Rendezvous Read Online Free PDF Page A

Their spears and bows and quivers lay about. He ducked out of sight, wondering whether he had been discovered. He retreated to a swale and hiked up it until he was well off the river road, and there he waited. He could afford to wait. He was a lone man going nowhere, on no schedule at all. But that didn’t make it easier, and he knew he would need to learn patience if he hoped to survive.
    He waited for what seemed an hour and tried again. They had left. He had not seen them going downriver, so he knew they were ahead of him and would continue to pose a menace. Maybe they might be friendly, but he suspected that Hudson’s Bay would have a say in that. He scavenged their campsite, looking for anything useful, and found nothing except fishheads and tails. They tempted him. He had lost weight and his clothing bagged about his shrinking frame. He needed food and lots of it, much more than roots and bulbs and the occasional fish. He had exhausted the tea and hardtack and now had nothing at all to preserve him. He dreamed of bread and butter and beef and even burgoo, the oatmeal gruel that had been the jack-tar staple in the navy. His boots and clothing were showing signs of serious wear. Sooner or later he would have to stop dodging these people, walk into a village, and get help if he could.
    But he didn’t rue his escape. Indeed, with each passing day he rejoiced more. These days tested his mettle, tried his courage. He was a freeman, master of his destiny, even if his destiny was to starve to death. He wished he had counted the days since his escape, but he hadn’t, and his mind stumbled when he tried to think back on his flight. But he knew a fortnight had passed, and he had made good his escape from the navy. His impulse to run, run, run had ebbed these last days, and now he intended to learn how to wrest food and perhaps clothing from this silent wilderness.
    That warm spring day he set up his fishing rig and then whittled a thick sapling into a lance, pleased with its weight and heft. He sharpened its point, and practiced throwing it, not unhappy with the result, but aware of how much he had to learn about the weapon. He fire-hardened the wooden point and threw his lance at targets until his arms hurt. Then he checked his fishline and found nothing on it. He would go hungry again that evening, save for whatever roots he could choke down.
    He collected his gear and hiked a few miles more across dreary plains until he came to a slough with fat geese swimming on it. Without a bow and arrow, or sling, or firearm, he would not be able to kill one. But perhaps if he sat bankside as quietly as he could for an hour, one might drift close enough to club. He settled on moist earth, close to thick cattails, and waited. The distant geese eyed him but never approached, and after an hour or so he knew patience and quietness wouldn’t fill his belly. He was feeling miserable and at the end of his wits.
    But he calmed himself. He had won the gift of liberty; he would subdue his body. Dusk settled without visitations from unwary geese, and he gave up. He had gnawed on cattail roots before, and would again. This time, though, he would do more. He pulled up quantities of the plant, cut off the gnarly roots, scoured the slimy surfaces, cut the roots into small pieces, and then patiently ground them into a fibrous pulp. He acquired two or three pounds of roots this time: real food if he could stomach it. He built a fire, boiled a few pulped roots in his large tin mess cup, and then set aside the mushy material to cool while he boiled more. He made a satisfying meal of the mash, and learned that patient preparation could yield edible food. This wasn’t Eden, and nature’s bounty could not be plucked off trees—but he had filled his stomach.
    That evening he pulverized and cooked more of the starchy root, making enough mush of it to last a day or two if he should need it. A small reserve in his kit would lift his