“That is the understatement of the year,” Dave sarcastically replied, which made Zeb nod knowingly with a small smile.
Dave was actually somewhat envious of Joe, and now Zeb knew it. Joe always seemed to have the answer when asked a question on almost any topic. Unlike many people, his answers were not facetious. He would bluntly state 'no' if he didn't know the answer, and then would research the subject for the person asking. If it interested him enough he would learn more or even put the information to practical use.
He also knew that Joe had a working knowledge of odd eclectic subjects ranging from blacksmithing, hunting, carpentry, to survival as well as numerous other skillsets. Joe was going to be valuable now, and Dave felt somewhat outmatched. What Dave failed to see what that his feelings of inferiority were misplaced. Joe had numerous talents, but so did Dave.
“Dave, your turn, since you evidently wish to share with the class,” Zeb said with a grin.
“Farming, hunting, fishing, veteran of the Syrian war. I was a medic, and still have an undiminished lack of desire to volunteer,” Dave replied succinctly.
Zeb started to ask the next person when Sue chimed in.
“Food preservation. Any and all types. Can't sew worth a hoot or type. Hunting, fishing, and I am a better tracker than Dave, though he is a better shot.”
“Not much better,” Dave grumbled, barely audible.
The comment earned him a grin from Joe, who tried not to laugh.
“The boys have got a lot to learn Sergeant, but we have taught them to work, shoot, camp, hunt, and fish,” Dave stated bluntly.
“Aww... dad. You always act as if we don't know anything,” Jonas grouched, despite Kyle elbowing him in the ribs trying to get him to shut up.
“You truly don't son, but we have been working on that. Don't take it personally. Learning these things requires both time and experience. So far, you boys have done me proud.”
Dave never praised anyone lightly. Empty praise was just like gaudy fake jewelry in his estimation, actually detracting from the person upon which it is placed. He would rather chew off his own tongue than give false flattery. When their father said he was proud of them the boys knew it was true, and were genuinely pleased inside. Such praise made them even more resolved inside not to disappoint him.
There is a well-known but often overlooked secret applicable towards both inspiration and leadership of a family. As a secret, it is also applicable towards grown men. The secret of D.P.L. Do what you say. Practice what you preach. Lead by your own example. If you are respectable yourself you will be both admired and respected and others will desire to emulate what they find admirable in you. A truth old as time itself.
The Sergeant took Joe aside and started asking him loaded questions. Zeb rapidly realized Dave was not in any manner exaggerating about Joe's survival knowledge. He literally knew what he was talking about, and it was clearly evident to the listener. He rated Joe as potential S.E.R.E. instructor material, though Joe only knew a smattering concerning the 'resistance' category of S.E.R.E.
Zeb was an expert at resistance, and could help Joe with that minor ignorance.
He was impressed. The small hiccup in training aside, Master Sergeant Josiah Zebadiah Anderson had just encountered someone with far more knowledge on an essential subject than even he had been trained for. He was determined that this knowledge should be something the whole group should benefit from.
Just knowing you can survive, actually helps you to survive. The knowledge provides a self-confidence in a person which cannot be taught.
Survival knowledge was essential as they could not depend upon a supply line to constantly replenish their supplies and equipment. The same tricks used in wilderness survival were necessary knowledge for any small force deep in enemy territory for extended periods of time which had only what they could carry with them. The same techniques used for hunting game for food when it counted, also applied to other areas as well.
It was time to go back to school, so to speak, for all of them. Any individual in the group could die at any time, and this knowledge was needed by every member of the group. If Joe died, Zeb was determined his knowledge and abilities would not die with him. Otherwise, it was quite possible they would all face a slow and painful death.
13. (De-civilizing The Civilians)
It is amazing how a hobby which Joe loved had proven itself useful. He had a purpose, a subject to teach, and knew what had to be done. You can teach in a classroom using only words and pictures as the medium and hope that the student does not merely become bored and inattentive.
A better option is to teach the students using physical demonstration and hands on practice. The hands on experience technique is more likely to stick with a pupil than reading or lectures.
He had personally learned much of what he knew the hard way. This is by necessity, as no college teaches the subject of wilderness survival, and most individuals claiming to be teachers do not know the subject.. Joe was self-taught, and learned a subject by either hearing or reading about it, and then he would personally try to apply the subject matter until he knew it inside and out.
Starting the next morning, he started class with an explanation the basics; the determination of what is necessary for a human being to survive at all.
“To keep alive, one must eat, drink, and be protected from the elements, and not necessarily in that order. Eating involves cooking, foraging, hunting, fishing, fire, and making tools to accomplish all of the previous tasks,” Joe explained.
“Drinking involves knowing where and how to obtain clean pure water. Protection from the elements includes both where and how to obtain shelter and heat in cold temperatures, or how to avoid excess heat in hot temperatures. Everything revolves around a number, and that number is 98.6 degrees.”
