CHAPTER 10 
CHAPTER 10
“Formation,” Spencer called. It was already a tradition, and important. Though he was calling it before dinner.
Barker and Ortiz were up in the turret, the rest around the fire.
“Smells good. What is it?”
Caswell said, “One of the Urushu knocked over a pheasant with a thrown stick. Pheasant, mushrooms, ground cattail tortilla and a little salt from the locals. I’ve got some evergreen needles chopped in with some wild onion.”
“Almost a stew.”
“Well it’s stewed, but I wouldn’t call it a stew. But I like how it smells. Should I serve?”
“Yes, please do,” Elliot said. “I’m doing formation early, because I had an idea. And being a wise lieutenant and all . . .”
He let them chuckle, and stepped aside for the commander.
Elliott said, “Alexander gave us her background. I really think everyone should do that. We need to know who we are, since at this point we’re basically brothers and sisters as well as a close unit. We need to know about each other.
“So I’ll go first. I’ve been a One LT for four months now. I was ROTC out of Purdue. I’m a mechanical engineer, but I don’t know what good that will do me here. I’m out of Fort Sam. I’m single, and I guess it’s lucky my girlfriend left me a couple months before I deployed. But I miss my parents and my brother. They’re going to miss me. As to stuff to share, I have my computer and phone, I have some extra ammo stashed, and plenty of socks and undies if you’re my size. I don’t mind sharing movies, in fact, we should have Sergeant Alexander swap everyone’s movies so we have backups, and have entertainment.”
“I can cross-load all your porn, too,” she said with a faint smile. “You’ll know all about each other then.”
There were shouts of “Woah!” that turned into laughs, even from Caswell.
Spencer laughed himself. He was glad they could make jokes. Morale was important.
“Yeah, that may be a bit too much sharing,” he said.
Elliott said, “I’ve got that gyroscopic shaver that doesn’t need batteries.”
Spencer said, “I love you for that in a chaste, manly way.”
“Yes, and we’ve been sharing it. I don’t expect anyone to maintain full grooming standards, but do your best to keep the beards trimmed and close. I have scissors, too, and as long as we have power, I have a pair of plug-in clippers. I have a lot of note paper, but I expect to use it all eventually.”
“Spencer, you’re next.”
“Right,” Spencer said. How much did he want to say? He decided to keep it short. “I’m a fair mechanic, Ninety-One Bravo out of Knox, but I’m lacking tools here. I can do blacksmithing and have, but building a forge and finding a rock to sub for an anvil is going to take time, then we have to find a source of ore. I know how to reduce it, but I’ve never done so. I’ve done a variety of other low tech skills, including wood carving and such. I have a dumb phone, laptop, no tablet, a few movies, lots of music, headphones and spares. The LT has one of my lights, I have the other. They’re rechargeable as long as we have the solar panel. I may be able to convert a vehicle alternator to wind power, and I may be able to work out a vegetable or animal oil for fuel. It won’t be much, though. We’ll be able to use them for power, not for travel. I have a box of a dozen small sheath knives we can use. I brought them to trade with Afghans. They’re all ours now.
“Oh, and as mentioned I have reflux, and my medication runs out in about three months. Then I either try to compensate with chalk or bone meal, or I die slowly and painfully. There’s not much Doc can do for me without drugs or modern surgery.” He sat back and poked at the fire with a stick.
“We heard from Alexander, who drills where?” Elliott prompted.
She said, “Springfield, Illinois. I live in Rockford.”
“Okay. Ortiz.”
Ortiz actually stood up.
