I collapsed at the base of the tree trunk, pulling the canteen to my lips, and took a long swig. My heart raced and my legs ached, and admittedly I was feeling extra depressed today. Hunger pangs tightened my gut and I shoved the last two hunks of rabbit meat into my mouth and swallowed them. Not a moment later and I heard the padding of my wolf’s paws.
‘You’re going to need to start taking it easy. I think you’re burning too many calories.’My wolf looked at me from her place perched before me. I was hungry all the time. My belly was definitely growing, because I’d had to poke another hole in the waistband of the skirt, but my arms did look a bit thinner … my thighs too.
My wolf was right.
“I’ll cave hunt every other day starting next month,” I told her, and then winced at the fact that I was making plans to be here for another freaking month!
I was so tired, I just lay there for a good thirty minutes watching the clouds go past. I dozed off a few times, but my wolf licked me awake by mid-afternoon. She knew we couldn’t be caught up here after dark, and I still had to catch tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast.
“Okay. Time to head back down. I’ll take the trail you took and you take the trail I took,” I told her.
It was what we always did, to be sure that we both covered each area twice. She cocked her head to the side.‘You seem more tired than normal. I’m going to join you. One day without double checking both sides of the mountain won’t hurt—’
“Yes it will!” I snapped, and then frowned. “I’m sorry, but wehaveto check both sides each like we always do. What if you missed something, or what if I did? We have to.”
I’d had a wild thought recently. What if the cave only opened one day a year? What if on that day Run had decided to go another path and that’s why it took him three years?
I was going to check both sides of this mountain every single day so long as I was able.
She walked over and nuzzled my belly.‘Okay. But soon we stop pushing so hard.’
“Soon, I promise,” I told her.
As I stood, we split off, and I gathered a few tubers and mushrooms on my way down, as well as a quail I found in one of my traps. It would make an amazing soup. When my wolf and I both reached the twine tied to the stick, I put it around my ankle and she joined my body, giving me an immediate boost of energy.
‘Thanks, girl,’I told her, and headed back to the cabin, winding the twine around my shoulder and elbow as I went.
I hummed a little tune all the way back to the house, where I set into my normal dinner routine. Filling the clay pot with artesian spring water, I suspended it over the fire to heat the water for my soup, and then set about making the mud mixture for the outside of the cabin to keep me busy while I waited.
Leave it better than you found it. This would keep bugs out and insulate it from the cold winter winds. It also gave me something to do, which I think was part of why all of the alphas before me did the same.
There was a main cabin with a single open space about twelve feet by twelve feet, and then a bathhouse, which was essentially a tiny four-foot-square hut with a thatched roof. Suspended from the roof was a clay pot with holes in the bottom that trickled the water I poured inside when I took my nightly shower.
I couldn’t think up a better system, so I left that as is since it did the job. Anytime I needed to go to the bathroom, I just went in the woods. It was a simple life, but it worked.
Once my stew was done, I gulped it down greedily, moaning at the flavor the mushrooms and tubers had given the quail. Defeathering a bird and ripping out its guts had horrified me my first week out here, but then I just become so hungry I no longer cared. Now I did it on autopilot, completely desensitized to the whole thing. Same with fish. I didn’t go for big game like deer and such yet because I wasn’t sure what to do with all that meat and this was working just fine for one person. I could smoke it, but that would only last for a day or so. I could try my hand at dehydrating, but you needed low heat for that, and I wasn’t sure I could control the fire that well.
A problem for another day.
Before I knew it, I’d eaten the entire large clay pot of stew…
So much for breakfast tomorrow. I’d have to hunt in the morning, or at the very least gather some berries.
After rinsing the pot in the clay sink with some of my stored water, I set it outside the window and let it dry on the sill. There was still plenty of light out and I was exhausted. Better get some rest before the night shift of listening to creepy noises as the forest moved around me. I drank some water and peeled off my suede skirt and top, slipping into the cot naked. The sleeping pad which sat atop the cot was mercifully packed with thick cotton buds and not too bad comfort-wise. I slipped my hunting blade under the suede pillow packed with cotton, and then pulled another suede blanket over me. Everything here was made of some type of animal skin, but I was thinking with all of this cotton growing out in the wild that I might be able to make a loom with some of the twine…
I rolled on my side and stroked my belly, trying not to think of raising a child in this small hut. Should I start weaving a basinet? Or did that mean I was giving up? Maybe I should give up. Maybe I should just go tomorrow and search for the Paladin lands until I ran out of food and water. I shook my head to try and shake off the dark thoughts.
No. I could do this. Find the cave, go home and get back to Sawyer.
My eyelids grew heavy, and then…
Boom.
A kick bucked against my hand and I gasped.
She kicked.
She kicked!
