Fifty Falling Stars

by Wesley Higginbotham

  “Hey, Scott. Where’d the misses get off to?” Kirk asked as he and Jimmy approached the camp to collect Kirk’s snares and Clay’s pellet gun.

  “She took your plant book and set off gathering us some food.” Scott replied. “What are you fellas up to?”

  “Just off to do a little hunting and set some snares.”

  Kirk and Jimmy walked a little ways away from camp. Jimmy had set three squirrel snares already and was finishing his fourth when movement from above caught his eye. “There’s a squirrel.”

  Kirk saw the squirrel, but he smiled to himself and asked, “Where, Jimmy?”

  “Up there! See him running?” The young man said as he pointed up to the tree.

  Kirk watched as the squirrel went around the other side of the trunk. He and Jimmy circled around the tree, but the squirrel was gone. “Where did he go?” Jimmy asked.

  “He’s up there, somewhere.” Kirk assured him. “You see, one of the things that squirrels do to protect themselves when they get scared is to get into the fork of a tree branch and ball up. The little shits become almost invisible, if you don’t know where to look for them.”

  “How do we find him?”

  “Look for limbs that are about the size of the squirrel or a little bit bigger. Look real close where those limbs fork off into other limbs. Sometimes you can see them, all balled up there.” Kirk scanned the tree. “Ah, there he is.”

  “Where? I don’t see him.”

  Kirk pointed to the fork where the squirrel hid. “You see how the fork just doesn’t look right? Look at the one next to it. See how it makes a V shape. Now look back at that one. See how it just doesn’t seem to fit the V shape, like there’s a knot in the tree?”

  “I see it. That’s the squirrel?”

  “I think so. We’re about to find out.” Kirk raised the pellet gun, took careful aim, and shot at the lump in the branch fork some thirty feet above them.

  The squirrel jumped as the pellet stung it. It tried to run along the branch but slipped. It fell from the tree. Kirk saw Jimmy race toward it, as if he was going to catch it. “Jimmy, stop!” He barked. The young man skidded to a halt. The squirrel impacted a few feet from Jimmy, bounced a couple of feet in the air, and hit the ground running as it fell back to earth. It climbed back up the tree. Kirk turned to Jimmy. “Boy, don’t ever mess with squirrel until you know it’s dead. Pound per pound, they have got to be one of the toughest little critters around. They’re not deadly, but they will eat your ass up.”

  The young man looked crestfallen but nodded. Kirk looked up to see the squirrel about to jump to another tree. He aimed the air rifle at the squirrel. It would be a near impossible shot to hit a running squirrel. He was about to pull the trigger when the tree rat slipped again. It didn’t run away when it hit the ground this time. When the squirrel’s tail quit twitching, Kirk smiled at Jimmy. “Now, we can get the squirrel.” Jimmy ran over and picked up the dead animal.

  Kirk and Jimmy spent the next half an hour setting snares. They set up four more squirrel snares until they came across a briar thicket. Kirk pointed out to Jimmy how to identify rabbits trails leading into the thicket. He showed him how the grass and leaves would be pressed down from use in the thickest part of the trail, how it looked almost like a little tunnel. He showed Jimmy how to set a stick into the ground and lay a snare, similar to the squirrel snare, around the stick and use a smaller stick to hold the wire loop in place in front of the little tunnel-like openings. He explained how this was the best place to put the snares because the rabbit would almost have to go through the snare if he chose this trail because the thick plant growth and force of habit would make the rabbit go that way. By the time they were done, they had three rabbit snares set on trails leading out of the thicket.

  “You ever used this air gun?” Kirk asked Jimmy as they walked back in the direction of the camp.

  “No. We didn’t really think it was worth anything until you showed up.”

  Kirk stopped and explained how to aim, control his breathing, and how to squeeze, not pull or jerk, the trigger. After a few dry fires, Jimmy seemed to have the hang of it. Kirk pointed up to a pine tree not far away. “See if you can hit that bird.”

