In the Midst of Tribulation (13 page)

Doris looked affronted. "I'm not going hunting."
"Fine," answered Jay. "The dogs will be on watch and will go after anyone who hasn't been introduced as a friend. You should be fine."
"You don't have to placate me."
"I wasn't. I was trying to reassure you." She glared at Doris as she flounced out of the room. "I'm going to turn in," Jay said as she glanced at Piper. "Dress warmly. You'll get chilled just standing around."
"I hear you." Piper nodded pleasantly at her. "Good night."
Each of the women headed to their separate bedrooms. With the youngsters still down at the river with Martha and Susan, the house was still and quiet in no time at all.
It was cold and dark when Jay stumbled downstairs the next morning. Piper was already sitting at the table, finishing a mug of tea. "Did you want some tea?" she asked.
Jay shuddered. "No, thanks. My body doesn't know it's awake yet. I'm not going to do anything like eating or drinking that will speed up the process."
"I take it you're not a morning person."
"Oh, I don't have a problem with morning. It's this still dark outside when you get up thing. It's just wrong."
Piper laughed. "How do you handle the darkness of winter?"
"By staying in bed as late as I can and turning in as early as possible." Jay settled and adjusted the pack on her back. "Thank goodness I now have a house full of people that can take over doing the morning tasks."
"What, no milking cows for you?"
"You've got it." Jay buckled a little pack around her waist. "There'll be no dairy farming around me."
"What's that?"
"It's a first aid kit and a holster for my 9mm." Jay illustrated the dual function of the pack. "I never leave home without it."
Piper shrugged into her jacket and pulled on her backpack. Picking up her rifle and bandolier of shells, Piper waved for Jay to precede her out of the door. "After you, Bwana."
"No, no. You're the great hunter."
The two women stood for a moment to let their eyes adjust to the darkness. The dogs circled around them, sniffing. Jay knelt down and roughhoused with them, grabbing their muzzles and pulling their ears. She glanced over at Piper. "You good to go?"
"Yeah. Let's do this thing."
Together, they walked in companionable silence down the trail to the old rest stop building. Instead of going either direction on the road, Jay went directly across the road and down the hillside. Once across the stream, she showed Piper an area where the grass was beaten down and led away from the water.
"See, here is a game trail." Jay pointed at a narrow path between the trees. The path looked almost man made; it was so clean and well kept. She pointed to a crumbling pile of dung. "Somebody has been using it recently."
"How far does it go?"
"It leads almost directly to the river from that mountain over there." The indicated mountain was a little larger than the one on which they now lived. "You can follow the trail nearly all the way across the valley."
They began walking in single file slightly to the side of the path. Not wanting to alert the animals with their scent, they couldn't use the path. They had to walk carefully in the rough bush alongside, trying not to make too much noise.
The pre dawn light was gray and cast odd shadows through the trees. Piper split her attention between the woods they were walking through and the trim outline of the woman before her. She was startled when Jay stopped and, for a brief moment, she thought that the other woman had caught her watching. She was very thankful that the poor light hid her blush.
"Check up there," whispered Jay, unaware of Piper's distraction. She pointed up at a forty foot oak tree. "I put a stand in that tree and in another about three hundred yards further on." She tapped the first of four steps nailed into the trunk. "Will you need help? The seat is very narrow."
"Naw, I'm an ace at climbing trees, especially when someone's gone to the trouble of giving me hand and foot holds." Piper swung her pack off her back and onto one shoulder. She tightened the gun sling before making the short climb to the stand. Squirming on the seat, Piper adjusted her rifle across her knees. As comfortable as she could make herself, she reached down for the pack that Jay passed up to her.
"I'm going to walk the trail and take the long way back to the house." Jay touched Piper's boot. "If you don't see anything before lunch time, you can take a nap until near dusk. They're sure to be thirsty then."
"Yeah. We used to call that the animal tea time."
"Good luck."
"Thanks. I'll see you later tonight."
"If you get something, there's a clearing just to the east with a good tree for hanging. I put some rope in the other pack."
"Good plan. I'll take out the intestinal sack and we can come back and get it in the morning."
