John had been disturbed ever since he returned from Totonac, but working and being around people seemed to help. One of his jobs was to help teach and train the sons of the women of Sanctuary, and so he let them know he would be investing a lot more time with them than usual.

Over the last several years, Women had come from all over the trade alliance to Sanctuary to leave marriages they were forced into or to leave abusive situations. Sometimes those situations were abusive husbands; other times, it was widows leaving abusive tribes. In the case of many, they came simply because they had nowhere else to go. Many of these women brought their sons and daughters, but once a son turned twelve, he had no choice but to leave as Sanctuary was for women and children. John, the Texas Rangers, and other men made sure these young men had the skills to survive in their primitive world.

Some of these youths were under twelve but old enough to start learning the jobs of men; others were older and lived in the village of Texas and were often helpers for the men of the village. Some were like Walker and wanted to grow up and become Texas Rangers or simply hunters. Others just wanted a good steady trade, and those were the ones John invited for his current lessons. Young men that would be content with a steady job, as little in their life had been stable.

When John had them gathered up, he said, “I have a very important lesson for you today.” Then John pointed to the slaves and said, “Can you guess why I brought these eunuchs here?” The slaves were not men. They could not be considered men. They were eunuchs. John had become more aware of their beliefs on the way back and did not want them spreading those beliefs among the youths. The best way to do that was to draw a clear line between the eunuchs and the children, especially since the youths needed the knowledge the eunuchs had without any of the beliefs.

One of the youths said, “You want us to manage the slaves?”

“No. You could be more wrong, but I don’t know how.”

Another youth said, “You want the slaves to manage us?”

“Wrong, but closer than you would like to believe.”

“You want us to work together?”

“Closer, but still off the mark. Think about it. What do these eunuchs have that you don’t?”

One of the boys said, “I am more concerned with what I have that they don’t.”

The boys laughed, and John gave the speaker a dirty look and said, “Fine. I will tell you. The eunuchs are from Totonac. They know how to work with stone. They have knowledge that nobody in the Trade Alliance has, and so they are going to show you how to work with stone.”

“So, you want us to do the work of slaves?”

“I want you to do the work that nobody else in the Trade Alliance knows how to do.”

“But it's slave work.”

“How long will the slaves live? They are eunuchs; they will not live as long as normal men. When they die, who will be left to make stone structures? They don’t just know how to make stone structures. They know things like how to make cloth armor. My wife has already learned part of the process. Will any of you tell her that she is doing slave work?”

They shook their heads and said, “No.”

“That’s great because stone structures are better than wooden ones. When the eunuchs die, how many nails will you make when you’re the only source for the best buildings in the Trade Alliance?”

One of the boys grew excited and said, “Oh, I see; when you put it that way, you're just showing us how to make more nails than we can make by ourselves.”

John turned to one of the slaves and said, “Eunuch, what is the first step to making stone buildings?”

The eunuch frowned and sighed; he was sad that he lost his name, then began explaining poorly since he didn’t know the language that well yet, “First, find special rock. Dig rock. Burn rock.”

They had already found a source of limestone, which wasn’t difficult since it was plentiful in the area. The slave brought them to the source and then showed the youths how to dig it up and break it into chunks. Once the lime was ready, they went to the woods and got fuel for the fire. Once the limestone was burned, they had lime powder which was quickly mixed with water to make lime mortar.

The slaves wanted them to use it to put two pieces of stone together, but as soon as John smelled the substance, he remembered the smell of Quickrete.

“Hey, hold off on putting those stones together.”

One of the eunuchs said, “No wait. Will dry. Not use then.”

“Okay, how about this. Put some stones together with the mortar, but only a couple, to show the young people how well it holds them together. While you do that, I need to find some sand and rock.”

The eunuch struggled to understand John and after a few seconds, said, “Yes. Use Half.”

And so, while the eunuch went to work, John found some sand and gravel and mixed that in with the leftover lime mortar. Everyone was confused; then, John began putting the stones together with his lime mortar that had sand and gravel. As John worked on it, he told them he was making “Concrete.”

Once the two sets of stones were finished, John told the boys. “Okay, we are going to make a lot more of the dry limestone powder. Get to work with the slaves. Tomorrow we are going to see if my little project works out; if so, we are going to need a LOT more limestone powder.”

The youths were not happy with all the work they had to do to dig up limestone, cut down trees, and split them for what they considered excess limestone powder. But they did what they were told. In part because they knew John was trying to teach them skills that would help them throughout their life.

The next day they lined up in front of stones that were held together with the lime mortar and whatever John had made, and John said, “Today we are going to do an experiment. Do you know what an experiment is?”

The young men shook their heads. Granted, it wasn’t uncommon for John to use a word nobody had ever heard of before.

“An experiment is where we do things a different way than normal to see if it gives us better results. For instance, normally, the eunuchs use lime mortar to hold stones together, but I added sand and gravel to see if it would work better. I am going to use the back of an ax to see how well they hold up. If they hold up nearly equally, then we will make our stone towers and walls with lime mortar. If the concrete I made does a better job, then we will use it.”

John began swinging at the stones held together by lime mortar first. It held for one, two, three swings before busting apart. The youths were shocked by how well the mortar held the stones together because the stuff holding the stones together was as hard and tough as stone. Then John went to his concrete that was made with some sand and gravel. He swung one, two, three, four, five times before it broke.

The eunuchs were shocked for different reasons than the youths. They were shocked at the tool that could break their mortar so easily, and they were shocked that John improved their mortar so easily.

As everyone stood around impressed, John said, “Okay, so we know sand and gravel will make this stronger. So that leads me to a little competition for you young people. Over the next week, I want you to make your own version of concrete. That’s where you mix sand, gravel, and water with the limestone powder. You will put each mix you make in a cup. I will smash the concrete with the back of my ax and whichever mix is the strongest wins the competition. I want you to keep track of what you do with each cup because you will only win if we can copy your results. Doing great work once is not sufficient. Tell me exactly how much sand, limestone, rock, and water you put in the winning cup. Perhaps you do something different with the sand, water, gravel, or limestone. Something we didn’t think of. Whatever it is, write it down. Whoever wins will be given a box of nails.”

The boys cheered. A box of nails was more than they ever earned in their life. If they got that, they could make their own house and perhaps get married. Without waiting for any more words from John, they ran off to begin the process. John smiled as they ran. When they brought their creations back, he would tell them that they were entrepreneurs and then explain that an entrepreneur was someone who found better, faster, cheaper ways of doing things and that their experiments made them entrepreneurs. But that would happen when he was looking over their work.

As for the remainder of the week, he would draw up a simple stone building with the eunuchs. A tower would suffice. It’s defensive, tall, and has a relatively small footprint. If their tower design worked, then they should be able to build walls around the village. Stone walls would be far more defensible than the wooden ones they currently had, it would allow him to teach the youth valuable life skills, and it would make those boys strong.