Learning new skills.

The following days passed slowly. Dwindling hours of daylight meant that Todd had to set off with the dawn to conduct his hunting expeditions, leaving you on your own, with not much to accompany you but your nausea. Fortunately that began to improve slightly, becoming less acute and resulting in actual vomiting far less frequently, and as a week and more passed you began to feel a semblance of normality returning to your system. You still ached with tiredness though, a symptom you knew of the wicked hormonal changes going on inside. Being unable to leave the camp, you set your increasingly bored mind and gradually growing energy to improving your facilities, trying to figure out some means of preserving food so that you could - if lucky with a large kill - keep a surplus going across multiple days when the weather becomes more hostile. So far, you've resisted Todd's pleas to allow him to take a rifle and kill one of the small deer that seem so plentiful in the quiet forest, knowing that the quantity of meat won from such a prize would be far, far more than the two of you could eat before it would spoil.

You don't have the salts needed to cure meat, so you figure that smoking it is the way to go. The small purpose built smoker that sits next to the fire troughs by the pool shack hasn't got anywhere near the capacity to smoke the quantity you need, but you could use it as a burning chamber if you figure out some other larger container and can divert the chimney through. After wandering about the camp you identified a large metal locker in the garage that contains assorted junk, very little of which will be useful. It stands about four inches taller than you and contains a set of shelves mounted into brackets welded to the sides and rear. You pondered it for a while, thinking that this might do the job... cut a hole in the bottom and a vent in the top, use some bits of junk metal that is piled up in the corner to fashion a connecting tube, and then replace the shelves with rods from which the meat can be hung. It'll be rough and ready, but should be reasonably effective and most importantly reasonably secure from other wildlife trying to get in and steal the food. The locker's keys are long gone, but you can take a length of chain and one of the now mostly redundant padlocks from elsewhere about the camp and secure the doors that way.

It's going to be difficult to keep the temperature regulated inside, which alarmed your scientist's brain, but you reason that as long as you maintain a healthy burn in the chamber and keep it above a minimum temperature for long enough, it has to do. After all, people smoked meat for millennia before the invention of electrode thermometers and understanding of germ theory, right?

You outlined the plan to Todd when he returned, explaining that it could significantly protect against food scarcity in the depths of winter, and he was exceedingly keen to give it a try. With his help you moved the now empty locker out to the cooking area, positioning it near to the smoker, and set to work making the required modifications. You also used a rusty old hand drill to bore some holes in the back that would allow you to bolt it to the outside wall of the pool shack and make it harder for an enterprising bear to knock it over, enticed by the smells within. You found a few lengths of tubing in the scrap that can be fashioned fairly well to fit between the locker and the smoker's chimney, as well as taking a piece of thin but sturdy copper pipe that can be used to make one of the hanging struts inside.

It's enough to do a trial run, but you're going to need some meat to smoke. Todd managed to bring a couple of smaller birds with him that day, each of which looked like a meal for one, so you agreed that the next day he would take a rifle and try to bring back a deer for the first time. He was excited and nervous at the prospect, having seen the remarkably placid deer all over the place while hunting for birds, so expecting it not to be too difficult to find one, but also feeling keenly that while he'd developed some confidence with the shotgun, a rifle's a very different kind of weapon with a whole range of pitfalls to avoid.

He set off this morning as early as usual, face trying to show more confidence than he felt. You busy yourself once he's gone trying to prepare for the task that's hopefully ahead. You approximate the tools of a butcher, taking the hatchet that you've hardly had to use as well as one of the sturdiest knives from the kitchen and a rough saw that has seen better days. You spend some time sharpening and cleaning them outside, and place them on the small table near the cooking area.

Table, you think. You're going to need something to work on. The only thing that comes to mind is a wide table inside the pool shack, a classic A frame camp design. The gaps between the slats will probably be useful as you spill the animal's viscera, even if the height isn't going to be ideal and the benches to the side will get in the way. You open the door to the pool shack for the first time in a while and inspect the table. It's not very heavy, you should be able to move it on your own, but it requires tipping on its side to fit through the door. With a few bumps on your shins and a couple of grazed palms, you manage to get it out and tipped back down onto a pretty flat space around fifteen yards from the cooking space. You need it to have plenty of clearance so that the mess doesn't get too widespread, and in fact you'd prefer to have it even further away but there's a slight incline up to the next suitable location and you're too weakened to do it by yourself.

