Chapter 11

I'll admit it; I can be a complete dumbass sometimes. I'd done it again too. Being in he-man mode, and excited about having someone around to do the real work, I had set us off on a hunting trip without even thinking of what we'd do with the meat once it was cleaned and cut up.

Of course Louise knew what she was going to do with it, she was going to cut it into small strips, lay it on racks and keep hardwood fires burning under it so smoke would keep pest away and let it dry. We would end up with something that was getting more expensive than gold in the time I'd come from, jerky.

Ok, I'd put the cart before the horse, or at least the meat acquiring before thoughts of meat preserving. I was reminded of the gasoline flavored meat fuckup of just a week ago. Damn, had I really been here a week by now. Yes, I had.

Louise knew fully well that she didn't have any drying racks like they had at her former camp. No doubt she intended to make some as soon as she had the immediate tasks done. Sure enough, after the deer were cut into manageable quarters she began strolling toward the edge of the clearing and I just knew that she was looking for smaller trees or saplings she could cut to make some racks from.

"Louise," I said, calling to her.

She came right away and it was no trouble to let her know I wanted the deer wrapped in visqueen. I could tell that she didn't understand why, but she got right on it, and then seemed surprised when I helped as best I could.

After the meat and edible internal organs were wrapped and the skins were rolled up we were left with less weight to carry but many more small packages. And since I hadn't been smart enough to cabbage onto a four-wheeler, three-wheeler, a damned dirt bike, or even a fucking wheelbarrow during my shopping spree, we were going to have to carry this the old fashioned way.

I thought about making a travois of some type but canceled that idea too. It would work but might be a bigger pain in the ass than it was worth, especially since it was such a short trip. From the trips back and forth to George's place I already knew that Monster Mudders and four wheel drive wouldn't be sufficient to get my pickup from here to there.

There were just too damned many trees between their camp and my trailer. I'd be spending all day going around in circles trying to find a path through them.

I'm sure there were several very good reasons that Indians, or any primitive people for that matter, lived together in groups. Not the least of them had to be that they would end up needing help to do things that made their lives easier.

If we could get the meat to George's tribe it would be cut up in strips and over smoking fires within an hour of our arrival. Not only were there more hands there to get it done, but they already had racks made for the purpose and an established routine for performing the chore, since they had to do it at least every third day or so.

I'd been stalling around trying to think of something easier than a travois and it finally hit me. Backpacks. I had three or four large packs that I'd rarely used but happened to have anyway. Now, if I could just remember where I'd put them.

Louise wasn't really distressed by my poking around everywhere looking for something. She could tell that was what I was up to even if she couldn't find out what I was seeking. I had no way to tell her and even if I could speak her language how could I explain about a knapsack?

Saving me a lot of pointing and hand waving, a big backpack finally let me see it in the back of my truck. Of course I had shit piled all over it and it took nearly fifteen minutes to get two of them out of there. I came out smiling and put one on, even if it was empty. Louise realized its usefulness at once.

Trouble was, I hadn't bothered to mention what I wanted to carry in the backpacks. Louise was a little distressed when she realized we would be hauling the meat away. It took a lot of pleading for calm in a language she didn't understand to get her to settle down and do it.

Clearly, Louise did not understand why we were taking more meat to George and her former tribe mates. I knew perfectly well why we were but I'm not sure I'd tell her even if I could.

We were giving the meat away because I'd been an idiot and gone off half-cocked. I intended to do something about it, but there was no sense wasting time making racks and drying this meat instead of getting started on a real solution.

So we loaded up the backpacks and headed for George's place again. When we neared it Louise gave them the birdcall highsign and she got one in return in only a few seconds.

Once the greetings were over and done with it took a little more fooling around and arm waving before I could make George and the others understand that I wanted to give them my three kills of the morning.

I'm sure that most of them wondered why I was on a trip to give away meat when they were in a better position to gather it than I was. Of course, they weren't really; they were just in a better position to deal with this batch, to my way of thinking.

I'm sure they were doing it the way they'd always done it. Kill a deer, stop everything and deal with it, then sit around on your asses til someone else killed one, or something like that.

We were there nearly three hours before we were rid of my kills and headed back to the trailer with empty backpacks.

Once we were home I led Louise inside the trailer and warmed up our last two Steaks from the cafe. They'd been sitting in that damned little fridge for quite a while and I hoped they wouldn't make us sick. They didn't.

After we'd eaten I helped Louise clean up, which seemed to please her, and then, with the table cleared off I took paper and pencil and astonished her.

I won't say that I'm an artist, or anything of the sort, but I always have been able to make decent freehand sketches. I was intending to build a smokehouse and I sketched one, both to get in my head what I wanted to build and to give Louise an idea about it too.

It had slipped my mind that Louise had never seen anything like paper and pencil. How could she have? I'm sure that she thought it was more of my black magic at first. She was even afraid to touch the paper after I had my drawing complete. Finally she picked it up and gave it a good looking over, but I could tell it didn't ring any bells for her.