“The DA said it was an accidental death during the act of hunting. It is not a criminal case. It does not rise to the level of criminal negligence. The boy was licensed to hunt.”
Luke couldn’t believe they’d actually considered something else. What’d they think; he tried to kill his own father?
Then there was the visitation at Lynch and Sons, a place where Luke had been a dozen times for funerals of grandparents, uncles and aunts and now his own father. It seemed like hundreds of people came up and talked to him, and he couldn’t remember one thing anyone said. People young and old shaking his hand and hugging him. All he wanted to do when it was over was be by himself.
He had a clearer recollection of being at the gravesite, watching the casket being lowered into the ground. His mother would look over at him, but he couldn’t make eye contact with her. He felt too guilty.
After the funeral, he went in the basement and smashed his bow, the Darton Apache, on a structural steel post in the furnace room, breaking it in two pieces and then four, knowing it could never be repaired and vowing he’d never pick up another one again as long as he lived.
He didn’t believe in God after that,’ cause it didn’t make sense. How could this happen? Why’d God let it? He hurt inside and started drinking to feel better. Found a bottle of schnapps in the liquor cabinet and poured it in a white plastic flask he bought at Rite Aid. He drank before school, the hot licorice liquid burning his throat, but it numbed him, eased the pain, and now he was buzzed most of the time.
Then one morning in homeroom, Jordan Falby, a lineman on the football team, grinned and said, “Hey, McCall, been deer hunting lately?”
Luke, outweighed by sixty pounds, got up from his desk and swung the edge of Algebra II into Falby’s cheekbone and blood spurted and Falby yelled and brought his hand up to his face and Luke swung at him again and then kids were grabbing him, holding him back as Miss Hyvonen, their teacher, came in the room and freaked.
Luke was suspended indefinitely pending an inquiry, the assistant principal, Helen Parks, a plump nervous woman with red hair, said.
Luke had to call his mother and had to wait till she came and picked him up. When they were in her Land Rover pulling out of the school parking lot, she looked at him and said, “What’s going on?”
What’d she think was going on? She open her eyes this morning and forget what happened?
“What did Jordan Falby say that set you off?”
Luke told her.
His mom said, “I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
Luke couldn’t imagine his mother hurting a fly.
She said, “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you. I want you to see someone.”
Luke had been thinking about killing himself for a few weeks. The pain he felt wouldn’t go away. It was there in his head before he opened his eyes in the morning and stayed with him till he fell asleep at night, if he could.
He considered sleeping pills. Take a handful, nod off and it was all over. Or he could shoot himself. Load one of his dad’s shotguns, put the barrel in his mouth, and boom. It might be effective, but he didn’t want his mom finding him on the basement floor with his head blown off. That wasn’t right. Carbon monoxide was another possibility. Drive in the garage, close the door and let the car run. After giving it a lot of thought, sleeping pills seemed like the best option. But where would he get them? Did you need a prescription?
His mom said, “When were you going to tell me you quit tennis?”
Her voice brought him back. “Didn’t I?”
She glanced at him and looked angry. She turned away, staring through the windshield.
First light. Luke could see now, walking behind his dad along a ridge that sloped down through big Michigan timber and thick cover. They stepped over a fallen birch tree and maneuvered through tangles of alder and fern, boots sloshing on wet leaves. They’d walked a couple miles, at least. His ears were cold and he could see his breath, wide awake now after a slow start.
His dad stopped and took out binoculars and glassed a stand of oak trees in the distance, a place where whitetail liked to hang out and eat. He lowered the binoculars and looked at Luke. “What happened with Lauren?”
“She said she wanted to be friends. We both kind of decided.”
“You’re probably better off. Having a girlfriend’s a lot of work.”
“She’d get mad if I didn’t call her every day, and sometimes, even if I did.”
“Girls are different, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Yeah, they seem a little odd at times.”
His dad smiled.
