Chapter 298

The Prison Planet

Morales stood to stretch, almost falling before he realized his right leg was numb from him sitting on a rock all night. He had no real idea how many times he had awakened to feed the fire – if stumbling over to put another couple of limbs on the fire was really awakening, or for that matter, if leaning against the cave wall while drifting in and out of consciousness was really sleeping. Now fully awake, but quite fatigued, the stench of urine hit him, having seemingly intensified during the night. Probably the increased humidity, he guessed. I'm going to have to take some time and sweep the rest of this place out.

Since he didn't have a watch, he could only guess at how long the rain had lasted, but he knew it had continued for most of the night. He stood just behind his makeshift wall listening to water drip out of the trees as the first light of dawn began to break the darkness. He wondered yet again at the quiet. He had always lived in the city where there was constant background noise of one sort or another. Here, the quiet was almost unnerving. Where else could he hear water drip from the trees?

He wondered if the summer rain was typical. As he thought about it, he realized there was ample evidence of the plants having received sufficient water – all the foliage was healthy looking and a deep green. His belly growled, and for the first time since the portal dropped them on 2214-XR, he grinned. But the grin fled when he realized there would never be another fast food breakfast at McDonald's or any other restaurant, fast food or not. He had never thought he would miss crappy coffee, but he would give anything for a cup right now.

No use feeling sorry for yourself. Before she died, my mom told me over and over to get out, find a decent job and stay away from bad influences. I should have listened to her. Fuck, they could have sent me with Mazarella to go visit the sun. He wondered how close he had come to accompanying his boss. That sobering thought sent chills down his spine.

His mind bounced to other thoughts. Mom always told me I should make plans instead of just drifting through life. Maybe it's time to pay attention to what she tried to tell me. I need to get my shit together and figure out what I'm going to do, then get to doing it.

He remembered that the inventory list showed a couple of writing pads and some pencils, and he almost turned to go find them, but stopped. Do I really need a list just now? I might need the paper when I'm building my cabin. Besides, I need to learn to remember without having to write things down. Instead, he removed enough of his entrance poles to go out. Bow in hand, he carefully looked around and listened as he cautiously eased out of the cave, but he couldn't see or hear anything that might attack him. After retrieving the forked sticks he had used to hold his spitted meat above the cook fire, he returned to his cave.

He positioned the forked sticks over the entrance fire that had burned down to coals, then started to hang his meat to warm it for breakfast, but stopped when a thought struck him. He had a couple of buddies that occasionally hunted deer. Didn't they talk about being in their deer stands before daylight? He stood looking at what was left of the animal he had killed. Shit, this probably won't last much past today before it starts to go bad. I have to get more meat and begin drying it. Of course, I have no fucking idea how to dry it, but I saw something about preserving meat listed in one section of the index. Fuck, first I need to get some meat, then I can figure out how to dry it, but I don't know shit about hunting. I walked up on that animal yesterday, but even I know that's not going to happen on a regular basis.

He would eat later. Leaving the bolt in his cocked crossbow so it would be ready, with the crossbow slung over his back, he picked up his compound bow, nocked an arrow and made his way out of the cave as the day began to dawn. Instead of heading directly down the hillside, he eased along the hill as quietly as he could. With everything wet, he didn't make much noise walking on the sodden leaves and twigs, but he was far from totally quiet despite his best efforts.

A hundred yards or so downstream, he found a stand of bushes overlooking the water, and hunkered down in their midst. This time, he happened to notice that the wind was blowing in his face, causing something to trigger a memory of his hunter buddies talking about staying downwind of the deer they hunted. Other than feeling the gust of wind, he had no idea how to tell which way it was blowing unless it was blowing hard – something else he hoped would be in the books.

He had been squatting there for thirty minutes or so, when he heard a noise – something similar to a squeal, he supposed. Freezing, barely breathing, he waited. A couple of minutes later, there was a louder squeal and some grunting noises. A few seconds after that, he saw two creatures walking toward him at the edge of the stream. They had short legs and barrel-like bodies covered in thick fur or hair. The smaller of the two was around four feet long, he guessed, and the other was longer and much thicker. They also had thick snouts, and were stopping from time to time to root in the mud. The male, evidenced by a large set of balls, and a long dick under his belly, had a vicious-looking set of tusks protruding from his mouth.

Shit. That cave bear thing and that tiger thing in the pictures had tusks, now this animal also has tusks. Is everything rigged for killing on this planet? Well, at least the animal I shot yesterday didn't have tusks.

He guessed the female weighed two hundred pounds or so, but the male was easily twice her size. From just listening to his buddies talk about hunting deer, he had learned that the female of the species was protected by law throughout most of the hunting season. They had seldom mentioned doe except to gripe about seeing only a "doe or two" when they came back empty-handed. He supposed that was to make sure the deer weren't all killed off. Do I need to worry about protecting the females of these things? he wondered.

Whatever the answer was, the decision was taken from him when the male waded to the other side of the stream, leaving the female to root in the mud much closer to Morales' position. Where in the fuck do I aim? I know my buddies talked about shooting for the spine in the neck of the deer they hunted, but these things don't really have much of a neck. No way to be sure of hitting the spine, and I don't have the foggiest idea if their hearts are in the same place as a human's, or even if the crossbow bolt will penetrate deeply enough into the beast's thick body to hit its heart. I sure don't want to wound this thing and have it run off with my bolt. He glanced across the stream at the male. That guy looks vicious. If I shoot the female, will he come after me? For that matter, if I don't kill her instantly, will she attack? She doesn't have any tusks, but the way she's chomping on those roots she's digging up, she could bite a hand off in a heartbeat, and I imagine an arrow stuck in her would fire up her temper if she didn't die instantly.

