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  Pell stood back up, putting his hands on his hips and staring down at the device they been working on. “I thought this weight on a lever would work just as well as the bent sapling, but that it would let us put a snare wherever we wanted, instead of just wherever an appropriately springy sapling happened to be growing. But, I think the weight moves too slowly. It pulls the noose closed, all right, but it’s so slow I think birds’d have time to fly free.” He looked at Woday, “You know, because they’re really quick.”

  “What if you just hung the stone on the end of the cord, instead of on the end of a stick? It seems to me the stick’s slowing the motion of the dropping stone.”

  Pell’s eyes went back to the snare. He said, “That’s a great idea! Let’s try it.”

  Pell tied the stone he’d been using to hammer the stakes to the end of the cord. Then he ran the cord over the Y on the top of the stake so it held the rock high off the ground. He had Woday hold the cord so the rock wouldn’t fall while he fashioned a noose and draped it around the short stake he’d stuck back in the ground. This time when he told Woday to let go of the cord, the rock fell, snatching the noose closed around the stake and pulling the stake up into the air. This time, without the long lever on the end of the stone, the stake wasn’t thrown anywhere.

  Pell stood and slapped Woday on the shoulder, saying, “Yes! Now all we need’s a trigger and we can put these wherever we want.”

  Pell hammered the stake back into the ground, then tied another stake with a hooked branch to the snare noose. He gingerly hooked the second branch onto the stake in the ground. Woday thought the hooking together of the two seemed unstable. Pell laid out the noose on the ground around the tip of the branch.

  Reaching out with a twig, Pell tapped the tip of the hooked branch. The hook slipped off its unstable connection to the stake in the ground and the rock fell, jerking the noose closed around Pell’s twig. “Yes!” Pell said. He looked at Woday, “Why don’t you set the snare again while I go get a little bit of grain to bait it with?” He turned and trotted toward the cave.

  Woday watched him go, thinking that he would have expected the master to send the apprentice for the grain while the master set up the snare again. Woday turned back and, lifting the stone weight, he hooked the trigger back to the stake.

  Pell trotted back across the meadow. He scattered a bit of grain into the middle of the noose, then stood, just looking at the snare. Woday said, “Shall we build another snare?”

  Pell silently stared at the snare they’d already built for several more hands of heartbeats, then turned to look at Woday, “We can if you want. But I was thinking that first we should wait to see if this one works. If it doesn’t, there’s no need for us to do all the work of setting up more of them until we’ve figured out how to make this one work better.” He turned and gazed off across the meadow to the bush where the counter-weighted version had thrown the stake.

  Woday watched him just stand there for a while. Finally, he said, “What’re you thinking about?”

  “Hmm?” He turned his eyes to Woday and looked a little bit surprised. “Oh, I’m thinking about how the snare threw the stake so far. Farther than a person could throw it, or at least farther than I can. Why’s that? It can’t be stronger, after all we lifted the stone and it was the weight of the stone that threw the stick, right?”

  It was Woday’s turn to stare across the meadow. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the sapling’s longer than your arm?”

  Pell turned to him, a questioning look on his face, “Why would that matter?”

  “I don’t know! Your arms are longer than mine and you throw harder than I do.” Woday shrugged, “But, I guess you’re probably stronger than I am too, huh?”

  Pell twisted his lips, “Maybe? But I think you might have something there. The hafted axe hits a lot harder than a hand axe and, in a way, the haft makes your arm longer.” He went over and picked up their hafted axe, then held it up looking at it. He walked into the trees a little way and stopped at a small tree, about as big around as a man’s wrist. Gripping the handle of the hafted axe just below the axe head, he swung it at the trunk. It looked to Woday like he’d swung it as hard as he could, and it did raise a significant chip off the trunk. Now Pell stepped back. He took a grip on the ax handle near the end, then swung again. A large chunk of the trunk flew away and the tree split from the location where Pell hit it on down the trunk about a hand. After a moment, the little tree fell over. There was no doubt that Pell had hit the trunk far harder using the full length of the handle.

