American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 203 The Treasure Trove in the Tree (Multiple Images, Prize Draw in Six Days)
Yesterday, on another gloomy morning, the fire in the shelter had gone out, leaving only a faint warmth. Vonia was also awakened by a severe stomach spasm.

That's not just a simple feeling of hunger, but a real protest from the body's internal organs due to a lack of energy.

While Kelly gambles with fate on the distant ice, Vonnia, enduring stomach cramps, decides to venture into the vast coniferous forest east of the sanctuary for a desperate attempt.

“Alright, guys. It’s the twenty-eighth day, and this…” She stirred the contents of the pot with a wooden spoon, making a sticky sound.

"This is my breakfast. Let me show you what's in today's special menu: some plant roots I dug up yesterday, and a bit of tree bark that tastes exactly like cardboard."

"And, to add just a few pitifully small mussels, wish me a good appetite." She rolled her eyes at the camera, her face full of undisguised disgust.

Vonia prepared a breakfast that could be considered breakfast, forcibly gulping down a bowl of "life-saving soup" made from a stew of small mussels.

The warm liquid could only temporarily soothe the burning sensation in her stomach, but it couldn't provide any real energy. She could clearly feel her muscle strength waning.

"Okay, I can't eat this junk anymore." Her voice was hoarse from weakness.

“Sitting here complaining to God won’t fill your stomach; it’s time to get to work.”

The frozen canteen on the coastline, which she considered a "gold mine," had gone completely bankrupt. She knew that sitting idly by would only lead to death! She had to return to a primitive way of survival—hunting.

“Alright, Becky.” She patted the bow gently, as if greeting an old friend.

"Today it all depends on the two of us. Eight arrows, eight chances to survive. No pressure, right?" She forced a smile at the camera, full of optimism and self-deprecation.

Vonya moved like a ghost through the forest covered in thick snow. Perhaps she had eaten something wrong, for Vonya was unusually energetic and talked much more than usual.

Her movements were intelligent and efficient, far from aimless trekking. She would subconsciously choose routes where the snow was shallower or more solidified by the wind, such as the leeward side of boulders or under fallen logs.

Each step involves first testing the ground with the toes before slowly shifting the weight. This stealthy walking technique, known as the "fox trot," minimizes the chance of breaking branches or making other unnecessary noises while also conserving energy.

She lowered her voice and said to the action camera, "When my dad taught me this 'fox trot,' he said, 'Wonya, you learn very quickly, but you walk like an African elephant.'"

"So, for several years, I practiced this every day. Looking back now, I'm actually grateful that he was such an annoying taunt back then."

Vonia's eyes didn't scan around as sharply as a falcon's, as that would quickly drain her mental energy.

Instead, one should allow their gaze to be in a relaxed, unfocused state, using peripheral vision and intuition to perceive any "disharmony" in the surrounding environment.

It could be a broken branch that shouldn't be there, a small patch of snow of an unusual color, or a faint sound that doesn't belong to the wind.

She transformed herself into a sophisticated detector, meticulously examining every suspicious trace on the snow.

However, the forest seemed to be playing a cruel joke on her; it was utterly silent and stingily concealed all signs of life.

An hour passed, and she saw several old rabbit footprints, almost completely covered by fresh snow. The edges of the footprints had become blurred due to sublimation, clearly indicating they were left several days ago.

But she didn't give up. She continued to search for a long time, following the trail. She lay on the snow, sniffing the air like a police dog, and feeling the changes in the hardness of the snow with her fingers.

"Okay, now we have a ghost rabbit."

She stood up, brushed the snow off herself, and quipped to the camera, "Footprints left three days ago, now they're probably in another state. Great, what a fantastic start."

Ultimately, the trail disappeared into a barren, rocky area, and the clues were completely lost.

Two hours passed. Under a spruce tree, she discovered some bird feathers—the white winter plumage of a rock ptarmigan. Her heart skipped a beat! She immediately crouched down to examine them closely.

There was a trace of blood on the snow near the feathers, indicating that a hunt had recently taken place, most likely by a fox or an owl.

She looked up, but the dense canopy of the spruce trees was empty; not a single bird could be heard. She imitated the call of a thunderbird, making a few low "clucking" sounds, hoping to elicit a response.

