Chapter 6 Chapter 6 From Burgers to Wild Berries

Two years ago, he and Terry had been wandering around the park.There, the city seems to come to an end: the vegetation is so lush that it even falls to the small river that runs through the park, and the scene has a somewhat wild taste.Out of fun, they started making up stories.Pretending to be lost in the jungle and talking all afternoon about what they should do.Of course, they assumed to have all sorts of nice things, like guns and knives, and tackle and matches, so that they could hunt and fish and make fire. Terry, I wish you were here.He read silently.Bring a gun and a knife, and some matches...

That day in the park, they agreed that the best shelter would be to build a lean-to.Brian is going to start building one now.Maybe, he thought, it would have to be covered with grass or leaves or branches or something.While thinking, he walked to the lake, where there were some willow trees that could be cut down for trestles.However, he suddenly thought that he had to find a suitable place to build a lean-to, so he decided to look around first.He preferred to stay by the lake, because he still felt that even if the plane lay deep on the bottom of the lake, someone flying through the air could still find it, and he didn't want to miss any chance of being rescued.

His gaze fell to the rocky mound on his left.At first, he thought that he should lean on the rock hill to build a shelter.His luck struck him, however, when he decided to survey the terrain beyond the knoll first. Relying on the basic common sense that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, he judges that the other side of the rock hill is the north.It may have been hollowed out long ago by movements such as glaciers, creating a col.The col is a bit like a bowl turned on its side, the bottom of which is recessed under a ledge of ledges.The col was not so deep that it was not a cave, but it was smooth and made a perfect roof, and he could stand almost full body on it, just keeping his head down a little so as not to touch the top of the ledge.Some rocks have been completely smashed by the glacier movement and ground into sand. Now it has become a small beach, extending to the lake, and to the right it is connected with the sand of the overhanging rock.

This is his first good luck. No, he thought.He had been lucky enough when he landed; but now, good luck came again.He needs luck! Now, he only needs to put a wall around this "bowl mouth", leaving only an opening for the entrance, and he will have a perfect shelter-stronger than a lean-to, and it is also very dry, because the overhanging rock has become Natural waterproof roof. He crawled in slowly and sat down.Being in the shade, even the sand here is cool, and this coolness made his face feel very comfortable.You know, his face has already started to blister, especially his forehead. Besides the abnormal swelling, it is also covered with blisters, which is unbearably painful.

Moreover, he is still very weak.It's just that he went around the back of the rock hill and climbed a little, and his legs gave up.It feels so much better to sit in the cool sand for a while. Now, he thought, it would be even better if there was more food. Any food will do. After a short rest, he returned to the lake and swallowed a few mouthfuls of water.He wasn't thirsty now, but thought the water might help relieve his hunger.However, it cannot.Somehow, the cold water made him even more hungry. He wanted to make a wall out of wood and hang it on the protruding rock, but when he found a piece of wood and was about to pull it up, his arm had no strength at all.Then he understood that not only was the crash a problem with body and head injuries, but also that his weakness was due to hunger.

He must find something to eat.He had to eat something before doing physical work. But what to eat? Brian leaned against a rock and gazed at the lake.What to eat, is there anything here, is there anything to eat?He has long been used to the life of reaching out for clothes and opening his mouth for food.When he was hungry, he would go to the refrigerator to get it, or go to the store to buy it, or sit down and eat a delicious meal made by his mother. Oh, he remembered, a meal that had impressed — oh, just last Thanksgiving, the last Thanksgiving the three of them had together as a family.A month after that, Mom filed for divorce, and Dad moved away.Brian had known the secret by then, but he didn't know that it would drive them apart, and he naively thought it would work out.Dad is still kept in the dark about how he will try to tell him.Tell him when you meet.

