by Lynne Hugo
I was almost to the spot where I’d seen the first trail camera, the one I’d found before it could record me. I slowed down and looked intently for signs. Footprints weren’t going to be useful; too many fallen leaves. Sound is deceptive, but I was sure the shot had been close ahead of me. One minute there was nothing to go on, then suddenly there was everything. Blood. On the ground and splattered on the brush and the trunk of a tree. Then a new trail: the one left by a wounded deer.
36
Larry
“Okay, now see, we get the drag cart. We wanna take that with us. Takes too long to come back for it.” Larry was trying to get the kid to move faster, get the drag cart into the woods before someone came along and saw what they were up to. He hadn’t said anything to the kid about in or out of season or posted property. Why go there?
“What for?”
“Ya think you can sling a dead whitetail over your shoulder and dance it out? Just do what I say.” He tried to keep any impatience out of his voice but went ahead and moved the cart himself. “Grab the backpack, will ya? Let’s go.”
“I thought you said, I mean I thought you had to check the cameras, see what’s on them. I thought that’s what we came for.”
“Oh, yeah. That too. Yeah, one of ’em’s messed up. Just grab the pack now.”
It was getting tiresome, having to explain everything. He had a feeling the kid was going to balk at the gloves and mask, but when it’s for real, you make damn sure you’re not leaving any scent. At least the kid picked up the pack with the flashlights, range finder, knives, deer grunt call, and rope. Larry had stuck some protein bars, which tasted like pressed chalk and cardboard dust, and several Cokes and his beer in there, too, already missing the ham-and-cheese sandwiches he usually talked LuAnn into packing for him, just not missing how she bitched about it and complained how she’d worry until he was back home. She was taking care of her mother again, staying overnight. LuAnn was loyal, he always gave her that much. She was getting her payback, though: thrilled because he’d said okay to the kid staying back with him since Mr. Pelley needed him both weekend days until two. So Larry was building up dirty sex points with LuAnn while scoring the kid to carry the pack. He’d tell LuAnn they’d bonded over auto parts. Whatever. Worked for him.
“This thing is heavy,” the kid said.
“Ya wanna trade? You can take the drag cart.” It was a taunt. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Quit soundin’ like a little girl.”
Larry wondered if it was going to dawn on the kid that without him Larry would have the backpack and the drag cart, as he usually did.
“We’re only takin’ the drag cart in a little way. We’ll leave it and come back if we need it.” Larry didn’t want to leave it visible in the truck bed.
“Why not just leave it in the truck then?”
“Too far,” he said. “I know what I’m doin’.”
The kid sighed loudly. “Right.”
Larry knew exactly how the kid meant that and wanted to slug him. “C’mon. We gotta be in place before sunset. They’re active at dusk. No noise from here on out.”
“You’re the one doin’ all the talking,” the kid said, which made Larry want to slug him again. The kid was getting cocky, too big for his pants, or whatever that expression was. He might have to put him in his place.
Larry left off the drag cart, not all that far from the road. He’d lost a certain amount of enthusiasm for the company. They hiked on to the first blind, the kid behind him, blissfully quiet.
* * *
Twilight. There’d been plenty of sign, if you knew what you were looking for, and Larry did. Now they were in the blind, and he was signaling the kid to stay down and stop making noise as he rummaged in the backpack for a Coke and protein bar. Annoyed, he put his finger to his lips. The kid rolled his eyes.
It had only been an hour when the kid stood up. Larry signaled him to get down and the kid said, “Gotta take a leak.”
“Told you to take care of that before,” Larry whispered, hoping he’d get the point.
“Nature calls.” Not whispered.
“Keep your voice down. Stop drinking Coke,” Larry hissed. The kid had gone through a whole one, couldn’t sit still, didn’t even practice with the range finder to get the feel of it. He thought the sound of the deer grunt caller was “weird.” And to completely piss Larry off, he’d taken his cell phone out of his pocket and started playing with it. There was no signal out here, but there were games on it. That’s what the kid said, anyway. A couple of times Larry thought maybe he was deliberately doing what Larry told him not to, but then he remembered what a moron the kid was generally. He’d had to tell him to turn the game sound off, for chrissake.
