Warlock of Omaha
By Hemaccabe
Chapter 13 Forging Ahead
At seven AM!
My notebook beeped that the doorbell had gone off. I assumed it was FedEx, they show up early sometimes. I clicked on my notebook to review the gate cam. It was Mr. Guna!
"Oh Shit!" I yelled and ran out the house pulling on a shirt and pants. I didn't bother with shoes. As I ran down to the fence, I thought about how I probably should have had Diane working on landscaping as Mr. Guna would probably notice every errant leaf and twig.
I got to the fence, opened it and bowed, "Welcome to my home Mr. Guna."
"Please show me to my quarters, it has been a long trip. Please see to my bags." Mr. Guna replied.
Mr. Guna was not overly emotive. His facial expression, the way he stood, nothing changed. His hands never moved except with absolute economy of motion. Somehow, his emotional state was always clear. Now he was impatient.
The way Mr. Guna had said, "Please see to my bags." Hadn't been in a tone that sounded like polite request, but more like what one would say to a servant.
Mr. Guna had a full-size steamer trunk and a number of other cases. I hit a panic button on my cell that would summon Jake.
Jake was there, bless his heart, in under five minutes. Between the two of us, we manhandled the steamer trunk and piled the other luggage on top of the very heavy, ungainly beast.
I then awkwardly led Mr. Guna up the driveway to the garret apartment. I helped Jake wrestle the steamer trunk up the steps then let Jake get the rest of the luggage.
Mr. Guna looked around the apartment and sniffed again. His sniff seemed to say, "I'm camping in the filthy wilderness."
So much for all of our cleaning efforts.
"Are you hungry? Is there something I can offer you to eat?" I asked.
"No." Mr. Guna answered.
Do you want some time to refresh yourself after your trip?" I asked.
"Yes." Mr. Guna answered.
"I will go and dress and meet you downstairs when you're ready." I said and showed him the internal door that led to the garage.
"That is acceptable." Mr. Guna answered.
"Please let me know if there is anything I can provide to make you more comfortable." I offered.
"I will." Mr. Guna answered.
Jake took a few trips and got the rest of the bags up while Mr. Guna and I talked.
I sent Jake home after giving him my thanks and a hug. Then I went back to my rooms, got showered and dressed. I was watching the camera in the garage where Mr. Guna would come down, but I guess he was settling in.
I have a desk and a terminal in the garage. I had Miranda bring me breakfast there. I ate and read the paper. Then I got up and started cleaning. My garage is pretty neat, especially by garage standards, but there's always tools that could be put away, sweeping, wiping and polishing.
I had just finished lunch when Mr. Guna came down.
I got up and put my tray by the door to the house where Miranda would pick it up and came back.
"Are you hungry now? Is there food I can offer you?" I asked.
"No. Show me your facilities." He said, nominally a request, but clearly an order.
I showed Mr. Guna around the garage. He nodded. We walked to each outbuilding. I showed him my shops and labs. He nodded. I didn't show him each corner, like say my deep safe or my holding room, but he got a clear sense of the tooling and facilities I had available.
We returned to the garage and Mr. Guna sat at the desk and brought up the internet. He was kind enough to let me stand behind his shoulder. We spent the afternoon visiting various suppliers online. Mr. Guna would pick various items from various suppliers and say, "Buy that."
I would lean over and complete the transaction. By five that afternoon, I had spent over a hundred grand and was exhausted.
Mr. Guna looked at me and said "I will now retire to my rooms. Be prepared in the morning at a reasonable hour."
Then Mr. Guna ascended the stairs to the garret and locked himself in.
Mr. Guna would be there for six months. Never saw him eat. Never saw him sleep.
I was exhausted so it was easy to eat and get an early bedtime. I was up the next morning at five, dressed, had breakfast and was waiting in the garage by six.
Mr. Guna came down a bit after six.
"You were here at a reasonable time this morning. We will be working here for the next few days. Before I come down, please wash the floor."
"Okay." I said.
"Okay?" Mr. Guna answered, but with a questioning tone.
"Very okay?" I said a bit confused.