  Excitement and determination danced in Jimmy’s eyes as he took aim at the dove. The pellet whistled in the air and thudded into the branch beneath the dove. Jimmy pouted at his miss. “Reload quickly.” Kirk whispered to him. Jimmy pulled the lever back and inserted the bb that Kirk handed him. He gave the gun a few quick pumps to build up pressure. The dove didn’t go far. It landed in the next tree over. “Try again.” Kirk said. Jimmy raised the gun. He took several deep breaths, taking a long time to aim. Kirk was about to say something to the young man as the bb left the barrel. The dove jumped up from the branch it had been sitting on, flapped once, twice, and then cartwheeled to the ground. Jimmy took off running after the downed bird. Kirk smiled as the boy ran back to him, grinning from ear to ear, holding his prize. “Good shot, son. You keep that up and you’ll be feeding all of us soon.” Kirk noted that Jimmy didn’t flinch this time at being called son.

  When the men came back to camp, Jimmy carried a dove, a wren, and a robin with him. Tara had returned with a large collection of clovers, thistles, dandelions, watercress, and wild onions. Clay, Leesha, Sherry, and Lucy had managed to catch six small pan fish, the biggest about four inches long. Kirk and Jimmy walked over to the trot line. Jimmy pointed out that it looked like something was pulling on the line and moving the stick a little bit. When Kirk pulled in the line, three catfish splashed to the surface. Two were descent sized, over a foot long. Then other was about half that size. Kirk removed the fish, baited the hooks and threw the line back out.

  “Wow.” Clay said when they all gathered around the camp. “Looks like we have a feast!”

  “We sure do.” Scott said. “What do we do with it all, now that we have it? Should we eat it all?”

  “Absolutely not.” Kirk said. “We need to set up a smoker. We can jerk most of the meat and eat everything we can’t. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He went off towards where he had cut the fishing poles. Clay and Leesha went back to fishing while Lucy and Sherry talked to Tara about the plants she had harvested. Jimmy sat down next to his grandpa and told him all about how he had killed the birds.

  A few minutes later, Kirk came back with three greenwood poles like the ones they had been fishing with, a couple of green branches, a bundle of thin sticks, and another dead limb for firewood. “What’s all that?” Tara asked as he sat it down near his pack.

  “This is our smoker. We need to dry this meat out and get it smoked. It’ll keep for a while that way. The only problem is that it’ll take several hours to dry out. We need to get it started soon. Why don’t you get dinner started with the smallest of the catfish, a couple of the little brim there, and the smallest of the birds that Jimmy killed. I’ll get this going.

  “Jimmy, you and your sister want to learn how to do this?” Kirk asked. They teenagers watched as Kirk took the three long poles and tied them together at one end. He spread out the bottom to form a tripod. He then took three of the longer branches he had gathered and tied them to the tripod, forming a triangle about sixteen inches above the bottom. He made two more bases above the first one. He built a small grate above each of the three bases with the smaller limbs. The entire group watched as he worked. He didn’t bother explaining much. This part was pretty self-explanatory. “Clay, would you look in my pack, get the entrenching tool, and dig me a small fire pit a little smaller than the base of this tripod and about six inches deep?”

  “Sure thing, man.”

  Kirk used one of his folding pocket knives to fillet the smallest catfish. He then cut the fillets into small, thin strips. He popped out the fishes eyes, cut them open, and threw them into the stew pot. Tara looked at him in disgust. “Sorry.” Kirk said. “There’s a lot of vitamins and such in the eyes. Out here, every calorie counts. Besides, they won’t preserve
well.” Kirk continued to work on the animals, filleting and cutting everything into thin strips. “The most important thing to remember in doing this is to make sure you get as much fat as possible off of the meat. The fat will still turn rancid and make you sick, even if it is jerked. The meat will not.” He cut away a small piece of fat from the squirrel and threw it into the stew pot, which became the home for the organs and other edible waste products.

  Kirk finished cutting up the meat, several handfuls of it, about the time that Clay finished with the small fire pit. Kirk began laying the strips of meat over the grates and asked, “Jimmy, would you build me a little fire in the pit Mr. Tomin just dug?”