“You gotta watch for whitetails,” Larry said, forcing elaborate patience into his whisper.
“Tell me if you see any,” the kid said.
Well, he guessed the whole thing had been a mistake except for the points he’d made with LuAnn.
“We could be up in a tree stand, y’know,” Larry said, as the kid peed the stream of youth, long and strong and steady, right behind the blind. Crap, he thought, even I can smell it. Might as well pack it in early and give up for the day. Hope for a hard rain, come back without the kid.
Just after he’d given up in his head, there it was, upwind and to his right; he’d nearly missed the big boy while he was arguing with the damn kid. The rack an enormous thing of beauty, and the buck taking his sweet time headed toward the water just the way Larry had figured.
Making no sudden motions, Larry dropped to one knee and braced his rifle. No time for the range finder. Experience told him twenty yards. A clean shot to the chest.
“NO!” The kid, coming from behind him and thrashing over the top of the blind toward the buck, yelling “Go!” just as Larry squeezed the trigger with pressure and absorbed the kick and the kid became a grotesque sound track underneath the explosion of the powder, the kicked-aside brush and the shouting muffled and tossed into the air with the reverberation.
“Goddamn, what the hell—” No blood he could see on the kid. Didn’t know where the shot had hit, though. The buck was gone.
The kid turned around, shouting, “Don’t kill him. Don’t! He didn’t do anything to you.” His face was working like he wanted to cry.
“Christ! You fucking moron! You cost me that buck. I had a clean shot!” Furious, he picked his way through the underbrush to where the buck had been and yes, blood, and a trail of it.
Larry made his way back to the blind. The western sky still held some color but the land was getting thick with darkness. “Dammit, now I’ve gotta track him. Get the lights outta the pack.”
“Whaddaya mean? He got away—”
“He didn’t drop. Thanks to you. Just shut up and do what I tell you.”
“What?”
“What is wrong with you? I gotta finish him, get the carcass, get the drag cart. It’s gonna get dark. C’mon.”
“He didn’t get away?”
Larry pointed. “Go tell me if you see it on the ground. Move! That’s a twelve-, maybe fourteen-point rack. I want him. Move!”
“Oh God, oh God.”
When the kid just stood there looking like he was going to vomit, Larry ignored him and hustled to get out the two flashlights himself. He tossed one to the kid, who fumbled and dropped it. Carrying his rifle, he pointed to the pack.
“Put that on,” he said, and waited to see that that the kid did, not trusting him to do the simplest thing right. He walked out to pick up the blood trail.
After a minute, the kid followed.
* * *
“Dammit, shut up. Jesus, what don’t you get about shut up?” Larry wheeled around; the kid was sniveling and making a racket. He’d scare off any whitetail within a hundred miles, let alone one that was bleeding.
The kid had his head down. He smeared his sleeve across his face and shook his head. “I’m goin’.”
“Goin’ where?”
�
��Home,” he said. He veered off through the underbrush, his flashlight on, bobbing ineffectively ahead. It wasn’t even dark enough to need the damn flashlight. His eyes wouldn’t adjust as well.
“Go then. You think I care? Put down the pack. I need my stuff.” The kid let the pack slide off his back and thud to the ground. He veered off blindly, still sniveling. “Wrong direction,” Larry was forced to call after the kid when he was trying to be silent, “wrong way,” and went after him. LuAnn would shit a brick about this. He grabbed the kid by the arm. “God, you’re a pain. Do you know how to read a compass?”
“Sorta.” The kid sniffed. Watery blue eyes were ringed in red now. Looked like a big baby.
“Take this.” Larry detached the compass from his key ring. “Make the arrow stay northwest. That’s N and W, there. See?” He pointed, but gave up because his forefinger covered the whole face and what dumbass couldn’t figure out N and W? Well, probably the kid, but whatever. “Try not to go in circles,” he said. “It’d be just like you. You’ll come to the highway. Unless you mess it up, you oughta see the truck if you head up to your right. If you mess it up, your problem. This is stupid, hear me, stupid. You are stupid.”
