Witness Protection Program (Tom Hiddleston)

Chapter 3: Rita's Confession

As Tom soon found out, shooting a bow wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. It was a recurve bow, a Matthews to be exact. It wasn’t near like what he had been expecting. To pull the bow back, a trigger clip had to be attached to the string. It wasn’t pulled back with the hands like he thought. Even worse was the string burn. There was a huge bruise the size of an egg on the inside of his left forearm where the string had caught him as he fired. It was slightly swollen and painful whenever he touched it.

Next, there was the fact that it made his arms hurt. Now, Tom had always considered himself to be a fit individual. He lifted weights and did all kinds of fitness training, but after thirty minutes of pulling back on a bowstring, his arm was incredibly sore. “Had enough?” Mat asked. “It’s okay if you don’t want to keep going. I’m astounded that you lasted even this long. Most of the softie writers I know wouldn’t last five minutes with a bow that requires that much strength to pull.”

Tom smiled. “Well, I like to think that I keep myself in good condition. I’ve spent some time in America before this and I was simply astounded at the size of some of the members of your population. And the things you eat.”

Mat laughed. “I can see what you mean. Now, I’ve been known to enjoy fried ice cream from time to time, but I don’t like most store-bought food. If you go look in that big freezer in the garage, you’ll find an assortment of things you can’t buy in stores. I haven’t bought meat in close to six months.” The cowboy took the bow from Tom and bent down, setting it gently in its case.

“What kinds of things?” Tom was intrigued now.

As Mat picked up the case, he grinned and clapped the Brit on the back. “Let me show you.” After a brief stop in the hand house (Chad was passed out drunk and Mike was watching another football game), Mat took Tom out to the small garage beside house. Inside was an absolutely huge freezer. It was taller than Tom and about as wide as he could stretch out his arms. “You said it was full?”

Mat grinned and opened the door. Inside were shelves upon shelves upon shelves. Five in all, and four of them were packed full to the bursting with meat. He squinted. “You’re right. That doesn’t look like something you can buy in a store. What is it?”

“The first shelf on the bottom has four deer backstraps and five tenderloins. It also holds all my ground meat. Some of it’s venison and some of it’s wild turkey. The second shelf is deer sausage. And in all honesty, that’s only half of the sausage we usually make. The other half is in Mrs. Vanderbilt’s freezer up at the main house. The third shelf is where I keep the birds. I got some duck breast, wild turkey breast, and dove.”

“Dove? What on Earth do you need dove breast for?” Tom couldn’t imagine eating a dove. They were so soft and white and pure… How could one kill something so peaceful?

“To eat,” Mat chuckled. “We filet it off the breast bone and wrap it in bacon with a jalapeño. Then we throw it on the grill. You gotta try it, Tom. It don’t get much better than barbecued dove breast. But you can also roll it in bread crumbs and deep fry it like chicken. We do that to the duck sometimes too.”

“If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll pass on the dove,” the actor grinned. “I’m not saying that I think it wouldn’t taste good, but I was always told to be gentle with doves. I couldn’t imagine shooting one out of the sky, much less eating one because they’re so pure.”

“It’ll come in time,” Mat said. “I was that way too. You get used to it.”

Tom nodded and peered back into the freezer. “What’s that? More backstrap?” He was referring to the fouth shelf, which contained seven more long  pieces of meat that looked like the ones on the bottom shelf.