  Woday was about to comment on how much harder Pell had struck the tree when Pell held out the axe, “Try it and see what you think.”

  Woday didn’t want to, because he wasn’t any good with axes. But he couldn’t really refuse the offer. He started while holding the handle close to the axe, swinging in from the side to hit the trunk of the small tree. He raised a small chip of wood, though nothing compared to the chunks Pell’d made fly. Next, he gripped the axe near the end of the handle. As he was about to swing it, he noticed a crack in the handle around the stone head. “The axe handle’s cracked,” he said pointing to the break. “I think that last swing of yours was too hard.”

  Pell looked at the axe. “Spirits!” he exclaimed shaking his head. He shrugged unhappily, “Well, you’d just as well try a swing with it. We can’t do anything to keep it from breaking the rest of the way, so you’d just as well see what you think about how hard you can hit with it.”

  Taking a mighty swing at the same spot on the tree, Woday hoped he’d hit close to the chip he’d taken out with the hand axe. To his dismay, he not only missed chipping the tree, he misjudged the length of the handle on the hafted axe, striking the little tree’s trunk with the shank of the axe’s handle.

  The head of the axe flew off out of the trees and into the meadow. Woday’s initial dismayed thought was that the axe head was going to be hard to find. Then he noticed the amazed look on Pell’s face. “What?” he asked.

  “Did you see that axe-head fly?!” Pell turned and started toward the cave. “Let’s go find Deltin,” he said. Woday would have sworn he sounded kind of eager.

  “Why do you want to go find Deltin? He’s going to be pissed that you broke his axe handle!”

  Pell grinned, “I’ll preempt him by complaining about how weak his axe handles are. Besides, the way this broke makes me think a stick could be used to throw stones. I need his help building a stick that’ll do that.”

  Thankfully, as they crossed the meadow toward the cave, Woday found the axe head without any trouble.

  Deltin wasn’t at the cave, but Donte was sitting out front and pointed the direction he’d gone. So, it was back out into the trees, though in a different direction than they’d gone when they were working on their snare. As they walked, they called Deltin’s name.

  Before they’d gone too far, they heard Deltin’s voice calling back to them. They headed that direction. When they found him, he grinned at them and said, “If you came out here to help me cut trees for axe handles, you should have brought more axes to do it with!”

  Pell held up the broken axe handle and said, “No! We came out here to tell you that you haven’t been making these strong enough. Look, it broke!”

  Deltin’s eyes widened, then narrowed as he looked at the broken handle, “How hard were you swinging that thing?!”

  Pell drew back as if in consternation, “I was swinging it like a man.” He frowned, “Was this one only for children?”

  Deltin laughed, “No, but I admit I didn’t make it for a beast like you either.” He sighed as if terribly disheartened, “I suppose I’m going to have to make a special axe handle just for brutes your size.”

  Pell produced a chagrined expression, “I’m sorry. You can just make me a regular one. I’ll be careful to swing it like a little boy from now on.”

  Deltin snorted, “I know you didn’t come all the way out here just to make fun of my axe handles.
What do you really want?”

  Pell got an excited look on his face. “The axe breaking gave me an idea…”

  Deltin interrupted him with a fake moan, “Not another idea?!”

  Pell gave him a hurt look, “You don’t want to hear it? Should I take it to someone else?”

  Deltin snorted again. “No, no. Tell me your idea. For the Great Spirit’s sake! I don’t want to be the last to know!”

  Pell leaned forward and held out the axe handle. “Here’s my idea. If we remove the broken section of the handle…”

  “That’s easy enough,” Deltin interrupted, taking the handle and grabbing the split section.

  Pell said, “No!” Once Deltin let go of the split section, he said, “No, not by splitting it off. We need this part here.” He took out his knife and scratched a line around the wood he wanted to remain in place.

  Deltin frowned at it, “Why would you want that? Are you trying to make some kind of hook or something?”

