Hunter's Moon

by Chuck Logan

  “And last night?” asked Harry.

  “Life goes on, Harry. It’s going on right here. Isn’t it?”

  Harry exhaled carefully. Ten years of discipline slipping, every day a sober penny rubbed shiny with his sweat. Bud with his idle fucking millions.

  “You could tell them you forgot something. And come back for a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you a thing or two about Bud Maston,”

  she said simply.

  Revenge Fuck was beautifully written all over her face. She read his mind and gave him a man-weary expression. Her eyes tightened.

  “Bud’s not the only one in need of help,” she said under her breath.

  56 / CHUCK LOGAN

  “Kid’s stuff,” Harry muttered but his eyes were manacled to hers and he knew he was going to throw his life at her like a pair of dice and it was an exhilaration he hadn’t known in ten years sober.

  She reached over and plucked a red cord that draped from his parka pocket. Slowly she drew out his compass. She slid it on the counter behind the toaster.

  “You could say you forgot your compass,” she said in a steady voice.

  Sleepwalking, out of breath, Harry retreated to the mud porch.

  He put on a blaze-orange coverlet and tried to look busy, checking the contents of his backpack. Through the doorway, he saw Becky grab Chris by the arm and pull him back into the lodge. A muffled disagreement tugged between them, fast, their heads close. Chris’s eyes caught Harry’s glance and burned with a look of such intensity that Harry guiltily broke eye contact.

  They know. Becky must have overheard the scene in the bathroom last night.

  Chris stared straight ahead, holding a piece of pancake in his hand, munching, as Becky continued to whisper in his ear. He shook his head. Becky lowered her eyes. Chris’s face had transformed since he’d left the table and gone to the bathroom. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a wind tunnel.

  Outside, on the steps, they struggled into the snowshoes. Bud handed out ammunition and made sure Chris was loaded and on safe. By the porch light, Harry loaded the Remington—four bullets, copper-yellow streaks, with fat, soft lead noses. With Jesse’s plea careening in his head, he pushed the bolt forward, slid a round into the chamber, locked down the bolt, and set the safety.

  Jesse and Becky stood in the doorway, watching them hunker back and forth, testing the snowshoe straps. Bud bent to help Chris with the buckles. Chris took a step back. Rods of tension transfixed all the people standing in the cold. Could be just me, thought Harry.

  Then Bud came next to Harry and said in a low voice. “I’ll HUNTER’S MOON / 57

  lead, then Chris. Keep your eye on the kid, he’s not used to handling guns.” Then he swung his hand and grinned. “Follow me.”

  “I’ll keep the coffee hot,” said Jesse. She stood hunched, hugging herself. Becky raised her hand once to Chris, then turned and dashed inside. When Bud and Chris had their backs turned, Jesse inclined her head at Harry and winked with her hot whore’s eye.

  They set off across the powder, fine as flour, that had sifted off the trees onto the plowed drive, passed between two of the roughed-in log cabins, and followed a clear-cut trail.

  It was sharp out, but not that cold. Mist pooled in low places.

  Just like Becky had said, a snowmobile trail was carved into the drifts. They followed it for a few minutes, then Bud turned off at another clear-cut and they began to climb.

  Over the scrunch of the snowshoes, Bud’s labored breath wheezed white gusts in the menthol air and a broth of sweat pasted Harry’s underwear against his ribs. Not used to this snowshoe routine in the dark, he settled into a web-footed lumbering gait.

  Bud, who wore the biggest snowshoes, took care to beat a track for Chris, who dragged his left foot. Slow going in the black pines and then, fifty yards away, something big started and bounded away with muffled urgency. They poised alert, handling their guns, peering into the dissolving darkness. A minute later, Bud pointed to fresh tracks. Harry nodded. Deer.

  More serious now, they plodded up the trail.

  There was enough light now to pick out the faint contour of the ridge rising through the pines. They continued to climb, soundless except for the squeak of the laminated catgut on their wickered feet.

  Harry brought up the rear. Reliable Harry. Everybody agreed, when the chips were down, depend on Harry to do the right thing.

  Words: Temper. Temperance. Tempt. Tempest. Most of life was just so much goddamn talk.

