Butchering the Deer

Gonyaul helped in getting things ready for the fire; however, once the resources were prepared he moved on in the hopes that Wim would continue working on it. It was pretty quick to field dress the deer; however, butchering it would take much more time. It would be most agreeable if the fire was ready to go by the time the meat was. Of course, he was assuming Wim knew how to make a fire and was very mindful of this fact. If the fire was not up and running by the time he finished, he would be satisfied in doing that as well.

Gonyaul laid the deer on the ground and began the skinning process. He remembered to cut from the inside of the skin to the outside. This allowed the skin to be pulled away from the meat without much cutting and reduce the amount of hair that stuck to the meat. He placed the skin, hair side down, on the ground off to the side. He would use this to place the meat for the time being. Afterwards, Wim would be able to make use of the skin to bag up all the cut pieces and carry them back to town. Not to mention, the skin itself could be used to make something with later.

The neck, legs and backstraps were the largest groups of meat. So those were the first areas he was going to focus on the carcass. The front legs were very easy to remove, because they are only connected to the body by muscle. He used one hand to pull the leg away from the body, and making a cut starting at the armpit, he used the rib cage as a guide until the leg was cut free. To remove the backstraps, located on either side of the spine, Gonyaul felt for the spine and made an incision down the length of it. He used the bone as a guide. Starting at the top, he used one hand to pull the meat to the side as the knife freed the meat from the bone. In order to remove the back legs, Gonyaul had to use his knife to cut the connective tissue around the joints until it separated. Next, the meat on the neck was sawed off using his blade.

The next phase was to take these large sections and turn them into smaller cuts that are ready to use. The general idea was to cut the meat away from the bone and to follow the natural separations in the muscle groups. For the front legs, Gonyaul chose the easiest method in this instance and cut it into two pieces each leg: the shoulder and the shank. For the rear legs, which contain several tender muscle groups, he cut the meat into steaks. The backstraps were cut into rough five inch sections. The meat from the neck was left intact in case Wim wanted to make a ground beef of it.

He laid all of these prepared pieces on the inside of the deer skin. During the entire process he didn't talk at all. For anyone who struggled with silence, it was strange to see someone so content with quiet; save the sounds of the tasks at hand. All the while though, Gonyaul was constantly monitoring his surroundings with his senses. Part of growing up in the Kru'll jungle, you are trained to always remain situationally aware and have a healthy respect for the constant changes in the environment.

He gestured to Wim, breaking his long focused silence "Please, pick to eat now?"