Justin felt Dev take a step back and smoothly took control of his body. He had been slowly getting used to Dev’s body in his past few days of occupancy and was now nearly as good with it as he had been with his old body. It helped that he and Dev were roughly the same proportions.

  ‘Hey, I know some stuff. I got us this far, didn’t I?’

  ‘Had you ever done primitive cooking before this expedition? Justin shot back, taking Dev’s silence as the answer he’d expected.

  “It can be so much worse,” the girl said. “At least it isn’t rotted.”

  ‘Her name is June, by the way,’ he heard Dev say from the back. ‘And yes, she is the person in charge of cooking at the camp.’

  “Has that been a concern?” Justin asked. “Haven’t you been cooking everything as you get it?”

  She grimaced. “Everything we can. But sometimes, things begin to rot before we bring them in.”

  “Have you been smoking things? Do you have enough wood to smoke things?”

  “We probably have enough wood, but we haven’t been, as that would require us to have food left over, and we just don’t catch that much.”

  “What about the hides? Have you been keeping and preserving them?” Justin asked with a frown.

  “We’ve been keeping them, but we haven’t done anything special with them.”

  “Hopefully, they’ll still be fine.”

  ‘What kind of animals are they getting out here?’ Justin popped off the quick question in his head.

  ‘Rabbits and snakes is what I saw,’ Dev answered him.

  “I can hopefully handle the rabbits,” Justin said aloud. “Even just a little bit will help when we smoke the fruit.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” June responded. “There’s definitely too much fruit to use at once, so we are going to need to preserve it. How much did you bring with you?”

  “Eighty pounds,” Justin said, quoting to her the number he had heard Dev use a few minutes ago. They reached the edge of the camp and divided up, Justin taking a moment to ask the three he’d escorted to drop off their food at the fire pit as soon as possible.

  “Wow, that’s… a lot. We might be able to use some of it to make seasoning, last us a really long time.”

  “That seems like a good idea,” Justin said. “After drying, we should be able to grind it up. Yeah. I can really see this working.”

  “Do you know how to build a smoking tower?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then can you build one while I prepare dinner?”

  “Yeah. You sure you don’t want some help?” Justin asked. “I have no problem preparing food.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Do you want to help me check the traps once your friends drop off the fruit?”

  “Sure. What are you using to catch animals?”

  “Deadfalls and snares. We have them positioned around the oasis so we can hopefully catch animals trying to get a drink.”

  Just then, Ethan, Clair, and Terra came by to drop off their loads.

  “Hey, sorry to leave you hanging,” Justin said. “I trust you got along okay with Will?”

  “Yeah, Will is great,” Clair said. “It depends on if the inheritance is good, but we’ll probably be staying here long term.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Yeah,” Terra said, “Thanks for escorting us.”

  “It was no problem at all. You made good pack mules,” Justin joked.

  “Gee, thanks,” Terra said with an eye roll as they walked away.

  “So,” Justin said, getting up. “Time to check the traps?”

  June agreed, getting up. “Yeah, just let me get another person to help us. It’s a pain to reset the traps with only two people.”

  She went over to a nearby group, grabbing a stocky boy with short brown hair and bringing him over. “Dev, this is Micah. He has been very helpful with the traps. Micah, meet Dev. I'm sure you remember him bringing spices a few days ago.”

  Micah looked him up and down, then stuck his hand out. “Good to meet you. Thanks for helping with the food.”

  Justin shook his hand. “Likewise. I look forward to working with you.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  June led the way over to the main oasis, leading a quarter of the way around before they reached the first trap, a deadfall.

  “Okay,” June said. “It looks like something triggered this trap. Could you two lift the stone so I can fish it out?”

  Justin and Micah wordlessly moved to either side of the large stone lying almost flat on the ground. “Okay, on three?”

  “Yeah,” Micah agreed.

  “One, two, three,” Justin counted out, then heaved up on the stone.

  “Okay, just hold it there,” June said, already reaching beneath it.

  Justin mentally groaned. ‘Dev, you seriously need to work out more!’

  ‘It’s your body too, now. If you want to, you can take charge of exercise.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Justin retorted, before realizing how poor an answer that was.

  Distracted by his internal dialogue, Justin nearly missed when June started speaking again. “Okay, you can let the stone down now, I reset the trap.”

  Justin let the stone back down with a sigh of relief. Maybe I really should work on our physical fitness. I know we’re a teenager, but still, that shouldn’t be so difficult.

  “So, what’s the loot?” Justin asked.

  June brandished a moderately large snake at him. “One desert snake. Not the best for meat, but it’s nice for variety.”