Mr. Guna seemed to understand my confusion and said, "While I am here, I am in the role of your teacher. The proper mode of address is 'Master.'"
"Oh." I said. Then added, "Master."
There was some part of me that bristled at calling someone else "Master" at all, much less in my own home. Luckily, I had been in various forms of martial arts for a long time. I had never been bothered by calling the teachers "Sensei" or "Sifu." Both meant "Master" in their own language. Smiths who taught had been "Masters" for millennia. Clearly Mr. Guna was here in the role of teaching master and I was the student or apprentice.
"We will begin with breathing." Mr. Guna started.
Mr. Guna had me stand in a position I was familiar with from martial arts, my feet slightly spread, knees slightly bent and my hands on hips. Then we breathed. Doesn't sound hard? Thirteen hours later we finished for the day. I can't remember ever being as bone tired. Mr. Guna was having me breathe deep and develop a new rhythm. He had a long rod, and anytime my breathing shifted, or my attention wandered, whack. It was not a gentle reminder tap.
I took my bruised body to bed. I ate a bit, washed and collapsed.
I was up the next morning and mopping by six. Mr. Guna came down at ten after and we began again.
After five days, the rhythms of new breathing had become normal and I was starting to feel like I was getting a handle on it. Part of me was wondering, "I paid how much for a lot for breathing classes?" Another part was realizing that with the new breathing, my concentration was much sharper and my muscles, which ached each night, were getting more solid and able to hold a pose. Each night I would barely have energy to eat and sleep. I tried to pay attention to other matters, but things drifted.
After five days, the things we had ordered began to show up at the shop. There was a lot of room in my garage, since the RV no longer lived there. As each piece would show up, Mr. Guna would point to where he wanted me to put it and I would set it up. Tools, forges, anvils, quench tanks and endless other expensive metal forging, shaping, finishing items kept showing up.
When we weren't setting up, and by that, I mean I was setting up, Mr. Guna showed me how to stretch. If breathing was bad, this was worse. I had been peppy after breathing compared to this and this took twice as long. I'm not sure if it took longer because setup kept getting in the way, stretching was harder than breathing or I was just a bad stretcher. It goes without saying that while stretching, I was supposed to still be doing the breathing. But it took longer. And was harder.
Once the forge was assembled and Mr. Guna was satisfied that I was stretched and could breath, we started drilling. No not taking a drill and drilling something. For example, Mr. Guna found a roughly one-hundred-pound bar of metal. I had to grasp it in tongs and quench it. Over and over. You think a one-hundred-pound metal bar is heavy? Try holding it in one hand. With tongs. Any miniscule deviation from perfect, ideal, form warranted a whack with Mr. Guna's ever present stick. Drilling made me long to go back to stretching.
Weeks went by. Kelly moved Travis to a place with less medical supervision. I signed all the payment papers. It was good news. It would still be crazy expensive, but an order of magnitude less so and it was a sign he was getting better. Drilling continued.
The day finally came.
"Today we come to hammering." Stated Mr. Guna.
I was all excited. My stomach was fluttering.
Mr. Guna took a strange, misshapen stick with a ball of lead at the end he'd had me buy with all the other devices. It was crazy heavy. Guna handled it like a chopstick. He handed me the lead ended stick and turned on all three forges which made the room crazy hot. Then I learned how to strike.
Drilling was nothing compared to striking. Apparently, there are eight different components to the ideal hammer blow. The days went by, Guna's stick fell and I tried to master the eight components.
My muscles were corded and hard. I was never hydrated enough.
"Striking is where you place what you call 'magic' into the metal. You must not only have mastered the art of the physical movement, but the placing of your spirit into the metal." Mr. Guna lectured me. Probably the longest string of words he made the whole time of his tutelage.
It should be understood that each step had built upon the last. I was expected to be breathing properly at all times. When I would screw up and breath the old way, such a dirty habit, or, heaven forefend, pant, one could expect the rod to correct instantly with Guna's version of a snarl, "Breath."
