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I get one fish cooking and sit staring at it as it sizzles, biting my thumb and jiggling my leg in anticipation. My stomach, silent all day, is rumbling up a storm, and the first whiff of cooked fish has my mouth watering. All the hunger my body has been working so hard to ignore comes roaring back, and it’s all I can do not to gobble the fish down raw.
I don’t have a real spatula, but I’ve bent a bit of flashing from the chimney into a tool that almost does the same job, and I get to work scraping up the fish to flip it. Out here, this qualifies as gourmet cooking. I’m glad now that I took the time to clean the pan, to make my little spatula, even if all I was really doing was killing time. It wasn’t like I had any food to cook with it, but after trying to roast the rabbit over a spit I figured I needed something more sophisticated.
I’m so focused I don’t notice the scrabbling at first. It’s not until the flicker at the edge of my vision that I turn—and yelp in indignation.
The fox has wriggled between the pole wall and the rock, and grabbed my second fish by the tail. He’s halfway back out by the time I spot him.
I lunge for him, yelling a garbled string of angry syllables. He books it, jaws clamped around the fish. The opening’s too narrow for me. I have to scramble out the other way, past the fire, and by then he’s halfway across the clearing and still running.
I grab a rock, huck it after the fox, but I miss by a mile.
I swear, watching the flip of his tail disappearing into the trees. “Asshole!”
Yeah, that’ll show him.
I throw another rock after him for good measure, then take a sharp breath. There is not a single second to spare on regret out here. One fish is gone. The other is still here. I have a fish and it doesn’t matter that ten seconds ago I had two. What I’ve got is what I’ve got.
That’s what I tell myself, but I still mull creative ways to cook a fox as I finish frying up the remaining fish and eat my fill.
One fish and one rabbit every two weeks isn’t going to keep me alive. I need to get better at fishing, and I need to get better at protecting what I’ve caught.
The light has that tired quality it has toward the end of the day, and the wind has a bitter edge. Frost again tonight, probably. How long do I have until the lake freezes over? That’ll make fishing harder. That’ll make everything harder. I can’t rely on any one thing, which means I need to get good at hunting, too.
The only time I’ve ever killed anything with the bow was out with Dad, even though I’ve tried half a dozen times since. Beginner’s luck. The rifle’s easier. The only trouble with it is that I can’t rescue the rounds like I can with the arrows—some of them get broken and bent, but so far I’ve only had to scrap two completely. Just like with the ammo, though, once I’m out I’m out. The bow is too strong for wooden arrows; they’d shatter. I’ll have to make a new bow at some point, one that I can make my own arrows for.
But that’s ages away. Right now I’ve still got both weapons, and a good amount of ammunition. Everything that’s in the box, plus however much is in the rifle now.
I decide to check, since I’m not actually sure.
The answer is none.
No problem—I have the box of ammunition. I grab a round and go to load it, but it won’t fit. I shove at it, but I can only cram it partway.
I look at the box..30-30, it says. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I have one of the spent casings. I hold it up against one of the bullets from the box.
They aren’t the same size.
The bullets in the box are bigger. I have the wrong ammunition.
I almost throw the gun and the bullets away in frustration. Instead I shut my eyes and breathe long, deep breaths. Okay. Okay. I don’t have a gun. I have a club that used to be a gun. And maybe there’s ammunition left in the cabin.
When I went back for the rest of the jars, I poked around the edges of the cabin. Rooting around the chimney felt safe. That’s where I found the flashing and the pan. But I haven’t dug through the ash farther in, searched around the stubby remnants of the table, investigated the bedroom. I should. It’s the smart thing to do.
There’s still time for one more trip. I don’t want to wear myself out, but the trip to and from the rock isn’t that hard, now that I don’t wander around along the way, and I’m never going to have more energy than when I’ve got a full belly. Besides, I don’t like the idea of being out here without the rifle for protection.
Then it hits me: I’ve been carrying an empty rifle around for protection for days.
The thought stops me dead. I choke out a laugh, horrified. I haven’t needed it, but what if I did? What if there was a wolf or a bear or a cougar or Raph?
I’ve been lucky. I haven’t needed the rifle, which means that I’m still alive to learn this lesson: don’t take anything for granted.
I bring the bow and the walking stick and set out, my nerves on edge. I feel exposed. I’m decent with the bow, but it’s not great for protection, not if I get surprised. I have the hatchet, too, strapped to my hip, but if I have to use that, it’s probably too late already.
The wind and the rain have cleared out a lot of the ash back at the wreck of the cabin, which makes it obvious that there’s almost nothing left in it. I don’t even pause before stepping over the threshold. If I pause, I’ll chicken out and turn back.
So I walk through, sifting through the ash, kicking it. I find a few stray bits of metal. A few cans charred so badly they have chunks missing, their contents burned or spoiled. Jars cracked and blackened. I find metal drawer handles and another hatchet head, two blackened knives, a burlap sack that burned only halfway.
I gather up everything that looks even vaguely useful.