“Ramon Ortiz. My parents moved from Mexico when I was three. They worked ag in south Texas, then started their own farm, then moved up to distribution. So I know a bit more about veterinary stuff than the Army taught me. I’m a vet tech. I’ve been in five years, was going to get out after this and take college. My girlfriend was dumping me anyway. I do miss my brother and sister, but at least we’re all grown. I’ve got assorted stuff for animals in my kit. I can butcher them, castrate, birth them. I can do rough electricity and carpentry, but don’t have much experience chopping wood, or didn’t until now.” He held up calloused hands. “So I can probably castrate food animals and do some basic care. If they get sick, I guess we eat them or get rid of them. I don’t know much about butchering, but I know enough to section them. I’ve been letting Sergeant Barker do the fine work. I know enough about suturing and setting bones and such to help Doc. I’m also pretty good at masonry. It’s in my blood,” he said, holding up his brown arms. There were chuckles. “I’m out of First Cav at Hood. I live near Houston, we’ve been ranchers for three generations. Will be. Whatever. Fuck it. Not going to talk about that. If we can capture some I can pen them and raise them.
“I’ve got all the usual crap, and I do have a couple of spare knives. I don’t mind sharing music and movies. I have some scissors, so we can trim our beards. iPhone, tablet, laptop and binoculars because I wanted to look around.”
Elliott interrupted, “Binoculars. Can we borrow them? Say yes.”
He flushed and said, “Sorry, sir. I wasn’t trying to hold back. I just forgot. Yes, they’re mine, but you can use them for patrol.”
The man was embarrassed, but picked back up. “I know something about leather and gut and such. I’ve been helping with that. If we do pen any animals, I can do everything from milking to birthing. Otherwise I’m good for manual labor.
“Once we have domestic animals, we should be able to have milk, butter and cheese. I know a bit about processing hides, and so does Bob. We’ve been stripping guts and sinew for bowstrings and such. You’re also going to see it as sausage casings. We’re stacking the horns and bones for now, letting the ants clean them for us, but those make tools, material for small utensils. I’ll be helping with food preservation and helping Doc with minor stuff that doesn’t require his expertise, just patching.”
Martin said, “We will be ranching,” to reassure the young man, and himself. He wanted real food again. Meat should be aged, and yeah, castration made it a lot better. Not nice, but true.
And damn, the body parts stunk. They were piled to the Southeast, inside of gun range, outside of fly range, but still putrid and nasty. He hoped they could process stuff soon.
“Okay, Caswell, your turn to tell us about you.”
She fidgeted for a few moments, zipped her coat up more, and rocked as she talked. She stood and tried to look firm, but she really only came across as an awkward combination of timid and pushy.
“Jennifer Caswell. I’m female and Air Force and hate getting shit about it, but you folks have done okay so far, mostly. Yes, I identify as vegetarian, even if I can’t be one here. I’ll work on that. I grew up in Wisconsin; I guess my mother’s a hippie. I can find wild stuff to eat or smoke. But a lot of the stuff here is different. Agriculture contaminated even wild plants. Anyway, I enlisted, I’m stationed at McChord, Washington. They grabbed me because I was on base and female, and I was along to deal with female locals for a couple of weeks, and I still sort of am. I’ll advise you what I think I see, and I’d rather you didn’t mansplain to me how I’m wrong. I actually have a background in this. I studied cultural anthropology as a minor while I take criminal justice. I was planning on being a cop. I wanted to work in poor neighborhoods and do resolution rather than just rack up arrests.”
She paused, and let that line drop, and picked up again.
“I’ve been identifying edible fruits, vegetables, seeds, fungus. Even if it looks and smells sweet, don’t touch it. Report it to me, I’ll check it out, and we’ll go from there. Everyone can expect gathering parties in the future. We’ll be drying some for winter, or in case we hit a dry spell or something—”
Or never get home, Martin thought quietly.
“—and we’ll need to look for certain industrial plants, for storing food, cooking, preserving it, tanning leather, other things. Then we’ll try to find things we can cultivate here to save all that walking. I’m rated expert with rifle and pistol. I’m decent with electronics. I did AV in college.”
She took a breath. “I’ve been cooking, but I expect to teach the rest of you. We need cross skills. I need to learn how to sharpen knives properly. Besides the two we use in the kitchen, I have three others.”
