Protein

a story by Kay Norfleet

Writing Prompt:
The townsfolk talked but she didn't care. Day after day, she lugged her saw, a bucket, a homemade fishing pole, and bait across the frozen lake. Once there, she sat shivering while waiting for the telltale tug from a creature of the deep. This torturous task wasn't for the fairer sex but what choice did she have? On that particular day, as clouds and a north wind rolled in from the mountains, she noticed two little boys at the edge of the lake, shouting and pointing...
 
Protein
Northwest Wyoming, Jackson Hole to be precise, 1944

"Any meat today" Lucy asked the storekeeper. 

As usual he shook head sideways.

"But, my son, the bow hunter, shot an elk.  If you just wait, we'll have some steaks for you."

"O FOR GOODNESS SAKES."

She wandered out of the store and tried to ignore the townsfolk munching away on their venison burgers at the cafe in town.  Venison was a new taste for them because most of them were tourists.  Venison offered a taste of the locale. Ugh!

Lucy hated venison. And she couldn't abide Spam. Spam, as other canned meats, didn't require as many points on her rationing card.  She could have had Spam. Fried Spam was NOT tempting!. Yes, she was a meat snob.

Lucy had to do something to assuage her hunger. Something that would allow her to have a meal-a complete meal.  She was no vegetarian. 

Rationing of meat was so necessary.  Why, if those guys overseas didn't have protein they might be too weak to march and pull triggers and the Germans...oh, it was too awful to think about.

Also each person in the United States was allowed the same amount of points each month so the allied forces could supply food to the war-ravaged countries they liberated.  Of course, the war-ravaged countries didn't favor kidney, liver, brain, or tongue, but then neither did Lucy.

The OPA (Office of Price Administration) ruled most of the United States. It's just that sometimes supplies didn't make it to the northwest part of Wyoming, so they were shorted. So between the OPA and the trucks that were supposed to bring the meat, there was a discrepancy.  Surely they meant well.

BUT
Lucy needed protein to act as the guide to tourists in this wilderness.  Lucy either rode a horse to lead them or used skis to lead...whatever the weather dictated. If she didn't have protein she worried that she might fall off her skis (or horse) and those venison stuffed tourists would probably just leave her body where it fell and then wander off. And who knows what would happen-she'd be written up as the guide (although dead) who allowed the death of so many. But bad publicity is bad publicity she mused. (You might have realized by now that Lucy wasn't the brightest bulb in the people chandelier.)

But then Lucy had an epiphany...
 thoughts of her and the gang's summer boat ride and fishing and the FISH FRY entered her mind. Yum! The taste of fried trout began to surface and surface, very soon it was that taste was leading her home.  Home where her bamboo (remember this is the 1940s) skis rested. 

She went home enthused by her memory.
 "My skis could be a fishing pole if you tied them together (she was always trying to find new ways to use a one-purpose item)." (The 1940s was a time when lots of people "made do.")

Excitedly, she gathered them up, tied them together, then attached a string and hook at the end. Aha-a fishing pole. The bucket, to collect her bounty (fish) and saw (augur) that would be used to drill a hole in the ice were easy to come by. That past summer she used the auger to dig holes in the yard when she planted her garden, and, of course, she like everyone else, had a bucket. Set!

Lucy gathered all her fishing gear and loaded it all into the ten-year-old Chevy. (New cars were non-existent-the war, you know.)

Off she drove to Jackson Hole Lake. The ice on the lake was more than four inches deep, perfect for ice fishing.  She slid out of her car onto the lake with her fishing items, not too far from shore, but far enough for the fish to be abundant.

Perfect-well almost-it was kind of cold. The mountains didn't block the wind. But after she had drilled a hole in the ice, dipped her pole in the water, and jiggled it a bit, success. She jiggled really well even though she was low on protein.

What a magnificent trout!  And another. And another. Wow, she almost was so engrossed in her fishing that she didn't see the kids on the shore jumping up and down and pointing.
"Now what are those little buggers doing jumping up and down?" she said to herself. "Are they pointing at me?"

She waved, but they continued more frantic. "I don't know what their problem is, but I'm busy." She again considered her pole and jiggled.

Suddenly she heard a roar behind her. She turned and saw the source.  A bear! A bear!

"Guess he wants to share in my fishing winnings -bears like fish."

She threw one at him.  He caught it and swallowed it whole- in one swallow.  It was a big bear with a big mouth.

So she continued with the one-way-throwing game, until, whoops, no more fish left.  Lucy then had the sense that she was in trouble. Yep!

The bear reared and charged. Then one big gulp and suddenly appeared four angels with foppish haircuts. They hovered over her body and sang...

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (the ice crystals the bear had stirred up were the diamonds)

What a trip! 

The kids on shore scattered, because it didn't look as if the bear was finished.