  58 / CHUCK LOGAN

  “Wait,” Harry called out.

  “What?” Bud turned.

  “I don’t have my compass. Left it back in the lodge.”

  “Can’t get lost in this snow. Just stay on the tracks,” said Bud.

  “Should have a compass,” said Harry. His eyes were fixed in the gloom an inch to the left of Bud’s frosted beard. “You guys go ahead.

  I’ll catch up to you on the ridge.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Bud said nervously, “but we have to hurry. We should set in before light.”

  “I’ll make better time on my own.” Harry started to unsling his rifle and pack. Bud seized the leather sling in a gloved hand, holding it to Harry’s shoulder.

  “Hang on to your rifle,” said Bud.

  “Okay, but you might as well wait here…”

  “I’ll go part way with you, so you don’t get lost,” said Bud lamely.

  “Can’t get lost in this snow,” said Harry foolishly and was embarrassed by the absurdity of their words. He knows too. And I’m going to do it anyway.

  Chris listened passively to their silly conversation and they left him standing silently in the middle of the trail. Bud kept up for a hundred yards, then bent over, wheezing, he waved Harry on. Harry looked once over his shoulder and saw Bud slip off the trail into the cover of the trees.

  Harry’s snowshoes flew over the moon-dappled snow.

  10

  The clean slice of skis cut through the trample of snowshoe tracks on the snowmobile trail. So Becky had gone skiing after all.

  So he’d be alone with her.

  For years, he’d treaded cautiously between anger and fear and his blood had thinned running in strict sober lines. Now it was up, hammering in his throat.

  HUNTER’S MOON / 59

  Be straight Harry or be crooked—either way, be real.

  He stacked his rifle and pack next to the trail, kicked off the snowshoes, and broke into a run.

  And he saw the pale lunar figure in faded denim come up from a dip in the trail and stride out of the low hanging mist with the plaid lining of her jean jacket rosy against her bare neck.

  She held the compass at arm’s length on its cord, and then she cast her hand and threw the compass away and, not missing a step, she removed her wedding ring and stuck it in her pocket and raised both arms and put her hands back and tossed her head—another step, another toss—step and toss and the long black hair swung free.

  She moved to the left, off the trail, into a grove of long-needled pine and Harry paced her, step for step. Sideways at first, they stole silently through smaller pines that were bowed with snow, prostrated in the wake of the north wind and then the thick branches closed in and dissembled the moonlight.

  They approached each other by feel, by smell, in the still green maze of pine needles that vibrated in the misty air, erect as slender tuning forks.

  Soundlessly they closed the distance until he threw his hands wide and pushed the pine boughs aside and uncovered her trembling on tiptoe with her eyes shut and her lips parted. Moonlight etched her teeth and hung a tinsel of silver and shadow on her upturned face and the bristling pine folded around them.

  They crushed together and buttons, zippers, and belt buckles made welts in their flesh and their hips grated and her hair hummed through his fingers, inky as a sweaty June night.

  Their hands explored and it was impossible this way, hobbled in clothes and boots, so she turned around and they fu
mbled in the moon-splashed dark and a button popped off his wool pants in his haste as she kicked one tennis shoe free of her wadded jeans.

  She flung out her arms, grasped two branches in her fists, and bent from the waist and her smooth thighs shuddered as 60 / CHUCK LOGAN

  she stamped one shoe in the snow and then the other and took the stance and thrust her back in a powerful arch.

  Harry would remember the antler curve of the moon, the pines shivering, the snow tumbling down.

  Their breath joined in one great cloud, then tapered off into plumes and on fire in a foot of snow, they dropped to their knees and, face to face, began to laugh. Quickly they covered each other’s mouths with their hands and hugged and looked warily after their echoing laughter. Starved to touch, their fingers silently gobbled each other’s faces and only their eyes sparkled with laughter: isn’t this the way it’s supposed to be—wild. Magic.

  The moment ended and they put their clothing back in place and she tugged his wrists, inclining her body back toward the lodge—toward hot coffee, clean sheets. Words to span the wreckage of impulse.

