Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles

by J. C. Phelps

  He looked at me and considered a moment then said, “Quinn.”

  I was satisfied for a second or two but the other half of his name was not forthcoming. Was Quinn his first or last name, I wondered, so I asked him.

  “Last,” he said.

  “What’s your first name then?” I asked.

  “We’ll leave that for another day,” he said while he stepped away from the fire to set up his bed for the evening.

  As I lay in my bedroll I thought of all the information I had gained that evening. Mr. Black, Quinn, had given up a lot. I was glad I knew his name, at least part of it. I still didn’t know if Quinn fit him though. After thinking about it for a while I decided Quinn was an okay name. I had expected a strong name and Quinn wasn’t a sissy name. I imagined what his first name would be. It would have to be strong and masculine too. Jack had a strong, hard quality to it. Maybe he had a girl’s name and that’s why he hadn’t given it to me. Maybe it was Sue. You know, a boy named Sue… Nah. I didn’t think so, at least I hoped not. All this stuff about names got me to thinking about Rumpelstiltskin. About how I was like the queen and I needed to find out his name in three days. Well, not really, I guess it’s nothing like that fairy tale. Then I dozed off.

  *****

  Chapter Twelve

  I awoke the next morning not because I was rested but because my stomach ached from lack of food. In the past three days all I had eaten was a few raspberries. The powdered food back at the cabin sounded good again. I picked myself up off the ground and put away my bedroll. What I wouldn’t give to sleep on a bed again too.

  Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen, so I gathered up what energy I could find and headed out to see if my traps had been successful in the night. When I reached the first one it was the same as the day before, turned over. I began to wonder if Mr. Black was messing with my traps. I don’t know why he would do that though. I was just in a real bad mood this morning. I made the rounds of the other two traps and found nothing in them either. Imagine that. I tromped to the raspberry bushes intent on eating more ripe raspberries. When I got to them all the raspberries were gone and so was Mr. Black’s trap.

  I decided a morning stroll would be a good idea. I could check out the area and see what I could find. Mr. Black had said deer liked to hang out at the edges of meadows. They ate mostly at dawn or dusk. Before I went on my stroll I would go back to camp to see if Mr. Black was there.

  When I got to camp I noticed all his gear was gone, not just him. I didn’t remember seeing it before I left to check my traps either. Well, I’ll just look around anyway I thought.

  I walked away from camp and it was still pretty early in the morning and there was a bit of a chill in the air. My breath hung in the air in front of me as I stood there looking around trying to decide which way to go. I remembered a little meadow on the way here that we had walked through. If I could find it again I’d scope it out.

  I walked for only a few minutes back the direction that we had come and found the meadow in no time. As I got closer I slowed my pace. Good thing too. Not far from the edge of the trees were some deer. There were six of them, four doe and two fawns. It was magical. I had seen deer before when we were hiking but had never noticed them before they had turned to run away. Now I was watching them and they didn’t know I was here yet. I thought about how I would be able to take one of them down, but they were too beautiful to eat. I thought about becoming a vegetarian, but remembered how much I liked meat in my diet.

  I stood motionless for a long time and then one of the deer lifted its head and looked in my direction. Then it lifted its long white tail and bounded across the field in the opposite direction with the rest of the deer following her.

  I walked away from the meadow with a sense of accomplishment. I had snuck up on some deer. It didn’t count that it happened to be an accident. I just had to remember exactly what I had done so I could do it again. I explored for the rest of the day.

  I mapped out the area even though it was in vain. Mr. Black had said we were going to move camp today, but I figured it was good practice. Earlier that day I had sat and messed around with my wristband and had found it had a compass. I imagine that I should have thought of this before. It was a GPS device after all. I used my wristband to remember landmarks. At such and such latitude and longitude I would find the meadow, then there was a small creek off in another direction. I found we were on the top of a hill that had a sharp drop in a different direction from camp. I didn’t go too far out from camp but I got further out than I had when setting up my traps. I periodically returned to camp to see if Mr. Black had returned and was ready to move to another location. Each time I returned there was no change at camp.