“Oh, and once you know how food is found, I’d appreciate getting out more. Not just hunting trips. I don’t like killing animals. I can haul stuff, too. Don’t baby me because I’m female.”
She stopped. Clearly, she didn’t want to say more.
Martin said, “I’m very glad to have you. Edible plants are making a big difference. I’d hate to be stuck on all meat.”
“The Paleo people could help,” she said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but you’re here and speak English.”
“Thanks, then,” she said, looking flustered. Obviously, she was not a social person.
Elliott pointed and said, “Corporal Dalton, your call.”
“Uh . . . Corporal Dalton. I enlisted out of high school. I’m Infantry, play a lot of online games and Xbox. I was good at shop and electronics in school. I did some cabinetry for my uncle. I shot expert, I’ve done some hunting up through bear and deer. With fishing and spears or bows as well, the ammo should last the rest of our lives, as long as we’re careful. I’m the only Expert here, so I figure I’ll be taking most of the shots. I’ll be working on bows with Barker’s help. We can also work on spear throwers. We want to hunt from a distance, not up close. Then we’ll work on traps. I know how to build fish traps, and Barker knows some others.”
Caswell had her hand up. Elliott recognized her. “Go ahead.”
“As I said, I’m also rated Expert,” she said.
“Really?” Dalton let out.
“Do you think women are unable to shoot?” she replied. Goddamn, was it impossible for her to be anything other than snide or sarcastic?
“Army or Air Force expert?”
“Both, since I had to shoot the Army course to come over. It was easy.”
Arrogant bitch. But it was hard to call her on it if she’d done it. If. The only record was her say-so, and he’d known women to lie about credentials just as much as men did. Given she had an axe to grind, he was skeptical. She’d have to prove it.
Elliott said, “We’ll believe her, and use her where we can.”
Dalton continued, “I’ll keep holding services. You can talk to me, though I know a couple of you aren’t comfortable. Hey, it’s a learning experience for me, too, to learn about other faiths. That could be why God put me here, at least. Otherwise, I’ve put on some muscle from all this fresh air and hard work. It’s a small thing, but it’s a positive. I feel good about that.”
Martin couldn’t decide between rolling eyes or snarling. The man didn’t have a wife and kids. Sure, it was good he was adapting. Martin didn’t want to adapt. The nightmare could be over any time and he could go home.
Elliott said, “We’ll cover more tomorrow night. Work is going well, and we’ve got better relations with our neighbors, sitting there patiently. So let’s eat and not scare them.”
The palisade was coming along. Bob Barker looked at it in satisfaction, as he straightened up to prevent a backache. He was pouring sweat. Nothing like exercise and no dessert to run fat off and muscle on. He had a better physique than he’d had in a decade.
Elliott came alongside, with Caswell.
“What do you think?” the LT asked.
“I think it’s going to bust our balls, sir. But it’s going to be strong when done.” He wiped his eyebrows and hair. He should probably get a haircut. He was approaching 70s porn star style.
Dalton, Devereaux and Ortiz were raising a pole, along with two Urushu, whose names were something like “Fen” and “Ka’la.” He couldn’t make those clicks and had trouble with the nasals.
“Down back there, and up there,” he said, pointing and indicating. “Set it. Good. Okay, Dalton, drive it home.”
Dalton walked the log upright and it shifted and dropped. Fen pushed it from the side, and Ortiz ran up with a hide thong to hold it in place while pins could be set.
They had it down to a smooth process, but it was body-bruising labor.
Elliott said, “Going well. I hope we can have it done before winter.”
Bob said, “I’d say we could go with something lighter to fill in the gaps if we don’t. Brush, thorns, firewood.”
“Possibly. But I’d rather do it right first if we can, rather than do it twice.”
“Yeah. Just time is an issue.”
“Well, this is going to make time worse.” He indicated Caswell.
They must want to borrow some labor.
