The Hunting

Chapter 44

Calum and I searched all day for food, we were about to start looking for the rest of the group before it got too dark. All of a sudden, Calum grabbed my shoulder and dragged me to my knees. My head whipped to ask him what he was doing, but then I saw what was in front of us. What laid before us was something I have never seen before. The land was flat, and there were dirt mounds spread out across the land. I watched curiously as I examined the animals. Their fur was tan with dark eyes. Most stood on their hind legs using their front paws to shove food into their mouths. I would say that they were squirrels if it wasn't for their straight, not fluffy tails. Oh, they must be prairie dogs! So this is what they look like. Some stood at attention while others looked like they were eating.

I looked back to Calum to see him motioning to shoot them. I quietly grabbed an arrow out of my quiver. Calum was already ready by the time I pulled my arrow back. I looked at him and waited for his cue. I watched him as he mouthed a count down. As he hit one, both him and I shot our arrows. I watched them fly into two prairie dogs. As the two hit the ground, the rest of the prairie dogs ran and hid into the tunnels. He helped me stand up, "Nice shot Arden!"

I nodded, "Same with you. Are we going to hang around to see if they come out?"

We walked over to grab the now dead prairie dogs. "Yeah, we'll wait a little bit to see if they come out, but we want to try and find our group before dark." Calum responded.

We hunted and picked off a couple more praire dogs before leaving to find our group. Both Calum and I agreed that six prairie dogs in total would be enough for a couple of days. Although we wanted to get more, we were racing against the setting sun. We found large stick from a dead tree and we used some string we had to tie all of our kills onto it. Calum carried it as we walked, looking for any sign of our group. Finally, after searching well into the night, we finally found our group sitting around a fire. When we walked into the light of the fire, Don and Nate started cheering at the sight of food. This woke everyone else up, who were sleeping. It didn't take us long to skin and butcher the prairie dogs. We decided to eat two and turn the others into jerky.

Another couple of days went by before we were able to find food again. Jaiver and Calum were able to get us four prairie dogs. We were lucky to come across a couple of tiny streams to store up on water. Tonight, we were on the outskirts of the forest. When the trees first came into view, a wave of relief washed over me. I am almost home! Nothing much has happened besides that, which was agonizing for me because there was nothing to distract me from my thoughts.

I am still avoiding Jaiver like a plague and I was giving Nate the cold shoulder until he cornered me. That's how I am in my current situation. Everyone else is asleep as Nate and I are on watch. We were silent for awhile, but I could feel his gaze on me. I tried to busy myself by go and getting more firewood, digging dirt out of my nails. I was doing literally anything. But he finally asked, "Why have you been ignorning me?"

Still not looking at him I responded, " I haven't been ignoring you Nate."

I heard him sigh in frustration, "Then look at me!"

I snapped my head up at him and looked him in the eyes. He looked very hurt.

"Tell me what's going on!" He demanded.

"Nothing is wrong." I said flatly.

That drew another sigh out of him, "Please Arden. If I did something wrong just tell me. I don't want you angry at me."

Looking away from him, I started fiddling with my necklace, "You didn't do anything Nate. I have just had something on my mind recently. Sorry if it seemed like I was ignoring you."

Nate moved from his original position across the fire so that he could sit closer to me. He put a hand on my shoulder, "What's bugging you?"

I winced at his sincere voice. I can tell that he is concerned about whatever is on my mind. It's not like I can tell him what the issue is. What am I supposed to say? "Hey Nate, both you and Jaiver admitted feelings for me. I've never had this happen to me before so I don't know what to do and to top it all off, I like both of you." I am not going to say that! I groaned, putting my head in my hands. Why do feelings have to be so frustrating? I shook my head as I realized that Nate was still sitting next to me and touching me.

I brushed off of his hand, "Nate, you know that I appreciate you. Just what's on my mind right now is something that I have to work through myself."

"Is it because Jaiver admitted his feelings for you?" Nate said.

My eyes flew to his in shock. He frowned, "So my guess was right."

I tried to speak, "How – How did you –"

Nate interrupted me, "I overheard Jaiver and Calum talking about it when they were on watch last night. I woke up because I got chilly and heard them. It took everything I had not to get up and start something. Now I know that this is the reason why you have been so quite recently. I don't like the guy, but the only thing that him and I have in common is that we both like an amazing women."

I was speechless. I looked at Nate dumbfoundedly. He must've thought my face was pretty funny. He laughed quietly, "Arden, I'm not going to tell you to choose me and forget the other guy. Even though I want to, I know that it's not my choice. It's yours. However, I am not going to let him take you away easily." He paused for a second as I thought about what he said. He continued, "If you've been worrying about this for days now, you've been taking both of our feelings into consideration. All I ask, is you go with your heart. Also, if you don't choose me, don't abandon me. I love you too much to let awkwardness get in the way of our friendship. Promise me that. Please."

In his eyes, I saw worry. I smiled nervously, "I promise."