Alone on the Oregon Trail by Vanessa Carvo Read Free Book Online

fact that I would be taking the lives of small living things and it took me a few days to accept that.
    Then, I had to gather myself up to go into the woods to get the critters, and when I found them I would find myself sitting there and not being able to pull the trigger. This went on for a couple of weeks. I could not bring myself to shoot anything, and it looked like I would be left to use up the rest of my food and then starve to death.
    One afternoon as I sat under an old Maple tree, a larger animal came into my view. I believe the Lord sent me a larger one for starters thinking it would not bother me as much to take the life of a larger animal, rather than some tiny one.
    This animal looked to be a buck deer, with antlers and all. If I was ever to try a shot, it had to be now while it was a larger animal. As the deer weaved its way around a line of trees, I sat as quiet and still as I could.
    I was not sure if I was even breathing. I brought the shotgun up to my face and I sat very still watching the deer to see what his movements were. He had a pattern of walking a pace and then pausing for a few seconds and I realized this would give me the time in which to shoot. I tried to tell myself to aim for the head so he would not suffer, but I quickly was content with hitting him anywhere and then I would handle the next step of putting him completely down with another shot to the head when the time came.
    As I sat there, the opportunity came to me when he had walked to the right for a time and then he took a good long pause, only lifting his head a few times as he settled in eating something from the ground.
    I slowly and gently allowed myself to squeeze the trigger and the shot rang out through the air leaving me with a stinging in my ear and an arm that felt it was hit by a train. The job was done and I managed to put him down with a single bullet.
    He hit the ground and hadn’t moved within a few minutes, so I began walking towards him, praying that he was already dead so I would not have to finish him off. The closer I got, the harder I prayed and by the time I reached where he lay, I soon realized that he was already dead and I found myself praising God.
    I whistled for my horse and he came running as he always did for Nathaniel. I had loaded him down with my saddle bag and in it I had put knives, rags and a rope as well. Tying the deer to the saddle, I was able to pull the deer back to the front of the woods, but I remembered what Nathaniel had told me about never bringing fresh meat into the camp because of the bears and wild animals that it would draw in.
    So I left the deer in the woods and went to my camp to get all I needed and returned. I took with me as much water as I could carry, a gunny sack, knives and some salt. I did not know what else to use but I figured this would work fine. Then I sat down to clean and cut up the deer. This was a horrible first time experience as I cut away at the deer and my thoughts kept running back to the horror of having to remove Nathaniel’s leg.
    I honestly got up several times walking away from the deer, not thinking I could go through with it. I was very low on food and I knew that I would need the meat and I would sit back down and make myself begin again at slicing away. I was literally sick to my stomach and several times removed myself to running behind a tree and getting sick.
    I also cried the rest of the way through the task, pleading with God to give me the strength I needed to be finished with it. When I was finally done, I got up and began to pile the meat, after salting it, into a gunny sack that I had brought to the woods so I could carry it back to the camp.
    There I was able to empty the meat into a barrel for its storage. By the time I was finished, night time was beginning to roll in and I then prepared to retire to the wagon. I did not get much sleep at night when I would try to sleep.
    I usually would get only a few hours that would come by complete