After a good night's rest, Dessi and I went to attempt to find some meat. We swooped high over the trees, looking for a rabbit, squirrel, or deer, if we were lucky. Even though I had known Dessi her entire life, it still amazed me that she spotted the tiniest rabbit track from 2000 feet.
We slowed our decent, trying to keep down wind from the animal. We were by the stream I had spotted the previous day, a little thing that a normal human could probably jump, but it was more than 4 feet in depth. We came to rest silently in the soft bedding of pine straw.
Holy feathers! Dessi said. It was easy to sense the excitement in her voice. Well, her voice in my head… you get what I'm trying to say.
I see three of them! She said, her maple bow raised. She had her quiver strap on her elbow, and her smile was a strange mix of excitement and ferocity. She let the first arrow fly.
It was easy to see why she did the hunting in the family. In a matter of seconds, she killed all three of the rabbits. Her movements were swift and deadly; the last rabbit didn't even get a chance to blink (do rabbits blink?) after the first one was killed.
We were landing back at camp in no less than ten minutes. We were greeted with smiles and shouts of delight. Like fruit, meat wasn't exactly common.
We smoked the rabbit and dried the skins over the fire. Once the logs had died down, we ate and got ready to leave.
Everyone has a part in pickup. Grettah gets blankets, Dessi and Ange clean the fire and food messes up. Gabe, Mason and Theris fix the sleeping quarters, so it looks untouched. Francine and I get packs on people's backs and pack anything else.
"Okay, so we are trying to get to the beach," I said, pulling out a old map. "If we are here, which way do we have to go?"
"East," Dessi said. Her voice was like chiming bells. "I just can feel its east."
"Unless you just looked at the compass," Francine countered.
I ignored their bickering, which lasted all of five minutes.
"Uhm, sorry to interrupt, but RARs at four o'clock."
Well, that got everyone's attention.