close.”
“Don’t worry,” he assured with a confident smile. “I’ll keep you safe.”
By the time we trudged past the gas pumps my clothes stuck to me with sweaty glue.
Movement near the abandoned semi-trucks caught my eye. Ben shuffled three steps in our direction. My free arm gripped Pollard’s waist tight to prevent him from doing anything stupid.
I shook my head at Ben, sending him a silent plea with my eyes to wait and not follow us.
Pollard had promised me on the truck stop roof to show restraint, despite carrying a gun on his hip, but I still didn’t trust him not to hurt Ben.
The Red paused beside a Mack truck and stayed there. Pollard guided me into the dense pines beyond the parking lot, and I lost sight of Ben.
We crunched through dry grass and weaved around scrub brush, but the temperature was more manageable in the shade of the trees, and I slipped out from under Pollard’s arm. Off balance, he faltered in a nest of dry pine needles, but caught himself and then threw me an exasperated look.
“Anyway,” he said. “The trick, or what my dad taught me, is to set up the snare so it breaks the animal’s neck as it gets yanked into the air.” He hopped over a fallen tree and held out his hand to help me. Without thinking, I accepted it.
Holding hands. Skin to skin contact. My dad would’ve had a fit.
A narrow grassy clearing appeared between the pines.
“This is one of the places I set traps.” He knelt beside a scraggly tree.
Only when I hunched down beside him did I see a noose attached to a stick in the ground, its tip tied to a branch above it with silver wire.
“It’s all about tension,” Pollard said, coming close to touching the trap, but not quite. “Have you ever killed an animal?”
I shook my head. I’d never killed anything. All my life my food had come from the grocery store or a restaurant. For the past two weeks I’d been living off canned and bagged food. My outdoor survival knowledge was nil.
“We don’t have much time before it gets dark.” Pollard unpacked his little bag and lined up a rubber mallet, a knife, a handheld saw, and a coil of what looked like piano wire.
I picked up the line and tested its weight. Very light, but strong. “Where did you get all this?”
“It took a while.” He broke a branch off a nearby tree. “But I knew I’d eat if I set snares. Here.” He handed me the gnarled branch. “You have to saw it in half.”
I pressed hard, and the saw chewed into the fresh wood. It didn’t match his at all.
“Make the notches like this.” He guided my strokes with his long, rough fingers, demonstrating how to dig the saw’s teeth into the hard wood and create linking indentations on each half of the branch. When he released me I nervously wiped both palms down my thighs.
My first attempt at an animal trap was way amateur, but he didn’t laugh. Instead, he fixed the notches with a couple slashes of his pocketknife so they interlocked. Then he tied the wire, buried one end of the stick, and planted the snare in the dark, sandy soil a few feet from his.
It wouldn’t be pretty, but I’d be able to set one by myself if I had to.
“We’ll check for animals in the morning. I usually have something for dinner every day.”
“Your dad taught you how to hunt?” It astounded me that people still knew how to do things like that. My family—for generations—and I had been thoroughly citified. Before tonight, I couldn’t have trapped an animal if I had a month and an arsenal.
“He was real outdoorsy,” Pollard said. He shouldered his bag and then slipped an arm around my waist to help ease the pain in my right leg. “Your dad wasn’t?”
I couldn’t control a snort of laughter. He talked for hours about Tolkien’s style and themes and sources, but he didn’t know a snare from a jump rope. In fact, he was more likely to get caught in a snare than to build one.
“Not at all,” I assured. “He was a PhD. A nerd.”
“My
“Don’t worry,” he assured with a confident smile. “I’ll keep you safe.”
By the time we trudged past the gas pumps my clothes stuck to me with sweaty glue.
Movement near the abandoned semi-trucks caught my eye. Ben shuffled three steps in our direction. My free arm gripped Pollard’s waist tight to prevent him from doing anything stupid.
I shook my head at Ben, sending him a silent plea with my eyes to wait and not follow us.
Pollard had promised me on the truck stop roof to show restraint, despite carrying a gun on his hip, but I still didn’t trust him not to hurt Ben.
The Red paused beside a Mack truck and stayed there. Pollard guided me into the dense pines beyond the parking lot, and I lost sight of Ben.
We crunched through dry grass and weaved around scrub brush, but the temperature was more manageable in the shade of the trees, and I slipped out from under Pollard’s arm. Off balance, he faltered in a nest of dry pine needles, but caught himself and then threw me an exasperated look.
“Anyway,” he said. “The trick, or what my dad taught me, is to set up the snare so it breaks the animal’s neck as it gets yanked into the air.” He hopped over a fallen tree and held out his hand to help me. Without thinking, I accepted it.
Holding hands. Skin to skin contact. My dad would’ve had a fit.
A narrow grassy clearing appeared between the pines.
“This is one of the places I set traps.” He knelt beside a scraggly tree.
Only when I hunched down beside him did I see a noose attached to a stick in the ground, its tip tied to a branch above it with silver wire.
“It’s all about tension,” Pollard said, coming close to touching the trap, but not quite. “Have you ever killed an animal?”
I shook my head. I’d never killed anything. All my life my food had come from the grocery store or a restaurant. For the past two weeks I’d been living off canned and bagged food. My outdoor survival knowledge was nil.
“We don’t have much time before it gets dark.” Pollard unpacked his little bag and lined up a rubber mallet, a knife, a handheld saw, and a coil of what looked like piano wire.
I picked up the line and tested its weight. Very light, but strong. “Where did you get all this?”
“It took a while.” He broke a branch off a nearby tree. “But I knew I’d eat if I set snares. Here.” He handed me the gnarled branch. “You have to saw it in half.”
I pressed hard, and the saw chewed into the fresh wood. It didn’t match his at all.
“Make the notches like this.” He guided my strokes with his long, rough fingers, demonstrating how to dig the saw’s teeth into the hard wood and create linking indentations on each half of the branch. When he released me I nervously wiped both palms down my thighs.
My first attempt at an animal trap was way amateur, but he didn’t laugh. Instead, he fixed the notches with a couple slashes of his pocketknife so they interlocked. Then he tied the wire, buried one end of the stick, and planted the snare in the dark, sandy soil a few feet from his.
It wouldn’t be pretty, but I’d be able to set one by myself if I had to.
“We’ll check for animals in the morning. I usually have something for dinner every day.”
“Your dad taught you how to hunt?” It astounded me that people still knew how to do things like that. My family—for generations—and I had been thoroughly citified. Before tonight, I couldn’t have trapped an animal if I had a month and an arsenal.
“He was real outdoorsy,” Pollard said. He shouldered his bag and then slipped an arm around my waist to help ease the pain in my right leg. “Your dad wasn’t?”
I couldn’t control a snort of laughter. He talked for hours about Tolkien’s style and themes and sources, but he didn’t know a snare from a jump rope. In fact, he was more likely to get caught in a snare than to build one.
“Not at all,” I assured. “He was a PhD. A nerd.”
“My
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