With a wry grin, Jay responded. "But not so early."
"No, we can wait for sun up." Piper winked at her.
"Fine. I'll see you later." Jay headed down the path, turning before she went out of sight to wave at the treed woman. She reflected on the conversation she had with Susan about her need for solitude. Taking the walk today was her way of avoiding having to spend any extra time with Doris.
She decided to walk partially around the base of the mountain. With luck, she thought she could go through several areas where she could usually find mushrooms or wild onions. Jay thought that a good fungus hunt was better than time spent with the remaining houseguest any day. Happier for having a plan, she began humming to herself as she left the deer area.
Piper was also pretty content. After only an hour in the stand, she made good on her first sighting, taking down a smallish buck with a shot to the chest. She waited in the tree for fifteen minutes after firing. She knew too many eager hunters who went after an animal that was wounded and not dead and ended up chasing it all day until it finally collapsed. If she hadn't killed with the round, she wanted the blood loss to weaken it before she scared it into running.
About twenty yards from where she last saw the deer, she found a bright splash of blood. She peered into some brambles and saw the wounded animal. She fired a second shot into its skull. Piper grabbed it by the back legs and pulled it from the covering brush and dragged it in the direction of the clearing Jay had spoken of earlier.
Tying the rope around it front legs, she was able to hang it by the front hooves. Piper pulled out her long knife and cut the jugular vein. The heat of the animal's blood can spoil the meat if not removed quickly. She then made a cut from sternum to anus. She gently worked her fingers into the abdomen in order to tease out the intestinal sack. Once it was removed, she buried it and went back to the river to wash up.
Glancing up at the sun, she decided to eat her lunch before returning to the house. Making herself comfortable on the bank, Piper enjoyed the sandwich Jay had made for her. When she finished her meal, she placed everything back into her pack and strode back to the house.
She found Jay and Doris in the living room. They were seated as far apart as possible while still being in the same room. The silence was deafening and both of them looked up, grateful when Piper returned.
"You look like you got lucky."
Piper coughed to hide her sudden blush. "You might say that."
"What did you kill?" asked Doris.
"I got a buck." She shrugged. "It's only about a hundred pounds."
"Where is it?"
"I hung it where you told me to." Piper kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket up in the closet. "You two want to go with me and bring it back?"
"Sure."
Doris shook her head, "Right now?"
"Yeah. There's plenty of daylight left and it's an easy hike."
"I don't know."
"I thought you didn't want to be left alone." Jay responded snidely. Her eyes followed Piper as she made herself comfortable. "I found some mushrooms today. I figure to grill them and we can have a mélange with tomatoes and onions."
"Sounds divine. I need a shower. I'm itchy from the blood."
"You want to bring the venison back before you get clean?"
"No. I'll take another one after we come back. I haven't gotten my fill of hot running water yet."
"No problem. You give a holler when you're ready." Jay went into the basement and came back up carrying two long poles. "We can use these to cart him home."
"Why not just one?"
"Displace the weight onto both shoulders."
"Oh." Doris watched as Jay buckled on the fanny pack. "You always take that with you?"
"Yeah. You were right last night when you worried about something happening when we're away from here. I always take this so I have a gun and a first aid kit if something bad happens."
"Has it? I mean have you needed it?"
"Not for anything major." Jay did a few stretches. "You want me to make you one?"
"No. I don't anticipate going anywhere where I'd need it."
"That's kind of the point. You've got the expect the unexpected."
Piper joined them, dressed in clean clothes. "Is that how you can keep from getting disappointed?"
"No, it's how you keep yourself alive." At Piper's odd look, she patted her fanny pack. "I was just speaking of the merits of being prepared."
"Okay." She shrugged. "Are we taking the dogs?"
"Sure. We won't go hunting again for a week and the dog smell should be gone."
The small group journeyed to the hanging carcass. Piper led and Jay walked at the back of the line. Sticking to the middle, Doris didn't bother to look where she was going. She walked into Piper when she stopped to pick up the second pack from the tree stand.
Doris looked from the stand to the trail. "Doesn't the deer see you in it?"
"No. Like most animals, deer don't look up," answered Jay.