But the only response she received was the unchanging whistling of the wind as it passed through the treetops.

"I'm late again, the party's over." She shrugged helplessly at the camera, the lens capturing the undisguised disappointment on her face.

"It feels like every hunter in this forest received a invitation to a get-together, except me. What, do you guys have a chat group I don't know about?"

Time ticked by in the tedious and desperate search. From dawn to noon, and then as the sun began to set, she had been wandering in this boundless forest and snowfield for more than six hours.

Her strength was waning, and her initial resolute courage was being gradually eroded by the cruel reality. Each time she approached a clump of bushes with hope, only to find, after pushing aside the snow, that it was nothing more than a strangely shaped burl.

Each time I held my breath and listened, all I heard was the increasingly loud rumbling of my own stomach due to hunger, and the buzzing of my blood in my ears.

A familiar feeling of futility began to grip her. She had to admit that today's hunt seemed destined to end in another fruitless failure.

She leaned dejectedly against a huge pine tree, laid her heavy recurve bow on the snow, and let her body weight go completely off. She prepared to rest for a while before heading back to the shelter.

I don't even dare to think about what will happen tomorrow after the last mussels are eaten. Should we really surrender in the worst year of the "white disaster"?

Despair, like a thick layer of snow, gradually buried her.

Just as she was about to be completely swallowed by this silent despair, a very faint but incredibly clear "click, click" sound came from above her head, like a bolt of lightning piercing the darkness, precisely drilling into her ears!

Vonnia froze instantly, as if someone had a gun pointed at her, and she dared not move. All her senses were heightened to their peak at that moment!

That wasn't the sound of a branch breaking in the wind, nor was it the sound of snow sliding down; it was a rhythmic, gnawing sound!
She didn't look up immediately, because any sudden movement might alert the source of the sound. She remained motionless, like an ice sculpture, only slowly turning her eyes to glance at the treetops above out of the corner of her eye.

About ten meters above her head, on a thick pine branch, a small, furry, gray figure was facing away from her, holding a pine cone larger than its head, and rapidly gnawing at it with its sharp incisors.

It's a squirrel! A red squirrel!

At this moment, this little animal, which usually seems insignificant and even a bit annoying, is like an angel descended from heaven in Wonia's eyes, radiating the light of life!
Her heart began to race uncontrollably, and the blood pounded against her eardrums. She immediately suppressed it with her strong willpower.

She knew this was her only chance today, and perhaps her last chance on this land. She couldn't afford to mess it up!

Vonia slowly, almost imperceptibly, reached out and took back her recurve bow from the snow.

The cold touch of the bow calmed her trembling body slightly.

It was nocked with a blunt-tipped arrow specifically designed for hunting small prey. This type of arrow does not penetrate the prey but instead stuns or kills it with its powerful impact, preserving the flesh and skin to the greatest extent possible.

She didn't stand up immediately; that would be too much of a movement. She remained leaning against the tree trunk, using the rough bark as natural cover and support.

Then, using his heels, he gently adjusted his posture in the snow to achieve the most stable state for his body.

She then slowly drew back the bowstring. The bow arm felt unusually heavy in her weakened state, and she could clearly hear the heavy breathing she was making as she exerted herself!
But she successfully pulled the bowstring to its limit until the tip of the feather gently touched the tip of her nose and the corner of her mouth. This was the most stable cheek contact point formed through thousands of practices, part of her muscle memory.

A distance of ten to fifteen meters, a nearly stationary target, should have been a sure thing for her in her prime.

But at this moment, her arms were trembling slightly, uncontrollably, due to the long trek and severe hunger. Her sights darted back and forth around that small, gray figure.

"Stay calm... Vonia... stay calm..." she roared to herself in her mind over and over again.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to recall all her experiences and skills. When hunting, she imagined herself as a rock, a tree, completely blending into the environment and forgetting her own existence.

When she opened her eyes again, at the very last moment of her exhalation, the fingers gripping the bowstring instantly released their hold!

"puff!"

A barely audible thud, almost drowned out by the wind, was heard as the blunt-tipped arrow silently sliced ​​through the air and struck the small figure with deadly precision!
Before the red squirrel could even utter a cry of pain, its entire body arched violently, as if struck by an invisible hammer, and it was shaken off the branch!