  I worked my way back to the little creek I had found. Fish wasn’t my favorite, but they might be easier to catch. Never had I gone fishing before, but had been forced to watch a few shows on the television. What was with men and fishing? Anyway, the concept was simple. I would try my luck at fishing today.

  While I walked to the stream I considered how I might catch a fish. I knew in normal life people used fishing poles with hooks on the ends. How could I make a fishing pole? I found several sticks on the way to the stream that I thought might get the job done. My mind kept wandering toward a picture of a small boy sitting on the edge of a river with a stick and line hanging from it, waiting for a fish to bite.

  By the time I reached the creek I had an armload of sticks. I chose the one I thought might be the strongest and then pulled off one of my shoelaces. I tied it to the end of the stick and thought about what I might use for a hook. Finally the only thing I could come up with was trying to carve myself one with my knife. I got down to business and quickly found it was nearly impossible to carve a hook. I could get a toothpick type thing carved but not a hook. They kept coming out looking like miniature spears.

  Spears. Then I got another idea. I wouldn’t even need to carve a hook I could maybe spear myself a fish. This required me to see a fish though. I took my shoelace that was tied to the end of the stick and used it to tie my knife onto the end of the stick. Then I got up and snuck around the banks of the stream. It didn’t take long before I saw a fish. I had kept low and was being quiet. I remembered seeing on a fishing show how fish can see you better from the water than you can see them. I slowed, stood my entire height and threw the spear I had fashioned at the fish. I missed but I managed to make a big splash. This I knew had probably scared fish away for miles in each direction. I had to wade out to retrieve my spear. Thank goodness the creek wasn’t more than waist deep.

  As I waded through the water I tried not to kick up too much dirt. If I muddied the water I wouldn’t be able to see anything. I looked into the water in search of fish to skewer once I reclaimed my spear. I saw one just as it darted under the edge of a rock. I stood still in the middle of the creek for several hours and tried my luck numerous times. My legs were getting numb and my teeth were chattering before I decided to exit the freezing water.

  I took a walk up the creek to see if there was a more shallow area I could try. It wasn’t long before I found a spot that only reached my knees. I trudged in and tried my luck again. This went on until it was close to getting dark. I better get something soon or I would go without dinner again tonight.

  I saw a nice sized fish, aimed and threw my spear. I missed and watched the fish dart under a nearby rock. I ran to the spot where the fish was hiding and plunged my hand under the rock after him. He swam away from me but I had touched him. This was a new concept. I began slowly and methodically feeling under rocks.

  About every third or fourth rock I would feel something and then see a fish dart away. I just had to be faster. I lowered my hand back into the water and started feeling around a new rock. Ah-ha! I pushed my hand up against the rock from the bottom, trying to pin the fish so I could get a grip. I got it! I actually said this out loud. It wasn’t very big and I started to close my grip. As my fingers closed around my fish I felt a sharp
pain in my hand. Instinctively I pulled my hand toward my body and hanging from it was a snake!

  I jumped up and down and screamed, “SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!” Then I shook my hand and arm violently. The snake didn’t loosen its grip. Finally I calmed down enough to try and pry the snakes’ fangs away from my hand. It had a hold of me right at the base of my thumb. I wondered if it was poisonous.

  I couldn’t get it off! I had somehow gotten myself back to shore and was standing near my spear. I reached down and picked it up and sliced the snake in two. Its head was still hanging onto my hand and there was a lot of blood. I made myself calm down and I took my finger and thumb and pushed them into either side of the snake’s mouth and was able to finally get it off me. I threw it down and stomped on it a few times. Then I reached down to inspect it with my spear.

