I was assured by no less than a dozen people that things would be fine for me to head off on the hunting trip with Mr. Bethel. I'm actually glad I got to go, but it was hard to click off, my mind running through everything that needed to be done. Also, if I'd bagged out, there wasn't anyone else to go with him, and as capable as Mr. Bethel might be, his disabilities meant that he couldn't be out in the woods alone. His son had already found other things to do for the weekend, so if I left, then he had no one to go with him.

Reaver was a bit more in the moment, and its identity was growing, so I now was starting to get questions while we rode, Why don't they reforge him so his legs work?

I thought back to it, rather than speaking the question aloud, Humans don't work like that. The damage is in his spine, so the signals from his brain can't make it to his lower half.

We swung through Jack in the Box. Not really too many pre-dawn options in Portland. Despite being a city, most of Portland shuts down at night. Our Wal-Marts aren't even 24-hour. A few places, like McDonald's and Jack, ran 24-hour drive-thrus, but overall, almost the whole city was shut down when we left. Mr. Bethel talked at length about the upcoming trip and the area we'd be camping out in. He loved this shit, Scouts too. It was only too bad that he hadn't been made Scoutmaster earlier, cause his excitement was infectious, and that could've saved us attrition on boys.

People would say that he was the sort of man that 'demanded respect', but I always felt like the term was inadequate. He demanded very little, he just... exemplified. Hmm, wouldn't have gotten that one before the 1%, it had its upswings in my personal life. We drove out of the city, heading sort of vaguely out in the direction of the principal mountain range in Oregon, the Cascades. The one that everyone around the area knew was Mt. Hood, which you could generally see from a lot of places around the city. People think of Portland as A City, but it isn't that difficult to get out into the wilderness. Take a wrong turn in sections of the city, and suddenly you're in farm country.

I decided to swing through the Troop site, and Darryl had been at it again. Now, aside from video tutorials and such, Darryl had stacked up other features, such as merit badge tracking, service hour tracking, and... some sort of thing that was grouping the badges based along sympathetic lines, with suggestions on which merit badges could be worked on simultaneously. Okay, for instance, Camping, Backpacking, Bird Study, Cooking, Fishing, and Fly Fishing could all be worked on at the same basic time. It was based on my own merit badge grouping that I'd made up to try and maximize badge collection.

There was now also a Slack element to the site. Darryl had made it so that boys could contact the merit badge counselors through the site, rather than having to specifically create meet-ups with them, or hope they remembered how to use Discord and arrange time. Instead, you could communicate quickly and effortlessly through the site, and even post videos of your completion of tasks. If I was tracking this properly, the boys were devouring new badges now. That wasn't me, though, it was Darryl behind it, getting easier access to the information and the ability to complete tasks through a less complicated interface than attempting to do things the traditional way.

Then I noticed the notifications tab, and I had new notifications for the site. Clicking, a bunch of merit badges had been signed off on, and I clicked over to see what it was. All of my citizenship badges had been signed off, along with Communications, Public Health, Public Speaking, and Salesmanship. I didn't remember setting up any of those for work, but I checked the sign-offs... Mr. Tsumpti. He'd joined the site and signed off on a range of my merit badges, things I had inadvertently completed without considering them. Meanwhile, Darryl had closed out my physical badges for the counselors, linking them to my various streams and videos of my workouts and my explaining my workouts, so in came badges like Personal Fitness, Athletics, Cycling, Climbing, and Sports. He'd also put forward my work on our little mobile games for things like Game Design, and others were adding up, like Textiles, Woodworking, and Drafting for my making of the tents and designs for the chuck boxes... Jesus, that next Court of Honor was going to be insane when it came time for badge awards, especially with all the stuff I was working on this weekend. Oh... I was gonna have to spend so much time sewing badges. Pretty sure I just secured Life Scout at the very least. I would need to start considering what my Eagle Scout service project would be.

As we drove along, I tried calling Anna to check on things, "Hey Anna. Was wondering how things are going back in Portland?"

Anna didn't even hesitate, "Everything's being handled, Marcus. I'll talk to you when you get back, and you can tell me all about the trip."

And she hung up. So, I called Dad, "Hey Dad, how're things going on your end?"

Again, a lack of hesitation in response, "Everything's being handled, Marcus. Talk to you when you get back, okay?"

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And he hung up. I called Mom, Mackenzie, Miguel, Fred, and even Darryl and Brad. Every one of them was a two-sentence reply that everything was being handled and that they'd talk when I got back. Finally, I talked with Merida. Yeah, she's young, but she wheedles, and she's definitely heard stuff. No Luck, "Mom says everything's being handled, Mark. Can I have a baby deer?"

"Hon, if I take a baby deer, their mom'll be really upset."

