Quest
I already had the knife in my hand before the boar finished deciding it wanted smoke.
I kept that blade on me at all times on this island.
When I went to the waterfall, when I went fishing, when I walked the shoreline with Mehar every morning.
It was the only real weapon we had and I treated it accordingly.
I stay ready so I don’t gotta get ready, and right now, standing at the edge of camp with two hundred pounds of pissed-off wild boar staring me down like I owed it money, ready was exactly where I was.
The boar was bigger up close. Way bigger.
Built low to the ground, wide through the shoulders, dark bristled fur that looked like it hadn’t been washed since the animal was born, and two curved tusks poking up from its bottom jaw that were definitely capable of opening me up if I let them.
Its little black eyes were locked on me and Mehar and it was doing that thing where it lowered its head inch by inch, huffing through its nose, and I knew what that meant because I’d spent two weeks on this island listening to this thing move through the brush at night.
This wasn’t a warning. This was a countdown.
“Go. Toward the waterfall. Now.”
“I’m not—”
“Mehar, take your pregnant ass toward that waterfall right now. I’m not asking.”
She hesitated for a second and I could feel her weighing whether to argue with me or listen and God bless this woman, for once in her life she chose to listen.
I heard her feet moving backward through the dirt, slow at first, then faster, and the second the boar’s eyes tracked her movement I charged at it.
I charged at a wild boar. On purpose. With a folding knife. My heart was pounding in my chest because I only had one chance to get this right. This muhfucka could kill me easily and then run after Peach.
The boar met me halfway because it had been wanting this fight since we showed up on its island and now it was getting it.
It came in low, head down, tusks forward, and I sidestepped just enough to avoid the full impact but its shoulder caught my thigh and the force of it knocked me sideways.
I stayed on my feet because falling down meant dying and I wasn’t interested in either.
I grabbed a fistful of the bristled fur on its back and drove the knife into the side of its neck.
It squealed. I’m talking a sound that I never want to hear again for the rest of my natural life.
High-pitched, guttural, furious. It thrashed so hard it ripped the knife out of my hand and I watched my only weapon go spinning across the sand while two hundred pounds of wounded, bleeding animal spun around to charge me again.
Cool. No knife. No weapon. Just me and this pig and the audacity I was born with.
It came at me again and this time I didn’t dodge.
I grabbed both tusks with my bare hands, one in each fist, and used its own momentum to twist its head sideways and down.
It fought me. Fought me hard. My arms were on fire and my thigh was screaming from where it hit me and the tusks were slick with blood and spit and I was losing grip by the second.
But I held on because letting go was not an option and I’d been in rooms with men more dangerous than this animal and walked out alive every single time.
I wrestled it to the ground. Got on top of it.
My knee on its ribs, my hands still on its tusks.
Its legs kicked at the air, its body thrashing underneath me and every muscle in my body straining to keep it pinned.
I reached one hand out toward the knife lying in the sand about two feet away and my fingers closed around the handle and I didn’t hesitate.
I drove the blade into the boar’s throat and held it there and felt the animal shudder and kick and then slow and then stop.
It took a long time to stop. Longer than I expected.
I sat there on top of a dead boar with a knife in its throat and blood on my hands and my arms and my chest and my face and I was breathing so hard I thought my lungs were gonna come out of my mouth.
A year ago, the most physically demanding thing I did was a workout with my trainer at Equinox.
Now I was sitting on a carcass covered in blood on a beach in the middle of the Caribbean looking like I’d lost a fight with a blender.
I pulled the knife out and wiped it on my pants and tried to stand up and my legs almost didn’t cooperate. But they did. Because they had to.
“Quest!”
Mehar came running out of the trees and before I could say anything she had her arms around my neck, her belly pressed against me. She was shaking and crying and squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe which was saying something because I was already barely breathing.
“You are out of your mind,” she said into my chest. “You are a whole entire crazy person. You charged at that thing. You ran TOWARD it, Quest.”
“It was gonna charge first. Figured I’d set the tone.”
“Set the—” She pulled back and looked at my face, which I can only imagine looked insane right now, blood everywhere, and she shook her head with her mouth open and I watched her cycle through about six emotions in three seconds. “You’re bleeding.”
“I know.”
“Your arm.”
“Tusk caught me. It’s not deep.”
“You don’t know if it’s deep, you’re not a doctor.”
“Babe, I just killed a boar with a pocket knife. I think I can assess a cut.”
She hit my chest with both hands, not hard, but hard enough to communicate her feelings on the matter.
Then she grabbed the first aid kit and started cleaning the gash on my forearm without asking because that was Mehar.
She didn’t ask, she just handled it. Gauze, antiseptic, tape.
Her hands were shaking but her technique was precise, the esthetician in her treating a wound with the same focus she’d use on somebody’s skin in a spa.
She taped me up and I kissed her forehead and she leaned into me and we stood there for a minute next to a dead pig on a beach in the Caribbean, covered in blood and holding onto each other because what else was there to do.
· · ·
I butchered the boar by the fire. Not gracefully.
I’d never butchered anything in my life except a competitor’s market share, and let me tell you, those are not transferable skills.
But I got the meat off the bone and onto a makeshift spit over the coals and after about an hour the smell of roasting pork filled the camp and my stomach was making sounds that I’m not proud of.
We ate with our fingers because silverware was on the list of shit I took for granted before this island taught me better.
The meat was tough and gamey and completely unseasoned and honestly?
It hit different. When you’ve been surviving on fish and fruit for over a week, a piece of roasted pork with nothing on it tastes like a Michelin star meal. Hunger makes everything gourmet.
Mehar chewed her piece slow and thoughtful and then looked at me sideways. “You know this is my first time eating pork, right?”
“For real?”
“For real. My father would’ve passed out if pork got within ten feet of his house. And I just never got around to trying it after I left. It wasn’t on my radar.”
“So your first pork experience is unseasoned wild boar that I killed with a pocket knife on a deserted island. That’s crazy.”
“No one is going to believe this.” She took another bite and chewed and tilted her head. “It’s not terrible. Needs salt. And garlic. And an oven. And a plate. And maybe someone who actually knows how to cook to prepare it.”
“So you want a completely different meal is what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying it’ll stick to my ribs and right now that’s all that matters.”
I pointed a piece of meat at her. “When we get home, I’m introducing you to real bacon. Thick cut, applewood smoked, crispy edges, little bit of brown sugar caramelized on top. Scrambled eggs, toast, fresh OJ. The whole spread. You haven’t lived until you’ve had breakfast pork done right.”
“You can barely make toast, Quest.”
“I literally just killed a pig with my bare hands and cooked it for you over a fire I built myself. I think I can handle a skillet and some bacon.”
She laughed and I watched the firelight move across her face and I thought about how wild this whole situation was.
We finished eating and washed it down with coconut water and I wrapped the leftover meat in banana leaves and hung it from a branch near the fire to keep it warm and off the ground.
We’d eat good for a few days off this boar.
But it would be dried jerky by tomorrow.
After that, I’d figure it out. I always figured it out.
Mehar curled into my side and put her head on my chest and her hand on her belly and was asleep within minutes.
I put my arm around her and held her close and listened to the fire pop and the ocean push against the sand and felt the dried blood cracking on my skin where I hadn’t washed it off yet.
My arm throbbed under the gauze. My thigh was bruised deep.
My whole body ached from a fight I shouldn’t have been in but won because losing wasn’t built into my programming.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep knowing that whatever else this island threw at us, it had already sent its worst and I was still standing.