Of course, my stretching had to be correct as a preamble to the day and each action. I had to execute perfect form from several drills before I even lifted the hammer to practice striking. Each movement, no matter how small was choreographed.
While doing all this, Guna now expected me to also be controlling magic. Of course, he had a solution for each failure. I know a lot of behavioral scientists believe in positive reinforcement, but negative reinforcement provides a kind of perfectly clear, immediate communication the efficiency of which is hard to overstate.
It felt like forever but was actually eight days and I could command hammer, while infusing with my will to place a mark on metal. Of course, I had no idea what mark to make.
We were well into the third month when samples of different types of metals began to arrive. Steel and stainless steel, aluminum and titanium, tungsten and magnesium, bronze and brass, gold and silver, copper and platinum, iron and tin and many, many other more exotic samples. While still spending time practicing, we also reviewed the samples. Guna taught me how to read the metal, how to feel it's structure and resonances. This led to being able to tell how they would stack and make structures. In turn, this led to learning how different structures would be useful. Which led to a whole new way to evaluate tools.
When I had learned to read the metal and the rudiments of how to arrange the metal, Mr. Guna started showing me how to arrange the magic to have effects, this effect would make it stronger, this effect would make it faster, this effect will make it lighter, this effect will make it sharper and cut more deeply.
In one of the few questions I dared to venture in six months, I asked, "How can I make it smarter Master?"
Mr. Guna's response was swift and clear, "You are not ready for that!" Accompanied by a particularly sharp blow of his stick.
Maybe he liked that I had sand enough to ask a question, maybe he planned to show me all along. One thing Mr. Guna did teach me was how to put a pattern of magic on an item that would harden it from disruptions from a mage's magic aura. It was strangely like putting a magic electromagnetic field etched into the object. The technique's effectiveness was limited by that particular forger's own power and skill, but it was substantially better than the half-assed things I had been trying.
When Mr. Guna felt that I had learned enough. We started to try and make things. They failed miserably. They were lopsided. They cracked in quench. I found new and creative ways to fail. Item after item, representing hours and days. If I wasn't under Mr. Guna's tutelage I would have given myself up as hopelessly incompetent.
However, I learned something from each item. How to read the metal. How to build and balance the structure. How to feel for the imperfection that would fail at quench. Eventually, I succeeded. I had produced a real hammer head. It was no Mjolnir. But it would make a better forge hammer than anything sold for money, anything I'd ever had before. As I finished it, I looked at the calendar for the first time in weeks. It was Mr. Guna's last day.
I looked up at Mr. Guna and said, "Thank-you for your tutelage. I hope I am worthy to be granted your tutelage again Master."
In what was a major gushing response of positive emotion from Mr. Guna, he nodded.
That evening, a very nice Rolls limousine arrived for Mr. Guna. Jake and I carried his bags back to the curb. The driver, after carefully assisting Mr. Guna in entering and sitting in the car, single handedly, apparently effortlessly, loaded the bags into the car. The bags were clearly in excess of the size of the car, but still all fit. Magic. Then the driver tipped his hat to us, hopped in the car and drove off into the modestly snowy night.
Without looking up I said, "Jake wanna go to Hooter's?"
Jake wanted to go. Hooter's was miraculously having another all you can eat wing night. They definitely lost money on that deal with us.
I got up the next morning. I found myself getting out of bed at five. I wanted to sleep in, but I couldn't. My body was sure that if it slept in, it would get hit with a stick.
I got up. I got dressed. I went down and had breakfast. The house was messy by our normal standards. I knew Diane, Miranda and Brenda had been pitching in, but they were busy with their own duties. Diane's duty to the grounds didn't get any lighter if there were two or ten of us. On top of that, it had been leaf season in Omaha which is probably the worst and hardest for grounds keeping. Miranda's job also didn't get a lot easier with one less mouth to feed, which really, had been replaced already. Miranda was also in the final year of her program. Final year is always the most demanding in any program I've ever seen. Brenda had lost a ton of time from her classes earlier trying to get my optic system together and was still fiddling with it but had been playing catch up on some very demanding classes all semester.
