Winter Story
After a small meal of left over jerky my dad made a startiling anoncment. “I am going hunting tonight” I was worried about him immediately because the sky promissed a storm that night. I begged for him to stay home even if it meant stavation for all of us, but he had made up his mind and me and my mom both knew he was as stubborn as a mule. I watched silently as he gathered his hunting gear from the shed with the last of our small supplie of food. My stomach aced at the sight of more food and it was temping to just run over and eat it all up, sooth my malnorish body. I watched as my dad left and silently wiped away a tear as I held back the urge to run after him and force him to stop going into the threatening woods.
The feral wind whipped at the window as I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. All I could do was worry about my dad who had gone out hunting, because of our low stock of food. Was he back yet? I rolled over and looked across the petite wooden room and saw my parents’ bed. The only person in the bed was my small, frail mother who hadn’t eaten in days; the same was true for my dad, which is why I was worried about him going hunting alone. I shivered as a gust of wind blew through the little flimsy windows.
Suddenly, I heard a gun shot. BANG! It shook the cozy cabins walls and made me tremble. I held my breath and knew what had happened. I slowly and heavily made my way to the door, my naked feet stung with the cold as they padded across the splintery wood floor. I breathed heavily as I pulled open the great big wooden door. I stepped out into the white, unforgiving world. My gown billowed out behind me and my feet began to numb as I hurriedly crept closer to the forest’s edge. I stumbled into the snow; it was wet and freezing cold. I trudged through the foot high embankment to my tree house, because my father stored his game newly shot game there.
Unexpectedly, I stepped on something warm to the touch. I looked down at the ground and with the moonlight I saw my dad: blood gushing from his shoulder. I tremored and fell to my knees. There he was, shot down. Had it been by accident or on purpose? I would never know. Blood swept over my gown and the surrounding snow as I lay over him to cry icy tears. I thought he was dead, when all of a sudden I felt Thump… Thump… Thump… against my chest; he was alive! I knew what to do; I jumped up and pulled him to the forest’s edge with a great deal of effort. I was afraid to go tell mother for fear he would freeze in that small amount of time. After I got to the edge of the forest I ripped a small, clean piece of cloth from the bottom of my gown and tied it to his shoulder as best I could. I looked up and my fear evaporated as I saw my house in the distance. My mother burst through the door to search for us. I waved her over to me and dad and she helped me half carry, half drag my father home. When we got inside, my mom, who used to be a nurse, bandaged dad’s shoulder and lit the fire. She set up a hot tub of water for my feet and I gladly wiggled my toes in the warmth. Then she hurried to the kitchen to make us both something warm to eat, using the snow shoe hare that dad had had attached to his belt.
As the days past we slowly grew thiner and thiner with only one small rabbit to tide us off. We had learned to eat vary little and even though we had barely a few bites a day the hare was slowly getting smaller and smaller as we nibled ever so lightly at it. I was growing weaker and weaker and prety soon my mom would give her daily meal to me so I wouldn’t starve. My dad also got some of my moms meal and soon my mom was the one who was in the sick bed. We had no food at all after about a week and my mom desperatly need norishment. As weak and tierd as I was decided to visit my tree house for what I reasoned was problemy going to be the last time. I inched up the tree and by the time I reached the top I was tierd out and could not move at all. I feared I would die right then and there without my parents for company, but as I looked up to see the trees for the final time I saw something that made a streak of adrenilin rush through me. It was the biggest deer I had seen in my life and I had been around hunting sence I was a baby. I pulled myself closer to the deer and called my dad with all my might. “DAD” he came rushing out of the house and stormed into the woods in a worried march, he climbed the ladder in a flash and when he saw me next to the buck he smiled with delight. I marveled at the wonderful smile on his face. As we pulled the deer from the tree and back to the house my dad immediately started to skin and cook the deer meat. I ran up to my mom and told her of our found and she just smiled in her sleep as if she though it a dream. I decided not to wake her and hurried to help my dad with his catch. When I had my first bite of deer the taste exploded in my mouth, it tasted delightful and I knew we had been saved.
