Berry and Bob Pitch In

 

The Nooksack River

         Ramona had been doing a lot of baking lately. How could she you ask? She had been using her big pot over her fire, with the lid on. In that case, a Dutch oven as it were.

            It just seemed easier sometimes than gutting, cleaning and roasting another bird, fish, or mammal.                    There had been a lot of oatmeal at breakfast, or biscuits, or rice or potatoes or whatever Thaga had to trade for mushrooms and nuts and wild herbs.
            One early morning when Ramona first opened her eyes and started thinking about “things”, she just felt pudgy. Now, Ramona was a big girl, as you know.  6’ 2” at least.  But she had never felt pudgy before. She had always been large and muscular, and streamlined!
            She began wracking her mind, just trying to understand what had changed and she lighted on all that human style food she had been cooking and eating herself. That had to be it. Nothing else had changed. To further cement the question, she realized that a great number of Hairless are very fat indeed! And what do they eat?  Yes, that stuff.
            She sat right up in bed, wide awake, and said, “Ralph!  I’m fat!”
            “Zzzzzzzz!” said Ralph, blamelessly sleeping.
            She decided to go examine her supplies by herself to see if she  had anything reasonable for a Forest Breakfast. She had eggs, also from Thaga, who had a dozen hens. So she boiled a dozen and a half of eggs. That would have to do.  Even the cats could eat eggs.
            Eventually, Ralph wandered out of the cave, just waking up. He took a seat by the fire.
            “What’s up, Mona,” Ralph asked innocently.
            “I’m fat!” replied Ramona, firmly.    
            “So what?” said Ralph, trying on a winning morning grin and a wink. But it didn’t work as well as it usually did.
            “We have to stop eating all this Hairless food Ralph!  Or we will end up looking like them!  Maybe our hair will fall off too! I made boiled eggs,” said Ramona. “I want you to do more hunting.
            “It’s my own fault I’m fat!  I got lazy,” she added. Then she sat down, peeled an egg, and cried a little, throwing her eggshells neatly into the fire.
            “You don’t look fat to me, baby. Where did you even get that idea? That sounds like something they talk about on TV shows, Mona. To me, you are perfect as you are, there is no reason to compare you to anything or anyone else. You are the queen of all you survey, baby!
            “But if you want to eat like we did before you learned to cook so many things, that’s fine with me! Don’t cry. It’s time for those two big pumas to learn to hunt anyhow. Between them and me we should be able to get moose and elk and maybe some of those rotten pigs, not just birds and fish!”
            Ralph was utterly charmed at the thought of hunting with the pumas. He was still smiling thoughtfully when Twigg and Cherry woke and came out into the open accompanied by Berry and Bob, looking for their breakfast too. They took their seats by the fire with Ralph and Ramona.
            “I have decided,” said Ralph, “that it’s time, you two big cats!”
            “Time? Time for what?” said Bob, with Berry looking on, eating boiled egg.
            “The time has come for us to hunt big game together!” chortled Ralph. “It’ll be great! We’ll have roasted meat again, as is the proper food of Forest Keepers and big pumas!”
            The puma bros looked at each other and almost shrugged. “Sure,” said Bob. “We wondered when you would think of it! You must know we catch mountain beavers and pheasants and stuff all the time? Why not elk?” Their tails waved together in time with each other. They smiled cat smiles.
            “Can I come too,” yelled Twigg. “I want to hunt!”
            “Of course you can Twigg!” said Ralph. “How could we have a hunt without you!”
            It was a beautiful cool day for a hunt. The wind was nosing around gently. Some clouds sailed calmly across the blue expanse of the sky. There was a light scent of woodsmoke in the air from some distant campfire or maybe someone’s cabin.
            Some crows were commenting in the tree tops, though you couldn’t see them up there, as is their habit.
            Just a bit down the trail the river was adding its sums over and over again, timelessly.
            Ramona smiled as she watched them leave together. She held Cherry, who had been floating less since beginning to walk. It was all so perfect. Even if the hunters caught nothing at all, it would be okay, and she entirely forgot what had been troubling her mind that morning.

🍁🤍🍁