The Last Tribe (48 page)

“I know, but if everyone gets here
and the decision changes, if we decide to stay for a year, grow strong as a
group, then make a move, well, I’m saying we need to conserve that one resource
and not fish it all summer.” 

The front door was thrown open. 
Hank stood in the doorway.

“There is a moose on the green.” 
He panted.  “I ran here as soon as I saw it.  Craig is behind me with the
fish.”  He caught his breath for a second.  “Seriously, there is a big moose
walking across the green right now.  What do we want to do?”

“That’s enough meat to feed the
group for a week, longer if we can store it.”  Paul was already pulling on his
boots.  “Get the rifles.”

“You really want to kill a moose?” 
Rebecca asked.  “They are so beautiful.”

“Rebecca,” Greg looked at her. 
“I’ve been killing five or more rabbits and squirrels every day.  You haven’t
complained once.  What’s the difference?”

“Size, I guess.”  She thought about
it.  “I had a stuffed animal moose when I was younger, and I’ve always loved
moose.  I don’t care about rabbits and squirrels.”

“I like moose too, and if we can
get this one, he’s going to sacrifice his life for all of us.”  Hank came back
from upstairs carrying two rifles.  “Can you imagine the look on Todd’s face
when he pulls up and we’re grilling giant steaks?  ‘Oh, hey Todd.  What’s up? 
You don’t have steaks where you are?’  This would be huge!”  The men ran out
the front door.

“You had rifles this whole time? 
Why weren’t you hunting?”  John asked his son.  “Why are you trapping when you
can just shoot things?”

“This is going to sound like I’m a
hippie, particularly after the Occom Pond comments, but hunting isn’t
sustainable.”  Greg made his way to one of the front windows.  He watched his
uncles run down Main Street.  “I have a finite number of bullets.  Learning to
shoot a rifle isn’t going to help me in three or four years.  Learning how to
trap, that’s sustainable.  I can do that forever.  We have the guns for times
like this, but honestly, we’ve never had a time like this.  I’ve seen like four
or five moose all year, and always from a distance, across the river.”

“We had no way to get a moose back
to camp if we shot it in the woods.”  Rebecca chimed in.  “Plus, as I have
established, I’m opposed to hunting moose.”

The door opened.  Craig was holding
a rope which pulled a purple plastic sled with a large cooler set inside of
it.  Craig was sweaty and out of breath.  “I had to pull,”  he panted, “this
thing,” pant, “all the way from the top of Wheelock.  There are,”  He doubled
over and put his hands on his knees.

A loud shot was followed by a
second report.  Everyone ran to their boots and pushed Craig aside.  He stood in
the doorway trying to catch his breath. 

“Hey, there are 13 good sized trout
in here!”  He yelled as the four people hurried out the door and down Main
Street.  Craig sat down on the front step, watching his family jog towards the
gunshots.  “Fine.” he muttered to himself.  When a third shot was fired, Craig
stood and jogged after them.

Craig rounded the corner of the
library and saw a circle of people standing around a large animal.  Hank and
Paul had their arms around each other’s shoulders sporting grins.  Craig made
his way to the circle and asked the obvious question.  “What do we do now?  How
are we going to get this thing back to the cottage?  It’s bigger than a car.”

His question wiped the smiles from
his Uncle’s faces. 

“Let’s get the snowmobiles, try to
pull this thing somewhere so we can string it up and clean it.  We have to move
quickly, I don’t want the meat to spoil.”  Hank spoke to Paul and Greg.  They
were his hunting partners for the last several months.  “We need a lot of
plastic tubs filled with snow or ice. We should pack the excess meat and freeze
it immediately.” 

“Rebecca,” Hank pointed to his
other teammate.  “Can you find a book about butchering a moose?  Maybe we can
use it as a guide, get all the meat we can off of him.”

“John, Matt, and Craig, you take
care of the fish, make lunch, and help us when you’re done.  I think this is
going to be an all afternoon exercise, but worth the effort when we get the
meat stripped.”  He slapped Paul on the back.  “Oh, man, look what we got
brother.  Look what we got.”

“Obviously this comes at a great
time.  The group arrives later today.  We did not need this much meat for the
four of us.  I swear, someone is watching out for us.”  Paul looked up as he
said the last line.  He checked the wristwatch he still wore.  “It’s 12:15. 
Let’s try to have this done and some steaks cooking by 5pm.”

