Nathan-
"Jay, we're looking for elk remember?" I hurried after her, struggling to slip my bag back onto my shoulder.
"Oh yeah..well who says we can't do both?" she grinned at me and continued to track the elk.
"These guys are moving slow," Lyra murmured, her eyes on the ground.
Baine darted around, sniffing here and there and running every which way excitedly.
It was a little while until the trees started to thin out. I didn't have to slash any more when we quietly approached a very large meadow. It was at least three times larger than the meadow Lyra and I hunted in. The elk were about thirty yards away.
A few raised their heads at the minimal noise we made. Lyra and I froze simultaneously and Baine dropped into a crouch beside me. They dismissed us and went back to nibbling.
"C'mon, we're going to get what we came for," Lyra whispered and pointed at some brush.
We snuck over quietly and dove behind the bushes. Baine sat down in a pool of sun and watched the elk with great interest silently. We watched for a little while. After taking a few pictures, I searched for the bull and eventually found him meandering through the herd.
Lyra started shaking my arm with a focused look on her face. She pointed a ways away. The mountains jutted up about a mile away. White, unnatural specks stood out against the dark rock. I took out my binoculars and focused them in.
Mountain goats. I grinned and handed them to Lyra. She spotted them right away and smiled.
I tapped her thigh when the elk started our way. She shook her head slightly and gestured to another bull that was already standing broadside. It was a little smaller but otherwise a nice bull. She didn't want to wait on the leader.
As quietly as I could, I clicked open my bow case and notched an arrow. Lyra's eyes widened when I handed it to her. I nodded to the elk and she grinned excitedly. She drew my bow, and waited.
All at once, she stood up and let the arrow fly in one swift motion. All the elk turned their heads and took one look before running towards the end of the valley.
The bull stumbled after them, grunting harshly.
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" She yelled and attacked me for a hug. I laughed and hugged her back before we noticed Baine had sprung up and started sprinting after it.
"Baine! Baine come here!" Lyra shouted but he didn't stop, she let go and dropped to the ground. We looked at each other before running after him, leaving most of our stuff. He and the bull were a ways away.
"Look at that," I laughed and stopped running, Lyra stopping beside me.
Baine easily caught up to the elk and darted around in front of it, snarling and snapping at it. The bull stopped and grunted. He swayed his antlers at Baine but he was too sluggish to hit him.
Baine danced around him, nipping at his legs and trying to pull him to the ground. Blood was pouring down the elks side. It stumbled and tried to run again but Baine got in front of it and barred his teeth, dodging the poor attempts the elk made with his antlers.
"What's he doing?" I asked Lyra.
"What wolves would usually do. He's keeping it to where we can have it. If he he hadn't been washed away, he'd be doing this for his pack. I told you it was a good idea to take him," she nudged me before taking off.
I rushed after her. We ran behind Baine and wave our arms erratically to keep the bull in place, waiting for its energy to deplete since Baine probably couldn't hold him long. Let me tell you that this wasn't safe at all.
This was a hurt wild animal that was fighting for its life. We dodged when it whirled around and struck out with its back hooves. All we had to do was hold it here until it's nerves failed and it died.
Baine snarled at it and dashed around to bite it. It was only minutes before the bull fell to its knees, completely exhausted from blood loss.
It sunk to its belly and cried out for help. The other elk stood at the other far end of the valley, watching. There was nothing they could do.
As soon as the elks head dropped in defeat, Lyra pounced it and stuck her knife into its artery. She straddled its neck and held its antlers away from her with one arm. When she pulled the knife out, blood flowed freely. It finally died and we all relaxed. Baine busied himself with cleaning the blood off his fur a few feet away.
"That was awesome, why didn't you just let it die by itself?" I asked, catching my breath.
"It was suffering. That's awful to watch," she shrugged and wiped her knife on her pants.
I nodded and rubbed Baine's ears, "Good boy. Totally kept us from having to track this guy down."
"Alright! Let's cut this bad boy up!" Lyra grinned.
"Wait! We have to do something first," I said and ran back to the bushes.
Grabbing all of our stuff, I hurried back and pulled out my camera.
"Awe, no Nathan, I look awful. I'm covered in blood. Why do we even need a picture?" Lyra whined.
"You look badass, just smile and the picture will be perfect! When we get the hell out of here, you're going to want to remember all this," I grinned and handed my bow to her for a traditional hunting picture.
The elks head was way too heavy to pick up, so we turned it to the side and propped it up. Lyra kneeled behind its body with the bow leaned against it. She held onto one side of the antlers to keep its head upright.
Lyra got Baine to sit beside the bow, in front of the elk. She put her hand on the back of his neck to keep him still.
"Perfect! Now smile," I grinned at her and kneeled to take a nice picture.
She grinned a dazzling grin and I snapped a few pictures. This was so perfect.
I stood up and smiled, "Great!"
"Your turn," she said and let Baine go.
"Oh no, you shot it. I don't need one," I waved her away.
"Shut up and go sit by it,"Lyra smirked.
I rolled my eyes but went over and sat where Lyra had been, re-lifting the elks head, "Just focus the lens and push that button."
"Nathan I know how to take a picture, my dad was a photographer. Half his work was mine," she smiled and leaned back at a strange angle for a good picture.
"For gods sake Nate, smile," Lyra giggled.
I huffed but grinned big. She snapped a few and straightened up to look. I walked over and looked over her shoulder.
"You look awesome," I smiled when she found her pictures.
"I look like Katniss Everdeen," she laughed and gestured to her braid.