“Ah, hell, go ahead, sir, Jenny.”
Elliott nodded at Caswell, who said, “I want to save ammo by building a goat pen. It might work for small antelope, too.”
“You figure to bait them in and bar the gate?”
“Yes, just that.”
“Posts set in stone, filled with earth, and rails with woven mesh?”
She actually smiled.
“Exactly. I take it you’ve done one before?”
“Nope.”
“Crap.” She frowned.
He clasped his hands in mock excitement and said, “But I always wanted to learn.”
After a few snarky comments between them, Elliott said, “I’m going to survey and stake out with five-fifty cord on the other side of the stream. We’ll use the straight limbs we’ve trimmed. After they’re rocked into holes, we’ll pour mud in until it settles.”
“Ash would help.”
“If we have enough.”
“How big?”
Caswell said, “I figure twenty foot square to start with. We can add a second one later. We may have to rope some goats if we can’t bait them.”
“Ortiz may know something about that.” He turned and shouted to the ditch, “Hey, Ortiz! Break.”
Ortiz was ripped. He’d been muscular to start with. He was a pocket sized monster now.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
They explained the idea. Barker asked, “Can you rope goats?”
“So we’re going to have a genuine goat rope?” he asked. “Possibly, or tangle trap them. I’m sure I can do something, but why so much work on the pen?”
“We want it to last.”
“Why not just zigzag the timbers, and run buttresses at the joints?” He interwove his fingers to demonstrate.
“Will that work without the goats climbing?”
“It does on our ranch.”
“Well, shit. Why didn’t we do this before?”
“I figured we’d do that next year,” he said. “But we can do it now. If you don’t mind losing that potential firewood, although we can always recover it later, we just carry it and stack it. We need a hundred and twenty-eight of them.”
Elliott said, “That’s pretty much everything I see in that pile.” He indicated the pile of limbs and large saplings waiting to be pins, stakes, buttresses and firewood.
“Well, if it’s a bit short, we can do some tricks with staked brush, or wait to cut another dozen trees.”
Elliott shrugged. “Yeah. It’s wood. We’re not going to run out.”
Caswell said, “I think it’s awesome that you just said that, sir. Gives me hope.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s what the early American settlers said. Have you seen Long Island lately?”
He grinned. “Noted. I want to leave Doc out of it. We need his hands in good shape.”
Bob noticed she wasn’t grinning. It was sarcasm, but not humor.
“I agree on Doc,” he said. “There’s plenty of stuff for him to do.” There’d be plenty of splinters after this, even with gloves. No need to injure the medic, but that reduced labor even more.
Caswell walked back and forth on the timber pile, pointing out the thicker and straighter ones for the bottom of the fence, slimmer ones for the top rails, crooked ones for buttressing. By dinner, they had a pen about thirty feet square.
As they sat down to leftover meat with no veggies, they continued the discussion.
Ortiz said, “It’s easy to expand, too. Just open one side, move the rails, stick more in. It doesn’t even have to be very symmetrical, and it follows the lay of the land.”
Elliott said, “I definitely overthought this.”
“You, sir?” Bob said. “I was all ready to dig the river a foot deeper to get the rocks.”
“Well, the environment is happy a while longer.”
“Not really,” he said. “I’ll need rocks for the sweat lodge, and I’ve thought about damming the stream so we create a plunge pool. That takes rocks and logs.”
“Hmm. Possibly next year. Now, how do we get goats?”
Ortiz said, “Either we bait them with grain and a salt lick, or we rope and carry them.”
“Can you do that?”
“I can probably rope some. Easier would be to lay out the cord in a crisscross, wait for goats, yank it tight, wrestle goats, and toss them over the fence.”
“Is that fence tall enough?”
“Yes for goats. Maybe for some antelope.”
Bob asked, “Are we wrestling tomorrow, then?”
Ortiz wiggled and leered. “Grease me up, big boy.”
