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The tall husky nodded, his fur rippling around a bit as he did so, "Right, ok, let me get the buckets." He jogged away back up toward the house, and grabbed two, then returned to the stream and filled those two buckets up with water, one for the washing during the work, the other for cooking later. He stood with them and nodded back toward the house, "Let's get this show on the road....as for getting alcohol in town, you mean we can't just drink it all and forget our worries?" He laughed.

Tisha shook her head, a grin threatening to take over her lips. "You are so bad, Marco! Of course we can't drink it all! What would we do then if one of us got a serious injury that required us to do surgery or something similar?" Four buckets of water would be plenty for cooking and cleaning during the work today. She picked up the first two that Marco filled and waited while he filled the other two, then headed up to the house with him. "When we get there, go grab the brains, and I'll grab the knives. We'll get the hides and venison for dinner together."

Marco laughed and shook his head, "I was only kidding." He let her take two buckets, and once the others were filled he followed her back up to the house. He put the water down outside the back porch and then went to grab the brains out of the house where they had put them the day before. They stunk worse, and he nearly gagged, but managed to keep his stomach under control and got the bucket outside into the fresh air where it wasn't so bad.

While Marco went to grab the brains, Tisha took one bucket into the house, putting some of the water onto boil for more coffee. She ran up the stairs, grabbing a couple knives, then hurried back down at a slightly slower pace. Slipping through the kitchen on her way to the porch for tanning detail, she grabbed a ladle and, once on the porch, dropped it into a bucket of water. They'd need to keep the brains moist as they worked.

The tall husky came back toward the house, but set the bucket down well away from it, so that they couldn't smell it so badly, "Where do you want them?" he asked, his nose scrunched up and his ears flicking back and forth. It was plain to see that he was attempting not to smell them even from where he was at. He knew that this job wasn't going to be particularly fun at all.

"Well, we're not tanning on the porch, so no worries about that," she grinned as she stretched up on her toes to lick his scrunched up nose. "You look so cute trying not to smell the brains." Returning to the flats of her feet, she pointed to a slightly shady spot. "We'll work over there, keep the brains out of the sun. We'll go grab the hides and bring them over. We can either grab out the venison for dinner now, or wait until later this afternoon when we're done with the tanning this afternoon."

"Let's get this stinky stuff done first." he laughed, moving back to pick up the brain bucket and carry it back over to the tree she pointed out. He set the bucket down in the shade, then came back to help her get the hides and carry them over as well. He just wanted this job to be done and over with, so that they could move on to whatever else needed done.

Tisha walked with him to the smokehouse, where the hides were waiting to be tanned. "We'll each grab one of the small frames and part of the larger frame. We can carry them all back at one time. I'll work the deer hide and show you how to clean up the rabbit hides for you to work on."

Marco nodded, stepping inside the smoke house and picking up one of the smaller frames and holding it while she got the other, then he grabbed one end of the bigger frame for the deer skin and carried it back as well. They hefted all of them over to the same tree and set them down, "Alright, well, I'll at least know how to do this even if I don't plan on doing it much..."

"I doubt either of us wants to do this often, and I know the tribal women are more used to the smell. They'll do the tanning and we can hunt to help provide the food they eat. It's a win-win for both sides. Besides that, the tribal women are the best tanners I've ever seen. They do things to the hides to make the softest deerhide clothes I've ever seen. Plus they know how to dye the hides for ceremonies," Tisha grinned as she hefted the other small rabbit hide frame and grabbed hold of the other side of the larger deer frame.

He laughed and nodded, "Well, then I'll let them do it." He shook his head and they carted the frames out of the shed and across the lawn over to where he had put the bucket with the brains in it, and one with water. He helped her set down the large deer frame and then he put the smaller one down as well, "Alright, so, instructor Tisha, what's first?"

Tisha set down her part of the deerhide frame and set the rabbit skin frame over with the other one. "First, bring over the other two buckets of water. Those buckets we'll use to wash up in, and this one will be the 'keep the brains moist' bucket." She dropped the ladle she carried on her hip into the bucket and scooped out a couple ladles of water, which she added to the brains. She winked at Marco, then turned the hides so the fleshy side would be open for work.

Marco gave her a nod and jogged back over to the porch to pick up the last two buckets. He brought them back and set them to the side for when they washed up. Then he watched her add some water to the brains, shaking his head the whole time, "Alright, gotcha." He helped her turn the hides, and then planted his hands on his hips, "What's next?"

Reaching into the bucket with the brains as Marco returned, she started mushing them up again, getting them turned into nothing more than bits of ick. "Now that these are really turned to mush, we start working. We need to smear some, not too much, just enough, onto the bottom of the hides - the sides with bits of meat and muscle and sinew still attached. We'll use the deer hide for me to show you, and you'll be working on the rabbit skins. Those will be easier to get done." Her brain coated hands smeared over the crap attached to the deer hide, and she worked to smear more on it, making sure that there would still be enough for the rabbit skins.