"You should remember that," Piper added. "I don't know how many times my company was able to ambush others during war games because we got height over our enemy."
"I'll doubt I'll ever have need of that little tidbit." Doris followed them over to the carcass. She threw her hands up when both women started to speak. "I know, I know. You never know. You don't have to keep harping on it."
Jay lifted the deer's head by its horns. "Two shots?"
"One brought it down and the other ended its suffering."
"Hey, I'm not ragging on you." She walked around the carcass before doing a couple of stretches.
Doris watched her for a moment before asking, "What do we have to do now?"
"Untie it and lower it from the tree. We'll use the same lines to tie it to the poles. We can take turns lugging it up the hill." Jay nodded at Piper and they worked swiftly to make the transfer.
The trip up the hill took almost three times as long as it did to come down. Doris was only able to hike a hundred yards with the two poles on her shoulders. Neither of the other women were in a particularly good mood when they came within sight of the house.
"Now what?"
"We'll hang it there." Jay jerked her head toward the area behind the hot tub.
As they brought their burden near, Piper could see a frame built between the trees. "You've obviously done this before?"
"Yep."
All three women had to work to retie the deer by its hindquarters and pull it off the ground.
"I'm glad you bled it out before we carried him back."
"Don't you know it. That much more weight would have broken us."
"When do you want to eat?"
"A couple hours is fine."
"All right. What are you in the mood for?"
"Aren't we having this?" Doris asked.
"No way. We're going to let it hang here for a day or two before butchering it."
"You're just going to leave it out there? It's going to rot and waste all the food." Doris look appalled.
"No, it's not. The meat is aging. If we took it out now, it wouldn't be as good."
"That can't be right."
"When you bought meat from the grocery store, it wasn't fresh killed."
"I thought that was because it had to travel."
"No. The enzymes in it have to break down. Trust me it will taste a whole lot better once some time has passed."
"How are you going to keep the animals off it?"
Jay picked up a round of chicken wire and began to roll it out around the carcass. "Easy. The dogs can't get through this and they'll keep everything else off." She brushed her hands off. "So, what was the plan for dinner?"
"How about something with pasta?"
Thinking for a minute, Jay finally nodded. "I've got some spaghetti sauce in the freezer. Would that work?"
"We could make a salad to go with it."
"Sounds perfect." Doris stated as she headed back toward the house. "I'm going to take a shower now."
"I guess that's our cue to get cracking?"
"You know it." Jay laughed as they headed indoors.
The next couple of days passed in a blur as they worked to butcher the meat. Piper was successful in removing the hide in one piece. They let it soak for a while before staking it out to dry. They were both bloody and cranky by the time all of the meat was processed and packaged to go into the freezer. Doris, very cleverly, managed to make herself scarce until meal times.
Once all the edible parts were removed, Jay worked with Piper to dismember what was left. They collected the hooves to be boiled to make glue and the inedible tendons strung up to dry before they could be used as ties.
Finally, they collected all the bones and chopped them into manageable pieces. Jay pressure-cooked them until they were soft and then put them in a food mill. It was hard work to grind everything together but the resulting sludge was a high protein supplement to the dog's food.
"Damn, that was a lot of work," Piper said with a sigh as she leaned back in the hot tub.
"We got a lot of useful materials off of it."
"I know."
They sat quietly and stared up at the night sky. There was heaviness to the air and the stars were hidden behind clouds.
"You think it's going to rain soon?"
"In the next day or so." Jay's eyes closed.
"How many meals did we get off of it?"
Sighing, Jay rotated her stiff neck. "A lot. We've got a couple of roasts and enough steaks for several barbecues. Why?"
"I wondered when I should go again."
"Next week. Bring another like that and we can use the intestines we saved from this one and the new one to make some sausage. I've got some fat left over from a hog a neighbor butchered and we can grind a lot of the next one into hamburger."
"That's a good thing?"
"Yeah. Ground meat goes a lot further." She stretched a little bit.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I've just got a twinge in my upper back."
"You want me to massage it?"
Jay opened her eyes and looked across the bubbling water at the dark woman. She saw Piper looking guilelessly back at her. "If you don't mind?"