Chapter 691

Dessie and Phillip at The Waterfall Campsite

... Startling her, two of the rabbits had moved closer and were now only ten yards away. In a practiced motion, she brought the pouch all the way back and released. To a bystander who wasn’t familiar with a slingshot, she would not have appeared to aim, but the missile was only a streak as it flew true. The rabbit flopped over backward, kicked once and lay still. She would have cried, but her husband needed food — they both did.

She fumbled another stone from her pocket, but the rabbits had fled in every direction. One stopped and turned to look back, its ears standing almost straight up as its curiosity took over. It should have been an easy shot, but with the adrenalin in her system, the stone whizzed between its ears a hare’s-breadth over its head. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.) The animal bolted and was out of sight almost instantly. Frustrated because she had consistently hit smaller targets that were farther away, she let out a sigh. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” she chastised herself.

After returning the slingshot to her belt, she picked up the rabbit she had killed and returned to camp.

On the way back, she had refused to look at the rabbit as it dripped blood from its caved-in head. This is food for my husband, and I’ll eat what’s left. I have to stay strong to take care of him.

When she got back, she checked Phillip, hoping against hope, but there was no change as far as she could determine.

The sun had crept onto his legs, so she positioned herself behind him to drag him a few feet into a deeper shade. With a sigh, she turned toward where the rabbit lay on a nearby log. I’ve put it off as long as I can, but it has to be done.

She had never cleaned anything other than fish and had certainly never thought she would be cleaning a rabbit. Years after they were married, her husband had told her about him and his buddy killing and eating rabbits while camping in the woods on his parent’s property. “But they’re too pretty to kill and eat,” she had admonished him at the time.

“Come on, Babe. I was a kid,” he defended himself, “and besides, they tasted great roasted over a campfire out there in the darkness while we pretended to be cavemen eating our kill.”

“I killed this innocent creature,” she admonished herself verbally. “But, I’m not one of those people who belittle hunters for killing animals to eat, and in the same breath, admonish them for not buying their meat at the grocery store.” I’ve cried when I’ve seen a rabbit hit on the highway back home, but my husband has to eat, and so do I.

Phillip had taken her to a slaughterhouse once, but she had balked and refused to go inside. Just the smell and the sound had made his point. At least this animal didn’t have to stand waiting in line while hearing and smelling what was going on, she thought. One second, it was alive; the next, it wasn’t, but there were tears in her eyes as she fumbled trying to get the fur off. In days to come, she would find how easy it was to skin a rabbit if you knew what you were doing.

With the fur finally off, she split the animal down the middle and rid it of its insides. Phillip has eaten a couple of pieces of fish — albeit the pieces were broken up and tiny. I should be able to get some rabbit down him if I’m careful. I just wish I had some vegetables to make some real soup for him.

When she had the animal skinned, cut up and prepared for cooking, she realized just how little there actually was of it. With a couple of pieces of the rabbit cut into tiny bits — mostly meat from the hind legs — she seasoned it before putting it on to boil.

While the rabbit pieces cooked, she wondered if there were any vegetables in the once-field back there. I’ll spend more time tomorrow searching for anything that we can use for food. We were too far away to be certain, but those stunted trees in the distance seemed to have fruit of some kind on them, and I would just about bet they are apples. Unfortunately, it’s too early for apples to be ripe, isn’t it? Hmmm, Mom and Dad used to tell us that eating green apples would make us sick, and we did have the tummy ache a couple of times, but we ate them anyway. We’ll see.

From time to time as the rabbit cooked, she would take a fork and crush the meat into smaller and smaller pieces. When she thought the rabbit soup, or more accurately, broth, had cooked down enough, she tasted it, then put some in a bowl, and with a cup of water, went over to her husband.

“We need to get some real food into you, and I thought that a bit of rabbit broth with a few chunks of rabbit in it would make you feel better. You said that rabbit cooked on a spit over a campfire had been delicious when you were a kid. Maybe you’ll like this as well. Once we get you to where you can eat solid food, I’ll see about roasting one the way you described, okay?” she asked while trying to sound enthusiastic.

She continued blathering away as she pulled him into a somewhat sitting position against her. After testing it to be sure it wasn’t too hot, she put some of the thick broth laden with tiny pieces of rabbit into his mouth. For a couple of seconds, he did nothing, then chewed for a couple more seconds and swallowed. She was so proud of him that tears sprang to her eyes. With her voice brightening, she bragged on him before telling him, “Like that, hmmm? Good. Open up, Baby. We have plenty more. We need to get as much of this into you as we can. Oh, by the way, not to brag, but I think I did a pretty darn good job of stitching up the cut on your head. I think you’ll be proud of me when it heals, and there isn’t even a scar.”