  “Nice,” Justin said. “I don’t know how to tan it, but I’m sure we can figure things out.”

  June led them to the next trap, a snare that ended up empty. She continued leading them around to a dozen more traps, gathering them three rabbits and a second snake.

  “Today was a good day,” June commented. “We should have more than enough to eat tonight.”

  “And the rabbits will make some good pelts,” Justin said.

  ‘They’re hares, actually,’ Dev said.

  It was just past sunset when they walked back to the camp with their new burdens, all looking forward to the fulfilling meal.

  Justin set down his rabbit and snake, going through their backpack.

  ‘Where did you put the knife?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s in the front compartment,’ Elluvian said. ‘I was using it to cut down straight branches.’

  ‘It’s not really meant for that,’ Justin said as he retrieved the knife.

  ‘Well, if you’d been paying attention earlier,’ Elluvian retorted, ‘You could have told me then.’

  Justin didn’t answer. Instead, he started pulling out wood from the backpack.

  “Hopefully, the wood here should make a good bark tanning solution,” he said aloud. “If not, maybe what I brought will work.”

  “How do you plan to prepare the solution?” June asked. “We don’t have a way to boil large amounts of water or the time to soak it properly.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that. In the past, I always had access to large cooking equipment that I could use. Perhaps we can do some brain tanning instead?”

  “Maybe. Not a lot of brain to go around,” June said.

  “Hopefully, I can mix in the snake brains and have enough. We won't be needing it for a few days anyway.”

  Justin sat down, grabbing a rabbit and swiftly dismantling it.

  “Which fruit do think will go well with the hares?” June asked. “I’m not familiar with any of these.”

  “I don’t really remember what each tasted like. But I think this one had a sort of citrusy taste, which could be good,” Justin said, grabbing a purplish red fruit that had fallen out of the bag. “It depends on what you want from the fruit.”

  “Citrusy should be fine,” June said. “We can try them all tomorrow morning. We’ll need to decide what to preserve anyway.”

  June lit the fire pit with a wave of her hand, and Justin took a step back to allow her space to work.

  “Actually,” Justin said, “I should really clean the pelts before I make a smoking tower we won;t need for a few days.” He grabbed the three rabbit hides, before again retreating from her cooking area to begin fleshing them.

  He started with the one he had butchered, using the light of the fire to carefully remove the inner membrane of the rabbit’s skin to prepare it for drying. He cursed as he punched a hole in it, worsening the hide.

  By the time he had finished the second hide, the rabbits were done, and he took a break to eat. Walking over to the oasis, he quickly cleaned his knife in the water.

  “That smells delicious,” Justin said, returning to the place by the fire. “Do you mind if I…?” He asked, gesturing to the rabbit.

  “Go ahead.”

  Justin grabbed his knife and quickly used it to cut off a small slice of meat. Popping it in his mouth, he savored the taste.

  “This is excellent,” he said, swallowing. “You are wasted here without spices.”

  She gave him a long look. “Trust me, I’m not. It’s seriously bad without my help. The third night, before I arrived, someone tried to cook a whole hare. With fur.”

  “Okay, that is bad,” Justin acknowledged. “How does someone come to the conclusion that that’s the right way to cook a rabbit? How did they even catch it?”

  ‘It’s a hare, seriously,’ Dev said. ‘There’s a huge difference between the two.’

  “I have no idea,” June said with a small laugh.

  Standing up suddenly, she shouted. “Dinner is ready! Everyone line up for their portion!”

  Justin stood up and formed the front of the line. Accepting a shank of meat from June, he stood to the side and watched as everyone else grabbed their food. The quiet murmur of conversation was soon replaced with sounds of appreciative eating, as everyone dug into the delicious meal.

  “I think that fruit is definitely a keeper,” Justin said.

  “Yeah, as long as it holds up for the next couple of days for us to smoke it.”

  “That’s right, I still need to build the tower. I’ll get to it right after I finish cleaning the last hide.”

  “That’s fine,” June said. “As long as it gets done by tomorrow night. That’s the longest we can wait before risking expired fruit.”

  “I’ll get it done right away,” Justin said, throwing a mock salute before returning to the last skin.

  He made relatively quick work of it, buoyed by the hearty meal in his belly and the previous two tries. After finishing the skin, he prepared some rocks and stretched all three skins out to dry.

  Yawning, Justin decided it was time to go to sleep.

  ‘Do any of you remember where I put our tent?’

  ‘It’s still in the bag,’ Tae answered helpfully.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Quickly returning to their bag, he pulled out the tent and quickly set it up.

  ‘Night, guys. Sweet dreams.’