He watched her from where he stood, slowly nodding through the process, "Alright, I see." He stepped over to one of the rabbit hides, dug his paw into the bucket of brains, and started smearing it all over the back side. He scrunched up his face and shook his head, not believing what they had to do to tan the hides. This was fucking disgusting....but it had to be done.

It was fucking disgusting, Tisha admitted to herself. But it told her a lot about Marco that he was willing to dig in and get this done - not just for them, but for the tribe and any others they rescue and bring here. Once she had the deer hide smeared with the brains and she'd noted that Marco had done the same to the rabbit hides, she went to one of the buckets and washed her hands off. "Okay, now you need to wash your paws off, so you don't accidentally get the brains or blood on the furred side of the rabbit skins. After your hands are clean, take your knife, then watch what I do on the deer hide. You'll do the same on the rabbit skins on the smeared side."

Marco had seen more disgusting shit than this in his life. He wasn't one to easily get sick or shirk a duty cause he didn't like it. He might make comments and bitch about it... but, well... He would do it anyway, especially if it meant helping someone else. He moved over to his bucket and washed his paws off like she had said, glad to get the muck out of his fur, though it would take a lot more than just a dunk in water to make him feel really like they were clean. "Alright, gotcha." He picked up his knife and stood watching her.

Now that they had the mushed brains spread on the hides, Tisha moved to the hide with her knife and started scraping off the gunk still left on the hide after it had been removed from the deer meat. "Work with the grain of the skin. You want to make sure that none of the meat or sinew is left on the skin. Rinse off your knife in the same bucket you washed off in. We'll use the clean bucket for water to keep the hides stretched out when the time is right." Her knife slid down the hide from her waist as she leaned over the hide, showing him just how to clean the hide.

He gave a curt nod, watching her technique with the knife, and then bringing it up in the same fashion, and pushing it down the skin. He was working with a much smaller one of course, but still. He repeated her motions as exactly as he could, and watched as the gunk started to peel away. He rinsed the knife off, and went back to it, slowly removing all of the muscle and sinew was gone before he moved into another area. It was disgusting work but interesting...he was learning something every day.

Tisha worked at a slightly faster pace than Marco, used to this job, having done it at least once a year before the tribe showed up and she could change to hunting the food and letting the tribal women tan the hides. After every scrape down the hide to remove the crud from the inside of the hide, she rinsed off the knife blade, then scraped again, moving across the length of the hide until she had half the hide cleaned of crap. Then she raised the lowest portion of the hide and lowered the upper, laying the hide out flat. Then she moved to the foot of the hide and scraped towards her, pulling the rest of the gunk off it.

He repeated her actions, slowly getting more comfortable with the process as they went, able to move a bit more quickly. He soon had the first rabbit hide done, though she finished her first half of the deer before he was. He held it up to look at it, and then turned it to her, "How's this look for a beginner brain scraper?" He laughed.

Tisha turned to look at the rabbit skin, and paused for a moment to walk over to really inspect the skin. "Looks good. Keep an eye on the edges, though. They tend to play tough about getting cleaned up. I usually scrape everything I can, then go back to scrape the edges clean. With the rabbit skins, you want to keep as much of the fur still attached to the hide, so you don't want to scrape the edges as hard, but you don't want to leave anything." She moved back to the deer hide and started the lower portion, getting the rest of the crud off the middle of the skin before working the edges carefully.

The canine nodded, "Gotcha." He took the frame back and began carefully working around the edge with his knife. He was gentle, not wanting to cut it but wanting to be sure all the crap was off of it before he was finished. He dunked his knife several times as he worked, then finished it up and set it down, "There, one down." He picked up the other, dug his hand into the brains and slathered them all over it, then rinsed his paws and got to work on it as well. He glanced off toward the woods as they worked, wondering how Black Elk was doing, and when the hell the rest of the tribe would get there.

Tisha finished getting the leftover bits of venison from the underside of the deerhide, carefully scraping the sides as she worked. Pleased with her work and looking over both of his frames, she smiled. "You did great, Marco. Keep working on that second one, and when you're done with it, we need to flip this deerhide over. I have to work out the deer's fur from this hide. It's not something we need to do on those rabbit skins though."

"Right, ok." He got to work a bit harder, scraping off the rest of the gunk all over the back of the second rabbit skin, and rinsing the knife frequently. Once he seemed to have it finished, he rinsed the knife a final time, then helped her flip the deerhide over so that she could show him how to work the fur out of it.