The sun was starting to stoop lower so we hurried up and field dressed the elk. Then we hacked off meat by rolling it from one side to the other. Lyra sliced the fur away and rolled it up.
I whacked off the antlers and tied them together. We wrapped the boneless meat and fat, all 280ish pounds of it, in the large tarp Lyra brought. It would definitely hold us up through the whole winter.
An elk was about four deer all rolled into one. We were pretty set to say the least.
"We can't keep all this on the ground, come on. Let's pick out a tree. If we're lucky, the meat will freeze tonight and stay preserved. I just hope it doesn't snow," she mumbled while breaking off some ribs and a leg bone.
I clicked my hauler in place and we pushed the meat onto it before pulling it over to a big oak tree. Lyra tied it all up in a makeshift net and slung the rope over a limb about eight feet above our heads.
"Ready, set, pull," she grunted and we both tugged the net up high.
"Okay, hold still," she said and let go, leaving all the weight on me.
I grunted and put all my muscle into making sure the meat didn't fall. Lyra secured it and relieved me of the weight.
We both drug the almost meatless elk carcass to the ravine and tossed it over after feeding Baine a very large portion. We saved the very large liver, heart, and kidneys to eat. Lyra started up a fire while I set up my small tent.
I flattened out Lyra's sleeping bag inside and poked my head out when I smelled cooking meat.
"Ready for dinner?" Lyra chuckled.
"Oh yes," I grinned and climbed out.
We hadn't eaten all day except for breakfast almost twelve hours ago. I was surprised we hadn't stopped to eat already, we were just too preoccupied. The meat was gone soon and it was dark. We let the fire burn down before the cold wind buffed us and a deep chill set in.
Lyra was right, it would snow in a few days time. We crawled into my tent, that was originally made for one person, and got warm. Baine slept at our feet, mostly on top of mine, and was out in no time.
Lyra was basically on top of me but neither of us minded much. It didn't take us long to fall asleep.
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Lyra-
As soon as it was light out, I untangled myself from Nathan and climbed out of the tent.
I warmed up the rest of the meat I'd packed before we left and woke Nathan up. We ate silently, only exchanging yawns. I was totally sleeping in tomorrow. I laughed as Nathan snapped a photo of the sunrise over the mountains.
It was still freaking freezing as expected. Nathan made me put my gloves on before we were even ready to go.
"Come on, we should get a move on. No telling what smelled the blood and meat," he yawned and started clicking his hauler into place.
We broke up the meat into parts, it was frozen alright. I wrapped mine in the elk fur pelt and strapped it to my bag. Nathan wouldn't let me take more than 100 pounds.
He packed up about the same or more after I sliced the tarp in half, plus the heavy antlers. I could sew it back together later. The rest went onto the hauler with the other half of the tarp. We were out of there in an hour. When we came to the ravine, we tossed everything over and trekked on.
We followed Nathan's tree marks. I had no doubt we were at least eight miles from home. Hours later, we were finally crossing the creek close to home. My back ached from the weight and my hand was numb through my glove from pulling the hauler with Nathan.
"Almost there," Nathan said.
Baine loped ahead and disappeared, probably beating us there. You can't imagine our happiness when we saw the crack in the rock wall and stumbled into my valley.
"Yes! We made it!" Nathan cheered and flung his bag down.
Baine was already sitting by the door waiting. I opened it and started up a fire. Of course, my work was never finished. Since we had the deer pelts and many rabbit pelts, we left the meat in the tarp pieces. I handed up meat to Nathan as he stood on the homemade latter up to the cache.
I strung up the pelt and started scraping. It was a little big for the normal deer frame but it got the job done.
"Why are you doing that today? Take a rest Jay," Nathan sat down beside me.
"I have a lot to do before it snows. I need to get this done so we can sleep on it, I need to do laundry before it drops below freezing again, I should shower.." I mumbled while scraping.
"Okay, well here, I'll do this and you go take your shower and do laundry," he put his hand over mine to stop me from scraping.
I sat back on my heels and nodded, "Alright, thank you. I won't be long in the river, waters probably freezing."
I went into the cave to grab our dirty clothes and took them to the fishing rock. It didn't take me too long and soon I was stripping down for a very quick shower.
"Here Jay. Toss me the rest," Nathan sat some clothing on the rock and picked up my wet bra. I tossed him my underwear, (stop laughing), and swam through the cold water to the rock.
He turned and went to go hang up my stuff, then disappeared back into the cave. I got out and looked at the clothes. He'd grabbed me his sweatpants, a random t-shirt of his, a sports bra, panties, and even a pair of his warm wool socks. I was so pampered.
When I put them on, I realized that they were warm. Like, just-got-them-out-of-the-dryer warm.
I ran over the cold ground and into the warm cave, "How come these are so warm?"
"I kept them by the fire so you'd have some warm clothes after you got out of that cold water. Dinners on, by the way," Nathan smiled at me before setting the freshly scrapped elk fur in the corner. I looked at a pot of something simmering.
I grinned at him, "Thanks."
"I'm going to go take a shower too. Be right back," he smiled before disappearing.
I decided to repay the favor after braiding my hair. I grabbed his now warm clothes and ran out to set them out for him.
"Here Nate, I figured you'd want some warm clothes too," I grinned.
He turned around and swam out from under the water fall, "Of course, thank you. This water is damn cold."
I grinned at him before turning away and heading back so he could have some privacy. And so I'd stop staring at his toned chest and wishing I could see other things. We didn't stay up long. It was just after sunset and I had just finished folding clothes when we both wanted to go to sleep.
I curled up to Nathan and said good night before dozing against his shoulder.
"Night Jay," he chuckled, wrapping me up closer to him.