“It sounds like fun, actually,” he said.
Ortiz stared at him in mock horror.
“Not greasing you up, you sick fuck. Wrestling the . . . oh, shit, there’s no way I win this one, is there?”
Everyone lost it completely.
Spencer said, “Daaaaddy!”
Elliott said, “Okay, let’s eat, and Bob can tell us his background wrestling goats.”
“I’ve actually never wrestled a goat.”
Ortiz said, “It’s okay, no one will judge you here.”
Bob said, “I was Navy. I wrestled Marines.”
“How does that work?”
“I worked in the radio shop. If they wanted it fixed, they had to do as I said. And we did have a wrestling league aboard ship.”
“When was that?” Elliott asked.
“Ten years ago. But that doesn’t help here. What does help is I know what a salt lick looks like, but we’re going to need a source of water to refine it. The raw stuff is just gray mineral dirt. We’ll need to filter it. I’ve gutted animals and done some curing, but I think we need to pool knowledge. It’s likely Ortiz knows the science better than I do. I’m working on buckskin and rawhide, and the bows. Gut strings are gonna be messy.”
Caswell asked, “How long do bows take?”
“A quick one is just a stick, but doesn’t last long. A good one is split from wood and shaved, not carved, drying as you go. Better ones take specific sections of specific trees, or glue, but that’s later. As to the Navy, I actually got out, and into wholesale industrial equipment sales. Then went into the Reserve as an equipment operator. I wanted to be on land. So here I am.”
Spencer said, “I dub thee, Landsquid.”
“Talk to Trinidad,” he said. “He’s been on land the whole time.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Trinidad agreed. “Funny how a kid from a Bataan village winds up in San Diego, then A-stan, then the Stone Age. Honestly, there isn’t a lot of difference.”
“You’ve supported the Army the entire time?”
“No, did a lot of Naval work the first three years. Aboard ship, even. The Peleliu.”
“Well, glad to have you,” Elliott said. “Tell us about you.”
Trinidad shrugged. “My sister and parents are in the PI. I always wanted to join the Navy, so I made sure to learn good English. Intel sounded neat. It was a bitch to get my TS clearance. I had citizenship paperwork filled out and pending. I guess that doesn’t matter now. I’ve been watching how the locals move, and I can actually apply the same skills to animal routes. Then there’s their resources and stuff. Otherwise, I’m really good at cutting brush and you could have asked me about the fence as well. We don’t have a lot of fasteners back home.”
Bob said, “Well, let’s eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow we wrestle goats.”
Alexander said, “Get me the cord. I’ll show you how to crochet a net.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She walked over to the kindling pile, dug through for a straight stick. She pulled out her small sheath knife and carved a notch near one end, grabbed the parachute cord and started hooking it.
Between bites of meat and root, she made large loops in squares about 6” across. It went surprisingly fast. Bob started on another one, following what she did.
“You’re too fast,” he said.
“Sorry. Let’s try again. Loop here, pull, twist, pull again. You missed a pull there.”
“Yeah, got it.”
By the time they were down to firelight he had to quit, but had a piece a couple of feet square. Hers was about five foot.
She said, “Hey, we’ll take all the goat or small antelope hides the Urushu can get us. That tepee cover isn’t coming together fast enough.” She pointed to where a third of it was now dressed in stitched raw hides, stiffening in the sun. Actually, with that, it was becoming structurally more like a yurt.
“She’s right,” he said. “Heavier cover for winter, stitched to be weatherproof.”
Oglesby said, “I’ll ask them. I guess they owe us, if they have that concept, which I’m not sure they do.”
Gina Alexander woke up and stretched. She hurriedly pulled on boots and lumbered for the privy in the gray, foggy dawn. She was glad the men just stood on the bank to pee. She much preferred sitting to squatting, and the one ersatz seat was a bottleneck. Caswell was right behind her.
