by Paul Greci
Warmth.
Warmth.
Warmth.
When you slept were you somehow shielded from the cold? I mean, I had crashed but now that I was awake, I was cold. So many things I didn’t understand.
I stuck my feet in front of the fire. They had way more blisters than normal skin.
The bowl had filled with rainwater overnight, so I put it on the fire. When the water had warmed just a little I scooped handfuls onto my feet. It felt like I was throwing boiling oil on them, but I thought it was a good idea to rinse them. They were really red. Like maybe they were infected. I dabbed some warm water on my neck too. The swan bite had closed up but the skin around it itched. I knew the less I touched it the less it would itch but it was hard not to scratch it. Especially at night when I was sleepy. It was just natural to scratch an itch.
I had to be my own doctor out here. My own everything. And since I was my own everything that meant I was the boss. I could do whatever I wanted: cuss, scream, run naked, scratch an itch until it bled, whatever.
But all I wanted was to stay here, and fill my stomach with hot liquid. Just for a day. To rest. To let my blisters air out by the fire.
I’d need more wood if I stayed. But I’d only have to wear my boots while I collected it. Then I could really let my feet heal. And if I could keep my hands off my neck, maybe the itching sensation would go away too.
If I could start off the next day feeling fresh, then the Sentinels wouldn’t feel so far away.
When I was tired from walking and my blisters were burning, the negative thoughts crept in. The thoughts that said I’d never make it to the Sentinels. It was just too far.
I pulled my socks and boots on, then set off to search for more wood. Every step hurt. I hauled a few loads of firewood to camp, and worked up a sweat, but I was warm as long as I kept moving. And yeah, the sweat made my neck itch even more, but so far, I hadn’t scratched it yet today.
The rain faded to a fine mist, and hints of blue appeared in the sky. Just a little more wood, and then it’d be boots-off, feet-by-the-fire time. Maybe I’d even take a bath with warm water. And then tomorrow I’d be rested and I’d get an early start for the Sentinels.
On a trip upslope in search of more wood, I got dizzy, a little light-headed, so I just stopped and took deep breaths. Stopping seemed to work because I could always keep going afterwards, even if it was only for a few more steps before I had to stop again.
It was when I was standing still, taking deep breaths, partway up a forested hillside, that I heard the scratching noise.
BEFORE THE ACCIDENT
I kept pulling for the next point, rain peppering my face, salty spray burning my eyes. I squeezed my eyes tight and wiped my sleeve across them, hoping to ease the burning sensation. I only had them closed for a couple seconds, but when I opened them a monster of a rock reef lay right in front of us. White water drained through and around the razor-sharp formations.
I pointed with my paddle and yelled, “Dad, straight ahead, a big rock! Turn! Turn!”
CHAPTER 21
I WORKED my way upslope toward the downed tree where I thought the noise was coming from. It was a monster of a tree, the top of the trunk even with my shoulders, and it’d taken a bunch of smaller trees down with it, creating a jungle of deadfall.
I stopped to rest, and heard the scratching noise again. Up by the root wad, I thought, that’s where it’s coming from.
“Hey bear. Hey bear,” I called.
I heard it again. And shouted “hey bear” again, but saw nothing. If it was a bear, I think it would’ve run away or come to check me out. But you never know. Sometimes Dad would get quiet when he’d hear a noise and sometimes he’d make noise back. I’m not even sure how he decided.
Whatever it was either didn’t know I was here, or didn’t care, because the scratching stopped and started regardless of whether I yelled. So I decided to just shut up.
Maybe it was a squirrel or a porcupine. I didn’t know.
I moved parallel to the huge tree and climbed over branches and smaller trees that lay on the ground, pinned by the fallen giant.
I stopped just downslope from the root wad. Even that was huge. Probably twelve feet high.
I heard a fury of scratching, and then quiet. Then more scratching.
I moved closer. The scratching stopped.
I reached the edge of the root wad and stopped again to listen.
