Spencer said, “Daaaaddy!”
Elliott said, “Okay, let’s eat, and Bob can tell us his background wrestling goats.”
“I’ve actually never wrestled a goat.”
Ortiz said, “It’s okay, no one will judge you here.”
Bob said, “I was Navy. I wrestled Marines.”
“How does that work?”
“I worked in the radio shop. If they wanted it fixed, they had to do as I said. And we did have a wrestling league aboard ship.”
“When was that?” Elliott asked.
“Ten years ago. But that doesn’t help here. What does help is I know what a salt lick looks like, but we’re going to need a source of water to refine it. The raw stuff is just gray mineral dirt. We’ll need to filter it. I’ve gutted animals and done some curing, but I think we need to pool knowledge. It’s likely Ortiz knows the science better than I do. I’m working on buckskin and rawhide, and the bows. Gut strings are gonna be messy.”
Caswell asked, “How long do bows take?”
“A quick one is just a stick, but doesn’t last long. A good one is split from wood and shaved, not carved, drying as you go. Better ones take specific sections of specific trees, or glue, but that’s later. As to the Navy, I actually got out, and into wholesale industrial equipment sales. Then went into the Reserve as an equipment operator. I wanted to be on land. So here I am.”
Spencer said, “I dub thee, Landsquid.”
“Talk to Trinidad,” he said. “He’s been on land the whole time.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Trinidad agreed. “Funny how a kid from a Bataan village winds up in San Diego, then A-stan, then the Stone Age. Honestly, there isn’t a lot of difference.”
“You’ve supported the Army the entire time?”
“No, did a lot of Naval work the first three years. Aboard ship, even. The Peleliu.”
“Well, glad to have you,” Elliott said. “Tell us about you.”
Trinidad shrugged. “My sister and parents are in the PI. I always wanted to join the Navy, so I made sure to learn good English. Intel sounded neat. It was a bitch to get my TS clearance. I had citizenship paperwork filled out and pending. I guess that doesn’t matter now. I’ve been watching how the locals move, and I can actually apply the same skills to animal routes. Then there’s their resources and stuff. Otherwise, I’m really good at cutting brush and you could have asked me about the fence as well. We don’t have a lot of fasteners back home.”
Bob said, “Well, let’s eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow we wrestle goats.”
Alexander said, “Get me the cord. I’ll show you how to crochet a net.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She walked over to the kindling pile, dug through for a straight stick. She pulled out her small sheath knife and carved a notch near one end, grabbed the parachute cord and started hooking it.
Between bites of meat and root, she made large loops in squares about 6” across. It went surprisingly fast. Bob started on another one, following what she did.
“You’re too fast,” he said.
“Sorry. Let’s try again. Loop here, pull, twist, pull again. You missed a pull there.”
“Yeah, got it.”
By the time they were down to firelight he had to quit, but had a piece a couple of feet square. Hers was about five foot.
She said, “Hey, we’ll take all the goat or small antelope hides the Urushu can get us. That tepee cover isn’t coming together fast enough.” She pointed to where a third of it was now dressed in stitched raw hides, stiffening in the sun. Actually, with that, it was becoming structurally more like a yurt.
“She’s right,” he said. “Heavier cover for winter, stitched to be weatherproof.”
Oglesby said, “I’ll ask them. I guess they owe us, if they have that concept, which I’m not sure they do.”
Gina Alexander woke up and stretched. She hurriedly pulled on boots and lumbered for the privy in the gray, foggy dawn. She was glad the men just stood on the bank to pee. She much preferred sitting to squatting, and the one ersatz seat was a bottleneck. Caswell was right behind her.
No one paid attention to it anymore. If you needed to go, you went, much like in survival school, or the how the Urushu did, though the soldiers still preferred a little discretion, and they needed to keep that. It would be so easy to lose their civilized veneer.
She wiped off with the old T-shirt she’d designated for the purpose, and made note to rinse it out today. That done, she walked back to the hooch to get the rest of her stuff, and a coat. It was cool, definitely early fall, even if the trees weren’t starting to tinge. Her ass had chilled on the dew-damp toilet seat.
