Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (19 page)

When I got to my first trap I noticed it was
different. I walked up to it with my hopes high but the closer I
got the lower my hopes became. When I reached the trap I noticed it
was turned over and the raspberries were gone. I must not have set
it up right. I didn’t understand it though because I had checked
Mr. Black’s trap when I had finally found it and made sure my trap
was set up exactly like his. Oh, well, I thought. I’ll just have to
try again. I checked my other two traps before I went back to camp
but I found nothing in them either.

It was fully dark by the time I reached camp
again. Mr. Black was sitting in front of the fire watching the
flames dance.

“
So?” he said when I got
back.

“
Nothing,” I replied.

“
Maybe you should try for something
else,” he said.

“
Maybe,” I said.

We both sat enjoying the light of the fire
and the mood was good even though I was starving. Mr. Black and I
talked about hunting and he told me all about how to track an
animal through the forest. He explained all kinds of hunting
strategies to me. After the talk of hunting and tracking subsided,
I asked Mr. Black about himself and he started to tell me. I was
shocked. I had thought a question about his personal self would
have been blown off. He must have been in a talkative mood. We
exchanged small bits of information throughout the evening. I found
out he had been born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He
was thirty-two years old and had served in the Navy. He told me a
few stories of his childhood and I didn’t have any to compare with
them so I got brave and asked him, “What’s your real name?”

He looked at me and considered a moment then
said, “Quinn.”

I was satisfied for a second or two but the
other half of his name was not forthcoming. Was Quinn his first or
last name, I wondered, so I asked him.

“
Last,” he said.

“
What’s your first name then?” I
asked.

“
We’ll leave that for another day,” he
said while he stepped away from the fire to set up his bed for the
evening.

As I lay in my bedroll I thought of all the
information I had gained that evening. Mr. Black, Quinn, had given
up a lot. I was glad I knew his name, at least part of it. I still
didn’t know if Quinn fit him though. After thinking about it for a
while I decided Quinn was an okay name. I had expected a strong
name and Quinn wasn’t a sissy name. I imagined what his first name
would be. It would have to be strong and masculine too. Jack had a
strong, hard quality to it. Maybe he had a girl’s name and that’s
why he hadn’t given it to me. Maybe it was Sue. You know, a boy
named Sue… Nah. I didn’t think so, at least I hoped not. All this
stuff about names got me to thinking about Rumpelstiltskin. About
how I was like the queen and I needed to find out his name in three
days. Well, not really, I guess it’s nothing like that fairy tale.
Then I dozed off.

*****

I awoke the next morning not because I was
rested but because my stomach ached from lack of food. In the past
three days all I had eaten was a few raspberries. The powdered food
back at the cabin sounded good again. I picked myself up off the
ground and put away my bedroll. What I wouldn’t give to sleep on a
bed again too.

Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen, so I
gathered up what energy I could find and headed out to see if my
traps had been successful in the night. When I reached the first
one it was the same as the day before, turned over. I began to
wonder if Mr. Black was messing with my traps. I don’t know why he
would do that though. I was just in a real bad mood this morning. I
made the rounds of the other two traps and found nothing in them
either. Imagine that. I tromped to the raspberry bushes intent on
eating more ripe raspberries. When I got to them all the
raspberries were gone and so was Mr. Black’s trap.

I decided a morning stroll would be a good
idea. I could check out the area and see what I could find. Mr.
Black had said deer liked to hang out at the edges of meadows. They
ate mostly at dawn or dusk. Before I went on my stroll I would go
back to camp to see if Mr. Black was there.

When I got to camp I noticed all his gear was
gone, not just him. I didn’t remember seeing it before I left to
check my traps either. Well, I’ll just look around anyway I
thought.

I walked away from camp and it was still
pretty early in the morning and there was a bit of a chill in the
air. My breath hung in the air in front of me as I stood there
looking around trying to decide which way to go. I remembered a
little meadow on the way here that we had walked through. If I
could find it again I’d scope it out.