  No. He wanted this moment pure. He shook his head and she tightened her grip. They began to struggle because she was very strong and deliberate thought replaced the passion in her incendiary eyes. Stay.

  Harry resorted to a fighting technique to break her grip. She re-bounded quickly and threw her arms around him. He held her off and pushed through the pines. A crimson thread drew him to the side of the trail where he retrieved his compass. She followed him as he retraced his steps and, as he buckled on his snowshoes and shouldered his rifle and pack, she stood with her arms upraised, beckoning. Finally, the cold gripped her face like censure; she hugged herself, turned and walked away.

  Not a word had passed between them.

  He was caught in a riddle of time. Somewhere just up ahead he had stepped through a door in the forest and now he had to find his way back into his life. Irony twirled around him but his muscles moved smoothly with dreamy power and his eyes had never been so clean. He could feel the blood shoot the rapids of his heart.

  Cursed or blessed, he wanted to shout.

  HUNTER’S MOON / 61

  Floating, he seized the rifle with both hands in a burst of exhilaration: I’ll shoot a deer while it’s still running down her leg.

  Then the first twinge eclipsed the euphoria. Have to tell Bud. Be honest. Just happened. Like a car accident. Still hard to think right now, all tactile, pulsing…

  Every surface of the forest stood out with a shadowy gleam.

  Pristine, never cut in here. Towers of white and red pine reached up 80, 90 feet before they branched. Thickets of snow-tiered fir and spruce. A tremble of aspen stirred heady resins of sap and tangy bark and pine cones nestled like tiny hand grenades.

  His heart thumped in his throat when he picked out Bud hiding behind a tree next to the trail, stooped over, chin on his chest. He stepped back into his life and everything looked different. Bud looked weak, pathetic.

  For the first time, Harry consciously resented Bud Maston his messy, monied life. Walking those last few paces, his mind swirled with numbers; his age, salary, the years until retirement. Not that many good years left.

  Could he afford a woman like Jesse? Crazy damn thoughts.

  “You all set?” Bud whispered.

  Harry nodded and held up the compass and looked around.

  “Where’s the kid?”

  “Up ahead. He started down already. Something was moving this way. I think he saw that deer.”

  “You think? Not a good idea to split up in the dark.”

  Bud watched his breath drift in the chill air. “Wind’s this way,”

  he motioned to the left. “If we jump a deer, he’ll run into the wind, that way.”

  “Yeah?” Harry’s senses were still reeling. Wind? And Bud, his voice goofy for that big deer, went on talking.

  “So, you take the trail, I’ll drag along about thirty yards into the trees to the right. Maybe you’ll push him out my way.” Bud gripped his rifle and his eyes glowed in the faint light, Harry wondered if he could sniff the sweet babyshit of sex lingering in the crisp air.

  62 / CHUCK LOGAN

  “Let’s do it. I’m going to hang that deer from that fucking tree and show these morons,” said Bud. “I’ll meet you where the ridges split off over the swamp. Keep an eye out for Chris, he’s to the left.”

  Harry didn’t like it, split up and all, but he didn’t want to be around Bud right now, so he stalked the trail while Bud moved silently on snowshoes through the trees. He just walked, not even unslinging his rifle from his shoulder until he came to the end of the trail where the ridge broke into three meandering fingers and sloped gradually. Below, flanked by tamarack and aspen and fringed by a thick hedge of tall reddish brush, the gray grass and clumped cattails were bent with frost and driven helter-skelter by a stampede of wind.

  Bud’s voice came from the cover of the trees to Harry’s rear.

  “You’re in here. I’ll find Chris and set him in and be right back.”

  A few yards away, astride the ridgeline, a platform of new lumber peeked stark as bone among the rotting branches of a fallen white pine. A deer would see it a mile away.

  Bud disappeared into the trees down the second finger. Harry unbuckled the snowshoes and quietly hoisted himself into the platform and scooped away snow. He had the highest position, overlooking the other two fingers.

  He got his bearings and quickly figured his field of fire: 200 yards of open swamp and slope in front and 100 yards of tangled forest to either side.