“Just wait. You haven’t seen anything.” He handed the binoculars to Luke. “Have a look?”
Luke gripped them, brought them up to his eyes, and panned stands of oak trees and birch and aspen and cedar, the leaves still green, and followed another ridge up to a stand of maple. No deer, but the light was coming and he could make out the shapes and contours of things. A black squirrel darted across the trail and disappeared.
They kept moving through thick cover, feet unsteady on the slick terrain, approaching an area where the leaves were matted down.
Owen said, “Looks like they just got up from a nap.”
Luke said, “Check this out.” Pointing to tracks that went uphill to a stand of oak trees on a ridgetop in the distance.
The canopy was high and thick, and it was dark as they followed the deer tracks upslope toward the trees. His dad stopped and pointed at deer poop, slick and green and still steaming.
“They’re close. Remember what you used to call it?”
Luke didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Gucks. You’d say, ‘Daddy, I got to go gucks.’” Owen looked at him and grinned. “It’s the perfect word, isn’t it?”
“How about Grandma? I’d tell her I had a stomachache, she’d say, go sit on the toilet and do some popsie doodles, or popsies.”
“Like we were living in a Disney movie,” Owen said.
Luke liked that.
“The pros, like Del Keane, put their hand in it, tell you what Mr. Deer had for breakfast. Want to try it?”
Luke made a sour face.
They followed the tracks over a berm to a ridgetop that was littered with acorn husks, a sign that deer had been there. From the high ground, they could see the tracks continue downslope through a funnel of trees to a cornfield in the distance.
Owen said, “Give me about twenty minutes, then head down. I’ll push them at you.”
“How do you know they’re in there?”
“It’s got everything they need: food, water, and shelter. Make your way to the edge of the tree line and be ready. You’re only going to get one shot. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
Luke sat on a tree stump, the Darton Apache resting across the tops of his thighs, thinking how cool and exciting it was being out here. He scanned the woods with the twelve-power Zeiss binoculars, the sun rising fast now behind him. He caught glimpses of his dad in the distance, a dark shape, disappearing and reappearing through the trees. He panned right, saw something move, adjusted the sight, focused on a deer tail swinging back and forth. He panned left, saw a leg and followed it to the thick body of a high-racked ten-pointer. The deer lifted its head, rumen drooling from its mouth, sensors on full alert. The buck snorted and stomped its hooves and took off, Luke trying to follow it with the binoculars. Losing it in the thick woods.
He turned and picked up his dad again moving along the perimeter of the cornfield about a hundred yards away, the stalks at least a foot taller than him.
Owen pulled two brittle cornstalks apart and entered the field. He moved along a row that was so straight he could see down a hundred yards, the result of GPS, now available on farm equipment-taking any guesswork out of planting crops in straight lines.
The ground was pitted and irregular, puddles of water covered with a thin layer of ice that broke easily under his we
ight and made a sound like glass cracking. His boots were wet and soon heavy with mud, making it harder to walk. He carried a Browning Mirage in his right hand, the bow weighing a little more than four pounds with its quiver loaded with carbon arrows.
Wind whipped through the cornfield, rattling the stalks that sounded to Owen like the percussive beat of a jazz tune, and bringing with it the intermittent reek of cow dung and skunk and the heavy smell of wet hay.
He watched a hawk swoop in from a scattered cloud formation and dive like a fighter jet into the field and then soar back up with something squirming in its talons.
Owen adjusted his Detroit Tigers cap, pulling the brim down to keep the sun out of his eyes. Although his body was heating up under layers of thermal insulation and camo, it was cold. He could see his breath. He went about fifty yards and listened. The wind blew and the stalks clattered. It was tough to hear anything else.
He cut left through the field now, going against the grain, pulling stalks apart and knocking them down. It was the only way to cover a big area fast. He came to a stretch of field where the stalks were mowed down like a semi had driven through. He followed the path and heard them before he saw them: five deer, two big bucks and three does, stopping to eat corn destined for the farmer’s silo and eventually to sell as livestock feed.
