Spirit Pouch (24 page)

"Get him quickly," I sing to William.  "He won't stay on the hook."

As prophesied, the trout gets loose and flops on the pebbles near the water's edge, but William is already there and pounces onto the fish.

"
Wahoo
!" he cheers with a smile.  "This one is big!"

That's like the biggest trout I've ever caught,
I muse.  "Yeah, it is!"

"Let's get one more," William sings with excitement.

We gather up the line and untangle it, then inspect the hook.  Everything looks good, so I push the second grasshopper onto the hook while brushing away four mosquitoes.  I hand the line to William.

Within five minutes we have a second trout on the bank.

"We've got to clean these," I say pulling my pocket knife from my pocket.
I bet Ty doesn't carry a knife with him,
the thought flashes into my mind. 
Normal kids at high school do not carry pocket knives, or any kind of knife at all, for that matter.  I carry one, but I never reveal it at school.  That would be academic suicide.  Mandatory two weeks suspension just for possession, and then you forfeit your knife.
  I smile at the thought and am glad I have my knife.

William produces his knife and in just minutes we are walking back to the wagons with our catch.

"Wow!" Henry says when he sees us coming.  "You two are quite the hunters.  Elizabeth, do you think you could add fish to the menu tonight?"

Elizabeth and Grandmother Brettle turn to look at the two boys with their catch.  "Did you clean those fish?" she queries.

"Sure we did," we answer almost in unison.

"Then get them over here.  I'll get us a pan."

"How did you catch these, William?" Henry asks, holding one up.  They are a really nice size."

"Actually it wasn't me, Father," William beams.  "Jared really knows how to fish."

"We couldn't have done it without William's expert hooks," I confess.  "They worked great."

* * *

I sit by the fire and
absorb
what heat I can from the glowing coals.  There is a gentle breeze, but the night is quiet except for the cry of a coyote in the distance and an occasional hoot of an owl.  I reflect on the evening. 
George had offered the family prayer, giving thanks for our safety during our short journey today.  He remembered Tom, too, who is with the wagon train, and asked for a blessing on the food.  We were blessed today,
I think.  We had fish with our potatoes.  I am full.  The sun is down and I am tired.

"I checked the horse and oxen, Father," William reports.  "They seem to be fine."

"Thank you, son," Henry replies.

William
stands by the fire across from Ty for several minutes, watching the hot coals occasionally snap and spit, while soaking up its gentle warmth.  "I like sitting by the fire at night," William says, "but tomorrow is a hunting day so I'm going to bed."

Ty looks up from the fire.  "I'm usually a morning person, myself, and I am totally tired.  I'm coming, too."

"Me, too," I say reluctantly.  "I hope you will take me with you hunting."

"You and Ty are coming with me tomorrow," William says.  "Father wants you to learn to hunt, and I want you to help carry our deer back to camp," William smiles.

He's no fool,
I think, but I say, "It's going to be fun."

Joseph and George are already under the canvas and we remove our shoes and crawl in, too.  I shift the blankets around until I find the perfect spot and in a minute I feel my body relax and my consciousness start to fade into that realm where reality
retreats
and slumber conquers.

Chapter Twelve

Shoots-Like-Woman

Saturday

"Put
this on," William says handing me a fluorescent orange vest and throwing one to Ty, also.

I look at William and then at Ty, who is slipping into his with ease.

"What now, Jared?" William frowns.  "Are you trying to tell me that they don't have orange vests in Arizona?"

"No," I reply.  "We have orange vests.  They are used for safety."  I snatch it from William and slip it on as we walk into the foothills.

William stops suddenly and points ahead at the top of the hill.  I see it, too.  A buck.  Six points, looking right at us.  In a flash it bolts over the hill and is gone.

"Come on," William says running up the hill.  I follow him and Ty trails close behind.  As we crest the ridge, William drops to his knees and motions for us to do the same.  I slowly inch my way up until I can see the shallow valley ahead.  Ty does the same.  There is our buck and two men.  Both have dark skin and prominent cheek bones.  One is on horseback.

"Indians!" Ty exclaims in alarm.

The man on horseback looks right at us and William ducks down.  "Run!" he whispers desperately.  "Hide, anywhere!"

We run.  I dive into a pile of leaves and pull them over me.  I do not dare move as I hear the men approach.  Something pushes at me through the leaves, but I do not budge.

"Get up."  It pushes again.  "Get up, Jared," the voice commands.

How did they find me?  How do they know my name?
  I feel my mind ease back into reality and I feel the warm blanket over my head and the hard ground beneath.

"Get up,"
William's
voice calls again.  "It's time to go hunting."