  Woday looked at what Pell had drawn out on the wood. With the split section gone, the handle would be narrower down to the head end, and if Deltin cut away the split section where Pell had marked it, it would indeed look somewhat like a hook. Pell said, “No, not a hook. More like a cup. A cup you could put a stone in.”

  “Why, for the spirits’ sakes, would you want a cup on the end of a stick that you could put a stone in?”

  Pell lifted an eyebrow and produced a subtle grin, “I’m hoping it’ll let me throw stones harder.”

  Deltin tilted his head doubtfully, “A stick? A stick’s going to let you throw farther?”

  Pell looked a little exasperated at Deltin’s reservations, “Come on Deltin. That very ‘stick’ you’re holding is the kind of stick that lets us swing an axe harder. A club’s a stick that lets you hit harder. Why not a stick that lets us throw harder?"

  Deltin looked at Pell levelly for a few moments, then said, “Okay. I don’t think it’s going to work, but I’ll help you make it.” He started back toward the cave with a smirk, “I’ll even try not to laugh when it doesn’t work.”

  ***

  Back at the cave, they took seats on the ledge out front next to Donte who was making baskets. Deltin unwrapped the new bundle of woodworking tools Yadin had made for him over the winter. Using some flint chisels, he outlined the mark Pell had made on the broken axe handle; then deepened the notch according to Pell’s directions. Once he’d cut away the split fragment, he deepened the cup it’d left as well.

  Deltin looked up at Pell, “Should I smooth the inside of the cup?”

  Pell looked a little surprised, “Oh. No, let me try it out to be sure it works before you spend any more time on it.” Taking it from Deltin, he stood and hopped down off the ledge, starting across the meadow toward the stream. Woday and Deltin got up to follow him. Pell glanced back at Deltin and said, “Thanks for your help. I can come find you if I need anything else done to it.”

  With a straight face, Deltin said, “Oh no. I need to be there so I can look sympathetic when it doesn’t work.” He stilled his face further and somberly said, “And, of course, not laugh. I promised I wouldn’t.”

  Pell snorted and continued toward the stream, angling toward an area where the stream curved back toward the meadow. Woday remembered there were a lot of small round stones near the point of the bar formed by the curve. Picking up several of the stones, Pell tried fitting them into the cup on the end of the stick. Finding one just a little smaller than the cup so it wouldn’t wedge in, he dropped the rest. Holding the handle, he swung the stick back behind him, carefully keeping the cup somewhat upright so the stone couldn’t fall out. Then he slung it forward in a graceful throwing motion, reminding Woday of the way Pell threw rocks by hand.

  The motion suggested a throw so well that for a moment Woday’s eye searched downrange for the flying stone. He couldn’t see it, then his attention—captured by the movement—shot back to the end of Pell’s throwing stick where the stone had just fallen out of the cup and was dropping straight down to the ground.

  How embarrassing! Woday thought, afraid that Deltin would start laughing at Pell. Woday’s eyes went to Pell’s face expecting to see horrified chagrin. Instead, Pell’s eyes, widened in initial astonishment, crinkled at the corners. His knees bent and he roared with laughter, grabbing at his ribs as they shook. He settled slowly to the ground. Still laughing uncontrollably, he rolled and pointed a finger at Deltin. Between gales of laughter, he choked out, “I’ll bet you were properly amazed by that throw, right?”

  Deltin looked like he was making an extreme effort to keep his promise that he wouldn’t laugh. His countenance remained stern and he lifted one eyebrow as he stared down at Pell. “I’m sorry that…” Then the corner of his mouth quirked up, his teeth began to show, and a moment later he was leaning over next to Pell, howling with laughter.

  Woday kept his face straight a moment longer, then he also began to laugh. When they’d all settled somewhat, Woday said somberly, “I’m glad I didn’t travel all this distance to ask you to teach me how to make throwing sticks.” At this, the others dissolved in laughter again.

