“With time and rest, you’ll be back to normal in no time,” I say as I smile at him.
“I know,” he smiles. “I’m already feeling a bit better. But we aren’t going to last up here if we need to wait until my body heals itself enough to be able to get food and water and build a shelter. There’s only another day or two of rations left and the winter isn’t going to slow. If we’re going to survive, I’m going to need to show you what to do to get us through it until I heal.”
“Okay,” I nod. “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
Little did I know what I just agreed to. I know that we need to survive, and I know that Granite isn’t well enough to do what needs to be done yet, but up until yesterday I hadn’t ever so much as squashed a bug. Now suddenly I have killed a man and have to go hunt for food in the forest. Granite handed me a small hand ax that he found inside Clay’s backpack. It was the only weapon there, so it didn’t matter what my skill level was with axes because it was all that we had.
“Okay, so basically you’re looking for any animal that you think you can kill,” he says.
“Are there wolves and bears here?” I ask with hesitation.
“Yes,” he answers. “But they’ll pretty much leave you alone if you don’t stumble onto one. I wouldn’t recommend trying to hunt a wolf with a small hand ax,” He chuckles a bit and I roll my eyes at him.
“I wasn’t going to try to hunt them, I just don’t want to get eaten by one.”
“Look for rabbits, deer, squirrel, birds, anything that you think you can kill with a small weapon,” he continues.
“But won’t they just run away when they see me coming?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s why you need to move silently and slowly until the exact moment that you’re ready to make the kill.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” I say.
“You can,” he says as he puts his hand on mine. “I have faith in you. Plus, we’re going to die if you don’t.”
Great, no pressure there.
Granite gives me a rundown of plants, berries, and mushrooms that are edible and describes what they look like. He also describes what things I shouldn’t touch because they might be poisonous. He tells me how to dig out the cleanest and freshest snow from beneath the surface layer that could be marred with animal droppings, and shows me how to make a bowl out of wide tree bark in order to contain the snow until it is melted enough from the heat inside the tent generated from our bodies and warm breath, to put it inside the flask. The last thing he explains is how to get firewood and build a long-lasting fire using the matches that were in Clay’s backpack. If I can manage to do the things that he says, we should be able to last here for a few more days until he is able to continue walking toward the place where we will stop to build our home.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Granite says. “I’m not going to lie. Even when I’m better, it’s going to be difficult to build everything from scratch with barely any tools aside from our own hands, but we can do it and we will do it together.”
I smile at him and lean forward to kiss his lips that have cracked from the cold.
“I have faith in us,” I say to match his own words.
When I go out on my own into the forest, leaving Granite behind in the tent to rest, I am not entirely convinced that I am going to be able to do this. I come across no shortage of wildlife, but they are either too fast, or too innocent looking for me to kill. I realize that we are in a life or death situation in which survival mode should kick in, but I guess I haven’t quite reached that level of desperation. Regardless, I know that it will take substantially longer for Granite to heal if he doesn’t have any protein to eat, so I talk myself into doing it. I fail at trying to catch prey more times than I can count. So, I decide to try a new strategy. Back in high school, I used to be on the archery team, and I used to have pretty impressive aim. Granted, that was a long time ago, and that was with arrows now a hand ax. But considering the circumstances, I know that I need to be flexible and adapt. I sit very still as I watch and wait. After a while, a rabbit appears. It is just far enough off in the distance that it doesn’t see me sitting still next to the tree trunk, but it is close enough that I think I can hit it. I’ve never thrown an ax before so this ought to be interesting. When I finally get the courage to try, I hurl the ax toward the animal and let out an audible gasp when the ax strikes, it smacks center in the back. I’m scared to get up and go see what I have done, but again; no choice. When I get to the rabbit it is already dead, thankfully. I don’t know what I would have done if it had still been there lying and suffering and waiting for me to perform an act of merciful cruelness. I start to think for a minute that I should probably head straight back to the campsite because the scent of fresh blood might attract other, larger and more aggressive animals that I don’t want to tangle with. I pull the ax out of the rabbit and pick it up by the ears to carry back with me. I’ll let Granite deal with the whole thing once I get it there. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to the dead rabbit as I walk back. I know it is a ridiculous thing to talk to a dead rabbit, but for some reason it makes me feel a bit better.
When I get back to the campsite, Granite is waiting for me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” I tease.
“Yes and I did,” he answered. “But then I got worried about you and had to come wait out here to see you as soon as you returned.”
I hold up the slaughtered rabbit in my hand that is dripping blood all over the ground.
“Wow, nice!” he says.
“I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better,” I laugh. “One rabbit isn’t a feast and it’s not at all that impressive.”
“Yes, it is; especially considering you’ve never hunt before. It’s very impressive and now we’ll have food.”
I hand him the rabbit and turn to leave again.
“Where are you going?’ he asks.
“I still need to take care of getting water and firewood,” I say. “I was just bringing that back here for you to deal with.”
Granite laughs and then holds his hand out toward my ax.