I spent the day mopping every floor that could be mopped, vacuuming every other floor, cleaning all the public toilets, the girls could worry about their private ones, dusting everything and removing all accumulated garbage. I felt the house was substantially cleaner by the end of the day when the girls started coming home from class for dinner. They were all giggling about the cleanliness.
Miranda finally ventured, "Did you call in 'Merry Maids?'"
I responded laconically, "Must have been elves."
That started the giggling all over again.
The next day I checked in with Travis. Kelly had moved him from the secondary place to an apartment near her and Jake after a couple months. I vaguely recalled having the papers put in front of me for signature and pulling out a checkbook to pay a security deposit, signing fees and rent. I took Travis to a nearby diner where we settled into a booth with a view of the snow, drank hot drinks and had some breakfast.
"I was probably at fifty percent by then," Travis explained, "Which was plenty to live on my own. They had a physical therapist check in on me every few weeks, but I was fine. With your money, I could get to the grocery store okay. Kelly and Jake would give me rides a lot. The apartment complex has a good gym. The perimeter is good for runs."
"Sounds good. You talked to Jim?" I said.
I looked Travis over. It looked like my money was well spent. He seemed much better than last I saw him, I guessed he still had a way to go, but he was getting there. Travis struck me as a rugged piece of shoe leather of a man. He stood about five ten. He had a cheap but serviceable brown felt hat on. He was wearing a grey/green Carhart jacket and cheap store-bought versions of the black fatigue pants I wore. He wore a simple off the rack, button down shirt and simple, serviceable hiking boots.
"Yeah. He was real helpful. I have my license; a copy of my birth certificate and the Passport came a couple weeks back. I have access to my old accounts, such as they are and opened a new one here in Omaha. I also have my Missouri CCP, but nothing to C." Travis answered.
"Good. Glad you're getting your life back in order." I answered.
"I have some concerns." He said.
"Oh what?" I answered.
"First off, you've been laying down a whole lot of scratch for me. I'm worried about what you expect from your investment. I haven't had a lot of other options, so I'm obliged, but what exactly do you figure it entitles you to?" He asked.
Before Mr. Guna, I probably wouldn't have picked up his nervous undertone. Having to be sensitive to Mr. Guna's hyper-subtle feelings had sharpened my sensitivity greatly. Another thing the Svartalves could do was open a line as sensitivity consultants.
"Look. You don't owe me anything you don't want to give. If you want, I'll take you down to the bus station and put you on a bus wherever you want to go and if you never want to see me again, just don't come back to Omaha. Yeah, it's been a chunk of change looking after you, but I have money.
"What I hope you realize is that we're stuck together. You're not a normal person. You told me, you're a Hunter. I lived a long time like you did, skimming along the surface of the water, waiting for a big mouth bass to come up and eat me. I was pretending that the world was normal, and I was safe. I got lucky. My wake-up call scared the poop out of me, but I wasn't hurt, killed or worse. You weren't so lucky. You got grabbed by someone I call the Compost Mage. He stuck you in a big construct and tried to have you kill me. Ninety-nine out of hundred people you tried that on and failed, would have killed you out of hand. I don't know exactly how the Compost Mage's magic works, but it looks like you were on a one-way trip. Even if you had won and killed me, there was no way to get you out of there and no way to keep you alive in there. Now that you have really disappointed him by surviving, he'll be looking for you. You know how to track. Did you know there's a whole branch of magic devoted to tracking people down? All they need is a sample. No doubt he has all sorts of samples of you. My guess is there isn't a hole in the world deep enough for you to hide in. They'll track you down, drag you out and put you in something worse. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you want to take your chances out there. It's up to you." I finally finished.
He leaned back, clearly uncomfortable. I continued.
"I'm sorry. I know it sucks. The life you had is dead. You should take a bit and mourn it. Even if we could fire a magic death beam tomorrow and make this Compost Mage go away permanently, we're still both small potatoes. We're both a lot safer and stronger together as allies then we are apart. There's no such thing as safety, but there can be more safe."