In the end, he decided on a head shot with his crossbow, hoping the bolt would penetrate the animal's skull. Problem was, she kept moving her head as she rooted for food. After watching for a couple more minutes, he waited until she stopped to chew, then let fly with his bolt. It struck just behind her ear, the bolt penetrating about half the length of the shaft, and she dropped without a sound. The boar looked up at the sound of the crossbow – loud in the near silence of the forest. Even as he stepped into the water, Morales had slung his crossbow over his shoulder, snatched up his bow and arrow, and was climbing the nearby tree that was conveniently leaning slightly downslope.

As soon as he moved, the boar saw him and changed his movement into a charge. The tree had a number of limbs, and with it leaning toward the water, was easy to climb. He fervently hoped the boar couldn't. It took an amazingly short time for the animal to get to the tree. It put its front feet up on the tree, but couldn't climb, no matter how furious it was. Much to Morales' relief, the animal simply was not designed for climbing,

He didn't really want to kill the boar; he would be hard pressed to deal with the meat from the female, and as big as the male was, he had no idea how he would even skin the beast – assuming he could kill it. Nevertheless, he had to do something. Sitting in the tree all day wasn't an option. After almost falling out of the tree while trying to cock his crossbow, he gave the effort up. Finally, he managed to wedge his back against a limb while standing on another one. Bringing his compound bow to full draw, he leaned over to shoot almost straight down at the boar no more than ten feet below his position. When he did, the boar focused his beady little eyes on the apparition above him, grunted, and with a startling intelligence, dodged aside even though Morales hadn't let the arrow go. With a couple of angry squeals, it charged down the hill, crossed the stream and continued on out of sight. Shit, I could see the intelligence in that thing's eyes. I think I've just made an enemy, and I'm afraid I haven't seen the last of him.

He waited a few minutes to make sure the boar wasn't coming back, then climbed down. After hanging his compound bow over a limb, he cocked, loaded a bolt, and slung the crossbow over his shoulder. It didn't take him long to discover that his crossbow bolt wasn't coming out of the animal's head – well not with the broadhead still attached. He unscrewed the shaft and easily pulled that out. Fuck, this is going to get sickening before I get the broadhead back. I guess I'll have to crack open its head with the sledgehammer or my axe, but I'm not going to lose my broadhead. Oh, well, that can wait for later.

He managed to drag the dead animal away from the stream and onto enough of the slope so the blood would drain when he cut its throat. While in the cell, he had read over the section about skinning an animal. The pictures made it look simple. It wasn't; at least not for him. When he finally managed to get the hide off, it had several holes in it where the knife had slipped, and there were little bits of meat hanging from it in many places. He had no idea what he would do with the hide – he hadn't gotten that far in the book – but the author had been emphatic about a survivalist saving everything.

Despite what the author of the book said, he wasn't going to save the liver and heart, or anything inside the animal. He didn't like liver, and he certainly wasn't going to eat a heart unless he was a lot hungrier than he was now. With the hatchet, he managed to cut the head off, and retrieving the broadhead wasn't hard, just gross. After washing the broadhead in the stream, he reassembled his bolt. He quartered the carcass, washed it in the stream and eventually got everything he was going to keep into the cave, laying the meat on the hide.

He built the fire up a little, cut a chunk of the meat off his new kill, put it on a spit and positioned it over the fire. Finding the book on meat preservation, he sat by the door of the cave to read. That's when reality slapped him in the face. His kill was obviously the close kin of a pig, was definitely not part of the bovine family, and ... according to the book, pork was a poor candidate for drying unless he had an abundant amount of salt to go with the smoking process. The breed frequently carried something, particularly in the wild, called trichinosis, and the meat had to be well cooked for safe consumption. With the abundance of fat interspersed in the meat, the fat would tend to become rancid instead of drying properly. He didn't know whether that was true for the animal he had killed or not, but he couldn't take the risk. There was no hospital on this world.

Well, shit! I guess I'll eat well for a day or two, but I need something else for long term food preservation. He decided to let the meat cook very thoroughly while he read up on how to take care of the hide. Reading about urine/brain tanning was an experience in itself. Shit, now I have to go back and dig around in that fucker's head again.

His buckets were stacked one within the other. Choosing one, his mood grim, he went back to where he had butchered the animal. Who in the fuck thought of mixing urine and brains to use in tanning hides? Shit! He wondered if he had stomach enough to mix the two together and work the concoction into the hide. But he knew that come winter, he would need a coat, and blankets to sleep under, none of which were in his case.

After washing his hands in the stream, bucket containing the beast's brains in hand, he climbed back up the muddy slope to his cave. Following a meal of pseudo-pork, which tasted damn good after all the exercise, he buried most of the meat a couple of hundred yards from his cave. He had nothing to guide him other than the books. If the articles said he couldn't safely dry the pork, he had no other choice but to go along with the ideas listed there. Getting some type of food poisoning here would spell his end. Nevertheless, while the pseudo-pork was fresh, it was good eating.

Belly full, he sat reading about tanning when he remembered hearing that scream last night. Oh, shit. I've left the remains of that animal by the stream only a hundred yards from here. What if the thing that screamed last night smells it? Retrieving his shovel and weapons, he trudged back to the scene of his kill to dig another hole.

After burying everything, he threw dirt on the bloody ground with his shovel, hoping it would be enough to keep the smell down. Afterward, he stood, one hand on his aching back, wondering if he was going to do something stupid to get himself killed. I should never have killed that animal so close to my cave. That was just plain dumb. Shit! I don't know a fucking thing about wilderness survival.