No one paid attention to it anymore. If you needed to go, you went, much like in survival school, or the how the Urushu did, though the soldiers still preferred a little discretion, and they needed to keep that. It would be so easy to lose their civilized veneer.
She wiped off with the old T-shirt she’d designated for the purpose, and made note to rinse it out today. That done, she walked back to the hooch to get the rest of her stuff, and a coat. It was cool, definitely early fall, even if the trees weren’t starting to tinge. Her ass had chilled on the dew-damp toilet seat.
This was a PT day, and she walked around the perimeter as the others ran, lapping her. Twenty-six laps was two miles, and they were done completely before she got three quarters of the way. She tried not to be self conscious about it. Her ankles didn’t work anymore. Inside, she still felt old and under par.
No one said anything as she came to the fire to eat. They never did.
Barker called, “Firewood detail, Oglesby, Dalton. Hunting and goat detail, Caswell, Alexander, Ortiz. Camp detail, Trinidad, Devereaux when not handling sick call. Sergeant Spencer and the LT are working on setting stakes.”
He had leftover meat, warmed on the rocks, and handed her a strip as she walked by. It was edible, but really getting boring fast, and tiring to chew. She had a sore tooth and suspected meat fiber was stuck in the gum.
“Hooah,” she replied in acknowledgment.
“Scrambled eggs?” Dalton asked, seeing something.
“Of a sort,” Barker said. “Want some?”
“Yeah!”
She wasn’t going to have any. They were in no risk of starving to death, and she knew—
Dalton said, “Hey, this tastes like there’s chicken in it.”
Trinidad muttered, “Balut.”
Dalton apparently understood the word, and stopped in mid bite.
“You fuckers.”
“What?” Barker asked. “They are duck eggs.”
“With bits of baby duck?”
“Fetal duck, but yes.”
Dalton looked ready to heave. Trinidad laughed and kept eating. Dalton didn’t eat any more, and stuck to the warmed goat. She didn’t blame him. Proper eggs could wait.
Done eating, she grabbed her Gore-Tex and gloves.
“Caswell, should I bring helmet and armor for hunting?”
“Good idea. Just in case of wolves.” Caswell was grabbing hers, and her carbine.
“Yes. Though they’re getting scarcer.”
From the front of the tepee, Ortiz said, “We smell like predators.” He had a bow, and the pouch he used to field dress game, which now held a folding saw, a large knife, some pliers and thong, among other things.
She needed to distract Caswell from the bow.
“Indeed we do.” She asked Caswell, “How are you managing on all this meat?”
Caswell shrugged. “It’s not possible to keep vegetarian here. If it ever becomes so, I’ll see what I can do. But part of my rationale was resources, which aren’t short here. And we look the animals in the face as we kill them, which is more honest.”
That made sense. “Fair enough. I love meat myself, but damn, I want bread. I wasn’t supposed to eat much back home anyway, with my thyroid, and I didn’t, but here . . . it’s all I want. A whole damned loaf.”
Caswell said, “I know. I want a fresh salad with oil and spices, not just weeds. They’re nutritious but not tasty. And little beyond minerals and vitamin C.”
“We need to gather rosehips for that, if we find any.” They hopped over the stream, which now had four stepping stones. Then they went up the bank, which had been muddy but was now covered in pebbles, and headed into the eastern meadow. Bit by bit they terraformed their property.
“And replant some here.” Caswell indicated the area she’d roughly cleared, using an E-tool as a hoe, attached to a pole. They tromped past it through tall growth.
It had surprised the men for Caswell to be a rifle Expert, partly because she was female, and a lot because she was Air Force. That was a good lesson for them not to underestimate either. She could headshot an animal with ease, and had.
None of them had commented much on her ability to recognize edibles, except to be grateful. She was an arrogant young bitch, but she did have useful skills.
The bows, though, had pissed her off immensely. Bob Barker had shaved them down to eighty pounds. He said he wanted that weight for larger antelope. He could draw it. Dalton could. The other men except Trinidad could mostly manage. But neither woman could. It was an upper body weapon, and they didn’t have the strength.
