Village E3: Survival of the Human Spirit Read Online Free PDF

its
front legs, the deer let out a sound that
sounded almost like a scream. It reminded John of the time he was hunting
rabbits with his father, and he shot a rabbit in the back. He never thought he
would hear anything like that again. Just seconds ago, he was trying to kill
the deer, but at this moment he was sorry he even hurt it. He found himself
wanting to help the same animal that he had just tried to kill.
    Quickly sizing up the situation, he
knew that there was nothing he could do and it was no use in letting the deer
suffer any longer than necessary, so he took out his knife. Kneeling next to
the tiny animal, John placed the sharp blade on its neck. He could see the fear
in the deer's eyes. Placing his knee on the shoulder area, to steady the frightened
animal, he pressed downward and pulled outward. Again, it made that dreadful
sound, as the artery in its neck was severed. Then the noise stopped, and in a
few seconds, it stopped moving. The blood from its neck slowed to a trickle,
instead of squirting.
    John stood there for a few moments.
He had hunted animals before, but right now, he didn't feel like a hunter, he
felt like a killer. He couldn't allow the creature to die for no reason. He
knelt next to it, and set about gutting it. He opened up the underside of the
deer, and noticed that its bladder was full. He wanted to be careful not to
spoil the meat by accidently cutting it.
    Slowly he cut the necessary places to
allow him to pull out the bladder in one piece. In one move, most of the
intestines came out along with the bulging bladder. Then moving up to the chest
area, he removed the heart, lungs, liver, and the rest of the organs.
    He pulled the now lifeless body of
the deer away from the pile of guts, disturbing several flies that were already
enjoying the unexpected feast. John held up his bloody hands; the dirty work
was done. The sight of them didn't make him feel any better about how this
turned out.
    John rose to his feet, then bent over
and grabbed the dead deer by the hind legs. He picked up his spear and his
knife with his other hand, and began to walk toward home. Every couple of
hundred feet, his hand would tire from the weight of the deer, forcing him to
stop and switch hands. He was starting to wonder if it was worth all the
effort, when he finally arrived back at his hut.
    Before doing anything else, he
checked the fire, which was something that had become habit. He stirred the hot
coals, and placed some small sticks in the middle to get a flame going. In
seconds it was going again. He carefully placed three
larger chunks of wood on the fire. He needed to rest a while before tackling
the task of skinning his next meal.
    John sat next to a tree, leaning on
it. The longer he sat, the more he felt like going to sleep. I better get
up, he thought. Rising more like a man twice his age, he picked up his
knife and went to work skinning his dinner. Thinking he might find a use for
the skin, he took extra care to keep it in one piece.
    Finally separating the carcass from
the skin, he examined it, then laid it on a rock and turned his attention to
the meat that would be his dinner that evening. With the skill of a butcher, he
separated the hind legs from the rest of the animal. He couldn't eat the whole
animal, and didn't have any way to preserve it, so the rest of his kill would
be waste. Not wanting to have a stinking, decaying animal close to his hut, he
picked up the rest of the carcass and started walking away from his home.
    On the return trip home, John was
thinking about the task of cooking. It had been so long since he had red meat.
He wondered if he would be able to eat both legs. The first thing John did as
he arrived back, was grab his knife. He cut two sturdy straight limbs about
four feet long. He sharpened one end of each, taking extra care to get a good
point. He then threw about a half dozen pieces of wood on the fire. Looking to
where he'd placed the legs of the deer, he was confused at