Chapter 55: Aftermath

I was reminded of why the leader is never supposed to lose their cool. Every living creature on the homestead was skittish around me the next morning, evidently I had cast that “Apex Predator” vibe when I came back through yesterday and even that stupid rooster called emergency and retreated with his hen into the coop when I approached.

Matilda and Michelle were both wrapped around me when I woke up. This would not do at all unless we got a bigger bed. Besides this wasn’t one of the things I really had on my want list in life. I could deal with it though, I’d figure out a way.

I decided the best way to get things back on track was to act normal. We ran through the morning routine and had breakfast as usual. Road cutting was at the top of the priority list still so off we went to keep cutting. We had gotten far enough in that it actually took us a while to walk to the face of our cut.

Obviously they had worked on after I left yesterday and the clearing crew was almost caught up with the cutting crew. I had actually made impressive progress the day before and we were near or past the halfway mark. It really wasn’t far from our homestead to the river but the woods really hampered one’s speed, a person averaged about 1mph walking through woods like these but easily does 3mph on a cleared trail.

I decided we should venture down to the river to see how much farther we had to go. We made our way down the game trail we were following and were at the river in under ten minutes, we probably had three or four hundred yards left to cut and clear. Mind you this cutting and clearing didn’t include stumps, we had to come back and do that, but it gave us a solid start. As soon as the spring waters receded I intended to head down river and pick up some vital supplies.

We went back to the face of the cut and got to work, it was back to the original routine and our progress was still good. We could work in any weather short of a downpour and we pushed on through the week, school classes were before supper these days to support our days out in the field. Reading outloud replaced movies as our entertainment.

By dinner time on Thursday we could hear the river clearly and we could see it through the trees by the time we broke for the day. Friday should be the breakthrough and culmination of two weeks of hard work.

Everyone came down to the face of the cut for dinner on Friday, there were only a handful of trees left in our path and we’d fell them as soon as we’d eaten. The party atmosphere was envigorating and spirits were running high. They’d brought and laid out a great mid-day meal for us complete with cold beers and everything, we ate sitting on logs but the food was top notch.

After eating Holder and I went through the last few trees fairly quickly, we left one lone tree standing in the middle of our new road while we cleared everything else away. Clearing took another hour or so with everyone helping but we had a fairly nice looking single lane road all the way to the river. It wasn’t straight obviously, we had dodged the largest of the trees but it was refreshing to see after all that work.

That was it, the clearing was done and only that lone small tree stood between us and our finished road. They had brought beer and lemonade down so we each had drink to celebrate. We took a minute to thank the trees and then Michelle made the first cut, she handed the ax to Amos who deftly made the second cut, Holder was next with the third cut using the logging axe which he then passed off to me.

I stood back and looked around, then I just smiled and took the tree down.

The road was clear, it was a trip hazard with all the stumps, but it was clear. We all walked down to the river bank and looked at the Nemaha running fat and fast with the spring melt waters. This would bring change to our lives and not all of it would be good, any party traversing that river would see our road and know where we were.