“You know what it is?  It’s Todd,
that lucky son of a bitch.  He’s supposed to be here today.  His luck brought a
moose.  He’s going to eat steak, and through no work of his own.  I swear, it’s
like our grandmother used to say, you can throw him down a well and he’ll come
up with an arm full of roses.”  John feigned bitterness as he reminded his
brothers of the old family joke.

“Todd’s luck, divine intervention,
it’s all the same right now.  Let’s get the moose moved and cleaned.”  Hank
clapped his hands, and the group went into motion.  Rebecca leaned down next to
the moose’s head and whispered in its ear.  After a pause, she stood and caught
up to Greg.

“What did you say to it?”  Greg
asked her.

“I said I was sorry, and thanked
him for his sacrifice.  I know I’ve never done that for your rabbits and
squirrels, but, you know, I like moose.”  She broke away towards the library to
find a book about slaughtering large game.

She found a field guide relatively
quickly in the stacks of the Dartmouth College Library.  She referred to a
section on hunting in New England several times over the months to help Greg
learn more about trapping, and was familiar with the topic’s location.  She
grabbed a “Big Game in New England” book and headed out to the moose, book
open, reading as she went.  She bumped into Paul and Hank as she exited the
library.

“Okay, you need a big sharp hunting
knife, or butcher’s knife, or maybe a cleaver.”  Paul and Hank held up knives. 
“And a bone saw, some trash bags, and a bunch of rope.”  They stopped in their
tracks.

“I bet we can use a hacksaw, I’ll
run back.  I’ll grab a pack of the blades with the biggest teeth we have and
pick up the other supplies.”  Paul turned around  and ran home.

“Don’t run with the knife!” 
Rebecca yelled after him.

“It seems pretty
straight-forward.”  She continued with Hank as they walked in lock-step towards
the moose.  “We should clean it here.  We won’t worry about a mess, it’s far
enough away from camp.  Anyway, we are going to clean and quarter it.”  She
held up the book and showed Hank the picture.  The finished product was two
back legs separated, and two front legs separated.

Rebecca was a speed reader.  She
skimmed the “field techniques” synopsis while they waited for Paul to return
with a saw.  “We need to find a place to age the meat, preferably a freezer
that is around 40 degrees.  That’s why we are quartering the animal, so we can
more easily transport and hang the meat for aging.  We need to age it for a
week for the best results, but at least 3-4 days to let the meat get tender. 
Regardless of aging, we have to get it cleaned and out of the open field
asap.” 

Paul came around the corner of the
library in a slow trot accompanied by Matt.  They arrived at the body quickly,
holding up two saws, one big knife, and a giant cleaver.  “What’s the plan?” 
He said, panting.  “Can we do this?”

“Yes, check out the picture.”  Hank
pointed to Rebecca’s book.  “It might take an hour, but we can get this done. 
I’m going to tie the rope to the front leg.  Matt, you run it around that
tree.”  Hank pointed to a tree about twenty yards away.  “We’ll follow the
directions.”

Rebecca continued to read the procedures,
but as Hank had said, the pictures were straightforward.  She supervised, and
45 minutes later, the men were bloody and finished cleaning and quartering.

Greg walked up with rabbit
sandwiches for lunch.  The workers ate ravenously despite the ghastly job they
just completed. 

“Moose steaks for dinner? You did
an incredible job.”  Greg handed out compliments.

“Not really.”  Rebecca told him. 
“We have to transport the legs to the basement of the old house and hang them
from the rafters.   We get moose steaks in a week.”  She looked at the men,
covered in blood, sitting in the snow eating sandwiches.  “You know we still
have to skin the quarters, right?  We can do that after we hang them up.”

“We didn’t know that, but we do
now.  Let’s get it to the house and strung up.  I bet each of these legs weighs
a couple of hundred pounds.”  Matt responded for the butchers.

“Is there anything we can eat
tonight or tomorrow?”  Greg asked, hoping they could start eating the meat
soon.  Even with the large group of twenty five people, it was going to take
them a long time to utilize this much animal.

“We can make moose burgers whenever
we want.  The reason we are aging the meat is to make it tender.  If we run it
through the hand grinder a few times, it will be fine to eat.”  Rebecca pointed
to a heading
What To Eat First
.