It took him a while, but he finally said, "Like I said, I'm obliged, but this whole thing has knocked me on my ass. All my gear and my jeep are gone in the wind. I don't have anything in the bank and I'm lucky my home hasn't been foreclosed on yet. Whatever happens, I'm not rich. I need a job. I need to be able to pay my bills and get new gear if I'm going to be any use to anyone."
I leaned back.
"Let me give you the deal. Right now, there's Jake and me. Obviously, we have some vanilla humans around us, but, basically, it's just us. If you have a better offer somewhere else, like I said, I'll put you on the bus right now. Heck, I might go with you. Do you?" I asked.
"No. You're the only two 'non-vanilla' humans I know." He answered.
"Fine. I'm not worried about the money I've laid out for you so far. I am formally inviting you to join Jake and me. What each of has, we give. Maybe somewhere down the road, you'll take a bullet for me, or help raise my kid after I get killed for you. No one can guess what the future holds. But were allies and hopefully friends." I offered.
"That's quite an offer." He said.
"It is, do you need time to think about it?" I asked.
"No. I accept. It's very generous." He said.
I could tell he meant it.
"We don't write this in blood. If you ever change your mind. Just let us know and be on your way." I said.
"Very fair." He answered.
"As for money. Like I said, don't worry about it. What you have to give, you'll give. I have money. Don't worry about what I've laid out for you so far. The apartment is paid for another half year and you have money in your Omaha account to pay for basics. I don't expect to pay for you forever, when you're ready and you have something to move onto, we can transition." I said.
"That's generous. Thank-you." He said.
"As for a job, I have a sense you would be very good at security work." I said.
"I suppose so." He answered.
"When I got back from almost being killed by you, we did a sweep and found three devices from this Compost Mage running surveillance on my home. You could take that over. Pays good." I said.
"Why haven't you tracked down this sumbitch and put him down yet?" Travis asked.
"That's a good question that leads to some very basic problems. Number one, we have no idea where he is. He reaches out and touches us, pretty much when he wants to. Secondly, there's nothing to say that if we did track him down to his hole, that he wouldn't be able to swat us down. He could be very powerful and we're a minor sideline. Lastly, his home court could have millennia of countermeasures built in to give him a very insurmountable home field advantage." I explained.
"Oh." he answered.
"You may remember me asking about stuff you remember. You work on it, come up with something that tells us where he lives, maybe we could go have a look. I don't ask this stuff to make you uncomfortable or feel awkward. Remembering little details might be unpleasant but could mean all of our survival. As we sit, yeah, we're a little stronger with you. I'm busting my ass every day to improve myself to give us the best possible chance. Jake's a good kid, doing what he can. I know you're working hard to pull yourself back together and that's the best thing you can do for us.
"I know you were in the Marines, so you understand that as long as he can throw punches and we can't do anything but survive, eventually he's going to get lucky. He's going to catch us off guard, at a bad moment and we'll all be dead or buried in garbage. We have some real life or death challenges here. Frankly, I'm surprised he's waited this long. I figure that's part of his thing, attack, pester, leave alone for a long time, you think you're safe, he attacks again. Tends to support the sideline theory. It's also a great long-term strategy. He has literally no risk. Gets to keep catching us by surprise for the minimum cost of acquisition each time." I stopped since I realized I had been talking for a while.
"I'm sorry." He said after a bit.
That wasn't what I was expecting.
"Sorry for what?" I asked surprised.
"If I could just remember a damn thing, it could be a big help. I'm no help." He said.
Whoa. I needed to take a step back into sensitivity land. Travis was dealing with a lot right now. His whole conception of himself as a strong and capable man had just been tipped into the outhouse. He'd been used as a weapon against his will. I know we had washed the poop out of his body, but I'd gotten to see what was in his mind. Just in case he didn't have enough problems, he had to now also mourn his lost life. And I had just basically blamed everything on him, which no doubt dovetailed nicely with the guilty for being used like that feelings. Go Doctor Sheldon. Mr. Sensitivity.
