Wolves and Men

He was able after some time to catch a fish and he brought it back to his kitchen clearing. He opened his tinder box and to his horror it didn’t have near what he thought and there was not enough inside to light the damp twigs and branches that he was able to gather from around the clearing. He had had to throw the fish away. He couldn’t place at the time what he felt guiltier about, throwing away perfectly good food or having to miss out on a meal because he hadn’t prepared. He spent that day shaving branches and gathering twigs and other kindling. He brought them back to his burrow which he placed around the ground and atop a log that he used as a chair so that they could dry. He went hungry for a few days and ever since he had made sure to keep his sizable tinder box full.

While his fish was cooking over the fire he got up and walked into the forest. He found a good-sized branch from a pine tree. With his large knife he cut it down, and walked back to his clearing. He sat down sideways from his fire and began whittling and shaving the branch down making a nice little pile of shavings. He enjoyed this time of the morning. The sun was rising in the sky, his meal was cooking beside him, and he could enjoy the song of the forest. He inhaled the strong smell of cooking fish beside him mingled with the more earthy smells of the forest. This was the reason he had come out here in the first place.

He opened his tinder box and dumped what remained onto the log, and put the fresh pile of shaving into the bottom of the box, putting the older stuff on top. The box was not full to bursting which was good, but more was better than less. Still, the box was full. He placed his flint stone and small red Swiss army knife inside, closed the waterproof seal on the box, and placed it inside his coyote skin bag.

He noticed that his fish was getting a little black on the one side. He twisted the pole till the fish’s other side was now facing the fire. The fish’s juices were running down the blackened pole and he knew that soon the fish would be ready to eat.

With his next day preparations done and his immediate chores taken care of he reached back into his bag and pulled out another small box. This one was black and rectangular in shape. He walked back into the forest. In the shade of the trees, he had dug out a small patch of earth and had placed a tarp inside the shallow hole. The tarp was placed to catch the morning dew for drinking and washing purposes.

He hunched down over the tarp and opened his black box. He pulled out his collapsible plastic cup and filling it with the morning’s harvest he drank the cool water. Once finished, he bent down and carefully gathered another cup full and set the cup down on the pine needle laden ground next to him.

He reached into his black box and pulled out a stick that was bigger than a twig but not near big enough for a branch. He dipped the stick into his cup of water and pulled a bright yellow box out from his black box. He hated this part of his morning. Flipping back the cover to the yellow box he dipped the stick into it and allowed the moisture on the stick to pull away the white substance. Taking a deep breath, he jammed the stick into his mouth and began scrubbing his teeth. Even though he had been brushing his teeth like this for a year or more the baking soda had lost none of its bitter, salty taste.

When he was done a minute or two later, he spit out the white frothy residue and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He took up the cup and filling his mouth with water he swished the water around and then spit that out in the ground away from his small reservoir of clean water. He dipped and rinsed off his stick in the remainder of his cup. He flicked the water off the stick and threw the rest of the cup of water away. He put the baking soda and stick back into the black box and closed it. He took the cup and refilled it. He took his cup and box back to his cooking fire. Placing the black box back in his bag he set his cup of water down next to him on his log and watching the merry flame in front of him, he waited for his fish to cook.

When he was satisfied that his fish was done, he rotated the cooking pole toward him and away from his fire. The fire was lower than it had been, and it was eating through the rest of the fuel. That was ok; he needed a bed of coals now, not a full fire. Inspecting the blackened fish, he took his knife out of its sheath and began scraping the dried blackened scales up and away from the body of the fish. He liked the sound his blade made as it caressed the blackened skin of his meal. As the scales made contact with the blade it seemed to sound as chimes, subtle and soft the closest thing to music that he could make and he loved hearing his compositions. He indulged himself for a few more strokes; this served two purposes, getting rid of some of the inedible parts of the fish but it also gave the meat time to cool. Once he was satisfied with the fish, he ran the blade up through the stomach of the thing splitting it in half.

After some preparation he set one half of the fish to smoke and, turning away from the smoke, he picked up the other half of his fish and began to eat. He had to be careful of the bones, he never really did a chef’s job of deboning the things, but he was the one who was eating it. Besides, he didn’t really have anything to debone the thing with anyway.

When he was done, he turned around to inspect the smoking of his fish. He decided to leave it there for a little longer and he gathered the bones of his finished meal. He walked back into the woods past his water reservoir and with his heal he dug out a small hole. He hunched down and with his offhand he deepened the hole till it was three or four inches deep. He then dropped the bones in the earth and covered the hole.