Run (Part 3)
David’s eyes opened. The first thing he noticed was his shoulder, screaming like a dying rabbit. He turned his head from its resting place and groaned in horror. His left shoulder was a decimation of flesh and bone. His plaid shirt and orange vest were soaked with brown and red. It was sticky, but dry. The sun was going down.
As he pulled himself up, his teeth ground together, and a sharp exhalation of breath left his nose. The taste of vomit cloyed his mouth. He reached for his canteen—gone. So were his bow and his arrows.
As if from somewhere far away, alarm bells started ringing in his ears. He remembered his emergency training from his days in Iraq, and he transformed from flabbergasted hunter to battle-tried soldier.
This wasn’t an accident. Hunting accidents happen, of course—but they don’t usually end in a body abandoned with its weapon removed. This dread realization helped him to momentarily forget how much everything hurt.
He rolled into a deeper patch of weeds, and from his new vantage point, scanned the area. All was quiet, the only sounds being the cheerful gurgle of a nearby stream and the crackling of bare branches blowing in the breeze.
Without looking, he reached for the serrated hunting knife tucked into his belt. He wasn’t surprised at this point to find that it, too, was gone—but he was pleased to discover that the smaller knife, his grandfather’s knife, was still there, tucked into his jacket pocket. Thank Christ. He muttered a quick prayer and steeled himself. It was time to move.