Wolves and Men

Holding the net in one hand he picked up his bag and pole with his other hand and began his trek up the hillside. The appearance of the she-wolf made him move a bit more than he had earlier this morning and his progress was slow and calculated. He made his way up the hillside to a small clearing, which he had claimed long ago as his kitchen area. It was far enough away from his burrow that he didn’t worry about animals tracking him in between the two places. He dropped his bag and pole in the middle of the clearing next to his fire pit. He walked back and strung up his net on a rope that he had hung upon a sizeable tree branch long ago for this purpose. He set to work gathering wood for his breakfast fire.

He set a sizable pile of gathered wood next to his bag and pole and his dug-out fire pit.

He sat down upon a wide slice of wood that he had cut away from a fallen tree and moved here so he would have some place to sit. No matter how often he had tried to balance the thing, it remained just a little wobbly, but he was still grateful for the makeshift chair. He reached into his bag and pulled out a simple grey, waterproof box that was the size of his small tackle box. He considered this box to be his most prized possession. He opened the box and pulled out his flint stone and Swiss army knife and placed it in his lap. Leaning over the pit he placed prepared tinder and wood shavings from the box. He closed the box and set it beside him as he dragged some wood from his pile over to the little mound of tinder and shavings.

Once he had his kindling and small branches set aside to be added once the flame had caught, he unfolded the laughably small Swiss army blade and set it to his flint stone. Scraping the stone with the edge of the small knife he sighed as the copious amounts of sparks flew onto the small pile of tinder. Even in the bright morning sunlight the sparks still left burn impressions on his retinas. He saw a fine trail of smoke go up and he knelt close to blow on the pile.

The smoke increased and soon an infant flame leapt up licking and consuming the pile of tinder. He placed some kindling on the flame. The flames grew and licked at the dry morsels of fuel. He added more kindling, some twigs and branches till the fire had grown to its adolescent stages. He let the fire warm him and he watched the flames dance and sway with the slight wind. He had learned some time ago that the best way to fight fear and loneness in the wild was to build a fire. If you wanted to change the channel just add another log. Fire was truly an amazing thing, no wonder cave men and the ancient Greeks thought of this as the stuff of gods.

When the fire had grown strong enough, he added a small log from his wood pile that was in the shade of a nearby tree. The log crackled as the fire licked and evaporated the dew it had collected over the morning hours. As the fire grew in strength and size consuming the log he got up and walked over to where his breakfast was hanging. He untied the net bag and holding it in his hand he reached up and pulled down a small, blackened pole that he had placed there for safe keeping.

The blackened pole was about three feet long. It was sharpened at both ends while over half its length was black with the fires and smoke of two years’ worth of cooking. He brought his bag and his pole over to his cooking fire. He sat down on his log and pulled out his breakfast. The fish was big and keeping it held over his legs he took his pole and jammed it down the fish’s throat. The pole slipped in through the dead animals’ flesh with little problem and soon the sharpened black point of the pole was protruding about an inch out of its hind quarters. That was a mistake. He would have to be careful that the fish did not slide down the pole. Why had he let the pole puncture through the fish? Had he been distracted?

It was a small mistake to be sure, and nothing that would hinder his meal preparation. With the fish held in place on the pole with his hand and his other held under the fish as a slide stop, he jammed the pole deep into the soft ground. The pole slid seven to eight inches into the ground and he pulled the pole over the flames of his fire. The fish was at a good fifty-degree angle over the fire where the flames could not touch it. The flames licked at the thing especially when the fire drew forth the natural juices of its flesh, but the fish was held securely above the flames’ hellish embrace.

Once he was satisfied with the set up and the progress of his meal preparation he leaned down and grabbed his waterproof box. He opened it and took stock of his tinder. He would need to prepare a little more than usual. He had used more than he had wanted to build this fire. He always kept his tinder box full.

Except for that one time he had let his box run dangerously low. He had had the foresight to stock up on dried meat and smoked fish. He had been, and still was, very cautious of how much dried food he stocked. He wasn’t quite sure about how well that stuff really kept and out here there were no doctors or hospitals. If he got food poisoning, he would have to deal with it on his own. It rained for what seemed like a week straight. He was still so unused to the uncompromising environment that he had decided to stay in his burrow for the whole of that week, subsisting on his dried food stores. He woke up on the fourth of fifth day and realized that the rain had stopped. He decided to take the opportunity and go fishing while the weather held.