He knew the wind would bring his scent right to them, but they wouldn’t know what direction it was coming from. He came up behind them and started yelling and they scattered, the bucks going one way, the does, another-Owen chasing the bucks, pushing them toward Luke and the cover of high ground-Owen catching glimpses of the bucks jumping, antlers clearing the seven-foot-high corn as they ran.
Luke moved down the ridge toward the cornfield. He stopped, brought the binoculars to his eyes and glassed a wild turkey and then another one-a whole family walking in a line through the woods. He let the turkeys pass and made his way to the edge of the tree line. Leaned against a big maple and waited. His nose was running and he wiped it on the sleeve of his camo shirt.
From this position, he could look straight down a row into the cornfield. He leaned his bow against the tree, slipped off his backpack, opened it, took out a plastic bottle of Gatorade, a cool blue flavor called Frost and unscrewed the top, taking a long drink. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye. A rabbit hopped out of the field and ran into the woods.
Luke was thinking about Lauren, wondering if they’d get back together. He didn’t tell his dad he missed her and thought about her all the time. Maybe she was going out with someone else. The possibility of that bothered him. He remembered seeing Mike Keenan talking to her in the cafeteria, but decided not to dwell on it any further.
He heard something that distracted him-something big and fast coming toward him, crashing through the field. He thought he heard his dad’s voice now, but couldn’t make out what he was saying, like the wind was blowing it away. He picked up his bow, nocked a Zwickey broadhead.
He saw a buck in the row, coming right at him. The deer cut left and he lost it. He ran right, saw the buck appear again and disappear, zigzagging toward him. He was running along the edge of the cornfield. Luke heard the deer and saw it taking down stalks as it charged toward him. He tried to draw the bowstring, but his hands were shaking and he couldn’t breathe. He felt like the strength had been sucked out of him. The deer was close now. Twenty yards. Ten. And then it went left and ran by him, darting into the woods.
Luke felt helpless at the moment. And stupid. He took a breath and tried to relax. He couldn’t believe it. Maybe the best chance he’d ever have to shoot a whitetail, and he couldn’t do it. His dad had mentioned it, a condition called buck fever that afflicted hunters and now he knew what it felt like.
His hands were steadier now and he sucked in air. Regained his strength and pulled the bowstring about halfway to see if he could do it. And there, coming down the row right at him, was another buck, a bigger one, and he remembered his dad saying, “Deer are color-blind, but they’re good at picking up movement. So when you get in your stance, be as economical as you can. Don’t move any more than you have to. Pull straight back.”
And that’s what Luke did. Stood balanced, in full draw now, centered the buck in the crosshairs of his sight. He saw his dad closing in behind the deer, just a glimpse before he released the arrow and followed its trajectory, hitting the animal in the meaty part of his upper body above the shoulder. The whitetail stopped running, stumbling now, staggered a few yards and fell over. Luke ran toward the deer, pumped, excited. As he got closer, he could see it was still alive, trying to get up, but couldn’t, laying on a bed of trampled cornstalks, black eyes watching him. He looked for his dad, who had been close behind the deer, but didn’t see him.
Owen could see the buck struggling to get up as Luke approached, not knowing it was bleeding to death, the broadhead having gone through its heart, blood pumping out, a dark purple-red. The deer had about five minutes before everything would shut down.
Owen wasn’t in much better shape, sitting in the dirt, propped up by cornstalks, the ground cold and wet under him, a corncob digging into his back. It was strange: he didn’t feel the arrow that had gone through the buck and somehow had hit him, the carbon shaft buried in his chest up to the white fletching. His shirt was soaked with blood and more blood bubbled out of his mouth as he tried to breathe. He knew he was in trouble.
Luke saw him now and ran over, falling to his knees, too stunned to comprehend what he was seeing. He dropped his bow, slipped off his backpack. “God, what’d I do?”