  In my effort of prying I had noticed its fangs had been more to the back of its mouth and thought that was a good sign. If the fangs were in the front of the mouth it was probably poisonous, but if they were in the back of the mouth, they were meant to hold on, not to inject venom. I did a double check by physically picking it up and opening its mouth and didn’t find any vampire like fangs in the front. Maybe it might not be a bad idea to take it back to camp to see if Mr. Black knew what kind of snake it was. Maybe he had some anti- venom in his pack.

  I picked up the dead snake parts and my spear and tromped back to camp. Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen. I sat down and tried to regulate my breathing. I remembered hearing that if you got excited it would just make the venom move faster through your blood stream. I looked down at my injured thumb to see if it had turned black like the pictures I had seen of rattlesnake bites.

  It wasn’t black but there was a huge gash right underneath where I had cut the snake in two. I must have cut myself with the knife. It was still bleeding and all the blood when I cut the snake must have been mine. Great. Now what?

  Not only am I going to die of snakebite, I might actually die from blood loss too. I started to feel light headed.

  “Knock it off,” I told myself out loud. Quit acting like a girl, I thought internally. Okay, the snake had bitten me close to half an hour ago; if it had been poisonous it would probably have kicked in by now. I hoped. Now I just had to figure out what to do with my hand. It was still bleeding heavily. I sat and looked at it. I needed stitches, that was obvious. How was I going to get stitches out here though? I pushed the cut together and that helped slow the bleeding. I had to do something.

  I rummaged through my pack and found a book that I hadn’t put in there. It was titled Herbal Remedies. Mr. Black must have put that inside. I skimmed through it quickly to see if there was anything about snakebites, but there wasn’t so I put it down and continued my search. I didn’t find anything else that seemed of use in my pack.

  The knife Mr. Black had given me was a survival knife; maybe I would find something there. I started to play with the knife and found a spot on top that unscrewed. I opened it and low and behold there was a little baggie in there with some sort of plastic line and a FISHING HOOK. No needles though. I was so furious at myself for not snooping before. I had thought curiosity would get me into trouble one day, but never thought it could have prevented disaster.

  I knew I had to sew up my hand, but I wanted to wait for Mr. Black. I was hungry, and tired and I was freezing because I was still soaking wet. I tried to start the fire because it was getting close to dusk. I finally got it lit and Mr. Black still wasn’t back.

  I supposed I better try to sew myself up. I tied some of the fishing line to the hook and proceeded to sew. I had never liked to sew, but this was even worse. When I had first touched the sharp end of the hook to my hand I thought it would hurt too much for me to go through with it, but my wound was numb. At least it was on the outside. If I tried to go too deep it hurt like hell. I caught myself a couple of times with my other hand because I had touched a sensitive spot and it made me almost pass out. I finished sewing up the cut and tied a knot at the end of the line. I used the knife to cut the plastic line and was pretty impressed with myself. It wasn’t too straight, but the bleeding had almost stopped and I hadn’t died because of poisoning either.

  It was completely dark around my campfire now. I got up and quickly changed my clothes. They had almost dried completely except around the seams but I didn’t want to be covered in blood anymore. I looked at the snake lying on the ground and my stomach rumbled.

  “No,” I said and laid out my bedroll. Then I sat down on it and waited for Mr. Black to reappear. He had said we were going to move camp today, didn’t he? I wondered why he wasn’t back. I hoped he hadn’t gotten hurt. I worried about him a bit to keep my mind off the snake that had almost killed me. Every once in a while I was hit with a feeling of panic because I wasn’t totally convinced it hadn’t been poisonous. I thought of eating it again but decided against it, partly because I wanted to show it to Mr. Black but mostly because I didn’t want to eat snake.

  I sat and looked at it for a long time then came to the conclusion that a snake was better than bugs. I still didn’t want to eat it though because I might need to know what kind it was later.

  I stared at the snake with that thought going through my head for a while and realized I could eat the bottom part of the snake and leave the head. That should work, I thought. I picked up the snake and my knife and went to the fire. I cut it open and inspected the insides while I pulled them out. Yuck, I thought, but at the same time I was enthralled. I had never seen the insides of a snake before.

