Boys Become Men: Book Four ~ Backwoods Survival

By daylight, the young Indian Warrior was nearly recovered, it was not until Sue Singing Bird Yellow Feather walked by, her body swelling with new life, that Bear rose from his funk and shouted, "I am Bear, I shall lead my people and all those within my hearing into a time of safety and prosperity. I start now, come my people of the Piute, it is time to join our White Brothers in the labors of returning our land and its people to its former glory. Come my people of the Piute, it is time that we take our place beside our White Brothers that Mother Earth may be healed. Come my people of the Piute, it is time that we join our White Brothers, our Brown Brothers and our Yellow Brothers and make us a Band of Brothers none shall dare harm!"

The village of Susanville grew rapidly as people began arriving from the ruined areas of California. The first group to arrive had fled the trouble of the Great Central Valley and included a Chinese family and the last remnant of a second Chinese family, who had survived a raid by the marauders. The people of Susanville and their Indian allies knew of oriental people, but had never seen or conversed with any Chinese people. After the first curiosity had calmed, everyone forgot about their yellow-brown skin and appreciated their hard work and skills.

Mr. Wai, who had led his family from Fresno, was a skilled metal worker and had brought his forge on a cart that he and his two sons had pulled, all the way from Fresno! They had no horse or mule and the two boys and their father had pulled the wagon the entire distance using only their strong backs.

Danny Wai's two boys, Carl and Peter were twins, the only other child in their family was the daughter of Danny Wai's brother. The Wai Family had rescued the child from raiders who had descended upon Eric Wai's home in Fresno. Samantha, whom everyone called Sammy, was six years old and already knew how to wrap her foster brothers around her little finger!

Carl and Peter were twins and had just turned seventeen years old when their Mother had been murdered by the same raiders who had destroyed their little cousin's family. The brothers had been apprenticed to their father for the last three years and were near journeyman quality blacksmiths themselves.

They set up their smithy even before they had built a house and the villagers were awakened one morning by the clanging of shaping mauls upon the steel being shaped on a huge anvil that had taken Danny Wai and his two sons together to remove from their wagon.

All three men were rather short, but they each had the strength of full-grown bulls! Danny stood over his boys as Peter started to form a new horseshoe and Carl was working the bellows.

The noise brought a crowd of onlookers as they stared at the horseshoe taking shape. Danny was proud of his two boys and told the crowd, "Bring your broken parts, your damaged plows, your harrows that have lost their tines and your iron stovetops that have burned through. We can repair these or make you new ones, fix your old tools or design you a new tool to do your work!"

He turned to the young Indian Warriors and said, "We can make for you fine steel arrow heads that will not break, hardened steel knives that do not need frequent sharpening and hatchets that will last you a lifetime."

Within a few minutes, local farmers were bringing their broken tools and farm implements to Danny Wai. Housewives were bringing their pots that had holes in them and cooking plates that needed repair.

Militia Troopers were asking if they could repair trigger guards and broken sights on their rifles. One farmer brought a plow that had its tip broken off by a buried stone in the field. Indian Warriors brought the arrow shafts that needed new heads and bargained for knives of steel. They brought their ponies to be shod and traded precious turquoise for these things.

The Wai boys began immediately, to repair the items brought to them. They didn't care about getting paid, they were in a community that welcomed them, other communities had turned them away because of the color of their skin or the fact the Peter and Carl Wai loved each other and slept their nights hugging each other in the same bed!

The two brothers were devoted to each other and they would live out their lives as a couple. It had bothered their father at first, but as he saw the love the two young blacksmiths had for each other, he understood and supported them both. The two young men would raise sons of their own, who would also be workers of iron and steel.

Bear and Jeston brought their Warriors and began building a house for the Wai Family. Danny was amazed and he could not contain his tears, he sat in the dirt crying until Jeston came to him and asked, "Sir, why are you crying?"

Danny looked at him and replied, "Uuu ahhh you build us house, other peoples send us away because we not white people." Bear knelt down on the other side of the distraught man and said, "Me not white either, but this man and all his brothers are brothers to me and my people, Us welcome yous and want yous among us, already yous good peoples, yous skill peoples and us wants yous to stay here with usins."