Nothing.
It must know I’m here, I thought. Whatever it is. It doesn’t want me here. Doesn’t want me to know it’s here. I’m not sure I want to be here. But I had to know. Wanted to know. Just like figuring out that the fish ran with the tide, and that storms came from the south, every little thing I learned was helping me. Plus, I was just plain curious.
In the center of the root wad, a massive, square-shaped boulder, crisscrossed with roots, hovered over the hole that used to be its home.
I stepped to the side of the root wad, peered into the hole, then jumped back. My heel caught on a rock and I landed on my butt.
I stood up and took a couple steps forward.
Lying on its stomach, eyes wide open, was a small Sitka black-tail deer.
I leaned forward to get a closer look and the deer’s hind legs exploded, kicking at the dirt wall, causing chunks to break off and roll into the hole.
The deer kicked again and again but never stood on its front legs.
It must’ve hurt itself.
Broken its front legs.
Could’ve fallen in the hole and hurt its legs.
Food. Meat. All that meat.
Kill it. Kill it. Kill it, my mind screamed.
The deer kicked, like it could read my mind, and then grew still again.
“But you’re so small,” I said. “A fawn.”
And no antlers. Probably female. A baby girl, born this year.
She had a white patch of fur on her throat. And a black nose and tail. And mixed black and brown fur between her eyes. And cottony-white fur inside her ears. Walnut brown eyes.
She’s beautiful.
Kill her.
She’s beautiful and I needed to kill her.
I shook my head.
But I needed to do it.
I hadn’t thought about beauty when I’d stalked the porcupine in the dark and stabbed it. I’d just done it. But to kill an animal that you could look in the eye? And a deer? It felt more like a person than the porcupine. Just like the porcupine felt more like a person than the salmon.
But the deer, there it was, all that meat. A goldmine of meat.
And the deer couldn’t survive in the hole. Even if it got out, with two injured legs…I shook my head again.
If I didn’t kill it, something else would, like a bear. And a bear might eat it alive. Eat while it screamed in agony, the deer feeling every bite.
I searched the area for something substantial, then pried a rock the size of a salmon from the ground.
I watched the deer kick the dirt wall, and waited until it became still.
My heart hammered away. I raised the rock over my head with both hands.
Right on top of the head. One hard hit. Just one, and it’d be over. No suffering.
I couldn’t miss.
I slammed the rock downward and let go.
But the deer jerked sideways, and the rock grazed the side of its head. And then it kicked harder than it had before. It rose up on its front legs for a second, then collapsed again.
I could see a dark area where the rock had hit.
Blood.
Must be blood.
My spear.
I ran downslope, light-headed, on rubbery legs and burning feet.
The sun was peeking through the clouds.
I was energized. Like I’d just been given another chance at life.
But I worried about a bear finding the deer. I needed to get back there—fast.
At my shelter, I threw two pieces of wood onto the bed of coals, grabbed my
spear, and started upslope.
Out of breath, at the edge of the hole, I faced the deer. My body trembled.
I had to stab it. But where? I knew hunters shot moose in the heart and lungs. But I couldn’t get a shot like that because of the way the deer was sitting.
The neck. I’d go for the neck; it’d worked with the porcupine. And it’d died quickly.
I jabbed the spear toward the deer, and grazed its neck. The deer kicked harder and moved from side to side and rose up on its front legs for a second, then fell again. It turned its head so it was looking me right in the eye. Staring through me. My dad’s face flashed before my eyes. I blinked and then I was staring at the deer again.
You can respect a life and still take it.
I needed to wait until the deer was still and then thrust hard—from close range. As hard as I could.
I had to kill if I wanted to live.
I imagined stabbing the deer so hard that the spear poked in one side of its neck, then out the other. I closed my eyes, saw myself doing it, then opened them.
It’s kill, or eventually be killed. As much as I didn’t want to do it, I knew I had to.
