James Rawles - Liberators

The next day Joshua grabbed his empty rucksack and eight quart-size Ziploc bags that the group had been using to collect water from Cave Run Lake. The most efficient way they had found was to fill up the bags with water and bring the water back to camp to filter through one of the one-quart-capacity Go Berkey travel water purifiers that they had with them. The second filter, along with their other small valuables, was in the cache that they made off site.

Joshua tried to fish but gave up after thirty minutes since staying out by the lake’s edge meant more exposure and a higher chance of being discovered. He packed up the water, but as he ducked under a branch, one of the twigs caught the back of his rucksack and sent a shower of snow down on him, with some of it managing to find a path between his neck and collar. The cold, wet snow down his back made him take a knee to stop and shiver. He checked his watch. It was 10:37 A.M. on December 23. Before he could stand up he saw a glimpse of movement in his left periphery toward the lake. There, standing with her back half concealed behind a tree, was a yearling doe broadside. Joshua kept both eyes on the doe and when she twitched her nose and started to stamp and snort, Joshua raised his Remington 870 into position and established a firm position against the tree for support. The water sloshed in his backpack as he made his final adjustments and took the shotgun off safe. At this distance the 000 buckshot would spread out quite a bit, but he was not going to pass up the opportunity to bring meat back.

The doe was about to trot away when Joshua pulled the trigger. The report from the shotgun was loud, but it seemed deafening in the near-complete tranquillity of the state forest. The deer took off running toward the lake down a narrow trail. Joshua instinctively cycled the pump action on the shotgun to prepare to take a follow-up shot if need be. He examined the place where the deer was standing, and he saw some marks on the tree from where some of the shot had hit. Disappointed, he stood up and covered the last five minutes or so back to camp.

When Megan saw Joshua, she ran out to meet him. Everyone was so used to keeping their voices down that neither of them spoke until they were within normal voice distance. “Are you okay? We heard a shot.”

Joshua looked down and said, “Yeah, that was me. I saw a skinny doe and took a shot at her, but she took off.”

“Did you follow her?”

“No, are you supposed to?”

Megan giggled and said, “Did you see any blood?”

Joshua was still rather embarrassed as he responded, “I was sure that I hit her and even saw some shot marks on the tree she was standing behind. On the hunting shows the animals always seem to drop right there. I just don’t get it.”

Megan kissed him on the cheek. “Drop your pack and we’ll go back and see if we can find blood and track her.”

Joshua led Megan back to the place where he had shot the doe. Megan asked where he was when he made the shot, and he pointed across to the spot where he pulled the trigger. Megan drew a line and started to look for blood in the snow on the ground. “Joshua, come look.” She pointed with a stick to the blood on the ground. “See the blood here? You definitely hit her.”

“Somehow it all looks easier on TV.” Joshua’s eyes brightened and he said, “But if we have blood and some intermittent tracks through the patches of snow, then we can track her, right?”

Megan stood up, grabbed his hand, and said, “Yipper, right this way, Wingnut.”

The snow was very sparse under the dense trees, but working together they were able to follow the doe’s tracks, confirmed with small spots of blood. Eventually Megan found the animal in some thick brush near the water. She threw her arms around him and said, “Nice job! That’s meat right there. I’ll poke her with a long stick to make sure that she’s dead, otherwise, you’re liable to get kicked.”

Megan confirmed that the doe was dead, and she then methodically showed Joshua how to open up the abdominal cavity and eviscerate the deer, saving the heart and the liver. She looked up at him and said, “It’s tradition, you know.” Joshua winced but was trying to be a good sport. He couldn’t tell if she was pulling his leg or not.

Next she found a thick green branch that could be whittled down to a point on both ends to stick through the back leg between the bone and the tendon on the lower hock. Joshua had never done this before, but he was catching on, so he threw the rope over a sturdy branch. Megan lashed the two back legs to the green stick, which would have to do in place of a proper gambrel, then the two of them hoisted the deer up to working height. Megan started to take off the cape, but once Joshua saw how it was done he insisted on getting in there to help. Megan worked to cut off the doe’s head while Joshua worked on removing the cape. She smiled and said, “You’re lucky the doe is still warm; this is a real chore when the meat is cold!

“Tell you what, let’s quarter this doe back at camp. It’ll be good for the boys to see how it’s done, and we can just tie the legs together and carry her out on a long pole between us,” Megan said.

“Cool. Do you know how to do anything with this hide?” Joshua asked.

“Well, without salt it would be hard to preserve it, but if we scraped it really well we could likely roll it up and either use it for something or trade it. Let’s put it in the lake with a bunch of rocks on top to keep it submerged in the water. That will soften everything up really well and we can come back for it in a few days. The meat and hair should scrape right off.”

Megan and Joshua packed the deer out on a pole back to camp and returned midafternoon to cheers and high fives from Malorie, Jean, and Leo. “Merry Christmas, everyone!” Megan said. Malorie got to work with her knife alongside her sister, as there was still plenty to do with the deer carcass.

“We’ll have to find a way to cook some of the meat and dry as much as we can,” Joshua said.

“What if we dug another hole outside of camp and filled it with snow so that we could pack some of the meat in the snow—that should keep it from spoiling, with it as cold as it is,” Megan suggested. “I remember Papa telling me about them having to do that sometimes when they were out at logging camp without refrigeration.” In the end they roasted one front quarter in a pit, made jerky with the chest and flank meat, packed one hind quarter in snow, and hung up the other two quarters. Although they couldn’t measure it exactly, they guessed the high temperature was only forty degrees during the day.

That night there was a lot of thanksgiving for their provisions as everyone had their fill of hot food for the first time in a long time. They made sure to stop themselves from overeating to prevent illness.

Joshua was on shift from the early hours of the morning through dawn when Megan came on duty to relieve him. “Good morning, beautiful. Listen, I’ve been thinking. Now that we have a store of meat, the pressure to conserve our supplies is a lot less immediate. I want to find out what is happening out there in the world. According to the tick marks on the wall, we checked out of the world two months ago, and for all we know, the government might not be the same government anymore.”

“Okay,” Megan replied.

Joshua waited for what seemed like a long time before saying anything. “I was hoping for more of your input.”

“Tell me, are you thinking of the contingencies here? What happens if you get killed?”

“You’re right. It sounds a lot more stupid hearing my idea repeated back to me. Our whole mission could fail.” Joshua stood up and kissed Megan on the head and went back to the cave.