“If you cannot provide these basic things, you do not need to worry about either escape or evasion. You will die.”
“A quick question for everyone. If you are in the middle of nowhere, with no supplies, and not even a knife. What would you do?” Joe asked Kyle, who was sitting on the ground and generally horsing around.
“Starve to death!,” Kyle jokingly stated.
“You are not far wrong. In moderate temperatures, say mid-spring to mid-fall, you would probably succumb to dehydration or a water based illness long before you could ever starve,” Joe said gravely, staring dead into Kyle's eyes.
“In harsh temperatures, you would die either of heatstroke or hypothermia long before water was ever an issue...”
“Why those two? It only takes a couple of days to die of thirst, doesn't it?” Sue asked.
“Approximately three days to be precise. However, with harsh enough temperatures, conditions, or weather, the environment can kill you in only a matter of hours or even minutes. For instance, if you fall into a frigid river you have around ninety seconds to get out or suffer severe hypothermia and probably die,” Joe replied.
“Fact is, almost everyone in this country from the rich to the poor has forgotten how to survive without modern conveniences. Things which had to be done without only one hundred years ago have become a necessity to sustain life. In becoming 'civilized', we have lost our basic knowledge that every Indian and pioneer had to either know, or die learning.”
“Make no bones about it people, a man that relies on assumptions is a dead man who just doesn't know it yet,” Joe stated quite bluntly.
“Assuming you will find food or water? Assuming that you can find shelter in time? Assuming that the storm will either miss you, or not be that bad? These all have killed many people throughout the centuries.”
Everyone looked hard at Joe, and a look of intense interest had kindled on the faces of all but Kyle. who pretended to be diffident. What did not show was that he still stung from the earlier reproof, but was in fact hanging on Joe's words.
“Since it rained last night, and the conditions are just plain wrong for an easy lesson, it will be a perfect day to teach you
all how to make fire, without matches or lighters!” Joe said, his voice full of sarcastically feigned enthusiasm.
Zeb gave him a hard look along with a grim smile, and wondered whether this kid's dad had been a drill instructor.
Joe first explained the principles of fire itself, then went on to demonstrate techniques to make fire without matches or lighters. He taught the group about the subjects of friction fire, magnified sunlight, and flint and steel. He then taught the students how to make a fire drill, bow, block, and board, and had each practice until they could quickly get a glowing coal.
This caused not just a few curses from Dave, who kept trying to over-drive his drill, causing the string to wrap over itself on the spindle and flinging it out of the fireboard.
Since Dave was having so many problems, Joe showed him a simpler technique for the bow, using multiple wraps of the cord around the spindle with a looser string.
When Dave had made his first successful coal, he grandly stood and shouted in triumph.
“I am the king of fire!” he shouted, gaining the encouraging grins of his friends.
“You haven't made fire yet,” Joe replied wryly.
“You all have learned the basis for starting a fire, which is the glowing coal which is the ignition source. That coal needs to ignite something else into flame to have a fire.”
Joe explained what tinder is, and how to build the heat from the coal to ignite the tinder into flame.
“Wrap it up like a baby into the bird nest of shredded cedar bark. Now blow gently like this… Dave, I said gently. Otherwise you will blow the coal apart.”
Dave grinned back sheepishly, then blew softly as Joe hand instructed. Smoke poured progressively heavier and thicker from the bundle until it unexpectedly burst into flame, almost singeing his eyebrows. Joe patted his back, and for a short moment felt like a kid again. Dave’s huge smile was infectious, causing everyone else to grin with him.
The subject of fire ran the gamut through the entire progression of fire-crafting. They learned to ignite the tinder and then ignite the kindling, which then ignited the primary fuel for an actual fire for cooking or heating.
Joe then explained the differences and benefits of various types of fires, from various examples of basic cooking fires, to different types of heating fires, and the differences between the various styles and types. Which type of wood arrangement is better when it is wet or snowing, and which is better for various purposes, and more importantly concerning all of this information… why.
Joe spent the entire day explaining fire, how to make it, control it, and use it. He showed them how to construct a Dakota fire-pit, tiny twig fires, reflector fires, baking holes, as well as basic fire lays such as the teepee and log cabin. He then demonstrated spits, baskets, and various means of suspension. Lastly, he explained how to start and sustain a fire even if the ground is covered with water.
Everyone in the group was in a daze, not realizing beforehand the sheer volume of knowledge you could learn about something as simple as the subject of fire. Even more importantly, not a single one of them would ever need a match again. Joe had done his job well.
The rest of the week passed in the same manner, with Joe teaching them an essential new skill every day. He taught them everything from making items out of clay, wood, bark, or leather, to making simple but effective shelters of every type imaginable. He taught them to hunt and to fish without having any gear but a knife.