That was a turkey dinner.They set up a barbecue grill in the backyard, put charcoal on it, covered the turkey tightly, and roasted it on the charcoal.Pa chopped the hickory into small pieces and put them on the charcoal, and the smell of cooking turkey mingled with the hickory smoke filled the yard.Dad took off the lid with a smile on his face, oh, the aroma that wafted out was really indescribable, when the family sat down to eat, the meat was soaked in juice, rich and mellow, with a smoky taste... Stop it, he has to stop thinking about this now.His mouth was overflowing with saliva, and his stomach was curled up and gurgling.

What is there to eat here? Has anything he read or seen before helped him find food in the wilderness?There should be.Ah, remember, there was a TV show about Air Force pilots and their training class - Wilderness Survival Class.Yes, that show is now in his mind.Pilots have to live and eat in the desert.They land in Arizona or something like that, and they have to live there for a week.During the week, they have to find food and water. To get water, they make a dew collector out of a sheet of plastic; to fill their stomachs, they feed on lizards. That's about it.Of course, Brian had plenty of water, but he knew there weren't many lizards in the Canadian jungle.One of the pilots on the show used the watch's crystal face as a magnifying glass to focus the sun's rays and built a fire so they didn't have to eat lizards raw.Brian did have a digital watch, but it didn't have a crystal, and it shattered in the crash.So, TV shows can't help him.

Wait, there is one more thing.One of the pilots, a woman, found a bean in a bush.She simmered these beans and her lizard meat for a while in a tin she found—lizard stew with beans.Not a single bean to be found here, but there might be berries, and there must be berry bushes around here, as they say.Well, actually, he never heard anyone say any of that.But he felt that it should be so. There must be berry bushes. He stood up, walked out on the sand, looked up at the sun, which was still high.He doesn't know the exact time.At home, with the sun so high, it would be one or two in the afternoon.At home, at one or two in the afternoon, Mom would collect the lunch plates and get ready for her aerobics class.No, it should have been yesterday; today she had to see him.Today is Thursday, and she always sees him on Thursday.Fitness class on Wednesday, see him on Thursday.A little flame of hatred went straight to the forehead, kindled and extinguished for a moment.If Mom hadn't seen him, there would have been no divorce, and Brian wouldn't be in this damn place now!

He shook his head, having to stop thinking about it.The sun was still high, which meant he had some time to find berries before dark.He didn't want to leave his -- he'd almost made it his home -- sanctuary when it got dark. He didn't want to be in the jungle when night fell.He didn't want to get lost, and that would be a big problem.Here, all he knew was this lake in front of him and the hills behind him and the rocky hills in front of him—if they were lost, he might wander around in the jungle and not find his way back. So he had to look for the berry bushes, but keep the lake and the rocky hills within sight at all times.Looking out, you can see quite clearly within a distance of about two hundred yards.There are tall pine trees, straight and tall, with no branches except at the top.The breeze blows through the pine forest, and the pine waves roar.But he couldn't see the low bushes.Two hundred yards away, what appeared to be the beginning of a field of lush undergrowth, about ten or twelve feet high, formed an impenetrable wall which he could not see clearly.Thick, green bushes seemed to surround the lake, but he couldn't be sure.