  A red squirrel raced chattering through the underbrush in a miniature frenzy and set the forest echoing and the first hush of dawn smeared honey through the trees and dripped pastel shadows on the snow.

  The heavy rifle swung balsa-light in his hot hands as he traversed an arc, sighting along the gray marsh grass. Slowly, his body began to cool and a sheet of sweat turned icy across his chest and a curl of steam rose from his bare throat and he inhaled the happy scent of crushed berries. He whispered: “Jesse.”

  HUNTER’S MOON / 63

  Then the rabbit-assed squirrel bolted again, marking Bud’s progress through the thicket across the ravine.

  Friend’s wife. Technically. Bargaining now. Bud didn’t really love her anyway.

  He strained his eyes to see through the filmy light. Everything was flat. The shadows without edge. Hard to see.

  He shifted the rifle and blew into the peep sight to make sure it was free of snow. Then he flexed his fingers in the soft deerskin glove shells, switched off the safety, tested the trigger pull, flipped back to safe. With the stock snug to his shoulder, he rested his cheek along the smooth walnut. Last time he’d fired a rifle it was dirty black plastic itching his cheek, stinking of sweat and mosquito repellent and it’d been 100 degrees in the shade

  Now what? That was Chris—but why was he down at the bottom of the ravine, stepping out of the thick stuff by the swamp. Too far down. C’mon guys, get some cover. Almost light.

  Times like this it was hard to believe Bud had been a marine on another ridge years ago. A spiky, laterite, red dirt ridge that had been fertilized with napalm and twisted down from the Annamite Cordillera below the DMZ in Vietnam. Harry had read the citation.

  Bud had stayed behind with the machine gun to cover the retreat of his platoon so they could get to better ground. Held off a North Vietnamese flanking attack for crucial minutes, like Chamberlain on Little Round Top. Saved his whole company.

  The first trickle of true remorse seeped over him. Friends were the people you lied for, who you didn’t steal from.

  A panorama of memory nailed down the slow stain of guilt. Spring 1971. The big Vietnam Veterans Against the War demonstration in Washington, D.C.:

  Harry and Bud, holding hands, stepped forward when their time came in the long line of veterans who were tossing back their medals and moved up to the pig wire Nixon had strung across the Cap
itol steps to keep them away from their government and flung their Purple Hearts and a jackal pack of reporters and photographers scrambled across the steps to

  64 / CHUCK LOGAN

  drool at the twinkling stars and hearts that showered down on the cold marble and Bud and Harry charged the fence and started to scale it, shaking with a holy rage.

  Almost sun up. Noble memories didn’t help. He was alone in all of God’s nature with a dirty movie in his head. Only sin there was: letting a buddy down.

  Bud was moving down the ravine and Chris was starting to climb to meet him. Now what the fuck were they doing, maneuvering?

  Maybe they spotted something. Harry stood up on tiptoe, but the ground was tricky where Bud and Chris approached each other and the edge of the ridge and brush blocked his line of sight.

  A puff of snow fell from a pine bough and slapped his face. His ears rang. Too long in the city. The sheer quiet made him nervous and he glanced from side to side in an effort to locate its source.

  Muffled voices, but angry. An argument. What the hell now?

  Harry tensed up on the balls of his feet.

  “Why you ungrateful little shit!” Bud’s bellow shook the trees as a blur of orange jackets collided in the thicket. Christ, they were fighting.

  The two spaced rifle shots blew a hole in the pastel dawn and the day gushed out at red combat speed and Harry vaulted from the stand and was in midair when Bud screamed and his senses—razor sensitive from Jesse—flicked toward the sound of mortal terror like a school of sharks.

  He thumbed off the safety as he hit the snow in a dead run for the edge of the ridge with his rifle held at high port.

  11

  There was time.

  Harry on the ridge, synapses popping like firecrackers.

  Real close. But time. Ninety yards down the slope, Chris’s hand shook frantically, struggling with his rifle bolt. Trying to clear a jam.

  HUNTER’S MOON / 65

  Bud flopped, tangled in his long snowshoes with blood running Day-Glo bright and wet on his orange jacket, his hands, and spattered in the snow. His red hand strained toward where his rifle was buried, only the stock showing. Out of reach.