  After I got the insides out I looked at it and wondered if I should skin it too. I tried but there was hardly any meat on the thing and I pulled most of the meat off where I had tried to get the skin away from it. I figured I would try to cook it with the skin on. I moved some of the hot coals away from the flames of the fire and laid the snake on them and then turned it a few times. Every once in a while I would open it up and look inside to see if it looked cooked. Finally, I got up enough courage to take it off the coals and try it.

  It was hot and didn’t taste bad. I had heard of people eating snakes before and had always thought they were nuts. I guess if you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything. I had heard that saying before too and had never really believed it until now.

  The snake had been a little snake that I wouldn’t have probably even noticed if it had been in the grass next to me. I didn’t get much meat because it was mostly bones. But it was enough to calm my stomach a bit.

  After I was finished picking on the snake I threw the carcass into the fire and wondered after Mr. Black again. I had had a full day and was extremely tired. I decided I would lie down on the bedroll while I waited for Mr. Black to come back to camp.

  I woke up some time later, the fire had died down and there were all kinds of noises around me. I sat up and looked around for Mr. Black’s body laying close by in his bedroll. Nope, just me here. I pulled the blanket of the bedroll up over my head and listened with my eyes wide open. I hadn’t hid under the covers since I was a little girl. I turned over making sure my head didn’t exit the blankets and noticed a light coming from somewhere. It was my wristband. That little thing came in handy.

  I began messing around with it and then all of a sudden there was a little blip on the screen. It was fairly close and it had to be Mr. Black. I pulled the covers down away from my face. I thought about getting up to find him but if he was that close he was probably spying on me. The nerve. He left me out here all alone and I could have died. Instead of getting up to search him out I got up and stoked the fire. Then I got out the book he had left for me and began to read.

  I found several things I could do to make sure my wound didn’t get infected, if I could find the plants I needed. I had begun to get tired again so I lay back down and went back to sleep.

  I awoke the next morning to a severe pain in my hand and arm. I looked at my cut and it was red and getting puffy. I better get something on this, I thought as I headed out to find the p
lants I needed. As it turned out there were some plants sitting in a bunch not far from camp, picked and laid out nicely so I would find them. I compared them to the pictures in the book and found them to be what I needed. I said to the surrounding trees, “Thank you.” Then I picked them up and carried them back into camp. I read about the plants and what I needed to do with them. Mr. Black had picked the combination that just needed to be ground up with some water to make a paste. I walked to the creek and found a nice flat rock, one with a bit of a dip in the center and one I thought I could use to grind the plants up with. I filled my canteen and brought it all back to camp. I took the flat rock and began to grind some of the plants together. Then I switched to grinding the plants on the rock with the dip in the center because it was probably the juices from the plant that I needed most. I didn’t use all the plants because I might have to make some more and it was easier than hunting down the plants for myself. I eventually added a bit of water to make it all stick together. Then I applied it generously to my hand. I took a clean sock and wrapped it around the wound to make sure the poultice I had applied would remain where it was supposed to.

  After I got myself all doctored up I thought I might check my traps. I hadn’t done that for a day. The sun hadn’t been up too long and I walked quietly and carefully in hopes I might see some wildlife. What I would do if I saw some wildlife was a different subject I didn’t have any idea about. I had brought my makeshift spear with me, just in case.

  As I neared my trap that had been turned over more than once, I found the source of the vandalism. There was a beautiful buck standing near it eating on the bush that I had placed the trap beside. Of course the trap was turned over again. I stood and watched the buck for a little while and then got an idea. I threw my spear at him and embedded it in the ground at his feet. He dashed away with his white tail flashing behind him. I was going to have to practice my throw. I went to the trap and removed it from its spot and carried it with me to check the other two. They were untouched so I left them where I had found them.