“Victor,” Galmine said. “I am happy to gather ferns, and I do enjoy being outside, but--”
“That’s too dangerous,” I interrupted her, “you need to go back inside the fort. Sheela, get the ferns that Kacerie has gathered so far and take Galmine back so she can work on cooking, pots, and cordage. Bring back all of our baskets when you return, and then you, Trel, and Kacerie can devise a process for gathering a bunch of ferns.”
“Yes, Victor,” Sheela replied, and I ordered Hope to move closer to the two women so that they could mount.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of activity. The parasaur digging team and I got a bit better at figuring out how to dig out the roots and topple the trees easier, but there was a bit of a downtime when the group walked the distance between a toppled tree and the next target. I didn’t want to push them too hard, so I gave them breaks when I saw their chests heaving with the work. The process was still a million times easier than Sheela and I chopping through everything, and after a few hours, I was actually able to gather ferns with the three women while the parasaurs happily pushed over the next five trees.
When I guessed dusk was about an hour away, I stopped the team and did a quick count of the logs. They had downed thirty-four in the time it would have taken Sheela and me to cut down three with sharp axes. This was a massive improvement in our process, and I guessed that we would be done with all the trees we needed the day after tomorrow.
Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie gathered ferns as quickly as they could. Each of them carried a basket, and Sheela would jump on Hope to shuttle the full ones back and forth between our fort. I lost track of how many trips she made, but I guessed that it had to be over forty.
When the last tree of the day was down, Trel went along each trunk and eyeballed where we needed to start chopping indents for the fire. Sheela and I went to work as soon as Trel laid out a branch to mark each bottom and top spot while Kacerie came behind us and laid out clay dams on each side of the cuts. The clay would keep the fire from burning the wrong way on the logs in addition to reducing some of the light from the flames.
By the time Sheela and I made it halfway through the logs, Trel had finished marking all of them and returned to the first one we chopped indents into. Galmine, Sheela, Trel, and I were pros at starting fires with just a simple wood drill and some tinder, and she quickly got small fires going inside of the clay dams.
By the time Sheela and I finished cutting the notches in the last log, Trel was halfway done with setting the fires, so we swung back and helped her while Kacerie continued with the clay placement. We didn’t quite have enough clay for all of the logs, but it would be easy enough to get more tomorrow.
To say I was excited with our progress would have been an understatement. My mind was reeling with the possibilities of what the future would bring us. We still needed to cut off all the branches, and we would probably need at least three more baskets of clay tomorrow, but what if I tamed four more parasaurs? We might be able to have all the logs felled in two days. Then I’d probably need eight baskets of clay total, but we’d need way more cordage to tie up all the posts. The cordage was definitely the bottleneck now, but it was going to take a lot of time to gather the ferns or dry out the sinew.
“Should we just let it burn all night?” I asked Trel as we set the fire in the last log. “I’m worried the grass could catch on fire. Then we would have a huge problem.”
“It will work just like the smaller logs,” she said with a shrug. “There is a chance that it could spread, but the clay keeps it in place, and it should burn straight down. We didn’t have to pay much attention to it when we did it a few days ago.”
“Yeah,” I said as I recalled how Trel had first shown us how to do this.
“But let’s make a trip out before we go to bed and in the middle of the night,” she said. “We can bring water just in case it looks like something is getting out of control. This stuff is pretty green, so I don’t believe the fire will spread.”
“Ahh, that reminds me. I need to get more water. Sheela, you up for a trip to the stream?”
“Yes, Victor,” she said. “The new jugs should be cooked by now, so we can take those.”
“Great,” I commanded Bob to crouch down so that Trel and I could mount him, and Sheela jumped on Hope with Kacerie. A few moments later we were back at the edge of our camp wall, and Trel was helping me tie the new clay jugs to the saddle. Six of them fit just fine, and I gestured for Sheela to get on Hope while I rode on Bob.
“I’m going to check on Galmine’s cordage progress,” Trel said. “Don’t forget about my--”
“I know,” I interrupted her. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Trel gave me a wide smile that showed off her fangs, and then she ducked under the door.
“I can ride behind you on Bob if you wish,” Sheela said. She hadn’t jumped on Hope yet, so she had to crank her head back to stare up at me. “We do not need to bring her since she has no jugs on her saddle.”
“Do we have more?” I asked. “I thought that we had two more for water and then Galmine was cooking another six.”
“I can get them,” she said as she took a step away from me.
“Sheela, wait,” I said, and she stopped in mid-stride. “I’m going to take all the parasaurs to the stream either way so they can all have a nice long drink. So the question is: do you want to ride on Bob with me?”
“Certainly,” she said quickly. “He is higher up, and his stride is gentler.”
“Ahh, okay,” I said as I gestured for her to climb up behind me. Her arms found their usual spot around my stomach, and her long blonde hair fell across my shoulders when she pressed her breasts against my back.
We had not talked this morning about our relationship, but I could feel the tension starting to grow between us, and I knew I was eventually going to have to tell her how I felt about her. I guessed she might have an attraction toward me, but I also knew that Sheela took her loveless marriage seriously.
She was an honorable woman, and I was just a guy who she happened to have gotten stuck with.
I tapped Bob’s flanks and instructed Hope, Sonny, and Cher to follow us. Sheela squeezed my stomach more when we started moving, and I wondered if I was looking too hard at our relationship. I felt as if she had an attraction to me, but did she really? We hung out all the time together, but the long looks Sheela gave me were probably just caused by a friendly comradery. She had admitted she didn’t really like riding on these dinos, so Sheela probably preferred to ride behind me so that she wouldn’t have to deal with steering Hope.
The more I thought about it, the more I started to think she didn’t really feel anything for me. This belief began to erode my resolve to talk with her, and I felt my heart hammer in my chest. I was going to tell her that I was attracted to her, and then she’d shoot me down. Did I really even need to bother? I loved Trel and Galmine. I loved Sheela as well, but if I told her I felt that way, and she didn’t feel the same emotions, it would really mess up our working relationship. There were no sexual harassment lawsuits out in Dinosaurland, but the last thing I wanted was to creep out my best friend.
We made it to the ancient fallen tree while I pondered my options, and a brief moment later we were at the side of the small river. From our perch on Bob’s back, it was easy enough to see the terrain and scout for hostile dinos. Sheela and I both glanced around for half a minute, but neither one of us saw anything, and the parasaurs didn’t seem nervous.
“Alright, let’s do this,” I said as I instructed Bob and the gang to go into the water and drink.
Sheela and I each grabbed a newly minted water jug and climbed down from Bob. Neither of us spoke while we filled them, but after we had each taken long drinks we both looked at each other. I opened my mouth to start the conversation, but she spoke first.