He then looked slyly at Mr. Wai and asked, "Yous fix me knife, maybe?" Danny Wai laughed through his tears, he realized the Indian man was making a joke. He said, "Yes, we fix knife for you!"

So it was that a whole family of blacksmiths became residents of Susanville and no one even remembered that they were not white, any more than they remembered their Indian friends were not white, it just was no more important than Carl's and Peter's love for one another!

No one even remembered a time when they had worried about having Indian in their town, nor could they be concerned about a Chinese Family, they are all in Susanville for but one thing, to make a new life for themselves and their families.

Nothing else mattered, if one of them was attacked, so also were ALL of them attacked! They did not know that, already, there were those who would attack them shortly, but they would be ready for them when they arrived.

The Wai's were busy all summer, maintaining the farm equipment that guaranteed they all would have something to eat during the winter. When Danny saw the hand cranked grist mill, he muttered, "This not good, us make better" and he got his two sons to haul the grist mill over to the new forge building that had been constructed.

Smoke began to pour out the chimney of the forge and they could hear hammers banging and hot sparks were seen flying from the anvils of the two young blacksmiths cursing in Chinese over burned fingers and skinned knuckles as they followed their Papa's instructions.

The women were getting worried, they had flour only for a couple of days, as they stored their grain as whole berries. Two days later, Carl and Peter Wai were dragging a completely rebuilt grist mill back to the grain storage house. It had a new flywheel and drive gear on it, as well as an enclosed flour chute and a stone rejecter chute that sorted out any stones that came along with the grains of wheat. There would be no more gritty bread! They had also sharpened the sorter ridges on the mill and the flour came out powder fine, making their bread and biscuits softer and more tasty and lighter than ever before!

The Wai's fame spread and wagons with damaged machinery began showing up from Meadow Valley and the towns beyond there. The Wai's were suddenly overloaded with work and they were, all three of them, working every day from first light until darkfall. Danny asked around for another apprentice and, the next morning, Joseph Gordon knocked on his door. Joseph and his Father, Lyle Gordon, were the only two black people in Susanville.

They had escaped terrible discrimination and actual slavery down in the Great Central Valley and little Joe was frightened of almost everyone. The only child he dared even speak to was Bear's young brother, Jumping Bush. Jump was standing right behind his friend to prevent him from running away and, when Danny opened the door to their cabin, Jump pushed his friend inside and said, "Sir, Joey here wants to be a blacksmith, sir."

Danny was not much taller than Joey, but he drew the child into the kitchen, where his niece, Sammy, brought the boy a fried crisp and some tea. Danny calmed the boy and talked to him about the job and saw no good reason not to hire him, so he did so on the spot and, after Joey had finished his crisp and tea, Danny took the boy out to the workshop and told his sons to help their new apprentice.

He had earlier told the two brothers that they were qualified Journeymen Blacksmiths and would be working without supervision. Joey was a willing worker, a little frightened because of his experiences, but he soon lost that as the two brothers helped him and showed him what they expected him to do. As the brothers carefully showed him what they wanted him to do, he forgot his fear, remembering only what the two humungous brothers wanted him to do. To him, they looked like the Gods his Grandfather had spoken about before he was murdered by the bandits in their old home.

The two young men treated the young boy with respect and were very patient with him as they instructed him in his duties. His confidence grew every day and it was not very long that the frightened little boy no longer existed. He was soon handling red hot metal and holding it with tongs as the two brothers hammered and pounded it to the shape they needed.

Before long, Joey was working on his own projects, under the brothers' supervision, making small items like screws and keepers to be installed on the larger machinery they were producing.

The brothers praised Joey and his self confidence rose even further! Joey's father, Lyle was delighted that someone would hire his son and train him in a trade. He was only a laborer, although he had been a school teacher before the collapse.

He did not think anyone would allow a black man to teach their children, so he never told anyone that he was a qualified school teacher. When Danny Wai discovered the man was a school teacher, he asked Lyle to teach his niece to read and write and do numbers. Lyle's students gradually increased and, when school restarted after the summer, Lyle Gordon was teaching beginning students in the little three room village school! His head was still swimming at his sudden turn in fortune and little Samantha Wai was his star student!