If there were berries, they must be in the bushes.As long as he stays close to the lake, keeping it on the right, he won't get lost.When he got the berries, he thought, he would only have to turn around and walk back, so that the water was to his left, and he would be able to walk back again, to the knoll, his refuge. Keep it simple and clear.My name is Brian Robertson, I've had a plane crash and I'm going to find some food and berries to satisfy my hunger. He walked very slowly, his joints ached, and he was so hungry that he had no strength left, so he had to move forward bit by bit along the edge of the lake.In the jungle ahead, many birds were singing happily in the sun.Some birds he recognized, others he could not name.He saw a robin, some kind of sparrow, and a flock of orange-red birds with thick beaks.There are twenty or thirty of them standing on a pine tree, chirping and making a noise.As soon as he got under the tree, they "suddenly" flew forward.He watched them fly away, the bright color slashing sharply across a dense green, and just like that, he found—the berries.The birds landed on some kind of willow-like, but taller, broad-leaved plant, and began to hop and chatter.At first he was too far away to see what they were doing, but their pretty color drew him in and he couldn't help approaching them while keeping the lake in sight to the right.When he got closer, he saw: it turned out that they were eating berries! He couldn't believe that all this was so effortless.It was as if the bird had brought him here directly.The tender branches, rising some twenty feet, were heavy clusters of crimson berries that bent their branches.They were only half the size of a grape bead, and in the sun, they shone bright red and were crystal clear. When Brian saw them, he was so excited that he almost burst out laughing. He quickened his pace, and in a short while he was in front of the berries.He chased the birds away, pulled the twigs, plucked the berries, and stuffed them hastily into his mouth. Ouch, he almost threw up.It wasn't because the fruit was bitter, but it was not only not sweet, but also had a pungent sour taste when chewed, which made his mouth dry.And they are like cherries, with a big pit in the middle, which is really hard to swallow!But his stomach was empty, and he was already very hungry, so he didn't care about the taste at all, he kept pulling the fruits from the branches, eating them in big handfuls, gobbling them in his mouth, swallowing the whole thing, including the core and skin go. He couldn't stop, and ended up with a stomach full of berries, but he was still hungry.I haven't eaten for two whole days, my stomach should have shrunk, right?But the damned hunger still lingered.Suddenly he thought of the birds, which would rush back into the bushes to eat the berries as soon as he was gone.So, he used the torn windbreaker as a delivery bag and kept picking it off.Finally, he figured he had nearly four pounds of berries in his jacket before he stopped and returned to camp by the knoll. He thought: "Now that I have some food, I can do something to fix my little world." He glanced at the sun briefly, thinking that it would be some time before dark. "If only I had matches," he thought, looking sadly at the beach and the lake.There was washed-up logs everywhere, not to mention dead wood all over the hills, and dead branches hanging from every tree.All firewood; just no matches.How did people do it before?Rubbing two dead branches against each other, he thought? He stuffed the bagged berries into the shade under the ledge, and found two more dead branches.After rubbing for ten minutes, the dead branch was still cool to the touch.hell!Not so, he thought.That's not how they make fire.He threw away the twigs resentfully.Angry, no fire! Still, he could fix the shelter and make it... for some reason, the word "safer" popped out, or at least more livable! To fence it off, he thought, "I've got to fence it off." He began to bring up the dead branches that were floating in the lake, and dragged some long dead branches from the hills, never letting the water and the rocks out of his sight.He used these materials to interweave a wall in front of the rocky col.The project took more than two hours, with several breaks in between.That's because he still felt a little weak, and once it was because of an inexplicable sharp pain in his stomach, tightening and churning.Must have eaten too much, he thought: "I have eaten too many berries." Fortunately, the severe pain passed quickly, and he continued to work until the entire front of the ledge was surrounded, leaving only a small opening about three feet wide at the right end closest to the lake.When he got inside, he found himself in a "room" nearly fifteen feet long and eight feet deep, against a sloping rock wall behind it. "That's right," he said, nodding, "That's good..." Outside, the sun was setting.Finally, in the gentle evening wind, the mosquitoes arrived as expected.They came buzzing and rushing towards him, not as bad as they had been in the morning, but still dense and terrifying.He kept waving his arms to chase them away, and at last he couldn't take it anymore, dumped all the berries on the ground, and put on his old windbreaker again.At least the sleeve still covered his arm. Wrapped in a windbreaker, night fell quickly, and he crawled into the shed, curled up in a ball at the bottom of the rocky knoll, and tried to sleep.He was exhausted, and there were still dull pains in some places. Although sleepiness came quietly, he couldn't fall asleep until the coolness of the evening turned into the coldness of the night, and the mosquitoes gradually subsided. Finally, with the berries still churning in his stomach, Brian fell asleep.