While the river subsided, each peek of the sun through the dense canopy in the morning required Tor to move the canoe further down the tunnel of trees and then tie it off so that it would not float away. And each night he lay awake, half in sorrow, and half in fear, praying to the gods. But he heard nothing but the usual night sounds and nothing sneaking up on him that he could hear or smell.

When the Rine had sufficiently slowed and the banks reappeared, scarred, but still there, Tor launched again, both paddling and sailing upriver when the wind was right. It seemed to take longer without any companion to talk to. Perhaps it was his tired and sore muscles paddling for so long against the current with a heavily laden craft. But perhaps it was also his sorrow that impeded his normal strength and power. He did seem powerless against the gods.

In due time, Tor reached the fiery river. He had to unload the canoe before he could pull it from the water. Since its ancient wood had absorbed water, the craft was too heavy for him to pull up on the bank by simply grabbing onto it. The thought made him long for, somehow, having saved Roan to do that job for him.

Instead, he found a sturdy pole among the boat debris still there after the flood. It was the length of his height, a bit longer. He sharpened the narrow end, and with a short rope not much longer, tied one end to the walrus tusks and the other end about knee high on the pole.

Reaching the length of the rope, he forced the pole into the soft ground, and then from the top of the pole Tor stood facing the boat and pulled the top of the pole toward him, giving him the leverage that he needed to pull a load three times his weight onto the bank and much further up where it would be safe from future floods. All it took was replacing the pole several times, firmly pushing it into the ground and then, pulling the boat one more time.

Tor then, using the outrigger for its leverage, turned the canoe on its side and up against a sturdy tree that he tied it firmly to. On its side, the craft would not collect water from rain or snow and would not be upside down where it might become the home of vermin. He hoped that anyone on the river or on the trail would not mess with a well taken care of craft with those forbidding tusks lashed to it. Certainly, anyone who knew that he was there would not bother his possessions.

It took him three cycles of the sun to carry all the supplies into the long abandoned camp. But the first evening, before Tor made a temporary shelter, he made sure to take a bath in the hot pool to ease his aching muscles and soothe his troubled mind. Still, he did not sleep well, and thoughts of the others often came to his mind day or night. So he tried to keep very busy to keep from falling into apathy or sorrow. He had only himself to fend for now. So he had to do a very good job or die.

There was much to do. The summer was nearly over and winter would come quickly. One of the first things that Tor did was check on the pyres of the dead. They were there, unmolested except for some rocks that had fallen off as a result of winter ice and spring thaw. He quickly repaired all of those and checked on the one holding treasure. Except for what he had taken earlier, it was all there. He was relieved. Much to trade with.

Tor repaired the hut of Glu and Conie, and moved in. He liked how close it was to the hearth where Glu had taught him how to smelt copper and other metals like gold and silver that were occasionally found in the seams of quartz. He knew how to extract these metals by methods that were secret only to Glu and those, like Tor and Teve, that he had entrusted them to. They involved using cord and fire, as well as wedges and heavy stone hammers that required a strong arm to wield.

But first, he had to put in food for the coming winter and there was some urgency. During the mid-day hours, he spent gathering like children and women did in the clan. He gathered berries, wild vegetables, roots, mushrooms, spices and seeds that he ground into the stock for his various forms of gruel or stews with meat or fish. There were two bee trees that Glu had shown him where he could get some sweetening and there were some wild fruit trees, like his favorite, apples, that also attracted bears and other creatures who liked to eat them.

In the morning, he would go to the river sometimes to catch fish and hunt at the same time. In the evening he would go to one of the glens or the salt lick where Tor gathered salt to hunt for big game. It was more difficult to kill an elk or a bison alone, but he succeeded in, first by snaring them, and then, killing them close, first with arrows, followed with his very sharp obsidian blade.

It was a lot of butchering, smoking and curing of the hides with the brains of the animals, but with each of those huge beasts, he had enough meat, alone, for the winter. But he supplemented that with birds, bird eggs, fish, fish eggs, and all manner of small creatures from the forest and glens that he snared or shot with an arrow for variety and fresh meat, even throughout the long winter. He always found a use for these animals' fur, quills, teeth, feathers, bone, gut, skin and scales.