Susanville was growing up, it had a school, a blacksmith shop, and a town sheriff. Bear Walking Tall had volunteered to be Town Sheriff! At nearly seven feet tall, few would argue and nobody wanted to attract his attention by breaking the few laws the small town had! They had no problems with alcohol, there was little to be had and that was mostly the heavy, blackberry wine the mothers made each summer to flavor their cookies and puddings. Each Christmas, they would make cheeses and yogurt flavored with a splash of their blackberry wine.

Bear's usual method of breaking up the few fights they had, was knocking the combatants' heads together and then letting them cool off in the single cell the blacksmiths had built for him. With Bear's wife cooking for those sitting in jail, it was not uncommon for prisoners to refuse release and Sheriff Bear Walking Tall would have to throw them out!

Winter arrived in an icy blast, the first snowfall was as deep at the tops of the doors of their houses and ice had to chipped from the well, before the pump would draw. The snow came in blinding flurries and the villagers had to put ropes between the houses so no one could lose their way. Christmas came and went, with no letup in the terrible cold and the ever deepening harsh snow.

By March, they were becoming worried, there was no sign of spring and several homes had their roofs caved in from the weight of the snow that had accumulated on them. The snow did not begin to melt until after the first of May and the first plow could not be drawn through the soil until mid-June!

With that much snow, all the streams were running high and the soil moisture was perfect for the grain to germinate, if only there would be sufficient time for it to ripen. Families had started their vegetables in pots, pans or even boxes inside their homes, hoping they could transplant them when spring finally arrived.

Mr. Gordon let the school children out of classes early each day so they could help their parents' plant and tend food crops. It was going to be close, they all prayed they would survive the next winter with sufficient food.

When summer finally did arrive, it came in suddenly and hot, one could almost see the steam rising from the damp soil. It took everyone in the village to tend the crops. Even small children carried buckets of water to keep the vegetables from wilting. They were spending hours picking bugs off the young vegetables and fruits to prevent them from laying their eggs and ruining the crop.

Danny Wai built a metal drying oven that vegetables and fruits could be dried, thus preserving them for winter, he set it up in the village square, where anyone could use it. Small boys kept the fire going under it, making the drying process go faster.

It was Joey Gordon's turn to stoke the fire when he spotted strange people poking their heads up over the top of the stockade. He screamed the alarm and Bear led his troopers to investigate.

By the time they got there, the men were gone, but they had left their footprints and Bear could tell that several of their horses were missing shoes. They trailed them down the hill, until they lost the trail on a hard outcropping of sheet stone. The trail seemed to go off in the direction of the old village of Doyle, once a rail stop in the early days of railroading.

Fearing the men were raiders or worse, slavers, Bear got a posse together and they headed off for Doyle, about twenty miles cross country from Susanville. The country was grasslands with few trees, so tracking the people was easy for the Indian Scouts.

They stopped short of the ruins of the small village and peeked over the rise of the hill to observe. What they saw, horrified them! There were families with small children, babies in arms and young adults. The children were not running around like children usually do and they saw only a few horses. There were few cooking fires and those that they saw, had little food being cooked.

Bear knew, in his heart, what the situation was, even though he had not seen it before. He turned to his troopers and said, "Go get food, NOW, these people are starving, they have even eaten their horses to stay alive!" He detailed four fast riders to return to Susanville and bring food back as fast as they could ride!

He pulled a white cloth from his saddlebag and tied it to a broken tree branch as he walked slowly towards the people, holding out his empty hand to show them that he meant them no harm. He called out, "I am Bear, Town Sheriff of Susanville. I have sent my men back to our village for food to feed you and your children. We will not hurt you and you are welcome among us." He had pulled what small amount of food he had in his saddlebag and held it out in his hands, offering it to the strangers.

The children were listless and had little interest in Bear's food. A man staggered towards him, dragging his rifle and nearly stumbled. He asked, "What will your food cost us, our freedom? Do you offer us slavery for food?"

Bear was appalled, he replied, "NEVER would we enslave you or your children, we are simple farmers who came up here from Meadow Valley and the Piute Villages to farm."

About that time, two wagons came over the hill, being driven "Hell Bent for Election" by Carl and Peter Wai. The wagons were filled with the village women holding huge baskets tightly in their hands. There were several large crocks tied securely in the wagon beds and Bear could see milk being sloshed out their tops. The women set the foods out on the wagon beds and started making ham sandwiches for the children and handing a large cup of ice cold fresh milk to go with the sandwich.