I slip my shoes on and wish for a light jacket, but I know we will warm up as soon as we start walking.

William shows up with his rifle and three small bundles wrapped in cloth.  "Thank you, William," I say.  "Your mother takes good care of us."

Ty is still inspecting the bundle wrapped in cloth, turning it over in his hand.  "What are you hoping for, Ty?  An orange vest?"

Ty smiles, still perplexed.  "Sort of … not really," he answers.

"It is our lunch, for while we are hunting," I say, feeling very smart.

Ty looks at me as if to say, "If you say so."

"I know because I lived with William's family for five days.  We went to work in the brickyard in Central City.  Elizabeth made us a lunch every day."

Ty's body is here in 1866, but his mind is still partly a century and a half in the future. 
He will come to accept the fact that we are in 1866 as I did,
I
think
. 
It is hard.  I remember.  Every instinct I had screamed out, 'impossible.'  But, yet, here we are.

William motions for us to come, and we leave camp at a brisk walk up stream toward the mountains which are quite a ways off in the distance.  I chat with Ty as we walk until William stops.

"You guys ever been hunting before?" William looks annoyed.

"No," I admit.

"Yes.  One time." Ty volunteers.

"Well, there are some rules," he says.  "And it is really more like common sense."  William pauses and looks us in the eyes.  "Deer can hear you, so you may only talk if it is in a very quiet whisper, and then only when necessary."

"Okay," I whisper.

William frowns, then continues, "You both need to walk quietly.  Don't scuff your feet on rocks or crunch twigs.  Deer can hear that."

I nod.

"Deer can see you.  It helps if you can stay above their line of sight, like on top of a hill, or in a tree."

We both nod again.

"Also, deer can smell you.  We need to stay down wind.  That will be hard because we don't know where the deer are exactly."

I get my finger wet in my mouth and then hold it up.  There is a slight breeze coming from the west, off the mountains.  That is no surprise, I guess.  And it is good for hunting since we are walking toward the west.

Ignoring me, William continues, "Let's walk quietly along the crest of this little valley and we can sneak a look over the top and look for deer."

We both nod, and William takes the lead.

Hunting is mostly work,
I think as we walk.  I want to say it out loud, but William was pretty serious about being quiet. 
I wish I could talk to Ty.  Right when William told us to be quiet, he was telling me about sets and how they can intersect, be a union, and have subsets.  And he was going to explain about rational numbers and number lines.  This stuff is exactly what I need to know for the geometry test coming up soon … assuming we ever get back to our own time period, that is.

After a few minutes William stops us again.  "Jared," he whispers, you are going to take the first shot."

"Me?" 
I can shoot a rifle.  I know how to aim and fire, and I can hit a stationary target reasonably well.  I learned all that at Scout camp.  But this is real.  Not just practice.  And dinner for everyone.  What if I miss?

William nods.

"Okay," I agree.

"Let's get you loaded."  William produces a shell from his pocket and slides it into the chamber, closing the trapdoor with a soft click.  He hands me the rifle.  It says 'Springfield' on the side and is about three and a half feet long.
[84]

I lift the barrel and point it ahead of us toward a clump of bushes. 
Something moved,
I think. 
Probably a squirrel.
  I pause, steadying the rifle with my left hand.  The barrel raises up and down slightly with every breath I take. 
There it is again!
  I can see it now.  The outline of a deer in the shadow of the bushes.  It is standing and it's ears flicker.

"There is a deer right in those bushes," I announce quietly.

"Really?" William says, standing behind me and staring down the length of the barrel.

"Where?" Ty looks toward the bushes.

"There he is!" William and Ty say simultaneously.

"Four points," Ty whispers.

"It's a buck," William replies.  "And he can hear us, but he has not seen us yet because we are slightly above him.  Jared, if you can get a clean shot to the head or chest then do it."

I center the bead on his chest and gently squeeze the trigger, while holding my breath.

Ka-boom!  The rifle kicks, but I keep my eye on the target.  I expect it to drop, but instead it turns and bolts up the hill and over the crest.

"Come on," William orders, retrieving the rifle and heading off after the deer at a quick trot.  "I think you got him."  We follow.

Just before the crest William stops, looking at the ground.  "Blood," he says, and follows it over the top where he abruptly halts again.  I catch up to him and stop, glad to catch my breath.  My heart pounding in my chest, I follow his gaze to the bottom of the small valley.  Then I see what William sees, and my heart freezes, or at lease skips a beat.  Ty sees it, too.

"Sioux!" I say out loud.

The Indian pulls an arrow out of the fallen deer's chest and looks up at us from below.

"Run!" I hiss.  "We've got to get out of here.  Hide!"

