10 Pound Bag Ch. 106-110

We walked over to the table and I rolled out our crude map. It was drawn on deerskin with charcoal and was hardly to scale. I wasn't much of a cartographer or artist. I showed them where I wanted my carpentry shop built. It would sit at the very west end of the industrial sector. The Livery would be across the road and the Smithy would be adjacent to that.

It would start as a simple shack but would need to be hardened before the snow came. The toolshop would be their eastside neighbor and the lumber yard would be adjacent to that. I allocated them a full acre to start with. I went over property setbacks with them and explained the reasons. Although we didn't need them initially, the setbacks would come into effect when we built more permanent buildings. With all that explained, I saddled Lunch, whistled up Brin, and we set off down to town.

Time alone on horseback was always well treasured. Actually I enjoyed time with my horse, time with my dog, and time just to think. Obviously, I took it slow and plodded along at a sedate pace. Lunch didn't mind since we were winding our way through a series of small stumps and other road hazards. They would all be cleared this week and anything that wasn't rooted out would be forever trampled under the feet, hooves, and wheels of passing traffic. I just hoped to keep it clear and dry.

I thought about money as I meandered. We had cash, but spending capital reserves was always a bad idea. It was obvious that I needed to invest further in revenue generating assets and, to do that, I was best served by focusing on the Army's and Navy's needs. Salted, dried and pickled foods were a prime commodity for them since fresh foods were impossible to carry in bulk out on the high seas or on an extended march. A private in any army far preferred pickled eggs to no eggs at all.

Deep in thought, I almost rode past the workshop site and probably would have, if Brin hadn't alerted me. I turned around to be met by three grinning faces. Instead of coming up with some lame excuse, I just chuckled and joined them, leaving Lunch to fend for himself for a bit. He'd find something interesting to eat nearby and I wasn't worried about him wandering off.

They filled me in on what they'd come up with so far. Their initial plan was to clear an area in the future lumber yard where we could store all of the fallen logs. They could add to it as needed. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, all of the old growth hardwood had to be cleared. This did mean that we'd have really nice things, but it was also a shame. I gave specific instructions to leave all particularly majestic trees alone. The full council would make the decisions on those. With that, I told them I'd be on-hand a couple of times each day, then I left them to their business and headed down to the landing.

I came across the road crew about halfway down the bluff. They had made pretty good progress on what was really hard work already. I noted they were doing it the right way. It was also the hardest way, but with a road, you wanted it done correctly the first time. I saluted them but didn't interrupt. I rode on to find Timmons. I was quite sure those guys couldn't wait to get back on the water again and didn't need the likes of me getting in their way.

**** Chapter 110 -- Planning out a shopping trip ****

The first thing I saw when I reached the landing was a small pile of stumps sitting off to the side. I wondered what they intended to do with those. Timmons filled me in quickly when he saw what I was looking at. Those would become a water break about fifty yards upstream. It's intended to reduce the current around the landing, as well as to stop any flotsam from hitting the dock. The shipwright and one other guy were working on the boat. There really wasn't much for us to do down there, so we headed back up to main camp.

We walked back up, with Brin doing dog stuff in front of us and Lunch trailing dutifully along behind. We merely observed the progress made thus far while discussing women, children and other casual subjects. Creating relationships and building personal connections was important; I needed my leaders to trust me.

The road team was hard at work digging, cutting, and pulling out stumps. It was the cleanest and most permanent way to remove a stump. As boatmen, they all were interested in creating that safe harbor for their dock. Patrick pointed out that the water break would also create a great spot for fishing. I let them know that lunch would be here soon and to keep up the good work.

Timmons and I left them to their business and head up towards town. Thinking about lunch, I remembered that we had a butcher in the village now. They should be able to have sausage available for their travels next year. He pointedly complimented the rations we were giving the men and noted that morale had been significantly higher on their on the Ft. Dickinson trip. Given that was an easy trip, but good food had played a role in that, also.

At the top of the bluff, I pointed out where I thought the warehouse and trade house would go. I showed him the spot across the road from them, where I wanted to put the inn and bunkhouse. The inn would also serve as a chow hall for our men. All eating and drinking would be restricted to that area. We didn't need the rodents, and associated diseases that came with them, in the bunkhouse where they could decimate our ranks.

We stopped by the woodshop for a while. They were making decent progress already. They had managed to fell three trees in the log storage area and were hard at work on the next set. I reminded them to grade the wood as they felled the trees, then stack them accordingly. There's no sense in using furniture-grade wood to build a dock. I passed along the same message to them, about lunch being on its way soon. Then we left them to their labors.

For the rest of the walk, we discussed recruiting, particularly down in St. Louis. It was vital that we add additional people. We preferred to add families. Our big sticking points would be on racism and religion. We needed a doctor, of some sort, most of all. At that point, I decided that I'd be going on this journey with him. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to deposit some of the gold into a major bank. While I still had a deal pending with Henry Leavenworth, I wanted to keep a certain amount under lock and key. Bank drafts would do me fine for any major transactions.

We had made it back to camp, but were going out again soon. So I left Lunch saddled but unbridled him so he could eat freely. Horses can eat just fine with the bridle on, but why force him to do so? I hung the bridle on the pommel and turned him out to the pasture. I'd have Timmons saddle up for the rest of our tour. Walking wasn't bad, but it sure got tedious after a while.

Timmons took off to find his wife and I walked over to my place for a while.

Mary and one of the black ladies were just starting to serve the kids their lunch, so I sat down and joined them. It's always fun to converse with little kids in school. They were always excited and fun to talk to. I learned that, after lunch, they had rest time and then they would play games for a little while. They were all excited because they were going to learn how to unzip pea pods, after play time. I smiled at Mary and headed back to the corral to meet up with Timmons.

We saddled up and headed over to the road crew to see how they were progressing. My biggest concern was strife over race or supervisory authority. I guess we'd find out quickly enough. Better it should happen now than when I'm gone.

They had started down at the prairie end, to make working the logs easier. We wanted to drop all of these logs down there to use making a cabin and rails for our split rail fence. We didn't intend to graze down here, year round. Once the weather got hard, the herd would stay in the upper pasture near my homestead.

Two of the crew were down here, clearing fallen trees that Holder had dragged down with the mule. The logs were cut to length and rolled over to a row of logs already in place. There were already almost thirty logs lined up there. So things were going well on this, also. We made some small talk with the guys and then headed up to visit with the rest of the team.

Michelle and Sonya were there, delivering lunch. They had almost followed us down the trail, behind us by only twenty minutes or so. We hung out with the guys while they ate, and then joined their work party for a couple of hours after lunch. I got my axe swinging time in, and used the time to know each of the guys better. It would take more than one week for everyone to accept me, but it was a start.

When dinnertime came around, I regretfully put my axe back on the saddle and headed up to camp for an afternoon of meetings and planning sessions. I'd rather pull stumps than sit through an afternoon like that, but this was pretty much my future.