Caswell had bitched long and loud as if it was a personal affront to her. Gina understood the practicality behind it. Heavier bows meant heavier kills. Something smaller just wasn’t lethal, and it took strength to draw one, that few women would ever have.
It was bound to come up, though. Gina said, “Well, I’d like to avoid goat for a few more days. Small antelope?”
Caswell said, “If I can get a head shot.” Ammo was finite, and an M4 was not a large game rifle. Dalton had said nothing over two hundred pounds was a safe target, except for a few with thin enough skulls for a brain scramble shot. Yes, she was going to use the rifle as often as she could, since a bow was not an option. Gina understood it, but it was still annoying.
Ortiz said, “Or pheasant, if we find any nesting.”
Gina said, “I’m glad we have you along to chop them up. I can do it, but they just turn into a mess of pieces if I try. My husband does the butchering in hunting season. I just do the veggies and manage the camp.”
Ortiz said, “It’s not what I trained for, but I’m glad to do it. Barker can gut or fine cut, but nothing in between.”
“I wonder about standardized tasks. But I also wonder about flexibility.”
“We can’t all do everything,” he said. “I’d need half a magazine to take one down.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing ahead.
Caswell had much better eyes, too, which of course helped. “Small. Furry. Not entirely sure. It’s not moving.”
“There it goes.”
Something darted through the grass.
“Cat!” Gina exclaimed. “That’s a cerval or caracal!”
It was definitely feline, probably a caracal, and it limped.
Ortiz said, “Injured leg. Wish we could put it down humanely.”
Caswell followed the movement. “He can recover. There’s a lot of small pests around here.”
“Not limping like that.”
The poor creature was exhausted, and limped to a stop, gasping. He rolled into some broad-bladed grass that flopped over him, wet and concealing.
Gina loved cats.
She took the lead and walked toward it, Caswell and Ortiz behind her.
It snarled as they approached, and raised clawed paws in threat.
“Gloves then. And glad we have the body armor.” Gina pulled on her gloves, slung her rifle, and crept up, making soft noises.
“Hey, fella. It’s okay. We’re hunters, too.”
It lashed at her and tried to run, but stumbled on its injured paw. He. Definitely he. He was gray with ticked fur and big tufts on his ears. His fangs were long, and he growled, matted hair spiking all over.
He was beautiful.
“Come on, big guy.”
She reached in, and his claws struck Gore-Tex and clung but didn’t pierce. She shifted him around, got hold of both pairs of legs, being careful of the front right.
Ortiz looked in.
“Lacerated,” he said. “Probably a fight with something bigger.”
“Fixable?”
“I can suture, but he’s not going to like it.”
“Cats are smart. He’ll figure it out.” He was a big, handsome fellow, about twenty-five pounds. And he was a cat. If she couldn’t have family, she could damned well have a pet.
“Yeah, we can feed him something, too.”
The cat growled, but seemed to realize he wasn’t going to escape. He also probably understood that, if they hadn’t killed him yet, they weren’t going to.
Caswell reached over and gave him a slight skritch behind the ears. He tensed and stiffened.
“Detour back?”
“Yes.”
They trudged back, keeping a tight hand on the feisty fellow. Even injured, he was a lot of muscle. He would tense under her arm and try for purchase, then tuck up under her armpit. She’d pull him back down, and he’d growl. His voice would suit something twice his size.
As they crossed the creek, Trinidad said, “We eat dogs in the PI, cats are for the Chinese.”
“Good, then he’s safe,” she said.
“Injured?”
As they reached the kitchen area, Ortiz said, “Paw. I’m going to try to suture him.”
The man knew what he was doing with animals. In under a minute, he reached behind her and lashed the rear legs with thong from his kit, then lowered the animal carefully to the ground, with Caswell holding the rear quarters over a stick.