This was a PT day, and she walked around the perimeter as the others ran, lapping her. Twenty-six laps was two miles, and they were done completely before she got three quarters of the way. She tried not to be self conscious about it. Her ankles didn’t work anymore. Inside, she still felt old and under par.
No one said anything as she came to the fire to eat. They never did.
Barker called, “Firewood detail, Oglesby, Dalton. Hunting and goat detail, Caswell, Alexander, Ortiz. Camp detail, Trinidad, Devereaux when not handling sick call. Sergeant Spencer and the LT are working on setting stakes.”
He had leftover meat, warmed on the rocks, and handed her a strip as she walked by. It was edible, but really getting boring fast, and tiring to chew. She had a sore tooth and suspected meat fiber was stuck in the gum.
“Hooah,” she replied in acknowledgment.
“Scrambled eggs?” Dalton asked, seeing something.
“Of a sort,” Barker said. “Want some?”
“Yeah!”
She wasn’t going to have any. They were in no risk of starving to death, and she knew—
Dalton said, “Hey, this tastes like there’s chicken in it.”
Trinidad muttered, “Balut.”
Dalton apparently understood the word, and stopped in mid bite.
“You fuckers.”
“What?” Barker asked. “They are duck eggs.”
“With bits of baby duck?”
“Fetal duck, but yes.”
Dalton looked ready to heave. Trinidad laughed and kept eating. Dalton didn’t eat any more, and stuck to the warmed goat. She didn’t blame him. Proper eggs could wait.
Done eating, she grabbed her goretex and gloves.
“Caswell, should I bring helmet and armor for hunting?”
“Good idea. Just in case of wolves.” Caswell was grabbing hers, and her carbine.
“Yes. Though they’re getting scarcer.”
From the front of the tepee, Ortiz said, “We smell like predators.” He had a bow, and the pouch he used to field dress game, which now held a folding saw, a large knife, some pliers and thong, among other things.
She needed to distract Caswell from the bow.
“Indeed we do.” She asked Caswell, “How are you managing on all this meat?”
Caswell shrugged. “It’s not possible to keep vegetarian here. If it ever becomes so, I’ll see what I can do. But part of my rationale was resources, which aren’t short here. And we look the animals in the face as we kill them, which is more honest.”
That made sense. “Fair enough. I love meat myself, but damn, I want bread. I wasn’t supposed to eat much back home anyway, with my thyroid, and I didn’t, but here . . . it’s all I want. A whole damned loaf.”
Caswell said, “I know. I want a fresh salad with oil and spices, not just weeds. They’re nutritious but not tasty. And little beyond minerals and vitamin C.”
“We need to gather rosehips for that, if we find any.” They hopped over the stream, which now had four stepping stones. Then they went up the bank, which had been muddy but was now covered in pebbles, and headed into the eastern meadow. Bit by bit they terraformed their property.
“And replant some here.” Caswell indicated the area she’d roughly cleared, using an E-tool as a hoe, attac
hed to a pole. They tromped past it through tall growth.
It had surprised the men for Caswell to be a rifle Expert, partly because she was female, and a lot because she was Air Force. That was a good lesson for them not to underestimate either. She could headshot an animal with ease, and had.
None of them had commented much on her ability to recognize edibles, except to be grateful. She was an arrogant young bitch, but she did have useful skills.
The bows, though, had pissed her off immensely. Bob Barker had shaved them down to eighty pounds. He said he wanted that weight for larger antelope. He could draw it. Dalton could. The other men except Trinidad could mostly manage. But neither woman could. It was an upper body weapon, and they didn’t have the strength.
Caswell had bitched long and loud as if it was a personal affront to her. Gina understood the practicality behind it. Heavier bows meant heavier kills. Something smaller just wasn’t lethal, and it took strength to draw one, that few women would ever have.
It was bound to come up, though. Gina said, “Well, I’d like to avoid goat for a few more days. Small antelope?”