The deer looked all cute and cuddly, but it wasn’t. Given a chance, that deer would kick me until I couldn’t stand. Animals didn’t just lie down and die. Especially trapped, injured animals. Just like that porcupine, or all the fish I’d killed. They fought for every last gasp of air, and in any way they could.
When the deer stopped kicking, I knelt at the edge of the hole. The deer kicked again, then lay still. I clutched the spear in both hands about a foot from the base. I raised it over my head, and to the side.
I took a breath, held it, then thrust the spear downward as hard as I could and felt it grinding into the deer’s neck.
The deer rose up and jerked its head to one side. The spear was yanked from my hands and thrust back at me.
CHAPTER 22
I HUGGED my chest. I was cold.
I felt around for the blankets, but couldn’t find them. Then I opened my eyes and this pale light made me squint.
The moon. The full moon.
I tried to sit up, but one of my legs was dangling in space from the knee down. So I scooted backwards and tried again.
I succeeded, but sitting up sent my head into pound-mode. Like someone had shoved a balloon inside my ear and was inflating it.
The deer, I remembered.
The deer.
The deer.
The deer.
And, the spear.
But my head—that balloon was gonna pop.
I ran my hand along the left side of my head and felt a lump. I probed it gently with my fingers, searched for moisture, for blood, and found none.
I let my arm fall to my side and it bumped into the end of the spear. I gave it a pull, but met resistance.
I’d lost control of the spear, I remembered that much. I touched the side of my head, and nodded. Clocked by my own weapon.
I followed the spear, and could just make out the form of the deer in the hole. It wasn’t moving. It had to be dead.
Had it lived long after I’d stabbed it? Had it suffered? Then I remembered that it was already suffering. It was gonna die anyway. But I knew that I’d try to kill a healthy deer, too.
I’d kill any animal—a baby seal, a bald eagle, ducklings, a sea otter pup. I didn’t care where the food came from as long as it kept on coming.
I crawled out of the circle of dirt surrounding the hole, then stood. The large tree that had fallen created an opening in the tree tops where the moonlight flowed freely. Beyond, the forest was inky black, cut up by slices of moonlight. I looked in the direction of my camp. I thought I could find it. I hugged myself again, then pulled my hat out of my raincoat pocket and put it on.
But I couldn’t just leave the deer because a bear might get it. I needed a fire. Right here. Right now.
I followed the fallen tree to a pile of sticks and branches that I’d collected and then dropped when I first approached the root wad hours ago.
The damp branches would catch in an already burning fire, or on a bed of hot coals, but I needed dry wood.
Pick a piece that you know is dead and start shaving. Make the shavings as thin as you can. It’ll take some effort, but sometimes it’s the only way.
How did my mind do that? I didn’t control it, but what did? If it really was just all in my head, then I guess my mind was smarter than me.
Too bad he hadn’t yelled, “Watch out!” when that spear was coming toward me.
I grabbed a branch, took the knife from my pocket, and started whittling. Every time the knife skipped on the wood, my head pounded.
When I had a pile of shavings the size of a softball, I held the lighter under them.
The shavings curled, then caught fire. I slipped twigs and small sticks between the flames, and nursed my fire out of the danger zone into a small blaze. I added larger branches, which steamed at first, but eventually caught fire.
I wanted my life vests and blankets, the last of my fish, and my bowl, so I picked my way downslope in the direction of my camp, hoping to use the firelight as a guide for my return trip.
In the morning, I sat next to the deer-hole in the full sun. I knew I needed to keep the meat as cool as possible, which meant I had work to do. Work that I’d never done before.
A dark area lay around the deer’s head and neck where she had bled to death. An image of my mom, her smile framed by her bike helmet flashed into my brain. Did she bleed like this? I took a breath and pushed it out. I needed to concentrate on what I was doing.
I took the spear in both hands and pulled. The carcass moved with it, so I squatted next to the hole and hauled up on the spear. If I could just get it out of the hole, that was the first step.
