The Lost War by Karl Gallagher (novel24 .txt) 📗

He heard the deer before he saw it, panting on the other side of a bramble thicket. Light steps let him see the animal without spooking it. Newman stopped when he could see the rear half.

The haunches were trembling. The arrow had worked deeper into the deer’s gut. That meant torn intestines. Gutting it would be messier than usual.

Newman put a second arrow into the meaty haunch. The deer bounded off, wounded leg dragging.

He walked after it. No need to look for the blood trail. Broken branches and the sound of it breaking through brush led him to it.

More sounds distracted him from the pursuit. Bodkin and his friends were calling, “Hello! Newman! Where are you? Are you okay?”

Newman called back, “Over here!” and kept after the deer.

He found it hiding by a shrub again, front legs kneeling. When it heard him the deer struggled to its feet then collapsed.

Newman hung his bow on a branch. His combat knife slid out of its sheath.

He stepped toward the deer. “Shhh. It’ll be over soon. Shhh.”

The dying animal thrashed. Sharp hooves swung through the air.

A sidestep and pivot kept him clear of the hooves. One quick thrust with the knife to its neck made the deer shudder and go limp. “There. All done.”

With the deer silent the commotion from Bodkin and the rest sounded loud in the quiet woods.

“Over here!” yelled Newman. He repeated the shout until the rest of the hunting party staggered into the clearing.

“My God, that’s nearly as big as I am!” exclaimed Merrybrew.

The rest were equally impressed.

“Any of you ever gut a deer?” asked Newman.

When they all shook their heads he gave a brief summary of the process.

“Okay,” broke in Bodkin. “Merrybrew and Beargut, cut a stick long enough to carry the body with. You two, get the deer hung from a branch. Newman, I need a moment with you.”

They walked twenty yards into the woods. A bramble patch seemed to give him enough privacy. Bodkin said, “Dude, you’re an awesome hunter. We never saw anything but birds and squirrels and you took down a deer. That’s going to feed a lot of people.”

Newman waited for the criticism.

“But, dude, we had no clue where you were. You just vanished on us. For all we knew you could have been eaten by a grue. You have to tell people you’re going to do stuff like that.”

Bodkin seemed to want an answer to that.

“I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation,” said Newman.

“Well, okay, I appreciate you being polite, but tell me when you’re going off on your own. Everything we were saying could wait.”

“All right.”

Bodkin wanted more.

“I’ll keep you informed,” said Newman.

“Thank you. Now, come teach us how to gut a deer.”

***

“Now I know some of you can’t help looking for spinnables,” said Mistress Seamchecker, “but food must come first. Look for edible leaves, stems, and especially seeds. Talk to each other. We don’t want a dozen of the same plant. We want every different plant.”

Eight women held baskets as they listened to her. The gatherers had climbed down the bluff into the flood plain. The meadow here looked much more diverse than the forest above. The plants were a jumble of sizes and colors. One of them had to be edible, right? thought Goldenrod.

If not they’d starve.

Goldenrod was in her simplest dress. She expected her knees to wear holes in it before they were done. Her basket was the largest one in the line. Was she being optimistic, or just foolish? She wished she knew.

Seamchecker waved them into the meadow. The line spread a bit, each woman walking a few steps until she saw something interesting.

A weed with wide leaves went into Goldenrod’s basket. She wiggled the stems on a yellow-flowered plant and decided it was too fibrous to bother with. The woman to her left collected one of them anyway.

Slapping her arm just smeared the drop of blood. The biting insect had already flown away. “I hope you’re allergic to me and die, bug,” she muttered.

“This isn’t worth it,” snarled Mistress Filigree on Goldenrod’s right. The bugs found her very tasty. “It’s just a waste of time.”

“No, we’ll find something. I’m sure of it,” said Goldenrod. She realized she wasn’t trying to convince herself. She had faith that the search would pay off.

Straightening up she saw the gatherers had spread from the bluff to the riverbank. There didn’t seem to be any pattern in how the plants were arranged. Floods must have thrown their seeds about chaotically.

Mistress Filigree was complaining again. Bending over to examine plants aggravated her arthritis. Goldenrod walked forward to escape her. A blue-flowered stalk went into the basket, more for its looks than any likely food value.

A white flower with a red center caught her eye. It sprung from a vine, one clinging so close to the ground she couldn’t have tripped on it. More flowers showed where the vine disappeared into a stand of thin-bladed grass.

Goldenrod crawled along the vine, heedless of the dirt being ground into her dress. Seven feet later she found where it emerged. Her eating-knife served as a trowel.

The knife loosened dirt, but she needed to scoop it away with her hands. Two nails broke by the time she had one end of the tuber uncovered. It was rooted too well to yank out, but more work with the knife fixed that.

Once freed the root took both hands to lift into the air. Half the gatherers stopped to stare.

“Bless you, child,” said Mistress Seamchecker. “How big is that?”

Goldenrod hefted it as she stood. “Maybe fifteen or twenty pounds.”

“Goodness. I hope it’s edible. Wash it off and go cook it.”

The other gatherers examined the flowers to know what