In the outer reaches of Nebraska, Jack trained with his long bow, pulling back releasing the quiver, over and over again. Sometimes he hit the target, but often he did not hit anything at all. He would need to get better at this in the near future. His father had tried teaching him but Jack was never a very good student. Last winter his father went out the door to the small wooden building they had called home and never returned. For the first couple of nights his mother said he would be back. Slowly her shoulders sunk as the realization set in that he would not. Jack didn’t know what to make of it. Had his father been injured in the winter wilds and froze to death? Or had he just abandoned them? Jack wasn’t sure and didn’t dwell on it for long. He knew now he had to figure out how to stock their reserves before the cold came again. The garden was pretty self sufficient, and his mother had already begun the canning process but they would need meat as well. So far Jack hadn’t been able to catch anything in the traps the family had spread across the woods. He would have to hunt to survive. So he pulled back the arrow once more, let fly. And missed again.