  The young man and his sister gathered up the dead limb that he had brought back earlier, broke it down, and built a small fire. Kirk watched them out of the corner of his eye. Kirk looked up to see Tara giving him what he had termed her “pissy face.” She didn’t like it when Kirk took too much of an interest in Lucy. Kirk continued stacking the meat.

  When he finished, Kirk picked up the entire tripod and set it over the fire. “We don’t want to get the fire too high.” He explained as he knocked it down with a stick and spread the hot coals around the small fire pit. “We’re looking more for heat and smoke, which is why I got these green limbs. The green wood will throw off a lot more smoke, which will help preserve the meat.” He grabbed his hatched from Scott and began turning the green limbs into green chips. Once he had a good sized pile of them, he tossed a few onto the coals of the low-burning fire. He fished around in his pack and came up with a smaller, extra poncho. He eyeballed the tripod and measured off the appropriate length to fold the poncho. He wrapped the tripod with the poncho, starting just below the first rack and ending a few inches below where the three poles met at the top. Kirk fastened the poncho with some cord. When he had finished, it looked like a small, tall tee-pee with an opening at the bottom and a smaller one at the top. The poncho did an excellent job catching the smoke. A slow steady stream of smoke rolled from the gap he had left at the top.

  “I don’t mean to be difficult or nothing,” Leesha said, “but won’t the poncho melt?”

  “It shouldn’t.” Kirk answered. “It’ll keep a good bit of the heat and smoke in, but the vent at the top should keep it from getting too hot. Besides, it’s a good foot above the coals. As long as we don’t let the fire get too high, it should be fine. Whoever has watch tonight will need to look after the fire though.”

  “What do we do now?” Clay asked.

  “Just need to flip them in about three hours. Then let them smoke for about another three. By that time, they should be completely dried out and preserved.”

  “So this is what you meant by gathering up supplies.” Scott stated.

  “Yep.”

  “How much do you think we need?” Lucy asked.

  “As much as we can get.”

  Later that night Kirk sat by himself, tending the smoker fire and pulling first watch. He looked out across the main campfire at the other members of the group. Consciously or unconsciously, they still made their beds on the other side of the camp from him, an unspoken sign of distrust. One spot lay unoccupied next to Scott. Tara had risen a few minutes earlier and walked into the woods. He assumed that she had just gone to answer a call of nature.

  He saw a movement in the shadows in front of him. He looked up and saw Tara walking toward him. She held her arms crossed in front of her chest as she approached. She sat down a few feet from him. She didn’t uncross her arms as she sat, trying to hide the gun that Kirk knew rested in her right hand.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Reed.” He said, tipping an imaginary hat. “What brings you over?”

  Her eyes burned with intensity. “Kirk, you’ve been with our group for several days now, and we don’t really even know anything about you. I think it’s time we fixed that.”

  “What do you want to know? I’ve pretty much told you all there is to know.”

  “Don’t lie to me. All you’ve told us is that you’re a single, insurance salesman from Florida who is just out on the road travelling after the disaster… That’s bullshit, and you know it. No insurance salesman knows the type of stuff that you do. Where did you learn all of this and where did you get all of your equipment? I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that an insurance salesman from Florida simply shows up in Illinois one day, comes in like a one-man army, kills a bunch of armed men, rescues my family, and then teaches us all this stuff about how to survive. It just doesn’t add up, and I want the truth.”

  “What’s this all about, Tara? Isn’t a man’s pain his own?”

  Tara paused. “No. Not when it concerns my family. I would do anything to protect my family. Anything. So, I need to know who you are before I let you any closer to my family, any closer to Lucy.” She noticed the slight wince Kirk made when she mentioned Lucy’s name. “That’s right. I’ve seen you looking at her. We all have, and quite frankly, I find it disgusting. I’d have killed you in your sleep on the second day if Scott hadn’t stopped me.”

  “That why you’re hiding a gun under those crossed arms right now? You come to kill me because I look at Lucy?”

  “It’s disgusting. Every time you talk to her, you fawn over her every word. It looks like you might drool yourself. That little girl’s been through so much in the last year with her parents splitting up, everything going to hell in a hand basket, losing her dad, him getting shot in the street like a dog while we all watched… No, if I can stop some pervert like you from seducing her or taking advantage of her, then I’ll die to do it. I’m already a dead woman.”