As the kid left, Larry swore to himself again. The dumbass was using the flashlight. Which he didn’t need now. Larry called, trying to direct his voice. “Hey! Stupid! Wait till it’s darker, and hold the damn light down. At the ground.”
The kid was an idiot and LuAnn was going to find out and flip out, even though it was her kid who was too dumb to live. He knew what would rain down: instead of being grateful that Larry was showing her stupid baby boy how to be a man, she was going to go crazy and he’d have to break up with her. First, though, he had to find that buck and finish it. He was not going to lose that trophy. If he was going to end it with LuAnn, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be for nothing. He picked up his pack and put it on. Screw LuAnn and screw her kid.
37
Louisa
Larry would be following the blood, trying to finish his kill before dark. I could double back to the house, call Gus, drive to Larry’s truck—almost certainly parked where it had been before—and Gus would nab him coming out of my woods. Who knew how he would drag the deer? He couldn’t get the truck in there. Trespassing, poaching, hunting out of season might be enough to get him, in sort of a disappointing Plan B way. But he might be the kind of jerk who’d leave a suffering animal if it took off on a difficult trajectory or looked to be a long chase. He’d be gone before I got back to the house.
I paused there, surrounded by yellow woods, slant light coming from the west. The final sun was setting the treetops on fire now, or they were giving off their own scarlet glow. I’d like to tell you I pushed on and followed the blood trail because I wouldn’t risk that an animal on my land was deliberately left to die in pain. But because so far I’ve told the plain truth I’ll say I felt a dark joy at the thought I could stop Larry and accomplish Harold’s revenge—which had become my own—and it would all look like a terrible “accident.” For Gus’s eyes, I’d be incoherent with crazy grief that I’d accidentally shot this unknown stranger! I didn’t pause to wonder if I’d become no different from Larry, bloodthirsty, hell-bent on bagging my trophy.
I didn’t know how far behind them I was, but in some places the blood seemed heavier. I was afraid I’d lose my sense of direction and started breaking branches so I could find my way back by the raw tips. Some I couldn’t break and had to climb over or step on or duck under. I needed two hands. I stuck the rifle under my right arm, squeezed to hold it against my side. It slipped several times, and I’d lurch to catch and shove it back in place.
Light faded. I couldn’t distinguish the blood from darker leaves and had to get on my knees. I couldn’t keep that up. I’d have to get back to a spot I recognized before it was fully dark and hope for good moonlight, but it was unbearable to come so close and to fail for want of an hour’s light. I was on the losing side of some war. Harold, my Harold: how many times did he feel this? And where had he been when he did? When he stepped in front of the Dwayne County Waste Recycling truck, did it feel like the final failure or one battle he could win?
I steeled myself to turn back, dreading the sound of another shot—yet in a way wishing for it, too, when I thought I heard something to my right and ahead. I froze and listened, and yes, something else was breaking ground. I stood and moved ahead as silently as I could. There was a small hill over there, and less honeysuckle underbrush. It took me away from the blood trail, but I could move quickly. As I got toward the top of the rise, I had to crouch, joints protesting I can’t do this. The noise kept up.
The buck must have doubled back. I reached the top. Just below me: Larry, in camouflage with a camouflage hat, too—not orange—raised his rifle and shot. His bullet thunked into a tree.
He hadn’t seen me. One quick, silent motion. I raised my rifle and aimed for his head, a shot I’d practiced and damn near perfected from this distance.
Maybe you’ll think I should be proud of what happened, but I’m ashamed. Oh, I want to blame the light, or my eyes, or an unsteady hand, but it was none of those. Nothing but failure. Did I not love Harold enough to carry out his mission? He’d have used this gun himself, I’m sure, except for his promise to Cody. Wasn’t I strong enough to find in my rifle sights a target rather than a human being who had a blond Barbie-woman in ridiculous shoes who kissed him and slept with him and would grieve? The Barbie-woman and that boy of hers who lived with them. Could their pain be as great as mine? What was my conviction worth to me, after all? Do you remember that dime balanced on edge, rolling, beginning to teeter side to side as it slows?
Yes. I pulled the trigger. But here is my confession. In that final instant, I shifted the sights.