When the children had been served, the women called for the adults to come and eat also. Bear urged the strangers forward, the strangers were fearful they would be charged a price they could not bear, Cora Murphy looked at the men and shouted, "Git yerselfs over heres, there be plenty food, an' wes brung it fer yous. We have plenty un we not worry about sharin'!"

Slowly, the frightened people came close to see what was being served them. They expected only scraps and bones to be on the platters. Instead, they saw whole hams, cold beef roasts, tubs of fresh cooked vegetables and jars of fresh, bright yellow butter. They saw rounds of cheese that had been sent up from Meadow Valley and jars of jams sitting on the floor of the wagon.

The new adults could not believe their eyes when this food was handed to them without a demand for payment! The families had escaped a slave farm down in the Great Central Valley and were at the end of their endurance.

There were two black families among them and a Chinese family. They stayed hidden in their wagon, but Bear spotted them and went to bring them out so they could eat.

He motioned for Joey Gordon to come stand beside him as he said, "We don't care if you are not white, look you, I am Piute Indian and this child, the son of one of our school teachers is black like his Daddy. Our village Blacksmith and his two sons are Chinese and so is their little cousin. You are welcome among us, come and share our food."

He held some ham sandwiches out towards the children peeking out from under a blanket in the wagon bed and nearly lost his fingers! The cups of milk disappeared in single gulps and he laughed and held out his arms to hug the three little black boys who were peeking from under the blanket.

He held all three boys in his enormous arms, hugging them tightly as he carried them over to the food wagon for another sandwich. His great height made him a fearful sight, but his hug was gentle and the three boys snuggled down in the comfort of his embrace as they saw the piles of food waiting for them in the wagon.

Their parents came out also and shyly followed them. Bear stopped the father and said, "You are welcome here, we have places for ALL of you in our village, please come with us and live in the safety of our village, Susanville."

They brought the frightened travelers to Susanville and entered the stockade, where all of the village folk were out to greet them and make them welcome. It was the children who "broke the ice", it was not long before the boys had a ball game going and Joey dragged the two black boys over to meet his friends and, soon, they were all engaged in a furious baseball game, shouting and encouraging their teammates to run faster!

By nightfall, all of the new people had decided to make Susanville their new home. Some brought skills that were needed in the village, two of the men were mechanics, another was a carpenter and yet another had been a plumber.

By the end of summer, every home had cold running water! And Dell Evans, who was also black and a plumber, had sketched out a hot water heater for Carl and Peter to construct for each home. It would attach to the back of the woodstove and would circulate through a storage tank to provide running hot water.

The water heaters were difficult to construct, but after two winters, every home in the village had a hot water heater for showers, baths and the kitchen. He even devised a flushing toilet that became very popular, especially among the women.

The brief summer went by quickly and it was harvest time again. Danny Wai had cobbled together a mechanical thresher to separate the wheat berries from the chaff. Always before, they had sent the wheat down to Meadow Valley to be threshed, now they could do it themselves right there in their own village and grind their own flour as they needed it.

The thing was a marvel of whirling gears and levers, small boys would stand for hours mesmerized by the machine the blacksmiths and the mechanics had built.

When Dell and Danny got together, they came up with a small steam engine. The two blacksmith Brothers strengthened a hot water heater to produce steam, and the engine turned the thresher, not requiring two men to turn the crank! Everyone delighted in the "putt-putting of the steam engine exhaust, knowing they were on their way to bread, cakes and pies all made from the wheat that was being threshed!

The new villagers were amazed, when they smelled bread baking, they had not even seen bread since the collapse, let alone eaten any!

Everyone pitched in and helped them build the new folks' homes before the cold set in and one family asked that an extra room be added to their home. When asked, the man of the family, a black man named Paul Billings, explained, "I was a PA back in Fresno (Physician's Assistant) and I saved all my instruments and many of the medicines. I can treat almost anything that a doctor could, even surgery in an emergency!"

One of the village women spoke up and said, "I was a nurse, I can help you." So it was that Susanville came to have medical care and two, highly skilled Medical Practitioners! This would become vital by the very next spring!