Tisha waited for Marco, then flipped the deerhide over, showing the short fine hairs still on the hide from the deer's coat. "I learned a couple tricks to this to make this part a little faster. One of the main ways to remove the hair is to use the knife to clean it off, but that takes a long time, since you have to go with the grain of the fur. And that means down each leg carefully, and whirls of fur are harder to remove. But if you take a wire curry, we can get most of the short hairs out, then go over it with the knives to get the rest off. Plus this is the part where we can use the clean water to our advantage, cause we can rinse off the hairs we remove."

Once the hide was flipped over onto its other side, he listened to her as she explained some of the tricks they could use to get the hair out of the hide. At least this didn't sound like such a hard thing to do, not compared to getting the gunk off the back. Not that the process of doing that was hard. It was just messy, disgusting work. He licked his lips, his long tongue snaking out for a moment, "Alright, so let's do this."

Tisha smiled and nodded, running to the barn to grab a pair of wire curry combs, then hurried back to the frame. "Now with these, we can move faster over the legs and whirls of fur, and even the rest of the coat." She started on one leg, showing him how to use it on the hide without damaging the hide. "You want to use enough pressure to pull the hair out, but still keep it light enough not to tear or scratch the hide itself. When you press down, make sure the hide doesn't dip. That will mean too much pressure is being put on the hide."

He took the other wire curry comb that she gave him and waited while she showed him how to press on the hide and rub it to get the fur out. It was a bit harder job than scraping the gunk, but much more pleasant in the long run, so he didn't complain. They made good progress once he got the hang of it, and soon enough they had most of the fur laying in a pile on the ground.

Tisha grinned as she saw the progress they were making on the hide, especially Marco on his first set of hides. "Okay, now that we've 'curried' the majority of the hair off the hide, it's time to rinse the hide off and get rid of loose hair on it. I'll go grab the sweat scraper that we use on the horses, and you ladle the water over the hide."

He nodded and shifted the bucket closer to them, taking up the ladle full of water and scattering it over the hide that was strung up on the frame. He waited for it to run off, ladled on more, and more again, making sure that the loose hair was rinsed off of the hide and the clean surface below was visible.

While Marco drizzled water over the deerskin, Tisha ran back over to the barn, grabbing the sweat scraper and got back to the hide as the last of the water dripped from the bottom edge of the hide and pooled in the ground below them. She took the scraper and slid it over the hide, pulling the remaining water off the hide, since she didn't want a water logged hide, and grinned. "Only a few spots to use the knives on to remove hair. And those would be the legs, which are always harder to remove hair from with anything but a knife."

He nodded and smiled, putting the ladle back in the bucket and taking up his knife again. Then he took one leg and started to gently work on it, working through the hair to try and get it removed, bit by bit, while she worked on the others. This working together was fun actually, because they got to spend time together, even if the job itself wasn't all that fun in and of itself.

Tisha worked quickly, more used to the job than Marco. She got the three remaining legs done while Marco got that last one taken care of. The moment she saw that no hair was left, she smiled, and looked up at Marco. "We're done with the tanning. At least this stage of it. Let's carry the hides back to the smokehouse, then get washed up and then get the meat for dinner. You get to help me cook tonight."

Marco nodded, "Righto... I'll be happy to get to really wash this goo off of me." He chuckled and stepped back, rinsing off his knife, drying it on some grass, then sheathing it and moving to pick up one of the rabbit frames and hand it to her. He picked up the other, then grabbed one side of the taller frame and waited for her to pick up the other side. "I'm not much of a cook, but I'll help however I can."

Between the two of them, they carried the three frames to the smokehouse and she set her side of the large frame down in the large smokey house. She set her smaller frame on a ledge on the wall, leaving enough room on the ledge for the other rabbit skin. "Good thing you're willing to help me cook, cause I plan on something big, and I'll need the help. But we get cleaned up before we get the meat. I really don't want brained meat for dinner. Time to go get cleaned up. Race you to the river."

He placed his end of the large frame when she put hers down, then placed his rabbit skin on the shelf next to the other. Wiping his hands off on each other, he stepped back out into the afternoon sun. He hadn't even realized that it had gone down so far. He sighed and then laughed, "You're on." He grinned and turned, not waiting for her to start but instantly striking out, laughing. His frame was tall and muscular, and perfectly built for loping... he was a husky after all.

Tisha gave a low laugh, then struck out, racing headlong after him. But then again, she knew all the shortcuts around here, and veered off through a few bushes as she headed towards the river from the lower angle. Getting to the river just before Marco, she stripped down and raced into the water, the bloody clothes left on the shore as she waited for Marco to join her in the water.

He skidded up to the river just after he heard her splash into it. He glanced back the way he had come, then back at her, then planted his hands on his hips and laughed, the sound coming out almost like a howl, "Well.... if I had known you were going to cheat." He laughed and stuck his tongue out, then shook his head and reached for the bottom of his shirt, stripping it off and casting it away, then bending to untie his shoes.