Larry spun around, eyes wild with shock and panic. He felt his head and then pulled his hat off. One end of the bill was blasted away. I hadn’t thought I’d be that close. As he threw his cap on the ground, he spotted me. Stared hard. Rage.
I tried to shout but it was a garble of sobs. I wanted to tell him I was going to kill him, but it was too late because I hadn’t, and I couldn’t.
“Crazy old bitch!” he shouted. “Ya just missed me. That buck is my kill. Back off.” He spat on the ground then raised his lips to show his teeth.
I was broken, lowering the rifle to my side. Did he see that I was crying? Did I just look like a pathetic old woman in ridiculous oversize camouflage and a hunter’s orange hat? Something made him decide I was no danger because he let out a laugh then, loony and high. He threw back his head in that moment of hilarity and I flashed on the image I’d so often conjured and tried to obliterate: Larry drunk, Cody walking the highway in light like this, reflector strips on his backpack, Larry’s truck weaving, impact, the lurch, the snap of Cody’s neck. And then it didn’t matter that I was a lone soldier with no commander, no comrades whose will I needed to match or raise. That dime? It fell clean and hard.
Instantly, I raised the rifle, aimed, squeezed the trigger.
Sound in the woods off to the right. Was it the buck? Or did Larry think it was? As my shot exploded, Larry had already pivoted, raising and firing his rifle into the woods. He ran then, forging fast in pursuit, forgetting his cap on the ground. The brush cracked for five, six seconds as he pursued, then the sound was swallowed by the forest.
I’d missed. Two chances and I’d failed both times. I couldn’t let this happen. I’d have to lie down and die here in the woods if I couldn’t do better.
I slid and stumbled down the shallow hill and retrieved his cap. I’d burn it with the trash. A backpack like one Harold had years ago was there, too, on the ground, off to the side of where he’d stood. I’d missed seeing it before. I decided not to touch it anyway; all it proved was where he’d been. I checked to make sure the chamber had a bullet and started after Larry. Was he on a deer trail? I couldn’t make one out, and as darkness let down like a long skirt, I couldn’t tell at all if or wh
ere there was blood on the ground. Sick with disappointment, my only choice was to make my way back up and over the hill and go for the lesser version of The Plan.
It’s a good thing I’ve gotten nearsighted and can inspect brambles that are smack in front of my face. I’d made enough of a mess purposely breaking branches that I could retrace my own trail. Once I was back on the deer trail, it was easier. I turned left, parallel to the road, and headed as fast as my bones could move for my field and home. Oh, Plan B wasn’t what Harold and Cody deserved, and the thought of my suffering buck made me sick. But Plan B was surely better than nothing. Wasn’t it?
* * *
I hadn’t even left a light on in the house! Marvelle meowed loudly. Her dish glared, empty. I ignored her and lifted the phone. Then I put it down again. Just a deputy on night duty wouldn’t do. I knew what Harold would want. I looked up the number and called Gus at home.
“Gus, it’s Louisa. I just got home,” I said in a breathless, terrified voice. “Hurry. An intruder’s around here, maybe a robber. Or worse. Please come. There’s a strange truck parked on the road toward the Atherton’s. On the berm of my property. I heard shots. I opened my front door and shot Harold’s old deer rifle into the air to try to scare him away, but I heard another shot after that. Please hurry. Call the deputy, too, if you want, but after all that’s happened, I really need you.”
I knew he’d bite on that one. I didn’t know if the truck was still there, but I had to try. I had to.
“I’ll be right there, Louisa.”
“Catch him and lock him up. I’m terrified. He’s got a gun!”
“On my way now,” he said, and hung up.
I waited. Paced. Finally, I remembered why Marvelle was mad and filled her bowl. I moistened her kibble with a little bourbon and put some real tuna fish on top to mollify her. She loved it. I wanted to check on the girls but couldn’t leave the house because I figured Gus would at least call. Maybe I’d been wrong; the truck wasn’t there and Gus had just gone home annoyed. I hadn’t thought to check the clock when I came in, so I didn’t know how much time had actually passed. Does it make sense if I tell you that I couldn’t stand it anymore? I picked up the car keys and left. I knew it wasn’t reasonable. Unless Larry was gutting my buck by the side of the road, he must be long gone by now.
