Again I studied the ground, the nearby trees, everywhere, to find a branch suitable for a crutch. Then I found one.
The branch was long and straight and still a living branch, for which I was grateful. Green wood is much easier to cut than that which is dead and seasoned. With my knife I cut a notch near the tree trunk and then cut it deeper, working to both sides. Then I broke off the branch and cut loose what remained. Then I found a bent branch that I cut from the tree to make the top of my crutch. Now I must return for the rawhide string I had used in tying the piece to the top of my former crutch.
It needed an hour for me to return the few hundred yards to my camp, and another few minutes to fashion my crutch. This was my third and by far the best. The first had been merely a branch found by chance, the second somewhat better. If I remained crippled longer I might become quite skillful. God save me!
Returning I found a bed of saxifrage lettuce, and picked as many leaves as I could find, chewing on some of them as I made my way to camp.
My coals were still warm and I nourished them back to life, ate some more of the leaves, and rested. I was exhausted and my leg hurt. The saxifrage, while it gave me something to chew and was said to be nourishing, did not satisfy.
Crawling into the cave, dragging my leg behind me, I recovered my bow and arrows, leaving the guns where they lay. If I could not stalk a deer, I could at least wait where one might come en route to water. The chance was slight, yet I must have meat and it was better than lying here where nothing would come.
Nearby was a meadow, and deer must cross it going to the stream. The grass was tall, yet there were places where it had been flattened by wind or rolling animals.
Using my new crutch I hobbled out to a large old tree and sat down to wait. I judged my distance carefully and sighted several times at openings from which deer might come. Then I settled down to wait.
The sun was still high and I dozed, waiting. I could expect no deer until after sundown, although there was always a possibility. At that time they would be feeding down toward water. They would drink, browse a little, and feed back to where they wished to bed down.
Once, lying still and resting, I thought I heard a faint whispering of leaves as of something moving among them, but when I sat up cautiously and looked around I saw nothing. Nonetheless, I was disturbed. I slipped off the thong that held my knife in place.
I was hungry. More than that, I was starving. I had eaten too little in the days before breaking my leg, and even less since.
Just before me was a faint game trail down which deer and possibly other animals had come to drink. It was upon this I placed my hope. Sitting up, I pulled myself back against the trunk of a good-sized tree, a position from which I could see anything emerging from the woods. I placed my quiver at hand and drew one arrow out for my bow. Another I placed close by in the event I missed or one was not good enough.
From the position I was in, using the longbow was difficult, but it was my only chance. I waited, dozing a little as the time was still early. Suddenly I was wide awake.
Something had moved near me!
Carefully, I looked all around. I saw nothing, heard nothing.
Something moved close by me. My eyes turned and looked directly into the yellow eyes of a giant cat.
A panther!
It was crouched, watching me. It was on my right, not thirty feet away, and there was no doubt as to its intentions. Had it been on my left loosing an arrow would have been easy, but I had to turn to my right, hitching my injured leg around, turning my whole body to face it. I wouldn’t have a chance.
The cat’s tail was slowly twitching. I saw the shoulder muscles bunch. I turned sharply, feeling a stab of anguish in my leg, and I loosed an arrow just as the panther leaped. Then I fell.
Turning sharply as I had I lost the support of the tree. I fell headlong to the ground, losing hold on my bow. Yet my fall was fortunate, for the panther overleaped. Spinning swiftly, it was at me with a snarl of fury.
As I fell I had drawn my knife and as the beast leaped at me I drove sharply up with the knife. It cut into the cat’s soft belly to the hilt.
Claws tore at me, jaws reached for my head. I stabbed again and then again. I knew the claws were tearing me. The teeth ripped my scalp, I felt the cat’s hot breath and I swung my left fist into its ribs.
The cat sprang away, gasping. I could see blood along a shoulder where my arrow had cut the skin. The cat was bleeding, but maddened by pain and bloodlust it wanted only to kill.
Desperately, I rolled over and as the cat leaped I rolled over again and came up sitting. The cat knocked me back to the ground, its teeth going for my throat. With my left hand I grabbed the loose skin of its neck and we fought, desperately, the cat to reach my throat, I to hold him back. At the same time I swung again with my knife.
The blade sank deep, and as it did so I turned my left fist which gripped the loose skin, turned it so my knuckles pressed hard against the cat’s neck. A paw came up, clawing at my hand. It ripped the buckskin of my jacket, tore the flesh on my forearm, but to let go was to die. I stabbed again and again with the knife.
It was ripping with one hindleg, but the fierce claws were digging the earth, not me. There were only short, convulsive movements from the other hind foot.
I stabbed again, and it seemed the struggles grew weaker. Again and again—suddenly I threw the cat from me.
It lay there, bloody and exhausted, staring at me with all the insane fury such a beast contained. The grass and leaves were spattered with blood. Some of mine was mingled with it, but my knife had stabbed deep, again and again. The cat stared, tried to move, and then fell over. Once more it tried to come to itself and failed to rise. The wild eyes glared their hatred, and the beast died.
My one good leg was ripped and raw, with deep lacerations. My arm had been bitten, when I did not recall, but my forearms and shoulder had also been clawed. My scalp was also torn by teeth, and a string hung near my eye. Yet I was conscious and aware.
Whatever had been my troubles before, they were more than doubled now. The claws and fangs of a wild beast are poisoned from the fragments of decaying meat around them. I needed to get to the stream, cleanse myself, and try to patch up this poor creature I had become.
Taking my bow and quiver, I started to crawl, and then I stopped. I had come for meat, and I was leaving meat behind me. A Catawba whom we knew had once said that panther meat was best of all, and Yance, who had eaten it on one of his forays into the deep woods, agreed. So I peeled back the hide and cut a fair-sized chunk from the panther. Then, on my feet and with my crutch and bow, I hobbled back to my camp.
Falling on the ground I crawled to the stream and lay in its shallow waters near the edge, letting the cool water run slowly over me. And when I looked up, there were stars. My fingers dug into the mud of the stream and I plastered my wounds with it.
Weak from exhaustion and loss of blood I crawled from the stream applying more mud to my wounds. Somewhere I had been told mud was useful, but I did not remember why. I cared only that it was here and that somehow the bleeding must be stopped.
Crawling to my bed I pulled the blanket over me and lay shivering. Whether I simply lost consciousness or slept I do not know, but when I opened my eyes I fumbled some sticks into the fire before passing out again.
It was daylight when my eyes opened. A few tendrils of smoke lifted from my coals and I coaxed them to flame once more, dipped water into the bark dish, and suspended it above the fire. I cut a piece of the meat and dropped it in with some other things gathered when crawling about.