This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or locations is unintentional. Click here to start at the beginning.

Chapter 3: Hunger

Ten years ago... after Easter.

Her fingers ached.

The jasmine tea she made hours ago was cold and far too strong, but she kept drinking it anyway, distracting herself from the emptiness in her stomach. Her bank account balance would not change, no matter how hard she stared at the laptop screen. $56 somehow had to stretch to cover $133 utility bill, $400 overdue student loan payment, and gas to get to work. At this point, groceries were not an option.

Shit.

~

"Where are you going? It's raining out there."

"Just going to check and see if any wild nettles are coming up over by the pasture," a brittle smile and she was out the door. The change from dry warmth to damp stopped her on the porch, and she took a deep breath of the weeping air.

Ideas spun wildly as her boots slapped and sucked the partially frozen ground. The pale beam of the flashlight caught on the stubs of grass and dead weeds before finally sliding across familiar sharp shapes. 

Turning her face to the rain and the murky, boiling sky, thoughts crashed and raged.

Picking the leaves left her fingers burning and she bared her teeth, digging into the earth, feeling for the new buds of growth. The flashlight flickered and she moved on to the dandelion, testing and searching for big roots beneath the soft rosettes. Frustration peaked and she punched the mud, prying the first knuckled finger between two dandelion roots. With a twist and a sharp tug, she pulled the smaller of the two. The sharp shock from her hand rolled her back onto her heels. 

It will be alright.

~

"Hey dad, want some fresh wild greens? I'm going to try baking some dandelion root also. Want some? Where's that old frozen hunk of venison from two years ago?" Her voice burst into the house with stomping boots and the flick and spatter of rain from her jacket. 

"That old venison?" He grimaced and they both laughed, "why do you want to cook that tonight?"

"I want to get something in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow."

"What about tonight?"

"Lentils and the wild greens. I think we still have some of that 50 lb bag of rice, or do you want to make some cornbread?"

"Make rice. We don't have any corn ground, and the hand-grinder is," he gestured to the window, "well you know, you were just out there."

"Soaking wet, yeah," she looked away, "so, dad, when does hunting season start?"

~

Sleep came slowly on skittering legs.

Heartbeat in my bones - Jackrabbit fleeing across the sagebrush flats, hammering his fear on the earth like a drum. 

Hunger, gnawing and clawing up my spine. 

Alpenglow fading fast. Promised I'd be home before dark but the grouse are fleeing me - only Redtail catches them against this wind. 

Numb face and taste of blood - seeping across my mouth as I bite off chunks of driving, howling air - in the stalking run, curving the long way across the breast of the hill so they won't see me against the sky. 

Redtail screams his farewell and wheels away, an impression of gleaming eye sharp as a razor, and I am alone in the roaring breath of the landscape. 

Shadows bloom and swallow the rocks. Lifting small feet above puddling velvet shapes that shiver to a rhythm no longer connected to the buffeting waves of wind. 

A fluttering burst lifts from the boulder field. My new pellet gun rises with a mind of its own. Pop. Pop. Pop. Thump. Thump. Thump. Can I hear it? Or does the night rip and devour this too?

Sinking fingers into warm feathers, fumbling cord. No good. Lost in the grass. Stuffing limp bodies inside my shirt. Slick trickle of blood. Sharp feet, scratching. 

Run.

Run home.

Wind at my back, sweat soaking through wool, feet no more than lumps on the end of high driving legs. Run. Run. Run. 

Liquid shadows rise from the sagebrush and the earth bursts into a new rhythm. I am not alone. We fly over invisible ground, unthinking, fleeing in the velvet roaring sea of sound. 

An arm out-flung and the shadow falls against me for a heartbeat. Deer.

Run.

Run home. 

~

She woke. Memory drenched her and dream blurred into reality. First kill at 8. Food for the Thanksgiving table. 

Rolling to her knees from the unzipped sleeping bag, her hip popped and crunched. Drinking down the agony in a practiced motion she pressed against the nearby wall and rotated her femur against the floor. 

Stumbling upright she limped to the closet and prepared for work.

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