While she continued talking, she slowly fed him, and only once did he even cough. “Oops, sorry, Hon. I gave it to you too fast. Here, take a sip of water to wash it down. Good. Ready for more rabbit broth?”

He said nothing, but his eyes were half-open.

By the time she got a half bowl of the thick, somewhat chunky broth down him, her own hunger was driving her crazy, but she intended to keep the rest of the broth for later. I’ll wait a couple of hours, then feed him the rest. I dare not keep it much longer than that — not in this hot weather.

“You did really well, Baby. I’ll let you rest for a while, then we’ll do this again. Oh, by the way, there seem to be a lot of rabbits in the area. And ... I think you’re right about it having once been farmland. Tomorrow, I’m going back to see if I can find any vegetables that might have gone wild over the years. Maybe I can find some potatoes or perhaps some type of green vegetable. I’ll also check out the trees we saw in the distance in case they might actually be apple trees. Most apples won’t be ripe until fall, but the trees are worth investigating. Wouldn’t it be great if they actually are apple trees?”

She kissed him on the cheek and reached between his legs to see if he had made use of the “diaper” she had made him, but it was still dry.

“We’re going to get through this, Baby. Oh, yeah, and I found out what those two aircraft that we saw were doing. According to the newscasts, aliens have attacked Earth. Can you imagine?” she blathered on. “At first, I thought it was total BS, but every station I could get on the AM/FM radio had people talking about it and giving instructions on how to get food and water. You need to wake up, so we can talk about all that’s going on. Just imagine — aliens.”

Later, she sat at a distance from the tent and quietly sobbed. There are only a few of the freeze-dried dinners left, and at this point, I’m afraid to try to feed them to him. Even when he’s more awake and can eat, I’ll have to continue to supplement the freeze-dried meals with other food.

Hmmm. I’ll feed him more of the rabbit broth later today, but I’m afraid to keep it overnight as hot as the weather is. I’ll try feeding him a little from one of the freeze-dried meals in the morning — maybe start with some mashed potatoes and see if he can swallow them.

“How am I going to be able to keep food readily available?” she quietly said aloud. “Surely, cooked rabbit will keep overnight, but as hot as it is, I’m afraid to try. Maybe after a while, I’ll understand just how long I can safely keep it.”

She hadn’t eaten anything all day and was starved. I have another half-bowl of the broth that I’ll feed him in an hour or two. I had hoped to feed him more of the rabbit, but that isn’t going to happen just yet. What’s left of the rabbit will spoil if it isn’t eaten. He can’t eat it yet, and I haven’t eaten, so what’s left will be my meal.

She put the remaining rabbit pieces on a spit and roasted them over the fire. Salted and seasoned, the rabbit was delicious, particularly as hungry as she was. Even after eating every little scrap off the bones, she was still hungry, but she would save what’s left of the freeze-dried meals for when he could eat them.

Her husband was squirming around, and she assumed he needed to go, but despite the hand in the bowl of water trick, he did nothing. “Can you hear me, Baby?” she whispered into his ear. When he didn’t respond, she said it louder. This time, he mumbled something unintelligible and moved his hands weakly about.

“Easy, Baby. You’re fine. I’ve found some rabbits, and I’m going to catch us another fish for dinner tonight. Won’t that be great? Would you like some more of the rabbit broth?”

His movements had stopped, other than an occasional flinch that made her worry that he was in pain. They had over-the-counter pain medicine of several types, but she remembered the first aid instructor’s admonition not to give pain medicine if a concussion were suspected.

A muffled groan made tears come to her eyes.

This time, she took the stringer with her. I don’t have any way to keep food, but maybe I can catch a couple of extra fish and have them ready when I need them.

Frustrated that she could do nothing for her husband, she got out his fishing gear and removed his lure before rigging the line with a float, weight and hook. With the folding shovel, she dug around near the water until she found something that she first thought was a small snake. She had almost whacked it with the shovel before deciding it was just an energetic worm. She didn’t know what it was called here, but back home, it would have been called a wiggler. All she was sure of was it looked like a worm, wiggled like crazy and was roughly six inches long.

With her little forked stick, she held it down while threading the hook through it the way her husband had taught her. That really pissed the thing off, and it was wiggling like crazy when she set the depth with the float and cast the line out about fifteen feet from the bank. She had just wedged her husband’s rod between two rocks and had picked up her own rod and reel to bait it when Phillip’s reel began to sing.

With her dip net stuck between her legs, she worked the small fish in, then slipped the net under it. Another rainbow, but he only weighed a pound or so. No matter, he went on the stringer that she had tied to a sturdy bush at the water’s edge. She rebaited her husband’s rig using a grub this time before setting her rig up with another wiggler, then put it out twenty feet or so up the shore. It took another half-hour to catch another fish, and this one was a perch probably weighing