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

most
laboriously changed into two heavy, clawlike projections, with the eyes for the
handles and the open backs still remaining as they had been. When Sam held them
side by side and ran a twig through the eyes, the curved ends of the two thick
claws came together, like a tweaking thumb and finger. He now had the jaws of
his tongs.
                But he needed a metal pivot to join
them so that they would move and grip. He had not taken time to decide on what
it would be, and he sat back to survey his few metal possessions. He could not
sacrifice the blade of his knife. The brass buckle of his belt was not heavy
enough. Finally he drew the damaged rifle out of its recess, carried it to the
door of the cave, and inspected it.
                At the base of the split stock was
the iron butt plate, a long, curved oval piece fastened to the wood with two
screws. He could get along without that, he told himself, and with the point of
his knife detached the plate.
                Bracing it as well as he could in
the cleft of a stick, Sam hammered it on the anvil without heating. He crushed
it into a narrower, thicker shape, a sort of loose cylinder, shaped it by
lighter tapping, and thrust it through the two joined eyes of his altered
tomahawks. It would serve, he judged. Then he built a fire on the anvil itself,
shoved the cylinder into this, and heated it as hot as possible by fanning the
burning charcoal with a corner of his blanket.
                He managed to make it red hot, to
pound it until it was compressed into a fairly solid rod, and finally he fitted
the two jaws of the tongs upon it. They moved readily and accurately. Once more
he heated it, gingerly poked it into place, and pounded down the two projecting
ends like rivet heads. When the whole assembly was cool, he tested it. The
tongs opened and shut as he wished.
                “Brother, it will do what I want,”
he told Otter happily.
                Between his spells of duty at the
bellows, Otter had worked at chipping another piece of stone into a tomahawk to
replace those made into the tongs. He had also sharpened a deer bone for the
point of a small spear. Now, as Sam paused in his blacksmithing to consider the
next step, Otter took his bow and arrows and left the cave.
                Sam, left alone, took his rifle in
his hands and studied it with thoughtful eyes.
                Giluhda’s furious pounding and
trampling had bent the barrel into a curve like a tightly strung bow, and the
wooden parts of the weapon had been splintered and broken. The clamps that held
the barrel to the stock were badly sprung, and Sam pried them loose with the
blade of his knife. He stowed the broken stock and grip at the rear of the
cave—he would need those pieces for a pattern when he whittled new wooden parts
for the repaired weapon. When the barrel was free, he used his knife point to
loosen screws and detach the trigger and the lock mechanism. These, at least,
were not damaged, though he would have to put in a new flint.
                Then he picked up the tongs and
fitted wooden handles into the openings.
                Otter was back within ten minutes.
He held up two squirrels, each transfixed by an arrow.
                “We can boil them,” he said in quiet
triumph.
                “How?” Sam
asked him. “We do not have a pot.”
                “We have that.” Otter pointed to a
deeply punched hole in the rocky floor. “It is big enough for a pot. Go on with
making your medicine. I will make mine, and boil the squirrels.”
                He put charcoal into the hearth of
the forge, and thrust six or eight round stones into it. Then he squatted down
to skin and clean the squirrels. When they were
dressed and cut into small pieces, he laid them in the hollow of the rock and
poured in two gourdfuls of water.