I was alone in the trailer, in a bed I’d never slept in. It was a strange feeling and threw me for a minute. The modern conveniences were nice though. I decided to save the shower for the end of the work day, so after a quick cleanup, I went out for coffee. I had a quiet word with Matilda, Michelle, and Sonya, to remind them that this was Memorial Day weekend back in the future. We’d have to have some sort of private ceremony to celebrate our lost future families.

After breakfast, the council gathered for a quick morning meeting. I pointed out that summer solstice was approaching and it was to be one of our four major holidays, so we needed to prepare a festival. Then we got down to today’s business. Timmons was going down to the landing to wait for his boat to come in. We sent a scout down with him for security and company. Kordi was also sent along, so she could fetch us when the boat arrived. Pete had a scout who loved to fish, so he was the chosen one for that mission. With that sorted, we moved on to the rest of the day.

The livestock would be good for a couple more days in the pasture before they started to stress that resource. At that point, they’d need to be driven out to the prairie to graze. The producing cows, pigs, and work animals would stay here. Today, we needed to clear the path to the Landing so we could move our goods quickly when they arrived. I’d take the men to work on that; Pete and his guys had their own business to attend to. Michelle would get the women organized while Sonya, Mouse, and I worked in the office.

School for the kids today was to be short classes on the letters, math and language. Then Mary would start teaching the basics of weaving, braiding, and the like. Meeting over, responsibilities delegated, and time to get to work, all before the clock struck seven.

I saddled up Lunch and led our team of men out to what would become Rulo Road, or just, ‘the road,’ in conversation. Street names became just another item on our growing ‘To Do’ list. We had the mules in traces and several other pack animals with travois, to remove brush and debris. We also had every single lumbering or clearing tool I owned. The boat was bringing more tools and, hopefully, it was bringing them today.

We went to work to widen and level the slight path we had been using. We only had a couple of axes, but we cleared the brush and smoothed it as best we could. Our limited tools minimized what we could do immediately, but I expected that to change quickly. We had almost made it the few miles to the bluff when Kordi came bursting up to meet us. The boat had come in and it wasn’t even noon yet.

I told everyone with tools to keep working. The rest of us took the pack animals and went down to greet the boat. I was eager to find out what Patrick had managed to accomplish.

**** ****

The boat was successfully moored and they were prepping for offload when we showed up. They had tied her up parallel to the beach so they could run out their loading ramp directly from the main cargo house door. While the men finished the prep work, I took a minute with Patrick and Timmons for a quick welcome and to issue immediate instructions.

I wanted to feed everyone first and then turn to tasks for the afternoon. There would be a celebration, of sorts, tonight. Tomorrow was Sunday, our designated day of rest. We drew up that simple plan and gathered the men to head up for our midday meal. We picked up the road team as we went by. The group headed back in a column of about two dozen men. We left two guards behind; we’d bring them food on our return.

Matilda was ready for us. How that woman knew these things was still a mystery to me, but there was a huge pile of wraps waiting for us on the table, dead in the middle of the village. Making enough food for fifty-plus people, while making it easy and tasty, is quite a chore even in the modern age. Doing it all from scratch, over a fire, is a flat-out wonder.

Michelle had moved the table and benches away from the compound to keep the mess minimized. It was a good decision; it made me realize we had a need for a village common and large hall in the very near future. In my mind, the term would always be a town grange but a quick bit of research later would prove me wrong. We did need a grange, but we needed a town hall where we could all gather. It certainly wouldn’t be a church of any sort, in my town.

Regardless, this was late May and not the moment to fuss over such things. I stayed busy, meeting boatmen and starting to get to know everyone else on a casual basis. Sonya stayed at my side, reminding me of names and noting all of my interactions. I started to understand that my minor gaffes and erroneous decisions would become part of the historical record. It seems that I had firmly implanted myself into a role that I absolutely detested.

**** ****

Politics aside, it was a simple working lunch, and we had a boat to unload. Food pile vanquished, all of us men trooped off to unload the boat and complete the basics of the main road. We now had a work crew of more than twenty men, much more than one man could organize and supervise. Timmons and Patrick had the boat crew in order. I appointed Isaiah and Schmitt in charge of the land crew. Isaiah kept the majority of the guys going on the road crew and Schmitt was responsible for sorting the incoming goods.

Things still went slowly up on the road crew, until the tools were finally off-loaded. Suddenly, we had an axe of some sort for every man and we set them free to clear the course. Those guys had been frustrated by the piecemeal progress up to that point, but once we had a dozen or more axes singing, we had a clear path in short order.

Of course, we still had to clear and clean all of the fallen trees. Still, the morale had improved considerably with the opportunity to simply let oneself go a little and take it out on a poor tree. A short conference had been held and the team followed the caution to leave the stumps fairly tall; they were easier to remove that way. We’d just avoid them until they were gone. My rubberstamp approval made everyone happy. I climbed back on Lunch and continued to pretend to be useful.

With the trees down, the focus was turned to removing them and clearing the brush. Patrick had obtained additional traces at Fort Dickenson, so we actually ended up with four teams pulling and the rest clearing brush with hatchets, machetes, and scythes. The progress was actually incredible; I spent so much time dealing with little decisions that I was surprised when I saw the first boatman traipsing gear up the newly widened trail.

Sunset was hours off, yet this crew had chewed up almost three miles of virgin forest to create a crude road from my homestead all of the way to the Landing. We still had a lot of work to do on it, but it was a start, and our log pile was growing nicely.

The boatmen’s lodge was to be built at the top of the bluff ,with an overlooking view of the Landing and the river. Timmons wanted his house on the opposite side of the road, where there was actually a small knoll and a much better view. The trading/warehouse would be built next to the boatmen’s lodge. All of their tents went up in those areas; the supplies that were staying in town were cached there. The rest of the cargo was hauled up to the village. The pack animals simplified that task considerably.

At that point, we turned to party preparations. Tonight, we would party a little and the next day was our day of rest. Monday morning would arrive soon enough.