  Eventually, Deltin stood, put his hand down on Pell’s shoulder, and said, “I’m a little sorry your idea didn’t work, but I must point out that it’s about time one of your crazy notions didn’t succeed as you’d imagined.” He turned and started back toward the forest where they’d found him, calling back over his shoulder, “Some of us have important things to do.”

  Woday expected Pell to toss his attempt at a throwing stick into the river and return to working on snares. Instead, when Woday looked back at his master, he found the young man studying his throwing stick. Pell was turning it back and forth, looking at it from different angles.

  After a brief period of study, Pell picked up another stone from near where he was sitting and dropped it in the cup at the end of the stick. Now he began tilting the stick back and forth at different angles, tipping it different ways to see when the stone fell out of the cup. Looking up at Woday, he said, “I think the problem is that the cup on our first one’s pointing too much forward. That means that when the stick swings forward…” Pell demonstrated the motion, “the cup begins to face backwards. The stone, which we want to fly out of the end of the cup, can’t because the cup’s pointing the wrong direction.”

  Woday frowned as he tried to understand what Pell was saying.

  Apparently seeing the confusion on Woday’s face, Pell stood and slowly moved the stick through a throwing motion, pointing out to Woday the direction the cup was pointing in each segment of the throwing motion. “What I think we need,” Pell continued, “is for the cup to almost be pointing backwards when you first start to throw, then it’ll be pointing forwards when you finish the throw.” He handed the stick to Woday, “Here, if you’ll take the stick through a slow throwing motion, I want to look at the direction the cup’s pointing as compared to where we’d like it to be pointing.”

  Woday worried as he slowly went through the throwing motion with the stick. He knew he wasn’t good at throwing and feared that the—probably poor—mechanics of the way he threw would confound Pell’s analysis. If Pell noticed that Woday’s throwing movements were odd, he refrained from commenting on it. Instead, he watched Woday swing the throwing stick at full speed, then at half speed, then in slow motion. Finally, it was back to a couple of full speed throws and then to having Woday start the motion and stop at different stations on the way through the movement, holding his position so Pell could look at the direction of the cup and scratch marks onto the side of the stick.

  After puzzling over this endeavor, Woday eventually said, “What’re you doing?”

  Speaking slowly as if he were still thinking, Pell said, “Trying to decide on the direction the cup should point on our next throwing stick.”

  “You’re going to make another one?” Woday said in disbelief. To himself, he thought, After the total and humiliating failure of the first one?!
>
  “Sure,” Pell said with a shrug, “most things don’t work well the first time you try them, you know.” He held the first throwing stick out and looked at it with an oddly fond smile, “Though few of them fail quite as spectacularly as this one did.” He turned, “Let’s get a hafted axe and go look for another piece of wood.”

  Woday hurried to catch up, “If you break another one of his axe handles, Deltin’s going to be really pissed.”

  “Serve him right for laughing at my idea,” Pell said with a grin.

  “You laughed first!”

  “He shouldn’t have laughed with me!”

  ***

  Axe in hand, Woday and Pell searched the woods briefly for a sapling with the kind of branch Pell wanted. Since Woday didn’t know what they were looking for, he just followed Pell around. Then since the sapling wasn’t large, he steadied the upper trunk while Pell chopped at the lower trunk a few thumbs below a sturdy branch. Next, Pell laid it on the ground to chop the trunk off just above the branch, then shortened the branch to about the length of his forearm.

  Back at the cave, they found Deltin there making another axe handle. Pell stopped in front of him and waited until he looked up. Deltin said, “Don’t tell me you’ve had another idea?”

  Disingenuously, Pell said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind teaching me how to cut a trough in a small piece of wood?”

  Shaking his head and grinning, Deltin said, “And I suppose you have the perfect piece of wood for you to learn about troughs right there in your hand?”

  Pell looked down at his hand as if surprised to realize he was carrying a piece of wood, “Sure, I guess this piece would do.” He pointed to the section of the trunk on the inside of the angle between it and the branch, “Maybe you could show me how to make a deep groove in this surface here.”