So I kept hauling, and saw one of its ears peeking over the edge. I pulled harder, bent away from the deer with all my weight. Now its head was over the lip of the hole. I kept pulling and leaning but then tumbled backwards with the spear. I hit the ground, and the butt of the spear smashed into my chin.
I threw the spear down and grabbed my chin, held it with my hand for a moment, then released it.
My hand came back moist and red.
With my thumb I felt a curved gash just under one side of my jawbone. I couldn’t tell how deep it was, but my thumb came back coated with blood. Dark red blood.
I pressed my palm into the wound. I just wanted it to stop bleeding. I didn’t know how deep it was, but the blood was flowing like it was coming from an open faucet. I could feel it on my palm.
Some razor-sharp rocks had sliced my mom deep. Did she try to stop the bleeding or had she passed out immediately? I knew you could only lose so much blood, but didn’t know how much. My mom had bled through her stomach and her thighs. An image of her covered in blood took over my mind. I felt my stomach clench, then my mouth was open and I was gagging but nothing was coming up.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, then pressed my palm back into the wound. Why hadn’t I seen the danger in what I’d been doing? Another stupid mistake. I took one breath. Then another. I still needed to get that deer out of the hole, gut it and skin it, but if I bled to death while doing it, that’d be pointless. And just sitting here my chin was leaking pretty bad, about a hundred times worse than my swan bite had.
Your blood is your life. You lose enough of it and you no longer exist.
That’s how my mom died. That’s how the deer died. That’s how I might die.
Use what you’ve got. Use what you know. That’s all you can do.
I felt moisture on the palm of my hand so I increased the pressure. My heart pounded like I’d just sprinted up a mountain. I took a breath. “Slow it down. Slow it down.” The faster my heart beat the more blood I’d lose. Constant pressure. Relentless pressure. But I needed my hands free.
I unzipped my raincoat and took it off. Then I pulled my pile jacket off. The back of my hand grazed the wound, and it came back bloo
dy.
I pulled my long underwear shirt off, which was like having a skunk crawl over my face. That shirt was my second skin. I never took it off.
It was stiff with layers of dried sweat, so I bunched it up in my hands to loosen it, then spread it on top of my raincoat, and as I rolled it up, leaving the sleeves free, a drop of blood hit the back of my hand, then another, and another.
Using the sleeves, I tied the skunk-shirt-bandage over the top of my head and under my chin, with the rolled up part pressing into the wound.
I saw the red draining from my mom’s legs and stomach. Saw it soaking the ground. If only someone had been there to put pressure on her wounds to keep the life from draining out of her. If only the driver would have stopped. If only I’d gone on that bike ride.
I reached for my pile jacket, then stopped. Even with the sun, the cool air prickled my skin. Goosebumps covered my arms. But gutting a deer could get messy.
I cinched down the sleeves of the skunk-bandage and adjusted the knot so it centered on the top of my head and hoped it would do the job.
Okay, if the deer’s too heavy to haul out of there, I thought, then I’ll just gut it in the hole, then haul it out. It’d be lighter.
I eased my legs over the edge of the hole, and dropped to the bottom.
My hand brushed against the fur. Soft like a cat’s fur. I knew it wasn’t going to spring back to life, but it was spooky being next to an animal that looked like it was just asleep. Like I could shake it and it’d wake up.
I closed my eyes. “Just like a fish, or a porcupine,” I whispered. “Just slit the belly, clean the sucker out, and get it back to camp.”
I pushed the deer against the side of the hole to increase my leverage. The ends of the sleeves on my skunk-bandage kept grazing my eyes, so I tucked them under themselves.
I took a breath and poked the knife into the white furry belly and slit it up to its sternum. Some of the intestines poured out, partially covering my rubber boots.
I tilted my head away from the mess on my boots, took another breath and told myself, “don’t stop now.”
I reached inside the deer, and pulled and scooped and scraped, trying to get all the organs out. Then, I cut along the inside of the ribs and worked the lungs and heart out.