time with more teams harrowing and planting behind them. The tractors had freed up a good bit of manpower but so had other devices. As Mike made his way through the woods to the sound of the chainsaw, which was in an area he thought they weren’t clearing, he saw one.
The chainsaw turned out to be attached to a wooden device the Keldara had knocked together under the direction of Prael, the “other” engineer. They had the chainsaw attached vertically to a solid platform and were using it as a band saw to slice raw timber into planks. Most Keldara construction that used wood had been heavy timbers made by splitting and adzing logs. Using the field-expedient sawmill they could get dozens of planks where they had only gotten one thick timber before. And making that heavy timber would have taken a Keldara most of the day. As he watched, two of them used a swinging crane to lift a massive log into the sawmill and started cutting it up. In a few minutes’, admittedly hard, work they had a thick timber member and a litter of planks. They stopped at that point, setting the thick member on a pile of similar ones, about eight by eights, and getting another large section of oak log.
“Going good, huh?” Prael asked.
Mike had heard him sneaking up even over the sound of the chainsaw and shrugged.
“What, exactly, do we need all this lumber for?” Mike replied.
“Every time we take a look around there’s another project,” Prael said, pouting slightly at not having surprised the Kildar. The word had apparently gotten around that he was a sneak specialist and the various trainers had been trying to surprise him on a daily basis. It never worked, but they kept trying. “The planks are mostly for forms for the dam, but I’m also going to use them to build a couple of wooden bridges over the Keldara River so they don’t have to keep using the fords. Then there’s repairs to the buildings, forms for bunkers, all sorts of things. The only thing we need more than lumber is concrete.”
“How’s that coming along?” Mike asked, walking back through the woods to his Expedition.
“We’ve got material coming out of our ears,” Prael said. “The gravel pit is working well. We’ve been using the horses for sand mining on the river so we’ve got plenty of that. And there was a big delivery the other day of cement. The big bottleneck is mixing; we’ve got two small gas-powered mixers and after that we’re down to doing it by hand. But we’re not going to be really slowed by it for another week; that’s when Meller thinks he’ll be done working out the foundations of the dam.”