Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

After my episode up on No More Pride Rock, I took a few minutes to get my mind back where it needed to be now. Sort of.

I focused on Roar. He needed me to hunt until he healed and freaking out and losing my shit, and my breakfast, was not going to bring in the meat. It worked, so I wasn’t going to question the mental health aspect of anything right now.

Not long after we started back down the mountain, we came across a herd of those woolly capybara, the pulak. I shot two and Diesel choked one out and kept it down for me to come slice the jugular and I didn’t bother gutting them before heaving them on the sled and standing on the back, pushing along on our way back to the camp.

Diesel barked when we got to the tent and Roar came out on his crutch as I took the leads off Diesel.

“Three pulak?” the hunter looked at me.

“Two. Diesel held one down and I used my knife. He tends to rip too much, and I didn’t want to risk ruining the meat,” I said, dragging them off the sled. “They’re thinner than the ones you got at the sun camp.”

“It’s cold enough for the time being,” he frowned, watching me. “Come inside and warm yourself and eat. The pulak will keep until then.”

“Damn him and those eyes that miss nothing,” I muttered in English as I dropped my snowshoes on the sled and went inside, knocking snow off my boots.

“Something bothers you, Fern,” he said, wasting no time to get to the point. He poured tea into a cup and handed it to me. “What did you find while you hunted?”

“I know why everything here is so new and different to me,” I answered softly. “I saw it. I went up the mountain. There was this rock that looked out over everything.”

“I know the place,” he nodded. “You see a very long way. Farther than I have ever traveled before. So, what did you find there?”

“That I’m probably the only one of my kind here,” I said. “I don’t think there’s any chance of me going back to where I came from or seeing another person like me.”

“And this saddens you?” he asked.

“Some, but... I think part of me knew that all of the differences meant something bigger than what I was telling myself,” I told him. “I don’t think I would have chosen to go back anyhow, but I was so sure there was a way. Now, I found that there isn’t and there never will be.”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.

“I’m not,” I told him. “Maybe part of me is, but everyone feels some sadness when they leave the home they had for another. I told you that I have more here than I did there. I had no family, no clan, no people who cared if I came home before dinner or not. I’m happy to be here and I’m kind of relieved that I don’t have to choose between the two.”

“Your life looks different now,” he said after a second and I narrowed my eyes at Diesel. “Yes, he explained some.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” I muttered, but scratched Diesel’s head anyhow. “It hit me harder than I thought it would, learning this. I feel like I got the air taken from me.”

Roar laughed and put his paw on my shoulder.

“You’ll recover, Fern,” he told me. “I’m sorry there’s no way for you to go back, but I’m glad, too. I like having you as my family.”

“I like having you as my family, too,” I smiled at him and stood up. “But those pulak need to be cleaned and skinned.”

They were skinny, so there wasn’t a lot of meat on them, but it would be enough to keep us for a few days while I started a trap line. I scraped the little bit of fat there was into a stone jar, making Roar look at me like I was crazy for saving something that had no use as far as he was concerned.

Then he showed me how to clean the skin and turn it soft, like my orou fur. I was convinced that it was magic, even as I did it myself. I couldn’t even explain the process, it was that magical. In the end, I had three soft and supple hides to trade with and I used some of the bones to make more arrowheads and left the rest to dry after giving Diesel his pick of rib bones to crunch on.

By the time I was done with all of that, I was exhausted, and my hands were cold as I sat on the edge of Roar’s bed with a cup of tea to warm them. I didn’t even notice I had fallen asleep until I woke up the next morning when he opened the tent flap to let Diesel out and grab some snow to make tea with.

I sat up rubbing my eyes and yawned, making him chuckle as he put the stone pitcher in the coals.

“We’ll need wood soon. I’ll see about trading the hides for some while you’re gone,” he commented. “But you should take one with you in case you come across a different clan that might be willing to trade.”

“I’m going back up the side of the mountain,” I shook my head. “We need more than three skinny pulak to get us through when the moon is too dark for me to hunt.”

“Are you certain you’ll be able to do this? You’re exhausted already, Fern,” he frowned at me.

“I’m sure,” I smiled at him. “Tomorrow, for sure, you’ll see. Today, I get clever.”

“How I wish I could walk so I can see what you do,” he shook his head smiling.

I had explained the traps I planned on setting and even showed him how it would work, but he didn’t think the creatures would get caught by them and I just let him have his doubts. Hopefully, if I put them in the right places and use the right bait, I’ll bring back a lot of the small creatures to add to our meat in the days to come.

Diesel and I left the tent and headed up the mountain so I could get to work on my traps. I had the idea to use my flashlight to help me look for signs that baan’tu and skall were around where I planned to trap, but the cold had zapped the batteries and it had gotten wet inside, so it was useless anyhow. The lighter still worked, but I wanted to save that for when I really needed it and decided to just go with my instinct that the nearby food source in the form of spruce leaves and the cones hidden under the snow would be enough to draw them in.

I set a line of six traps before putting my efforts to hunting something bigger to bring back, but all I found was a couple of half-starved pulak that I killed just for the mercy of it. We took them with us, because Roar had told me of a scavenger called reik-reik that had good hide and meat that was tough, but edible, and I had a mind to find one or two.

I went to a place that he said that they might find appealing and dropped the bodies of the skinny pulak and left to come back after a few hours of searching for anything else. I didn’t find anything, but I did come back to the pulak bait and managed to shoot two of the reik-reik. They were small, about the size of beagle, but they had feathers, streamlined body, sharp talons that they used to climb the rocks, and ran on two legs while they walked on four. They were wickedly fast, and I was shocked that I managed to shoot one, much less two and I dropped them on the sled to go back down the mountain and back to the camp.

“This is going to be a very long couple of weeks, Dies,” I yawned.