The cat was not happy. He snarled and hissed, as she gripped the left foreleg in her fist and the right paw firmly with thumb and finger. He tried to sink fangs through the glove. She felt pressure, but they were tough shells and he couldn’t puncture them.
Ortiz ran for the tent, and returned with a basic sewing repair kit and a water bottle.
He washed off the cut, which was a good two inches long, and pulled out tweezers and a needle.
“He’s not going to like this,” he said.
“Holding,” she agreed, and squeezed while trying not to injure.
“Wait,” he said, rising. He grabbed a stick from one of the piles, pulled out more cord, and splinted the leg to it.
The cat really didn’t like it, howling. He tried to bite again. She wrapped a gloved hand over his jaw.
“I need a stick,” she said.
Spencer slid one in and caught the creature’s fangs around it.
By now everyone had gathered around.
“Are we making bagpipes?” Spencer asked.
“Sounds like it, doesn’t it?” she said.
Oglesby said, “Aw, hell, break its neck cleanly and be done with it.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped. “Just . . . go away.”
She wanted this creature to survive. She needed it. Oglesby probably didn’t understand, but she was going to put some effort in.
“He’s fine,” Ortiz said. “He’s going to be in pain, but he’s going to survive and heal.”
Someone muttered, “Eh, who cares? Stupid cat.” They mumbled something else that she figured was about her.
Caswell put a hand on her arm, and she shook it off. She didn’t want anyone touching her right now.
She clutched the splint, Ortiz grabbed the needle, ran it through his lighter flame and wiped it off.
They all tensed.
Possibly the wound had gone numb, or hurt too much for the needle to matter, but the animal didn’t protest much. He wiggled now and then, but was fully immobilized with sticks and cord.
Then he tried to kick his rear legs up, arched and snarled again.
Ortiz waited for him to stop, and continued.
It took ten minutes that seemed like an hour. He appeared to do something to the muscle tissue, he washed the wound again, and sutured up the skin in several spots. Then he pulled out a scalpel and sliced off a bit of crusted flesh.
Again the animal screamed outrage and pain, but soon collapsed, panting.
“Okay, done,” Ortiz said as he cut a thread and pulled his tools back.
Caswell said, “We need a bowl of water and a bit of food. Something fatty and rich.”
“Nothing fatty, but we do have a bit of scorched goat liver.”
“Perfect. And water.”
Carefully, they twisted the long animal onto his side.
“I’ve got it,” Spencer said, and reached down with a crumbled bit of dark liver. He put it right in front of the cat’s nose.
The cat sniffed it, then again, took a lick, then devoured it in big snaps of his jaw and tongue.
Spencer said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re hungry. Here.” He put down a scraped out piece of bark with water, and another piece of liver.
The cat stared at him while gulping it, growled at Gina, took a lick of water at an odd angle, and twisted again, then whimpered as his leg pained him.
Ortiz said, “Okay, unlash the prisoner. We’ll take him down to those bushes and leave the liver and water with him. He’ll know where it is.”
“Do you think he’ll be around to remove the sutures?” Gina asked.
He shrugged. “If he lives. If he’s tractable. Who knows?”
“Well, we tried, and I feel better.”
He was a very handsome animal. Muscular, long body, those tufted ears. Definitely a caracal, probably young, and a fine specimen. Gina had always wanted an exotic cat.
As the thongs came off, the animal struggled more and more, then sprinted away at a limp, to stop behind the tepee and stare at them.
Elliott said, “Everyone back to work and go around. Leave the beast some room and he can have my share of liver.”
Yeah. She knew they needed the nutrients, but liver was never tasty, no matter how fresh, what animal or how cooked. It was medicine, not food. She ate it for the Vitamin D for her thyroid, and hated every swallow.
Caswell said, “Okay, having saved an injured animal, let’s go blow the brains out of a healthy one.”
Ortiz said, “The circle of life!”