One day, a beautiful day after the first frost. Tor was working putting up smoked salmon in a hut that he made bear proof by climbing up the scaffolding and hanging them from the cliff where a bear couldn't even smell them.

Suddenly, he heard a yip and out of the corner of his eye saw Thin, with his bones sticking out to match his name running to him, slowed by his tail wagging so much!

Thin bore a long scar on his muzzle and was missing his eye at the end of the scar. How he came to find his master, Tor did not understand. But later that day Tor made a sacrifice to thank the gods for bringing him back.

Still, it was a lonely existence, but Tor settled into it in time. He no longer had to fear losing someone close to him. Especially during the long periods inside with a coal fire keeping him warm while he worked on various crafts. Making the tools he needed and the trinkets and carvings that he would trade. He wondered if he would ever travel the river again. Habit had him using the store of copper and other metals he had available from the cache of them.

But Tor did miss women doing the cooking for him and some of their crafts. Like making garments that women did. He also missed teaching youngsters the many skills that he had and wanted to pass on. He was glad that people might be moving along the river again in spring.

Tor had spread the word along the Rine that a pestilence had wiped out every single one of the evil murdering clan raiding the other clans on the river. He had also shown many clans the value of traveling between clans to trade, find wives and husbands, and share information like what a horse could do for them.  Spring found parties of clansman traveling the trails in the river again.

Occasionally, a party of men, and sometimes, with women and children, would follow the fiery river to his camp. Tor always made sure to hold a great feast for visitors and then trade and just enjoy stories over bonfires at night. Some came and left in the space of the same cycle. Others came and stayed for a moon when the word got out where he was. Some old friends in some new.

There were women who wanted to stay with him. But Tor was aware that he had no children and was frank with those who wanted to have children with him. Occasionally, he let a woman stay with him a while or through a winter.

She almost always left in the spring. Taking with her a lot that she had learned, but finding that his melancholy moods were not to her liking. Although his stories were something that enchanted women, especially during the long periods of being forced indoors by the cold.

In later cycles of seasons, as his skin became stretched and his muscles sagged, Tor became unattractive, partly because of his way of working with the metal and breathing the fumes. It got so he could no longer climb the scaffolding to work the seams. He got tattoos on his aching joints to try to ease the pain the gods provided him with. As time went on, it was only his knowledge that kept him alive when hunting for big game became out of the question.

Thin helped out by bringing home presents from daily hunting forays along the river and into the forest. He was a good provider of small game that supplemented Tor's diet with variety.

But Thin, just after Tor carved 10 notches on his life tree, encountered a wolverine while out hunting. Ending his life. When Tor found what remained of his body, he took it and made a small stone pyre by the others. He had no tears to cry. He was glad that Thin died before getting old like he was. Generally the way of wolves and old dogs.

Tor didn't know the power of the mysterious metal that flowed sometimes from the rock he was working. He would have to quickly hold up a cup to catch it before it fell below him off the cliff. It looked like silver, but did not act like it.

Glu called it quicksilver and used it sometimes to extract gold from the other rocks and minerals. Tor made  small idols and amulets from the soft golden hued metal that never tarnished like silver or copper. For some purposes, he liked the green film that formed on the copper, but not the black one that dulled the shine on silver. Except for small projects done in winter, gold and silver were not as valuable as copper for tools and weapons in his mind.

Tor eventually became so strange minded, only the brave would come and trade with him. Women no longer stayed, because they feared his tantrums. Some who came through took pity and provided him with food, coal and firewood for the winter. But that last winter, what was stored was not enough. He either died of starvation or the cold. But in the spring when they found him in his home, he was long dead. The worms and beetles were eating him.

The place became haunted because of him and it took a long time before anyone ventured back there. But during his life there he had taught a few youth the copper smithing trade, so one of those may have come back to that place where there were rich minerals to be had and a very warm pool to bathe in. But whether or not the cache of treasures was ever found, history does not tell us.

But it is possible that one of the clans that built those huge castles on the river Rine much later exploited those minerals and found that treasure, making them rich and powerful as time marched on and clans became villages or kingdoms. The Rine always provided.

Copyright 2021 © Ronald W. Hull

8/26/21