Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
The lesson he used as an example was how to create a primitive bow and some arrows, but Annie and I aren’t in some long-term survival epic. We just need to stay comfortable until tomorrow morning, when the creek recedes, as I’ve seen it do dozens of times before. Plus all this outdoorsy stuff is making Annie’s eyes light up, impressing her. So I have to flex, even if only a bit.
I take a handful of the blackberries from her pail. I start leaving a trail of them in the dirt, leading up to a big enough tree that I can get some cover behind it. I brandish my knife, and wait. Annie stays silent. She’s no expert on these matters, but she’s a farm girl. She at least knows that loud conversations are counterintuitive to my goals.
Sure enough, a wild rabbit catches onto the trail of blackberries. They’re a sweet treat for my prey, and he can’t help but hop along, nibbling them. Soon, he gets up to the tree, and I force myself to strike. My knife drawn, I lunge, falling onto the rabbit with a harsh, and hopefully merciful, stab. Annie looks away. It’s brutal, but it’s the nature of life. She’s seen no shortage of other animals having their lives ended in front of her. It’s easy to forget that humans are predators, and ones at the top of the food chain at that.
“That went well. I expected more agility from the rabbit than that,” I say, leaning down and picking up my game.
“He was weighed down with berries. Greed got the best of him.”
I nod. “Come on, let’s get back while the fire is still burning.”
She pauses. “Wait a moment...” She hustles over to another bush, and starts plucking out some bulbs from the ground and examining them.
“What’s up?”
“We’re not just going to eat the rabbit straight, are we? We could use a few seasonings.”
I shrug. “Dad never went over foraging, beyond berries and the like.”
“Typical men. Gathering is not the manly way to do things, so you disregard it. Two hundred thousand years and not a thing has changed.”
I smirk. “So you got outdoorsy knowledge too, you’re saying?”
She nods. “My mother took me on hikes. She taught me this because some of the stuff out here has a natural taste you can’t get from the grocery store, but grows all over the place around us.”
I look over her shoulder. I have to confess, I have no idea what she’s doing. “What are we looking for?”
“Wild onions and garlic. We have to be careful, though.”
“Hmm?”
“They live among impostors. What do you think this is, Red?” She shows me one of the things she plucked out.
It’s a thin vegetable, a leaf running down to an onion-like bulb. “A wild onion?”
“Bzzt, wrong,” she says with a smile, smacking me with the leaf and then tossing it away. “That was death camus.”
“And it being called death camus means it’s delicious and nutritious and I should run over and pick it back up?”
“Of course, Red, I’m just throwing it away from us because I prefer my poisonous plants tossed around a bit.”
We both laugh and I watch her continue to work. “There we go. More than enough for our rabbit, and some to take home with us.”
Night is falling over the forest. The storm stopping bought us less than an hour of light. We go back to the cave and I help Annie in, only for her to stick her head out and begin picking something from the dirt.
“What are you up to now?”
“These mushrooms right outside the cave are perfectly edible. They’ll go right along with our roast rabbit.”
“Oh? So wait, those mushrooms are safe to eat?”
She nods. “I don’t see any poisonous ones.”
“So what you're saying is that, for all those times I evaded Filson in our games, I could have had a snack on top of a nap? Damn, maybe there’s something to this foraging thing after all.”
“These need some cooking to be any good, I think, so your loss isn’t that severe. Although maybe your mother would have wanted some of them.”
“Nah, she’s terrified of mushrooms. It’s her one weird fear.”
“Are you?”
“Nope.”
“Then roast ‘em.”
I get the fire going as she takes my knife and prepares the vegetables for our little meal. I then take my knife back and skin the rabbit, Annie looking on, apparently in awe of the rough mountain man getting to work. This is child’s play, slightly more difficult than the squirrel my father gave me for my first skinning lesson. I grab some more twigs from the bush outside and then sand off the edges to make skewers, bringing all of the mushrooms, vegetables, and meat together and holding it over our fire as it crackles and cooks our dinner.
Annie watches me in awe still, even as she does her part in cooking dinner.