It weakly traced a small parabola in the air, and finally fell with a "plop" into the thick snow not far away, only stirring up a small handful of snowflakes.

"F*uck! It hit!"

Vonnia's tense nerves finally relaxed, and a loud curse escaped her lips amidst immense joy. She sat on the ground, panting heavily, then raised a victory fist towards the camera.

"Well done, Vonia! Let's teach this quiet, stingy forest a lesson!"

She strode forward, bent down, and picked up the still-warm prey from the snow.

It was tiny, barely enough to fill her teeth; after removing the fur and internal organs, the remaining meat was probably less than two ounces. But it represented hope, a turning point! It was a sliver of mercy that this cruel wilderness finally showed her just when she was about to give up.

Vonia held the squirrel's corpse tightly in her hand, feeling the hard-won warmth of life.

She then carefully hung this hard-won haul around her waist. The little squirrel was a heavy weight to her, giving her an unprecedented sense of security.

As Vonnia prepared to leave the place that had brought her good fortune, a crucial question suddenly popped into her mind.

"Squirrel...tree hole...food storage..."

"Wait a minute... before that squirrel was shot, from which direction did it climb up that branch?"

This thought made her stop in her tracks instantly. For an ordinary hunter, hitting the prey meant the mission was over.

But for Vonya, every hunt is an information-gathering process. The prey's behavioral patterns often conceal secrets of greater value than the prey itself.

She immediately returned to the position where she had just fired, leaned against the huge pine tree, closed her eyes, and forced her somewhat confused mind, which was confused by hunger and excitement, to calm down and try to recall the brief but crucial moment a few minutes earlier.

Soon, she vividly recalled the scene in her mind, like a movie replay—the squirrel hadn't climbed up the tree trunk from below.

It suddenly appeared from the other side of the tree trunk, in a blind spot in her view, and then nimbly jumped onto the horizontal branch before starting to gnaw on the pine cones.

"Its lair might be somewhere I can't see!"

Her gaze immediately locked onto the other side of the tree trunk, roughly where the squirrel had jumped. She quickly walked over, went around to the other side of the tree, looked up, and began to carefully observe upwards, inch by inch.

Sure enough! About three meters above the ground, an inconspicuous shadow caught her attention.

It wasn't a perfectly round opening, but rather an irregular depression naturally formed by a huge, broken tree knot. The edges of the opening, due to years of weathering, had become the same color as the surrounding dark brown old tree bark.

A few strands of dry pine needles and a small patch of grayish-green lichen hung just above the cave entrance, forming a natural "curtain".

If she hadn't analyzed the squirrel's behavior beforehand to pinpoint the general area, she would never have noticed this hidden entrance even if she passed under the tree a hundred times.

"No way?" She pulled her hand out of the tree hole, clutching a handful of nuts, and looked at the camera with an incredulous, ecstatic expression.

"This is a damn treasure trove! A treasure trove overflowing with gems! I've hit the jackpot!"

Found it! Vonya's heart pounded wildly at this tremendous discovery! This unassuming tree hollow might very well hold a huge treasure that could completely free her from her hunger.

After confirming her target, Vonnia wasn't blinded by excitement. She calmly assessed the height, then looked at the nearly vertical, massive tree trunk and immediately ruled out climbing it without equipment.

She began searching for suitable materials nearby, and finally her gaze settled on a few birch trees not far away, each about the thickness of an arm, which had long since died in the bitter cold.

He immediately went over and swiftly chopped down the two longest, straightest dead trees with a logging axe, then dragged them to the base of the large pine tree. Next came the most crucial step of the entire plan.

She walked up to the big pine tree and estimated the height she would need to stand on it. Then, she picked up her woodcutter's axe and began to forcefully chop a horizontal groove into the trunk, about 1.5 meters above the ground.

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

The hard pine wood splattered wood chips under the axe blade. It was an extremely physically demanding job, but Vonia gritted her teeth and swung her axe with precision and power every time.

Soon, she painstakingly carved out a groove about five centimeters deep.

Then, the two long birch branches that had been cut down were placed diagonally into the groove at one end.

And so, she created a simple, sloping staircase supported by a large pine tree and consisting of two long poles.

