The two traveled deeper into the woods until, in the late afternoon, they came upon a clearing.

“This is it,” Isaac said. “Look for the trails. Dad pointed them out when we came here last summer, remember? He said that animals use them to travel through the woods. Help me look for them.”

They brushed aside leaves and stalks of grass until Simon spotted a gap between bushes. “Is this something?” he asked.

“Yes! That’s it! Let’s start here.”

With just their bare hands, they dug into the soft earth in front of the gap, but it was arduous work. Long after the sunset, and in near darkness, the boys had a pit about three feet deep and three feet across.

Exhausted, Isaac got on his stomach and twisted the sharpened sticks into the bottom of the pit so that the points were about six inches above the dirt. When the last stick was driven into the dirt, he gingerly laid twigs across the opening and covered it with leaves and grass. Tired, dirty, and hungry, the boys admired their work only for a moment.

“Let’s get back to the cabin,” Isaac said.

“What do you think we’ll catch?”

“I don’t know.” Isaac had neither the strength nor the will to tell Simon that the odds of catching anything in a trap like that were extremely low, and even with a dozen traps, it could be days until they caught an animal. He had intended to dig more pits that day, but everything had taken much longer than he had anticipated.

I’ll have to remember that, Isaac thought.

“I hope it’s a pig. I’m so in the mood for bacon,” Simon said.

“There aren’t any wild pigs around here, dummy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” Isaac snapped. He wasn’t sure, however. He actually had no idea, but he wasn’t about to let Simon know that.

The boys took several more paces toward the direction they came from when Isaac stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Simon asked.

“Do you remember where the trail back to the cabin is?”

Simon scanned the trees. Some clustered closely together, while others were spaced fifteen to twenty feet apart. “No,” he answered nervously.

“Help me find it,” Isaac said. But after a brief search, Isaac realized they had only one option.

“We have to find a place to spend the night,” he said.

“Out here? All night? We have to go back!”

“I can't see where I'm going! We'll get even more lost if we keep this up!”

Simon looked around frantically. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Come on,” Isaac said, taking Simon’s hand and leading him up the hill to some fallen logs. He hastily inspected them for spiders, took out the flower-print bed sheet, and spread it on the ground. They sat on one edge and pulled the other half over their heads tightly.

As their body temperatures lowered, the boys began to shiver uncontrollably.

“Can we start a fire?” asked Simon, his voice trembling. “We have matches, right?”

“There were only three in the box. We need to save them,” Isaac said, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. “Lie down,” he told Simon. Isaac then pulled the bedsheet over his brother and covered him with the dried leaves that were all around them. He lay next to him and gathered the leaves over himself as well. But still, they were shaking enough to make the leaves rustle.

“I’m so hungry,” Simon said.

“I know. Me too.”

“And I’m scared.”

Isaac hesitated.

“We’ll be okay,” he said, looking up at the trees towering over them. “We’ll be okay.”

***

The boys woke to a high-pitched squealing that echoed through the morning stillness. They jumped up and sprinted toward the sound, dried leaves clinging to their hair and clothes.

When they got to the trap, they saw most of the sharpened sticks on their sides covered in blood, and the pit scratched as if something had been thrashing around violently inside.

“It must still be around here. Look for any signs. Hurry!” Isaac said.

The boys scanned the area, looking through bushes and stepping over logs.

“Over here! Quickly!” screamed Simon.

Isaac bounded over to Simon, who was crouching behind a bush, peeking over it at something.

“Do you see it?” Simon asked excitedly.

There, under an outcrop of granite, was a large jackrabbit with upright ears and a short black tail. Its brown fur was matted with blood, and two sharpened sticks were deeply embedded in its abdomen, which was heaving erratically.

“What do we do?” Simon asked.

“I don’t know. I think we can just wait until it dies.”

“But… what if it runs away?”

Isaac sat on the ground to think more clearly. He spotted a crooked branch that was about five feet long with jagged knots. He crawled to it, and he took out a steak knife and the twelve-inch carving knife from his backpack.

After a short moment of consideration, he put the steak knife back, and, using the electrical tape, he tightly wrapped the carving knife to one end of the branch. He crawled over to Simon and handed the makeshift spear to him.

“I’m not going to do it! Are you crazy?”

“Listen,” Isaac said in a forced whisper, “we’re on our own until Mom and Dad get back. You need to learn to do stuff like this eventually.”

“No way! You do it. You’re older!”

Isaac glared at him angrily. “Fine,” he said. “I can’t believe how much of a baby you are.”

Isaac gripped the spear tighter, peeked at the jackrabbit, and stepped out from behind the bush. The jackrabbit’s ears twitched as Isaac approached. Blood was smeared on the rocks, but not as much as Isaac had expected. He stepped softly on the hard-packed dirt toward the jackrabbit, which tried to scurry further into its hiding place, its claws scratching against the granite.

Isaac considered throwing the spear but decided against it. To his surprise, he was able to approach the jackrabbit within thrusting distance. Being this close, he could see that the jackrabbit was much bigger than he had first believed, and once again, he felt fear. It was a feeling he was getting used to.

He clenched the rough wood tighter, pointed the tip of the knife straight at the jackrabbit’s side, and thrust as hard and as deeply as he could.

Immediately, the jackrabbit started to thrash, emitting screams that sounded like the distressed cries of an infant, and its flailing was so violent that the spear was torn from Isaac’s hands.

Isaac stumbled backward, almost tripping on a rock. He caught himself and ran behind the bush where Simon was sitting with his eyes shut and his hands pressed firmly against his ears.

After an interminable moment, the dying squeals of the jackrabbit subsided. The boys came out from behind the bush and hesitantly walked up to the animal, which was lying on its side. The spear had become dislodged, and blood was flowing freely from a deep cut, but it was still alive.

They watched wordlessly, and Isaac considered dropping a rock on top of its head to end its suffering, but its breathing became shallower and shallower until it finally ceased.