I walked for only a few minutes back the
direction that we had come and found the meadow in no time. As I
got closer I slowed my pace. Good thing too. Not far from the edge
of the trees were some deer. There were six of them, four doe and
two fawns. It was magical. I had seen deer before when we were
hiking but had never noticed them before they had turned to run
away. Now I was watching them and they didn’t know I was here yet.
I thought about how I would be able to take one of them down, but
they were too beautiful to eat. I thought about becoming a
vegetarian, but remembered how much I liked meat in my diet.

I stood motionless for a long time and then
one of the deer lifted its head and looked in my direction. Then it
lifted its long white tail and bounded across the field in the
opposite direction with the rest of the deer following her.

I walked away from the meadow with a sense of
accomplishment. I had snuck up on some deer. It didn’t count that
it happened to be an accident. I just had to remember exactly what
I had done so I could do it again. I explored for the rest of the
day.

I mapped out the area even though it was in
vain. Mr. Black had said we were going to move camp today, but I
figured it was good practice. Earlier that day I had sat and messed
around with my wristband and had found it had a compass. I imagine
that I should have thought of this before. It was a GPS device
after all. I used my wristband to remember landmarks. At such and
such latitude and longitude I would find the meadow, then there was
a small creek off in another direction. I found we were on the top
of a hill that had a sharp drop in a different direction from camp.
I didn’t go too far out from camp but I got further out than I had
when setting up my traps. I periodically returned to camp to see if
Mr. Black had returned and was ready to move to another location.
Each time I returned there was no change at camp.

I worked my way back to the little creek I
had found. Fish wasn’t my favorite, but they might be easier to
catch. Never had I gone fishing before, but had been forced to
watch a few shows on the television. What was with men and fishing?
Anyway, the concept was simple. I would try my luck at fishing
today.

While I walked to the stream I considered how
I might catch a fish. I knew in normal life people used fishing
poles with hooks on the ends. How could I make a fishing pole? I
found several sticks on the way to the stream that I thought might
get the job done. My mind kept wandering toward a picture of a
small boy sitting on the edge of a river with a stick and line
hanging from it, waiting for a fish to bite.

By the time I reached the creek I had an
armload of sticks. I chose the one I thought might be the strongest
and then pulled off one of my shoelaces. I tied it to the end of
the stick and thought about what I might use for a hook. Finally
the only thing I could come up with was trying to carve myself one
with my knife. I got down to business and quickly found it was
nearly impossible to carve a hook. I could get a toothpick type
thing carved but not a hook. They kept coming out looking like
miniature spears.

Spears. Then I got another idea. I wouldn’t
even need to carve a hook I could maybe spear myself a fish. This
required me to see a fish though. I took my shoelace that was tied
to the end of the stick and used it to tie my knife onto the end of
the stick. Then I got up and snuck around the banks of the stream.
It didn’t take long before I saw a fish. I had kept low and was
being quiet. I remembered seeing on a fishing show how fish can see
you better from the water than you can see them. I slowed, stood my
entire height and threw the spear I had fashioned at the fish. I
missed but I managed to make a big splash. This I knew had probably
scared fish away for miles in each direction. I had to wade out to
retrieve my spear. Thank goodness the creek wasn’t more than waist
deep.

As I waded through the water I tried not to
kick up too much dirt. If I muddied the water I wouldn’t be able to
see anything. I looked into the water in search of fish to skewer
once I reclaimed my spear. I saw one just as it darted under the
edge of a rock. I stood still in the middle of the creek for
several hours and tried my luck numerous times. My legs were
getting numb and my teeth were chattering before I decided to exit
the freezing water.

I took a walk up the creek to see if there
was a more shallow area I could try. It wasn’t long before I found
a spot that only reached my knees. I trudged in and tried my luck
again. This went on until it was close to getting dark. I better
get something soon or I would go without dinner again tonight.

