I did a little research for the next part but I can't guarantee accuracy. Hopefully this part isn't too boring. I needed to get them settled before the fun started. Thanks for all the reviews. Hope you are still enjoying the story.
Once Casey was gone Sarah and Chuck began to set up the camp. One of the extra items they had purchased in the town was a tent that they set up first. Inside the tent the set out the bedrolls and blankets for the three of them.
"I am going to gather some firewood, Chuck, why don't you set up the tripod." Sarah suggested.
Chuck nodded at that and Sarah dissapeared into the forest. Chuck opened the packs and took out a metal folded tripod that would be used to hang the stewpot over the fire for cooking. He cleared a circular spot on the ground for the fire and then set up the tripod over that. Once that was done, Chuck found some stones that he could place around the circular firepit. He then went through the packs to find something make for food. He poured water from the large waterbag into the small pot and then washed and cut up some of the vegetable into the water, adding some grain and salt as well. Sarah came back from the forest within a large armload of wood and set them down near the firepit.
Sarah used the flint and steel in the packs to start a fire. Once it was burning hot enough, they hung the pot from the tripod.
"This will take awhile to cook." Sarah said. "But I don't think we are going anywhere soon."
Chuck nodded at that. He dug through the packs and took out some of the fruit he had bought in the town and handed Sarah one while eating his own. The fruit would tide them over until the soup was ready.
"I wonder how Casey plans to make a cave liveable?" Sarah wondered.
Chuck shrugged. He didn't know much about his handlers, having surprisingly not flashed on their full files, just on a few bits and pieces. He knew Casey was a Marine and had no doubt gone through alot of survival training which was good for them since neither Chuck nor Sarah knew much about surviving in the wilderness. Sarah was a CIA agent but most if not all her assignments had been in cities.
"What is going to happen to us?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know what you mean." Chuck said.
"We are here on this planet, and I don't think we are ever getting off. We've been changed, made stronger and faster. You have power over Casey and I and then we seem to have this compulsion to be near each other. "
"I think we'll just go on, you know. Casey seems to have some idea of how we'll surive. We'll stay together and spend most of our time surviving."
Sarah nodded. This wasn't exactly how she thought she would spend the rest of her life.
"Could be worse, we could be in that zoo." Chuck offerred.
Sarah smiled at Chuck. "You are right. I need to stop brooding. We are together and we can survive this together."
While Chuck and Sarah had been making the camp, Casey had tracked and killed a large animal with curled horns and six legs. Once he had gorged himself on the carcass leaving the scraps for the hungry scavengers that had begun to gather around, Casey then began his hunt for a suitable cave. He explored a few only to find them to be unsuitable, and at least one inhabited. The creature inside had been no match for Casey, but when it was dead Casey let it be, food not at all a priority at the moment.
Eventually Casey came across a sheltered valley by crossing an iced over river and through a narrow passage. The valley wasn't more than ten miles from the town, Casey had done alot of circling around in his search. The valley was quite sheltered by forest and high cliffs. Among the rocky cliffs, Casey found a cave.
The cave's entrance was barely large enough for Casey to fit inside with his new body, but once inside the cave opened up, its ceiling reaching up at least fifteen feet. From the entrance the ground sloped down naturally until it leveled out a few feet down. The floor was made of rock, smoothed out by water years ago. The roof had two openings that let in light allowing Casey to see the interior. Casey liked the look of the cave immediatly and decided this would be their new home. Casey turned and left the cave glad to have found it and it no be occupied. He took the time to leave scent markers at the entrance of the cave then went to explore the valley further.
Satisfied at what he had found, Casey decided to head back to the camp. He knew by the time he got there it would be dark. They would rest at the camp and then Casey would bring them to the valley in the morning.
The sun had set by the time Casey returned to the camp carrying a small kill in his mouth that he had made as he was traveling to the camp. He could see the small fire that had been banked and the two figures sitting near the fire wrapped in blankets.