"The Compost Mage has probably been playing this game for a long time. As I pointed out, you were part of a fire and forget kind of deal. He may have just kept you blindfolded or unable to see as a reflex precaution, the way you might open a newly handed pistol to see if it's loaded. Further, the experience was loaded with head injuries, you're lucky you remember your own name, much less those seconds. I'm sure we can come up with something for you to be useful if you want." I said, trying to sound calm not placating or patronizing.
"I want." He said.
"First thing we need, is for you to get yourself back to as close to one hundred percent as you can. If we can find this guy, we'll need the biggest punch we can get."
"Will do."
"Good. Let's go, I have some ideas." I said.
We left in my truck. I drove back to my place. I took him to the shop that just happened to be above the confinement room. I took out the jars of mud and compost.
"You said you were a tracker. Any ideas?" I asked.
He carefully picked each jar up and examined it from the outside.
"Can I open them?" He asked.
"Yeah, sure." I answered.
He opened the jars and looked at them. Smelled them. Tasted a couple with his pinky.
He looked at me and said, "Have you had them tested?"
Amazing how five words can make you feel like a complete idiot.
"No, but that sounds like a good idea." I answered.
Then I had a good idea and took Travis to the garage.
"By the way Travis, since you have your license, you might as well take the Jeep." I said as I handed Travis the keys.
Travis' eyes almost jumped out of his head when he saw my Jeep truck.
"Much obliged." Travis said as he took my keys and drove off.
We left the shop. I had Travis do some counter surveillance on my house and the apartments. I told him to just look, don't engage.
I had samples of the dirt and compost sent out for testing. I had access to the best forensic soil and anthropology labs in the world. Unfortunately, the soil people warned me, a sample can be tested against, but can't tell you specifically where it's from by itself.
Part of my problem I realized was that I tended to look at any given problem as either technology or magic. I needed to really make a point of looking at every problem both ways. Ideally, perhaps even coming up with new ways. I was at my best when I built magic and technology synergies.
While I was waiting on the mud tests, I decided to keep another ball in the air. I was having a problem with my hammer. I had forged the hammer head with Mr. Guna. However, I was on my own getting a handle on the hammer. On the third day after Mr. Guna left, the handle, made of the best hickory I could find, broke at the join between handle and head. I had two problems. I had never really tried to learn how to join a handle and a tool head. Secondly, I didn't have a piece of hickory that I felt real resonance with.
I could give up or I could keep trying.
I went to Woodworkers Supply and I got a cheap axe head and a dozen handles. I paid for their best guy to give me a personal class in handle attachment. It took a few tries, but I got it. It wasn't an impossible skill, just took some doing.
The second problem was more complicated. There are three major wood suppliers in the Omaha area and many hardware stores. I checked them all. Not a single piece of hickory that felt "right."
I got Travis to come back over.
Travis gave me his counter-surveillance report. He had picked up the Dark Glass guys, but nothing else. So far so good.
"I want you to set up a spiraling pattern starting from my house around the Omaha area. Note the location of every hickory tree. Every few days we'll go out together and you'll give me a tour. I need to find just the right tree." I explained.
"Is there anything special I should be looking for in the tree?" He asked.
"I wish I could explain. When I meet the right tree, I'll know." I answered.
I had some unused buildings in my home. I moved the metal forging shop to it's own space, carefully maintaining the layout Mr. Guna made to the millimeter.
I also worked with Woodworkers Supply to set up a wood shop. I got top of the line tools across the board. I also wanted the ability to dry my wood, so I had a full kiln set up.
Every two to three days I would go with Travis to visit all the hickory trees he had found. Omaha is a city with a lot of trees. We would spend a few hours visiting a few hundred trees. Time went by. As the search radius expanded, the trips became every three to four days.
The results came back from the jars. I had sent multiple samples to multiple labs. None of the labs could come up with anything on the compost. They could tell me exactly what was in the muck, but thanks to modern transport and interchangeability, it could have been made anywhere. I also got my first reports back on the soil. That was better. The soil had definitely not come from some garden supply place but had been dug out of the ground somewhere in the Rocky Mountain Front Range. That meant Wyoming, Colorado or New Mexico.