After gathering a few more bits - two pails of water, a tarp to catch as much of the spillage as possible, you finally look over your preparations and consider yourself done. It's not yet been an hour since Todd left so you expect he won't be returning for some time. You settle in to the comfy chair in the cabin with one of the handful of books from the lodge's tiny library, sipping some chilled water, and trying to cover yourself in the blankets.

You're surprised shortly after by a loud gunshot, sounding remarkably close. You leap up and do the usual thing of grabbing your carbine and skulking near a window, and hear another shot - sounding like the same weapon- within a few minutes. It was definitely close, and sounded unfamiliar. You haven't yet heard the rifles fire, so hope fervently that it was Todd, but without any certainty you aren't going to take any chances. You strain your senses and keep the weapon at the ready, unmoving for god knows how long, until movement in the tree line catches your eye. You can see that it's Todd, and he's carrying something pretty heavy. Finally allowing yourself to relax, although still not completely, you step out to meet him with your gun loosely held in both hands.

As you get closer to him, you see that he's a mess. Covered in blood and his face looks anguished. You can't see what he's carrying as it's hanging down behind him. He doesn't look injured, fortunately, just distressed. You sling your weapon and run out to open the gate for him.

He's got a young female deer over his shoulder, which is in a bad way. You can see in an instant what happened. There's a gaping exit wound in its flank near the hips, probably severed the spine. The forelimbs are clearly broken, and she's covered in her own blood. There's a neat hole in the poor creature's skull. Todd's first shot must have gone wide, or perhaps hit the deer as it startled, and crippled her immediately. She will have panicked, thrashing around, and probably fractured her slender legs as she kicked. Todd will have taken a few minutes to find her and used the second shot to put her down. You know enough about anatomy and general hunting practice to know that the panic will have released floods of adrenalin and other hormones through the creature's system, likely making the meat pretty challenging to eat. But at least it's food, and for Todd to have managed a kill at all on his first deer stalking expedition is great progress.

You can see, however, that the experience was awful for Todd. He's clearly very upset at having caused the deer to suffer unnecessarily, and has no look of triumph on his face at having achieved any success. That tells you exactly what you need to do.

"Oh wow baby," you call. "You got one on your first trip!" He attempts to smile as he approaches, looking all the grimmer for the effort. And then, all business: "I've set up somewhere we can deal with it." You beckon him towards the pool shack.

Trying to keep the energy of the moment up, you help to get the carcass flopped down on the table and then briefly kiss Todd before telling him to go and clean up while you get to work.

Once he's gone, you take a moment to regard the sad scene before you. The beautiful creature is finally peaceful, despite the terror of its final moments. You resolve to make sure it does not go to waste. It's a slightly daunting task, but you've been present for human dissections, so it should be possible to keep your empathy and squeamishness under control.

Beginning with an incision across the deer's belly, you commence the butchery. It takes a long time, and a lot of effort, but you learn a lot, discovering mistakes that you'll avoid next time. You're filthy by the end of it, but you have a reasonably clean, skinned venison carcass with a few pieces of offal to one side, and most of the debris under the table on the tarp. You estimate there's sufficient meat on either half of the carcass for almost a week's eating, so after splitting it in two along the backbone, you elect to hang one side in the locked garage to age it, before returning to the half that lies on the table. You don't have a clue what the traditional cuts are going to be, but you can break it down into the obvious anatomical sections. Legs, shoulder, ribs... and then other bits. You reserve a couple of fleshy bits to eat tonight that look they'll be at their best cooked fresh, and then start thinking about how to smoke this stuff. You reason that smoking smaller pieces is likely to work better than large ones, so you attempt to trim flesh from bone and slice up the sections into strips. Eventually you have a load of roughly eight inch slabs that look like they will hang easily and should allow the smoke to penetrate.

The sun's low to the horizon. It will be safe to get the fires going soon. You're going to have to stay up through the night to keep the smoker going, so after securing all the meat in the locker and washing all the blood and viscera off, you decide to return to the cabin to get a couple of hours' sleep before embarking on the next step.