“We have fish for tonight.”  Hank
reminded them.  “Let’s get this over to the house.  We’ll chop off pieces as we
need, and grill steaks starting next week.”  He finished his sandwich and stood. 
He looked down at his clothes.  His shirt and pants were covered in blood “Wow,
so much for this outfit.  Paul, let’s walk back and get our snowmobiles and the
sled trailers.  I bet we can get two legs on each one.”  He trudged towards the
cottage.  Paul stood up and followed behind.  Both moved slowly, trying to keep
their cold, wet, blood soaked clothes from bouncing against their skin. 

Greg walked back with his Uncles,
telling them about the progress he, Craig, and his father were making with the
beds and sleeping arrangements.  They had starter logs and pre-made fires along
with stacks of wood in each bedroom.

Matt was done with his sandwich. 
He remained seated in the snow.   He turned to Rebecca, “Can I skin it here?  I
peel it back with my fingers and cut it with a knife, right?”

“That’s what the book says.  It’s
easier to do when it’s hung up, but yes, you can skin it now” 

Matt picked up his knife began to
skin one of the legs.  It was easy work, and he had the first leg skinned in
less than five minutes.  He was working on the second leg when the hum of
snowmobiles was heard in the distance.

Hank and Paul came around the
corner towing large wooden sleds.  “Wow, you’ve already skinned one of the
legs?  You do nice work.”  Paul said to Matt.

“I decided we should finish all of
the dirty work here.”  Matt pulled the hide off the second leg.

“Hank, I’ll start skinning the
other ones, you and Matt can work on getting these monsters onto the sleds when
he’s done skinning that leg.”  Paul got off the snowmobile, picked up a knife,
and followed Matt’s lead.

Hank dismounted and picked up the
sharp cleaver.  He kneeled in the snow and worked on skinning the last leg. 

Rebecca stood a few feet away in
the sunlight, reading other sections of the book and learning about moose
meat.  “Okay, the last thing we need to do is cover the meat in cheese cloth or
something like that, I think it’s supposed to be a breathable fabric that will
keep dirt and insects away.”  She thought about it for a moment.  “I bet a
sheet would work just as well, as long as it’s cotton.  I’ll go back, warm up a
little, and meet you at the basement.”  She turned and walked before stopping
to face the men again.  “And just so you know, I don’t think we have the skill,
time, or need to keep the hide.  I know it seems like we are wasting it, but
seriously, it’s pretty detailed what we would have to do.  Also, John said a
dog is coming.  I don’t believe him, but save the heart and liver for the dog
tonight.”

The men paused, looked at each
other and at her.  Hank replied, “I had not thought about it, but thank you. 
I’m sure Paul would have tried to save the hide.”

“Why am I getting picked on?”  Paul
asked.  “What have I done?”

“You know you’d try to save it. 
You save everything.  When was the last time you threw something away?”  Hank
ribbed his brother.

“Walking away from all of my
possessions and my house in Cincinnati counts.”

Rebecca left the bickering
brothers.  She could hear them arguing until she was out of earshot.  She
rounded the library corner and walked down Main Street towards the cottage. 
Rebecca found it difficult to judge the passage of time, particularly during a
large project like the moose cleaning.  Paul said it was 12:15 when they
started.  She assumed it was around 2pm, maybe later.  She was cold, and her
feet were wet from standing in the snow.  Rebecca hoped there was a pot of hot
water for tea. 

She arrived at the cottage to find
Craig and John hauling a mattress in the door and up the stairs.  “This is our
last one.”  They puffed as they struggled up the tight stairwell.  “The moose
almost done?”  John asked her as he moved up the stairs and away.

“I’m meeting them in the basement
of the other house with sheets.  The meat is ready for transport.  I’m sure
we’ll have to hit the hardware store for hanging supplies.”  She left them to
their work and went into the kitchen.  She felt warm air coming from the door
as she approached.  Greg stood by four large pots of water waiting for them to
boil.

“I assume they will want to take
baths or clean up a little when they are done.”  He said as she walked into the
kitchen.  “No one thinks about the cleanup until they need to.”

“We’re done.  We have to transport
and hang the meat for aging.  Do you happen to have four pulley’s laying round
I could attach to the ceiling of your father’s childhood basement?”