"Ute," William states, and starts down the hill toward the Indian.

"Are you crazy?" I hiss.  Then I follow William.  I think Ty is behind me, but I do not look to see.

The Indian stands and watches us advance down the hill. 
Maybe he can sense our fear,
I think, and I try to put on a stern, brave tough face.  I look at William.  He is showing no fear.

For some reason I expect a painted face and a loin cloth, but this man wears long pants, a long pullover shirt with the tails hanging past his hips, shoulder length black hair and moccasin boots made from skins.  Diagonally across his chest is a colorful strap that holds his quiver.  He raises his bow and speaks English. "You shoot, but deer runs away.  You shoot like woman," he says.

"We respect the land and the animals," William says back.  "We only hunt to eat and for my family to eat."

"Shoot-like-woman and two brothers take buck and go," he turns and silently pads up the draw and retreats into the sage brush and trees to finish his hunt.

"Thanks," William says sarcastically when the Ute has gone.

"For what?"

"For letting him think that I shot the deer.  He thinks I shoot like a woman.  You should have told him it was you."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't going to tell him he was wrong.  Did you see that bow.  He totally shot that deer with his arrow!"

"He shot a wounded deer that practically jumped into his lap," William snorts.  "But let's be clear.  You are Shoots-like-woman, not me."

"Could be worse," Ty says.  "You could be called Crooked-shot or Hunter-who-is-blind."

We dress the deer and in forty five minutes we are ready to go.

"So, how do we get this back to camp?” I ask, thinking maybe we will tie its legs onto a pole and carry it that way.

"Well," William says. "You shot it, so you get to carry it."

"Okay, I'll try," I say raising one eyebrow.

William laughs.  "We will help you," he says, "but you get to go first."

William and Ty help me hoist the deer onto my shoulders and we head back to camp.  I have gone on my share of back packing trips as a Scout, but I limit my pack to about thirty five pounds and distribute the load for comfort with padded shoulder straps and a good waist belt.  But carrying an unbalanced dead weight of over one hundred pounds is tough.  After only a few minutes my shoulders and neck hurt and my arms ache.  Then my legs fatigue. 
No, I don't want to be a pioneer,
I remind myself. 
I like the type of hunting where you drive your quad up and load the deer on the back and twenty minutes later you are back at camp.  That's the way to do it.

After what seems like an hour we trade and Ty gets to carry the deer.  "Where's my quad when we need it?" I mumble under my breath.

"You have one?" Ty asks.

"No," I mumble again.  "I wish!"

We walk and trade weight several times more before we finally arrive at camp.

"Woo-hoo," George exclaims.  "You got a nice one."

"Good work, son," Henry says to William.

"Jared shot him.  Got him down with one shot," William brags.

"One shot and one arrow," I add.

A few concerned heads turn with questioning faces.  "Whose arrow?" Elizabeth spoke first.

"There was an Indian on the other side of the ridge," William explains.  "He shot our wounded deer.  When we arrived he just retrieved his arrow and walked away."

"So, no trouble, then?" Henry queries.

"He was a Ute, Father.  I could tell by the way he dressed. So I knew he would not be hostile," William states.

"He did say that William shoots like a woman," I say with a very straight and serious face.

George and Ty chuckle, but Elizabeth just puts her hands on her hips and audibly clears her throat, "Ah-hem."

"You shot the deer!" William cries defiantly.  "I was just carrying the rifle, so he thought I had shot it."

"So you're the ferocious hunter that got named 'Shoots-Like-Woman'?" Henry points at me.

"Yes.  I admit it," I confess.

"Well," Henry says, "you carry a deer like a man, and we are all grateful to have fresh meat, aren't we?"

Everyone agrees to that.

"We have little time left before dark, so let's get this deer skinned and prepare this meat to be cooked.  We could dry some into jerky or smoke some of it, too," Henry directs.  Everyone pitches in and the task is relatively easy.

"I understand that Jared wants a hat from this hide," Henry says.  "What are you going to do with the remainder?"

"Just the hat, that's all," William says.

"Well, we can use it for a blanket, or for shoes, or trade it in Salt Lake City.  So keep it wet and we'll cure it and soften it later."

"Okay, Father," William agrees.

William retrieves a small piece of canvas from the wagon and as the hide is removed from the deer it is placed onto it.  William pours water on the skin and rolls it up.

"We can't cure it tonight.  It is getting too dark," William explains.  "We won't do it tomorrow, either, being that it will be Sunday.  So this is to keep it soft and moist until we get a chance to cure it."

"That sounds great," I smile, "because I'm looking forward to a deerskin hat someday soon."

"You want one with antlers on it?" William asks.