The moons' lights bathed over Casey's white fur making him easy to see to his partners. Just outside the camp, Casey stopped and dropped the kill on the ground, then strode forward shifting back into human form as he did. Once at the camp, he knelt naked beside the pack where his clothes were and dressed.
"Did you find a cave?" Chuck asked as Casey took a knife from the pack.
"Yes. I can take us there tomorrow." Casey answered then strolled back to the carcass and began to skin and butcher the animal. He brought the skin and the meat back to the camp. The meat he hung over the fire using the tripod and some small hooks that had come with it.
After washing his hands using snow and some water from the canteens, Casey dug through the packs and came up with a few of the tools that Casey had asked Chuck to buy from the blacksmith. Once he had the tools he came and sat down between the other two and took up the skin he left lying on a rock near the fire.
"What are you doing?" Sarah asked.
"Cleaning the skin so we can cure it." Casey said.
"Why?" Chuck asked.
"When we were in that town I noticed what kind of vendors and shops were there and I never saw one place that sold furs. I would have thought with this forest around them there would be some fur traders and maybe even a tannery, but there was nothing." Casey answered then noticed that Chuck was flashing.
"There isn't any because most of the animals on this planet are too dangerous for anyone to kill. There are a few aliens that trap the smaller animals, but it takes a long before they can get enough to make it worth their while. There aren't that many small mammals and most don't have the type of fur that customers want." Chuck explained.
"That explains it. Most of the animals I have seen were pretty big and looked too dangerous to hunt with just spear." Casey put in.
"So you think we should become fur traders?" Sarah asked Casey.
"Why not. I can bring down any of these animals. Hell give you a spear you probably could too Walker. I can teach both of you how to cure the furs and tan the hides. We need some way to make money so we can buy food and supplies."
"Its a good idea." Chuck said.
Sarah nodded.
While they sat around the fire, Casey explained to them how to cure the hides starting with cleaning, then braining, softening and then smoking. Casey didn't show them all of it that night since some of it would require things they did not have access to yet. The hide he had would keep until then in the frozen enviroment.
Eventually the three of them retired to their bedrolls inside the tent leaving the meat to slowly cook over the banked fire and the hide rolled up in the snow.
The next morning after breakfast they packed up everything. The cooked meat cut into strips and wrapped in cloth then placed in the packs. Once the packs were filled, the tent struck and the fire put out, Casey stripped down placing his clothes in a pack and then shifted to his cat form. Sarah placed the heavy packs on Casey's back strapping them carefully in place, then she and Chuck mounted up on Casey's back and Casey took them to the sheltered valley he had found and to the cave that would be their new home.
To make the cave liveable would require work, but Casey already had that planned out. In the beginning the cave worked as a temporary shelter. The two holes in the ceiling allowed them to make a fire in the cave itself to keep them warm and to cook their food. One corner of the cave made a good place to store the vegetables and fruits they had purchased while their bedrolls occupied another area of the cave. Once they had that settled, Casey began to show them what needed to be done to begin their new work.
The first thing Casey began building using the tools he had Chuck buy was to build a smokehouse. Since they didn't have any wood unless they wanted to chop down trees and then spend the time to make seasoned boards from the greenwood, Casey made the smokehouse out of stone.
Sarah and Chuck helped as they could, gathering stones and mixing mortar made from sand, ground limestone from the valley walls and water.
Casey made the smokehouse a good size so that they could smoke meat as well as hides. The smokehouse took several days to make. They would take breaks to make food and for Casey to hunt. They used the salt that Chuck had bought to cure any of the meat that Casey brought back. During the construction of the smokehouse, they went back to the town once more to pick up the last of tools they had ordered, more salt for curing, several burlap sacks, and some iron rings and hooks that Casey eventually attached to the ceiling of his smokehouse.
The burlap sacks were used to store the salted meat that were then hung in a tree to cure the meat. Once the smokehouse was completed, Casey and Sarah spent hours cutting down hardwood trees and breaking them down into firewood to use in the smokehouse. The rest were stacked against the side of the stone building.