After doing all this, she took out the precious paracord from her backpack, tied one end to her waist with a sling knot, and threw the other end upwards, around a thick branch slightly higher than the tree hole, and then tied the end of the rope firmly to a post on the ladder.

In this way, if she loses her footing while climbing or retrieving something, the safety rope will become her last line of defense.

"Caution is always the first rule of survival." She explained her behavior to the camera, "Especially when you are about to reap huge rewards, you can't let a moment of carelessness ruin everything."

She took a deep breath, gripped the long poles on either side, placed her feet in the middle, and began to climb the sloping ladder step by step. Once she was firmly in place, the three-meter-high tree hole was now within her reach!
She couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in her intelligence and practical skills. She could now safely and without worry focus all her attention on the upcoming "treasure hunt."

She eagerly reached her hand inside. The cave was dark and damp, with a smell of earth and dried fruit mixed together.

Her fingertips touched a hard, full sensation that filled her with ecstasy!

It's pine nuts! Plump, oily red pine nuts! And some hazelnuts and acorns with hard shells that she didn't know the names of! The hole was full! This was the poor squirrel's winter food, painstakingly saved up all autumn!
A complex mix of elation and a touch of guilt toward the squirrel welled up inside her.

But the guilt lasted less than a second before being replaced by the cruel laws of survival.

“I’m sorry, little one. On this land, the wealth of one species is the life of another.”

Vonia began frantically scooping out these most generous gifts of nature. She didn't care about the mud, debris, and squirrel droppings mixed in.

She groped her way inside the hole, going as deep as possible, not missing a single nut.

In the end, she had practically emptied the entire tree hollow, her pockets bulging and heavy. She estimated there were at least two pounds of nuts inside!
Vonya carefully slid down her makeshift ladder. When her feet touched solid snow again, she didn't collapse from exhaustion as she had expected.

A surge of adrenaline and immense sense of accomplishment was coursing through her body.

She walked quickly back to where she had been resting and put the recurve bow that she had temporarily placed on the snow back on her back.

After doing all this, she slung her bow over her shoulder, tucked the heavy bag of nuts into her purse, and began her return journey towards the shelter as quickly as possible.

She didn't eat anything on the way. Now, time was her greatest enemy.

The sun was rapidly setting in the west, the shadows in the woods were growing longer and longer, and the temperature was dropping at a visible rate.

More importantly, the bloody scent emanating from the recently deceased squirrel at her waist was like a beacon in the darkness of this starving forest, potentially attracting all sorts of unwanted "visitors."

She had to get safely back to her warm shelter with her "trophies" before nightfall.

When she finally rushed back to the shelter, panting heavily, she put down the bow on her back and the "treasure" in her pocket, and completely relaxed.

"Alright, guys, let's see what we've got this time."

She spoke to the camera with barely suppressed excitement, her fingers moving rapidly through the pile of nuts.

“First, these.” She picked out a bunch of the largest pine nuts with dark reddish-brown shells.

"These are red pine nuts, the best of the best. They have an extremely high oil content, making them a pure energy source. You can eat them directly, or you can crush them and render oil from them."

Next, she sorted out a bunch of nuts that were rounder in shape and slightly lighter in color. "These are hazelnuts. They are also high in calories, but not as oily as pine nuts. They can be used as a daily energy supplement."

Finally, what remained were some smaller acorns and some variegated nuts she didn't recognize.

"This part is snacks. They may not taste very good, but they're still high in calories. In a pinch, these snacks are much tastier than tree bark."

After doing all this, she picked out a few of the plumpest-looking red pine nuts from the pile, placed them on a flat rock, and smashed them open with an axe, revealing the snow-white, plump kernels inside.

She popped the first nut into her mouth. The aroma, a blend of pine resin and rich oils, exploded on her taste buds.

She took the little squirrel off her waist and placed it next to the nuts.

"Meat, nuts, protein, and fat."

She concluded, "Looks like I can hold on for a few more days, guys. In the most desperate times, never give up thinking. You might just discover a different, brighter path."

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(The draw will be held in six days. If you don't like the prize, you can get cash instead.)
(All you guys with monthly passes, please vote more!)

(End of this chapter)