He had tears coming down his face.
Owen said, “Luke, listen to me. It isn’t your fault. Just get help. Tell ’em they’ve got to bring a helicopter in.”
Luke got up and took off, running.
Owen looked at the whitetail that would’ve dressed out at about two hundred pounds, the animal still trying to find its legs, movements becoming less pronounced, and then no movement at all.
How odd was this? After racing cars for twenty years going two hundred miles an hour in the tight confines of the racetrack, he’d only been in three accidents and wasn’t hurt too bad in any of them. Although Kate would most likely have disagreed, taking care of him for three months while his injuries healed after Talladega in ’94. She said it was the grumpiest she’d ever seen him. He said, “What do you expect, I’m missing a third of the Cup season.”
Owen remembered it like it was yesterday. He was on lap 256 when Dale Senior came up behind him and must’ve taken the air out of his spoiler. Dale may have nudged him a little, too, but didn’t bang him intentionally. In any case, Owen spun into the wall at about 205, rolled four times, smashed into the catch fence and landed upside down near the entrance to pit road. He was airlifted to the hospital. Broke his right ankle and his left wrist and was in a coma for two days. When he opened his eyes, Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, a look on her face like the day Luke was born.
He said, “You like watching people sleep, is that it?”
She said, “I must,’ cause that’s all I’ve done for two days.”
He thought he was in his bedroom at home till he looked around and said, “Where in hell am I?”
“Citizens Baptist Hospital, Talladega, Alabama,” Kate said. “Remember hitting the wall and then rolling four times?”
He didn’t. Not then. But it came back to him within a week. It also helped to see it on videotape replay, confirming what he suspected. Big E’s black Monte Carlo coming up fast behind him, Dale trying to make up for penalties for driving too fast on pit road and having too many crewmembers over the wall on a pit stop.
Owen was leading at that stage of the race, but didn’t get into another racecar for three months, and did it over Kate’s protests.
“Are you out of your mind? You’re lucky to be alive. Here’s what’s left of your car, in case you forgot.”
She handed him a picture that showed wheels and tires, pieces of sheet metal and
a roll cage-the thing that saved his life.
“And here’s what’s left of you,” she said, indicating his casted limbs and hospitalized condition.
Owen remembered saying, “I’m a racecar driver-this is what I do.”
His third wreck involved an altercation with a young aggressive driver named Teddy Hicks. Owen was going into turn three at Martinsville Speedway, lap 127, when Teddy’s Ford banged his rear fender and sent him spinning. Owen did two 360s, spun off the track, but got it under control and kept going. He’d been in second place and finished eighth. Hicks was black-flagged and disqualified for rough driving.
After the race, Owen confronted Teddy in the pits. “I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but if you can give me a reasonable explanation, I’m willing to bypass this whole deal and move on,” Owen said, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“What I was doing was taking you out of the race, old man.” Teddy grinned.
Owen stepped in now, threw a big left hand with some weight behind it, caught Teddy full on the side of his face, wiping the grin off and sending him down on the asphalt drive. Owen figured that was the end of it and started walking away. He didn’t see Teddy pick up an impact wrench, but he felt it break his collarbone that took a year to heal. Owen didn’t press charges, but Teddy lost his Cup ride, got booted off the circuit. No one would touch him after the assault. He heard Teddy was driving on the dirt tracks for a while and then disappeared from racing.
Owen was tired. He closed his eyes now and hoped when he opened them he’d see Kate sitting on the edge of his bed.
SIX
Celeste put the bottle of Cold Duck under her arm, holding the handles of the plastic bag in one hand, opening the car door with her other hand and getting in.
Teddy said, “Get my candy bar?”
Celeste said, “What do you think?”
“I knew,” Teddy said, “I wouldn’t be asking.”
Celeste opened the bag, reached in, grabbed a Nestle Crunch, handing it to him.
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