The people of Susanville soon forgot that Paul was black and was not a full medical doctor. They pinned him with the name, "DOC" and would remain that until the day he died of old age and then, it would appear on his headstone!

Fall passed and winter was upon them almost before they were ready. The grain was in and the corn safely stored in the new cribs they had constructed. The villagers held a fall dance and bar-b-cue, everyone contributed his or her favorite dish and the music lasted far into the night.

Nancy Wesson coerced Bear into dancing with her, she had been after the huge man ever since he had become town sheriff. Bear had no idea he was already lost the minute he stepped out on the dance square with Nancy. She had loved him since the time she first set eyes upon him!

When the music had finally stopped, the pair was still moving across the dance square to the music in their eyes. Poor Bear had not a chance, he ended the night by proposing to Nancy and a wedding date was set for mid-November.

Bear's face was beet red the next morning, when his deputies spread the word about the village. His friends started a cabin for them to be completed by the time the wedding rolled around and all the girls in the village started planning the wedding!

Bear's parents had disowned him when he came to live in Susanville, but Nancy's parents accepted Bear as their own son. They insisted that he move into their spare bedroom, rather than sleep on the cot he had set up in the jail. Both Helen and Rich Wesson called Bear, "Son" and Helen insisted he eat more, that he was a big boy and needed more energy than other folk!

Like all his people, Bear was a clean man, but Helen Wesson insisted on washing all his clothes weekly and she even made him new shirts and a light jacket with his Sheriff's star sewn on the front. Bear had gained a girlfriend and a new family, all at the same time.

Almost before he realized it, the wedding was only a week away and his knees began shaking and his mouth was dry. He was sure he was coming down with something dreadful, but Doc Billings nodded and told him he had a bad case of wedding jitters and prescribed that a bachelor party was needed!

Bear's friends and deputies all took him out on a hunting trip, where they brought back a bear, two deer and a huge wild cat. They carefully treated the hide from the bear and it was presented to Bear the night before their wedding, although it was still a little "ripe", he wore it proudly.

It snowed the night before the wedding, at least three feet of new snow lay on the ground and the men had to shovel their way to the door of the small village chapel, where the couple was to be married.

With the deep snow, there was no way the newlyweds could travel anywhere, so they spent their first night as man and wife, in the new home their friends had built for them. The next morning, Bears' face was bright red, he could have fried eggs on his cheeks and he was panting for air he was so hot, or was it embarrassed? It was all in fun and soon it calmed down and everyone went back to the job of surviving the winter.

They had laid in plenty of food, firewood and heavy clothing, so nobody was hungry or cold in Susanville. Three of the cows were fresh and the children all had milk and a couple of the women tried their hand at making cheese. Their first attempts were pretty awful, but, by Christmas, they were turning out some very, respectable cheddar and several nice yogurts and a variety of soft cheeses.

The cheese was fresh and did not have to be sent all the way from Meadow Valley. The villagers went wild when the women mixed some dried berries in the yogurt, they couldn't keep it on the shelf!

The winter storms were less fierce than the preceding winter and everyone was hoping for an early spring. Had any of them been able to see the future, they would have prayed for heavy snows and a delayed spring.

As it was, spring flowers began poking out from the snow in mid-March and the snow began melting. The village dogs were nervous and the coyotes were howling near the front gate each night. Bear suspected "something" was wrong, but he could find nothing out of place, there were no animal or human tracks in the snow around the gate, everything seemed normal.

Bear's brand new wife was complaining of being tired all the time and sick to her stomach, so Bear took her to see Doc Billings who confirmed that the couple was going to be parents in a few months!

Bear went screaming out of Doc's office, shouting, "I'm gonna be a POPPA!" to anyone who would stop and listen. His announcement brought smiles to everyone's' faces and the whole village congratulated the young couple. The baby would be the first mixed race child in the village, not that it mattered. Besides, it would NOT be the last mixed race child born in Susanville either!

All the women flocked to Bear's house to assist Nancy and to make sure she had everything she needed for the new baby.

That night, flaming torches were thrown over the stockade wall and a rope pulled the gate down.

Who is attacking the village? Will Bear's and Nancy's unborn child survive the attack? Perhaps it is time for a squad or two of the Militia be posted to Susanville?