He demonstrated flint-napping, which caused Jonas to carelessly receive a pretty nasty cut from a flint shard.
This progressed to lessons over active hunting tools such as making a couple of types of bow, slingshot, sling, and atl-atl. He taught them passive hunting techniques such as the use and construction of snares and traps of various descriptions. They learned the importance of knowing several triggers for traps which were applicable to other types of scenarios as well.
One day, while Joe was teaching skills on tracking, he called the Sergeant over.
“That rifle your boys are carrying, what caliber is it?” Joe asked.
“Two-Two-Three, why?” the Sergeant replied questioningly.
“Ouch, just take the saftey off. How about your sidearm?” Joe returned cryptically.
“Firty-five,” the Sergeant answered bluntly.
“Full clip?” Joe asked.
“Yes, and two spares. What is the problem?” the Sergeant asked, clearly puzzled at the cryptic questions.
“Why all the questions?”
“Something rare in these parts. See this track?” Joe replied, pointing at a print impressed into the ground.
“What is it?” the Sergeant asked.
His brows drew together in concern, as it was a big animal print, with pointed claw marks.
“Call it what you will. Different places, different names for it, but the most common are puma, panther, cougar, and mountain lion. Not many at all around these parts, and even finding prints are rare.”
“Why such a big deal then?” the Sergeant asked.
“This print is super fresh... maybe less than an hour old. Look at the dirt, see how crisp the track is, with no dirt or debris inside the print? See how soft and crumbly the dirt is?” Joe stated, carefully scanning the area as he spoke.
He was looking for motion, color, and shape at the same time, with little hope of seeing a golden tan cat hiding in an area backed with golden yellow wheat stubble.
“That track is new enough that the critter may well be watching us right now.”
Joe knew that unless it moved they probably would not spot the big cat. Motion is a dead giveaway for finding any anima, as even a little motion stands out against a background. That is why the prey animal’s first response is to freeze motionless.
“Sergeant, we don't want any panicking. This cat is probably leaving the area, but if it is hungry we may have a problem. A human is a perfect sized meal for one of these big cats. Let’s keep everyone together, and head back to the farm slowly and carefully,” Joe instructed, his voice low and serious.
“Tell your men to take the outside, and go full auto if it shows its face. A two-twenty-three just isn't a large enough round unless you are hunting him before he hunts you. The man firing a pea shooter at a big carnivore better be a durn good shot. If they see one, tell them to blast its shoulder bone to cripple it, then unload a full clip in the rib cage. These cats can move unbelievably fast.”
“Be glad we don't just have knives and bows Joe,” the Sergeant stated.
“You ain't kidding,” Joe replied.
“I would want at least a crossbow, a bow, and a spear, followed by my knife. That way I would know that I did what I could... while it was eating me! Could be worse though, could be a grizzly bear.”
The Master Sergeant failed to see the humor in the joke. He had to hand it to Joe though. Zeb felt the confidence of one who knows he can literally get caught with his pants down, and if he could evade he would survive to tell the tale.
14. (Lions, Tigers, and Bears. Oh My)
After the whirlwind of activity during the previous week, Sue was outside enjoying the cooler summer air. No one had seen nor heard any activity the previous week, and had all decided that the cellar would make a good retreat. Joe, Dave, and Zeb had headed back to get it ship shape, as much as was humanly possible after the pounding it had received.
In searching over John's farm, they had found a reloading set for the cowboy style hog-leg of John's. To everyone's surprise Joe had discovered that John had owned a nineteen-eleven like the Sergeant, and had reloading dies for it as well. They also found a twenty-two and a few boxes of shells, and an antique genuine Indian longbow which the group presented as a gift to Joe.
After choking back tears he had gone out and made arrows for the beautiful weapon. Joe knew how to shoot a bow, and was quickly chunking his homemade arrows through a small target he had made from a plastic milk jug which he had tacked to a round hay bale.
In commemoration
of the gift, Joe had headed out by himself in mid-day with only his clothes, belt knife, and the bow. He returned around dusk with a whitetail deer dragging behind him on a home-made travois. He took the deer to the barn and hung it by the tendons on its hind legs from a gambrel.
He left the animal swinging from the triangular steel processing tool, leaving the skinning for the next morning. He wanted to let the body cool but still protect the meat from flies. Leaving the hide on the carcass would help keep the flies off of the meat.
The next morning started one more day of Joe's 'training school', since skinning, butchering, meat preservation, and tanning hides were necessary instruction. After skinning and butchering the deer, he gathered a ton of acorns from the old oak in the front yard. He boiled the tannin out of them. Next, he demonstrated how to scrape a hide of fur and fat, then showed a method for vegetable tanning the deer hide.
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