Hedge of Thorns: Carbon Works
“No more noise out of you for a while,” I said, while grasping his muzzle. “Scare away my deer one more time, and I promise I’ll smoke the meat off your carcass.”
His ears swivel, but he stands quietly. To ensure the jack stays somewhat near, I tie a heavy rock to the lead rope. It’s not likely to work as well as a set of hobbles, but the ones Grandpa used on his horses are at home.
I nock an arrow to my bowstring, and advance with caution. Two steps, four, there’s no avoiding the patch of scree, but if the sounds my next steps will make bring the deer to alert, I’ll be able to spot any motion.
It’d be good if the deer headed into a clear spot.
Crunch. Click. Crunch. Patter. Despite my care, stones shift. Some roll. When my foothold is a larger rock, I pause, holding my breath. Fifty yards away, a doe reaches up, rising on her hind legs to tear away a sucker aspen branch.
I draw back the bow string, and loose the arrow. It penetrates the rib cage, and my quarry drops. It’s not yet noon. Now I must choose whether to field dress the deer on the spot, or drag it home, to work within the safety of my walls.
Down the slope I sprint, and find Carbon pretty much where I left him.
After I discard the rock, and tug the lead rope, he follows willingly enough, though he snorts and stamps when we reach the dead deer. The aspens aren’t suitable to suspend the deer, but they are strong enough for tethering the donkey, while I heave the carcass onto the travois.
We set off in the general direction of my property. Skinning and field dressing the deer will be much simpler if I can find a tree from which to suspend the carcass. When we reach the edge of the eruption zone where foresters experimented by planting a mix of trees, rather than a single type, I spot a sturdy maple.
One of its branches is not too high or too thin to support my kill. I tie Carbon’s lead rope to a shrub, before securing the deer’s hind legs with a longer rope. Dropping that coil on the ground, I pull a ball of twine from my pocket. Then I reach into my quiver for the one headless arrow shaft, attach one end of the twine to the arrow, and the other to my rope.
By firing that arrow through a gap in the maple’s branches, I can draw the light twine down, and bring my rope over the branch without climbing. After I loop the rope over Carbon’s shoulders, his muscle power hoists my deer from the travois, and the carcass swings nearly ready for my knife. I lead him around the tree, to snub the rope and tie it off.
Hedge of Thorns: Carbon Works is a segment of a serialized short story that posts on Fridays.
Check the menu on this blog for other, previously posted serialized stories, here.
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Heidi Kortman
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Heidi Kortman