Caswell said, “If I can get a head shot.” Ammo was finite, and an M4 was not a large game rifle. Dalton had said nothing over two hundred pounds was a safe target, except for a few with thin enough skulls for a brain scramble shot. Yes, she was going to use the rifle as often as she could, since a bow was not an option. Gina understood it, but it was still annoying.
Ortiz said, “Or pheasant, if we find any nesting.”
Gina said, “I’m glad we have you along to chop them up. I can do it, but they just turn into a mess of pieces if I try. My husband does the butchering in hunting season. I just do the veggies and manage the camp.”
Ortiz said, “It’s not what I trained for, but I’m glad to do it. Barker can gut or fine cut, but nothing in between.”
“I wonder about standardized tasks. But I also wonder about flexibility.”
“We can’t all do everything,” he said. “I’d need half a magazine to take one down.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing ahead.
Caswell had much better eyes, too, which of course helped. “Small. Furry. Not entirely sure. It’s not moving.”
“There it goes.”
Something darted through the grass.
“Cat!” Gina exclaimed. “That’s a cerval or caracal!”
It was definitely feline, probably a caracal, and it limped.
Ortiz said, “Injured leg. Wish we could put it down humanely.”
Caswell followed the movement. “He can recover. There’s a lot of small pests around here.”
“Not limping like that.”
The poor creature was exhausted, and limped to a stop, gasping. He rolled into some broad-bladed grass that flopped over him, wet and concealing.
Gina loved cats.
She took the lead and walked toward it, Caswell and Ortiz behind her.
It snarled as they approached, and raised clawed paws in threat.
“Gloves then. And glad we have the body armor.” Gina pulled on her gloves, slung her rifle, and crept up, making soft noises.
“Hey, fella. It’s okay. We’re hunters, too.”
It lashed at her and tried to run, but stumbled on its injured paw. He. Definitely he. He was gray with ticked fur and big tufts on his ears. His fangs were long, and he growled, matted hair spiking all over.
He was beautiful.
“Come on, big guy.”
She reached in, and his claws struck goretex and clung but didn’t pierce. She shifted him around, got hold of both pairs of legs, being careful of the front right.
Ortiz looked in.
“Lacerated,” he said. “Probably a fight with something bigger.”
“Fixable?”
“I can suture, but he’s not going to like it.”
“Cats are smart. He’ll figure it out.” He was a big, handsome fellow, about twenty-five pounds. And he was a cat. If she couldn’t have family, she could damned well have a pet.
“Yeah, we can feed him something, too.”
The cat growled, but seemed to realize he wasn’t going to escape. He also probably understood that, if they hadn’t killed him yet, they weren’t going to.
Caswell reached over and gave him a slight skritch behind the ears. He tensed and stiffened.
“Detour back?”
“Yes.”
They trudged back, keeping a tight hand on the feisty fellow. Even injured, he was a lot of muscle. He would tense under her arm and try for purchase, then tuck up under her armpit. She’d pull him back down, and he’d growl. His voice would suit something twice his size.
As they crossed the creek, Trinidad said, “We eat dogs in the PI, cats are for the Chinese.”
“Good, then he’s safe,” she said.
“Injured?”
As they reached the kitchen area, Ortiz said, “Paw. I’m going to try to suture him.”
The man knew what he was doing with animals. In under a minute, he reached behind her and lashed the rear legs with thong from his kit, then lowered the animal carefully to the ground, with Caswell holding the rear quarters over a stick.
The cat was not happy. He snarled and hissed, as she gripped the left foreleg in her fist and the right paw firmly with thumb and finger. He tried to sink fangs through the glove. She felt pressure, but they were tough shells and he couldn’t puncture them.
Ortiz ran for the tent, and returned with a basic sewing repair kit and a water bottle.
He washed off the cut, which was a good two inches long, and pulled out tweezers and a needle.
“He’s not going to like this,” he said.
“Holding,” she agreed, and squeezed while trying not to injure.
“Wait,” he said, rising. He grabbed a stick from one of the piles, pulled out more cord, and splinted the leg to it.