They were handling me, and wouldn't let me know what was happening in Portland. Finally, I called Aimee, and while she wouldn't talk about Portland stuff either, we did talk for a while. They'd gotten to her, that much was evident, but had left me regular girlfriend conversations. How thoughtful. We did, however, get interrupted by her dad, who wanted to ask me if I would be willing to trade him some steak when I got back. I assured him I would, and hung up. Mr. Bethel finally let out a held laugh, "Reminds me of the first time me and the wife left Tom home with the babysitter. Look, you laid out your plan?"

I nodded, "Yes."

"And you trust all of them?"

And there it was, "And I should trust them to get their jobs done for a weekend."

He slapped the steering wheel, "There we go! Now we're cooking with bear grease!"

You know, I've never been sure if he means bear or bare when he says that, and I'd ask, but... there's an outside chance I don't want the answer. So instead, I focused on checking the map, chatting idly while I found the most up-to-date information on the hunting region we were going to. As hunting season ran along, the deer would change area, avoiding the predators, so with hunting season up and running, it was a matter of tracking to where they were going to be more than where the herds were right this second. Hunters were posting their kills, chatting with each other about where they'd bagged their kills, and arguments over who had the best deer call were legion. Following that track, I started listening to live deer calls. There were also warnings of cougars, with open hunting season on them year-round.

Suddenly, we pulled off, and I almost asked, but we were at a Cabela's, so the reason for the stop was pretty obvious. Mr. Bethel wanted me to practice before we got to the site, to make sure I had the basics down. We went in, and I had a look around. Much as I respected Mr. Bethel being willing to let me use his firearms, I wanted my own equipment. The store was fully geared out for hunting season, and it was pretty lively. Much as folks tended to write off Oregon as being the ultimate bastion of liberal ideology, we were half-redneck, and it was time to hunt and fish... and apparently, drink copious amounts of beer if the rush on coolers and advertisements were an indicator.

I got a bunch of stuff, mainly centered around hunting versus my usual camping and hiking gear. I needed things like camo, though I did opt for the neon-orange stuff. The animals we were hunting didn't see color, and catching a bullet in the ass was less of an issue if you were visible to the humans with guns. We got bear bangers, and then I paused, cause Reaver was curious about bows. It had been a significant weapon for its entire lifetime, but archery had changed a great deal over the centuries, and fallen out of style for warfare. Instead, they had become their own sport and were used in hunting as well.

One of the sales associates came over. Unlike most stores that tried to have as few people on the floor as possible, Cabela's did have a lot of employees, and at least the woman I was working with was very knowledgeable. She took me through things like draw weight, and what different weights were used for. I ended up opting for a lever action bow package, letting me shift between draw weights, but having a smoother draw curve. That would let me reset based on whatever I was hunting, and be more comfortable on repeated draws. Also, they look really cool. The saleswoman let me know that they did have an archery range on-site and that I could practice with a few different models to decide what worked best for me.

I would need practice, so yeah, let's do this. For me, practice is a very different concept. I started out on the lightest draw and worked my way up. I had it essentially down, but I bought accouterments to accompany it, such as targets that I could use for further practice at camp, as well as stuff for repair, maintenance, and arrows for both big and small game.

Next up... I did purchase some firearms. I wanted to close out riflery and shotgun badges, and while I appreciated Mr. Bethel being willing to let me use his, I needed the space with my own weapons to be able to properly use my 1%. There was a short spot of bother with that purchase until the guy at the counter recognized my name, and I flashed my H.A.A. badge for ID. There are upsides to this, and... okay, look, there's a lot of really cool things in this store, and I'm a fourteen-year-old with a near-bottomless wallet. I freely admit that the trip got away with me, and the salespeople saw me coming as soon as they realized I wasn't asking anyone if I could purchase things.

I had to get most of the stuff I bought sent back home, and yeah, I would definitely be having a chat with Mom and Dad about some of it, but come on, I've watched Mr. Bethel tool around on that ATV for years, and the one I ordered looked absolutely badass.

Mr. Bethel put out that I needed to stop by the gun range after this, so I could practice with my new string of firearms, and make sure I had it down before we got out into the woods. We hit up the gun range, and I got my shots off. The shotgun was the biggest adjustment, with way more kick to it than the rifle and sidearm, but it wasn't long before I had the firing down. I wasn't sniper-qual level yet, but it was enough for a weekend of hunting and fishing. He also had me reading care and maintenance information for the rest of the ride until I could recite it in my sleep.

We got to our location around mid-afternoon, and after pulling up the van and trailer, it was time to get things ready at the cabin. Bethel had rented out a hunting cabin near enough to the hunting ground we were using. Unfortunately, whomever had been using it before us hadn't bothered to replace the firewood. Sigh... Let's get to work.