  Kirk repeated slowly to himself. “Seduce her?” He looked up at Tara and laughed mirthlessly. It was an almost painful sound. The laugh unnerved Tara. She pulled the gun out of hiding and trained it on him. “I have something to show you, Tara. You wanna put the gun away?” She glared at him. Her hand didn’t move. “Or not.”

  Kirk reached into the neck of his shirt. “What are you doing?”

  “I have something to show you. Don’t worry. I’m not going to try anything. Besides, you’re the one who came over here with a gun threatening to kill me if I don’t open up to you. Well, this is part of me opening up.” He pulled out a metallic chain from his undershirt, lifted it over his head, and tossed it over to her. It landed inches away from her leg. She noticed that being separated from it seemed to pain him somehow.

  Tara kept the gun leveled at him as she reached down and picked up the chain. The chain was the type soldiers used to wear their dog tags. She grasped the hard plastic case attached to the chain and held it up to look at it in the light of the low fire. She looked at the two wallet-sized photos encased in the clear plastic. The first one was of a pretty, blond woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Tara turned the case over and her breath caught. “This looks just like Lucy when she was a baby.” She said to herself. The little girl sat on a studio prop, the ruffles of her blue dress spilling out all around her, creating a stark contrast to her curly orange-red locks. The smiling child looked to be about two or three years old. “Who are these pretty young ladies?” Tara asked.

  “That’s my wife Karen and our little girl Clarice.”

  “I had no idea. Where are they now? Are they waiting on you back in Florida?”

  Kirk gave a sad, slow shake of his head. “I guess you could say that… They were killed in a car accident nine years ago.”

  “I’m… I’m sorry.” Tara said.

  The pair sat in silence for a few moments while Tara stared at the picture that could have been her granddaughter. Finally, Kirk spoke up. “I never meant Lucy and harm. I would never do those things you suggested. I mean, seduce her? Part of me can’t really believe you would think that, but another part of me understands. Given your story and how you guys were when I found you, I guess I can see where you would get that idea.” He paused for a minute. “I guess… How do I explain this? When you look at Lucy, you see a granddaughter that you know a
nd love and would do anything to protect. When I look at her…I see… I see the ghost of the little girl that Clarice should have been. The little girl I would do anything to have back. You said I look at her with lust… in a way you may be right. Lust for all the birthday’s that Clarice never had, for watching her grow up and become a young lady, for the dread of meeting that first boy that she brought home…”

  “Oh my God.” Tara whispered. “That’s why you saved us isn’t it? Scott kept wondering why a random stranger would risk his life to take on and kill five armed men? You did it for her?” Tara asked holding up the picture of Clarice. “You did it for Lucy.”

  Kirk hung his head. Tara lowered her gun. Tara handed him back the chain. “I’m sorry, Kirk. I think I may have misjudged you.” A moment passed in silence. Kirk poked at the coals of the fire with a stick, spurring them back to life. “Kirk, please tell me who you are?”

  Kirk raised his head. “Why? Haven’t you heard enough?”

  “About why you are infatuated with Lucy? Yes. About why you rescued us? Yes. About who you are? No. About how you were able to just walk up and take out those five men like it was nothing? No.

  “For starters, why would an insurance salesman from Florida be in Illinois? How do you know all of this wilderness stuff?”

  Kirk took a deep breath and slowly released it. “I grew up in Kansas. That’s where I learned a lot of this survival stuff. My Grandpa taught me. It was kind of a tradition with the old man. He claimed that his grandfather had been a full-blooded Chippewa Indian and had taught him as a little boy.

  “After I graduated high school, I went to the Naval Academy for a couple of years. I woke up one day and decided that I didn’t like boats, or the ocean for that matter. So, I dropped out. I goofed around for a couple of years and finally decided to go back to school. I got a ROTC scholarship at Florida State. That’s where I met Karen. I was a year ahead of her and she wanted to wait until she graduated to get married. I went into the Army after graduation. Got stuck in the infantry. I came back for Karen’s graduation. We got married later that same week.”