I saw a nice sized fish, aimed and threw my
spear. I missed and watched the fish dart under a nearby rock. I
ran to the spot where the fish was hiding and plunged my hand under
the rock after him. He swam away from me but I had touched him.
This was a new concept. I began slowly and methodically feeling
under rocks.

About every third or fourth rock I would feel
something and then see a fish dart away. I just had to be faster. I
lowered my hand back into the water and started feeling around a
new rock. Ah-ha! I pushed my hand up against the rock from the
bottom, trying to pin the fish so I could get a grip. I got it! I
actually said this out loud. It wasn’t very big and I started to
close my grip. As my fingers closed around my fish I felt a sharp
pain in my hand. Instinctively I pulled my hand toward my body and
hanging from it was a snake!

I jumped up and down and screamed, “SNAKE!
SNAKE! SNAKE!” Then I shook my hand and arm violently. The snake
didn’t loosen its grip. Finally I calmed down enough to try and pry
the snakes’ fangs away from my hand. It had a hold of me right at
the base of my thumb. I wondered if it was poisonous.

I couldn’t get it off! I had somehow gotten
myself back to shore and was standing near my spear. I reached down
and picked it up and sliced the snake in two. Its head was still
hanging onto my hand and there was a lot of blood. I made myself
calm down and I took my finger and thumb and pushed them into
either side of the snake’s mouth and was able to finally get it off
me. I threw it down and stomped on it a few times. Then I reached
down to inspect it with my spear.

In my effort of prying I had noticed its
fangs had been more to the back of its mouth and thought that was a
good sign. If the fangs were in the front of the mouth it was
probably poisonous, but if they were in the back of the mouth, they
were meant to hold on, not to inject venom. I did a double check by
physically picking it up and opening its mouth and didn’t find any
vampire like fangs in the front. Maybe it might not be a bad idea
to take it back to camp to see if Mr. Black knew what kind of snake
it was. Maybe he had some anti- venom in his pack.

I picked up the dead snake parts and my spear
and tromped back to camp. Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen. I sat
down and tried to regulate my breathing. I remembered hearing that
if you got excited it would just make the venom move faster through
your blood stream. I looked down at my injured thumb to see if it
had turned black like the pictures I had seen of rattlesnake
bites.

It wasn’t black but there was a huge gash
right underneath where I had cut the snake in two. I must have cut
myself with the knife. It was still bleeding and all the blood when
I cut the snake must have been mine. Great. Now what?

Not only am I going to die of snakebite, I
might actually die from blood loss too. I started to feel light
headed.

“
Knock it off,” I told myself out loud.
Quit acting like a
girl
, I thought internally. Okay, the
snake had bitten me close to half an hour ago; if it had been
poisonous it would probably have kicked in by now. I hoped. Now I
just had to figure out what to do with my hand. It was still
bleeding heavily. I sat and looked at it. I needed stitches, that
was obvious. How was I going to get stitches out here though? I
pushed the cut together and that helped slow the bleeding. I
had
to do something.

I rummaged through my pack and found a book
that I hadn’t put in there. It was titled Herbal Remedies. Mr.
Black must have put that inside. I skimmed through it quickly to
see if there was anything about snakebites, but there wasn’t so I
put it down and continued my search. I didn’t find anything else
that seemed of use in my pack.

The knife Mr. Black had given me was a
survival knife; maybe I would find something there. I started to
play with the knife and found a spot on top that unscrewed. I
opened it and low and behold there was a little baggie in there
with some sort of plastic line and a FISHING HOOK. No needles
though. I was so furious at myself for not snooping before. I had
thought curiosity would get me into trouble one day, but never
thought it could have prevented disaster.

I knew I had to sew up my hand, but I wanted
to wait for Mr. Black. I was hungry, and tired and I was freezing
because I was still soaking wet. I tried to start the fire because
it was getting close to dusk. I finally got it lit and Mr. Black
still wasn’t back.