Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 by The Last Mammoth (v1.1)

face.
                Sam spread his red blanket on the
expanse of green boughs and stretched out. He felt that he would never close
his eyes. There were too many plans to make, too many problems to solve, in
perfecting his forge. To make it of the roughest and rawest of materials, with
only Otter’s help . . . .
                And then he was waking in the early
dawn, groping around for his moccasins and hunting shirt. The early sunlight
came in at the doorway of the cave. Otter stood there, looking at him.
                “Come,” Otter said. “I will show you
something.”
                Sam pulled on his moccasins and
followed Otter outside. The first thing he saw was that his coneshaped charcoal
oven had ceased to give off smoke and flames. The next thing he saw was that
great round tracks lay near it.
                “Giluhda came in the night,” said
Otter, pointing to the tracks. “He walked all around that burning wood under
the dirt. He was trying to find out about your medicine.”
                Sam seized a sharp stick and raked
away some of the earth. The charcoal was undamaged. Giluhda had not touched it.
                “He knows that fire will burn,” went
on Otter. “He did not dare try to hurt the medicine.”
                “If he had done that, his hair would
have been set afire,” said Sam. “Probably he would have run so far away that
your people would never need to fear him again. Help me pull this dirt aside.”
                Otter got another stick and helped.
When cleared, the pyramid of branches showed black and shiny, each stick
keeping its original form. A few of them still glowed, and Sam fetched several
gourds of river water to splash on these to cool them. Then he went and washed
his face and hands, and he and Otter returned to eat a breakfast of thin
venison slices, quickly toasted.
                When he had finished, Sam returned
to his charcoal pile. He picked up a cooled chunk, then threw it to the ground. It struck with a clinking sound, and broke into several
pieces. Sam took one to examine. It was black to the very center. Otter, too,
came and looked.
                “This part of the medicine is
ready,” said Sam.
                He and Otter quickly made two big,
crude baskets of willow twigs. They carried several loads of fuel to the cave,
heaping it near the forge. Then, with plenty of kindling, Sam built a charcoal
fire. He left it to glow idly, while he returned to the tomahawk blades.
                Taking a stout branch of green wood,
he wedged it into the hollowed back of one tomahawk. He thrust the edge of the
blade into the fire, and spoke to Otter again.
                “Brother, help me with my medicine.
Take the sticks and make the bellows blow wind.”
                Otter crossed the floor, knelt down
and began to churn the two sticks. Under the blowing draught, the fire grew
hotter and burned furiously, but without smoke or flame. The edge of the
tomahawk grew dark red, then bright red.
                At the proper moment, Sam lifted it
out on the end of his green branch, laid it firmly against the anvil stone, and
began to pound it with the hammer Woodpecker had given to him. He saw the
glowing iron change shape under his blows. Then the iron darkened and hardened
as it cooled, and Sam lifted it to return it to the fire. The blade dropped
from the stick to the anvil—the wood had charred through with the heat of the
metal.
                Sam fairly groaned his disgust.
Otter eyed him calculatingly.
                “The wood will not hold the
tomahawk,” explained Sam. “The fire makes the iron hot, and that burns through
the wood.”
                He went on a tour of exploration
around the cave. Otter, too, moved away from the bellows. He fumbled among some
smaller pieces of rock