That information didn't really change anything. The Compost Mage had gone from being anywhere on Earth with a likelihood somewhere in North America to being likely in a three-state area. One has to point out, he could have just picked up and moved yesterday, the way he had left the warehouse in Carter Lake, and be in Uzbekistan by now. That said, I somehow felt re-energized. It was like when my Dad put his arm around me while I was trying to get a damn watch to keep working. I was not completely hopeless, I was just mostly hopeless.
It didn't hurt that on the next trip, I found the tree.
It was thirty-seven miles from home and well out in the countryside. Many farmers will have rings of trees around their fields as wind breaks. Most such trees don't get a lot of love and attention. This hickory was in a farmer's tree line. It was dead, apparently killed by a lightning strike. Maybe that had something to do with it?
We went to the farmer and I asked for the tree.
"Why do you want my dead tree?" The farmer asked.
"For the lumber." I answered honestly. "I would be helping you out. I would pay to have it pulled out and hauled away. That would be a substantial savings for you."
"I don't know. Make it a little bit sweeter." The farmer said.
"I'll pay to have a new twenty-foot tree planted come Spring. That's as far as I'll go." I answered.
"Done." The Farmer said and we shook.
I had an outfit come out the next day and drag the tree out of the ground, put it on a flat bed and drag it to my house. I paid a local nursery to come out and plant a new hickory come Spring and sent a copy of the receipt to the farmer.
I was thinking of having someone from Woodworkers come out and help me with the tree when Travis said, "You need some help with the tree?"
Turns out Travis knew his way around a woodshop.
Travis and Jake helped me process the tree into useful pieces and put most of the tree in a drying chamber to stabilize it. Then we cut out a blank for the hammer handle and completely treated it. We did a couple passes with store bought hickory to make sure we could turn a block of wood into a handle reliably. Then pulled our blank from the kiln and made a very nice hammer handle from the tree.
While practicing with the store-bought wood, I amused Travis and Jake by being able to pick out the wood from the tree and the store bought, blindfolded over and over.
I inserted the handle into the hammer head, and I had a working forge.
I sent Travis back to rehab and I went to work.
As luck would have it, I now had a mountain of high-quality steel in the form of reject bolts. The bolts were some very expensive, very high quality, high carbon stainless steel. I now had a forge where I could use them as raw material. I took a batch of bolts and made a knife.
I knew a fair amount about Travis. I knew he used to carry a pretty good K Bar knife that had been lost. I could have made him another or bought him a fancy one. But I didn't. I forged a knife that was a little of several others including a Bowie, a Japanese hunter and a skinning knife. It had a bit of an "S" shape, so the handle curved forward giving it a nice ergonomic grip. The body of the knife had a fat belly that would be very practical for gutting and skinning game. It had a flat back that gave it extra strength. It would also be a wicked weapon in a fight.
Most combat knives one sees these days are thin and light and focused on fancy high speed folding features. This knife was none of those. It didn't fold. It was solid and heavy. Yes, a bit of that make it stronger, add more material idea. Ug ug. Something told me Travis would like it that way. He needed some solidity in his life.
I spent a long time hammering that knife. Hammering in strength and sharpness and speed.
All the breathing and stretching and drilling and hammering Mr. Guna had taught me were in that knife. Each step and movement a careful choreography to insure just the right amount of time was spent for best outcome.
When I finally quenched the knife, it did not crack.
I gave the knife a good polish and a handle of elk horn.
I called over Travis and gave it to him.
"This is a pretty nice knife." He said.
"All your gear is gone. You need to start getting your kit back together." I said.
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Please don't miss that this is the first exciting book in a series. This book is followed by Warlock of Omaha Squared and Warlock of Omaha Cubed, both also on this site!
If you enjoy Star Wars and my writing, you may also enjoy a series of three Star Wars novels I have written, all called Legend of the Harp!
Lastly, if you like traditional Star Trek, look for my free novel, Star Trek: Lost Destiny, also on this site.
This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:
Pay
Pal
.me
/hemaccabe
and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.
While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.
Please help. Thank-you.