Once the smokehouse was done, they then began to smoke the cured meat they had and they few hides that they had cleaned scraping off the meat and connecting tissue and using stale urine to clean the fat and oils off, then used cooked brains to brain the skins, and then softened preparing them to be smoked.
Several hides and furs were placed in the smokehouse, some of the furs from very large animals that Casey had killed including two ice bears.
Once that process was begun, Casey turned his skills to making the cave more liveable. Chuck and Sarah were sent to get more rocks, while he broke down limestone to help make mortar.
Using the rocks and mortar, Casey built two fireplaces in the cave, their chimneys connecting to the two holes in the ceiling of the cave.
Building the fireplaces took weeks. During that time when they weren't working on the fireplaces, Sarah and Chuck took turns making food, cleaning hides, checking on the smoking meats and hides, resalting the curing meats, and collecting firewood.
Casey worked on the fireplaces, either building on them directly or making the ingrediants for mortar. Sarah had taking to hunting as well, taking a spear and bringing back large animals to be skinned, butchered, cured and then smoked. The hides from animals that did not have luxerious fur was made into leather, stretched out over frames where combinations of salt and urine were used to clean and dehair the hides making them into rawhide and then a solution made from tree oil used to tan the hide making it more waterproof.
One of the fireplaces Casey was building was to be used for cooking therefore Casey made it larger and added an oven above the hearth. In the hearth he placed iron rings so that they could hang kettles and pots over the fire for cooking. He also a metal grate placed that could be used to set pans and pots on over the fire.
Once the cooking hearth was done, Casey worked on the other fireplace which was smaller and to be used only for heat in the coldest of winter months. The second hearth was placed near where they had their bedding and took less time to make than the cooking hearth.
By the time the fireplaces were finished, they had a reasonable amount of hides and furs for trading and selling and they were running low on supplies again.
They spent a day cleaning themselves and their clothes using water heated in the cooking hearth. Used up the last of their vegetables and grain to make a stew with some cured meat that they ate. The next day they packed up the hides and furs in the large pack which Casey carried in his tiger form, and then Chuck and Sarah rode Casey as the big NSA agent turned cat took them back to the town.
They always stopped before they came in sight of the town so that Casey could change back to human form and get dressed. They didn't want any of the aliens so know about Casey's ability.
Once dressed, Casey picked up the pack and the three of them went down to the walled town.
"How are we going to do this?" Chuck asked.
"Figure we can use one of the empty stalls and set up shop." Casey pointed to a few of the empty stalls among the ones that were being used by other vendors.
Chuck asked on of the vendors if it was alright to use an empty stall. The alien who looked like a koala bear with wide bluish green eyes told him that that was what the stalls were there for. They had been built by the residents of the town for the farmers and other no denizens to use to sell their wares.
Chuck thanked the alien and the three of them took up a stall and began to unpack the furs and hides hanging them on the walls and beams. As they did so, Chuck couldn't help notice how several of the aliens in the town were staring with wide eyes at the furs and hides. Chuck had a feeling they were going to make a killing.
As it turned out, Chuck was correct. Not everyone could afford the furs and hides they were selling but those who could or had something they could trade that Chuck and the others could use were more than willing to buy and pay the steep prices.
The salt dealer, a merchant from beyond the town, was more than willing to trade several bags of his salt for a few of the furs. Salt was one of the more expensive items in the town, but was worth it since it was used to cure meats. Chuck thought that it was a good trade, especially since the merchant had struck a bargain to be a repeat customer.
The blacksmith traded several tools for a couple of the hides. The tools were not yet made, but they were specific tools that Casey wanted to help make things easier for them. They would hold the hides for the bison blacksmith and bring them back in a few weeks to trade for the tools that would be finished in that time.
The rest of their customers paid in coin for the hides. Once all the hides were sold, they used the coin to stock up on vegetables and fruits as well as flour, cheese, sugar, and grain.
Once everything was placed in the packs, they left the town and Casey took them back to the valley and their home.