The cat really didn’t like it, howling. He tried to bite again. She wrapped a gloved hand over his jaw.
“I need a stick,” she said.
Spencer slid one in and caught the creature’s fangs around it.
By now everyone had gathered around.
“Are we making bagpipes?” Spencer asked.
“Sounds like it, doesn’t it?” she said.
Oglesby said, “Aw, hell, break its neck cleanly and be done with it.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped. “Just . . . go away.”
She wanted this creature to survive. She needed it. Oglesby probably didn’t understand, but she was going to put some effort in.
“He’s fine,” Ortiz said. “He’s going to be in pain, but he’s going to survive and heal.”
Someone muttered, “Eh, who cares? Stupid cat.” They mumbled something else that she figured was about her.
Caswell put a hand on her arm, and she shook it off. She didn’t want anyone touching her right now.
She clutched the splint, Ortiz grabbed the needle, ran it through his lighter flame and wiped it off.
They all tensed.
Possibly the wound had gone numb, or hurt too much for the needle to matter, but the animal didn’t protest much. He wiggled now and then, but was fully immobilized with sticks and cord.
Then he tried to kick his rear legs up, arched and snarled again.
Ortiz waited for him to stop, and continued.
It took ten minutes that seemed like an hour. He appeared to do something to the muscle tissue, he washed the wound again, and sutured up the skin in several spots. Then he pulled out a scalpel and sliced off a bit of crusted flesh.
Again the animal screamed outrage and pain, but soon collapsed, panting.
“Okay, done,” Ortiz said as he cut a thread and pulled his tools back.
Caswell said, “We need a bowl of water and a bit of food. Something fatty and rich.”
“Nothing fatty, but we do have a bit of scorched goat liver.”
“Perfect. And water.”
Carefully, they twisted the long
animal onto his side.
“I’ve got it,” Spencer said, and reached down with a crumbled bit of dark liver. He put it right in front of the cat’s nose.
The cat sniffed it, then again, took a lick, then devoured it in big snaps of his jaw and tongue.
Spencer said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re hungry. Here.” He put down a scraped out piece of bark with water, and another piece of liver.
The cat stared at him while gulping it, growled at Gina, took a lick of water at an odd angle, and twisted again, then whimpered as his leg pained him.
Ortiz said, “Okay, unlash the prisoner. We’ll take him down to those bushes and leave the liver and water with him. He’ll know where it is.”
“Do you think he’ll be around to remove the sutures?” Gina asked.
He shrugged. “If he lives. If he’s tractable. Who knows?”
“Well, we tried, and I feel better.”
He was a very handsome animal. Muscular, long body, those tufted ears. Definitely a caracal, probably young, and a fine specimen. Gina had always wanted an exotic cat.
As the thongs came off, the animal struggled more and more, then sprinted away at a limp, to stop behind the tepee and stare at them.
Elliott said, “Everyone back to work and go around. Leave the beast some room and he can have my share of liver.”
Yeah. She knew they needed the nutrients, but liver was never tasty, no matter how fresh, what animal or how cooked. It was medicine, not food.
Caswell said, “Okay, having saved an injured animal, let’s go blow the brains out of a healthy one.”
Ortiz said, “The circle of life!”
CHAPTER 11
The next day, Bob Barker found the goat wrestle was almost anticlimactic. As Ortiz said, they laid out crisscross parachute cord over the brush on the slope, waited for three goats to step into it, and started pulling. The goats jumped nimbly up, straight into the crocheted nets thrown by Ortiz and Caswell.
Bob waded in and untangled one, bit by bit, with Ortiz helping. The scruff of the neck worked a bit to slow their thrashing.
Then he was picking up a smelly, squirming goat and carrying it across the field. He stopped after fifty yards, squatted down to hold the thing in place, and gasped for breath. While he did that, Caswell reached under his ass and tied the creature’s legs. That felt weird. There were so many jokes. She’d definitely be pissed if he said anything, so he didn’t.
A Long Time Until Now - eARC Page 21