Tucker

by Tom Birdseye

  Tucker stood for a moment, knife still in his hand. The only noise to be heard was that of his own breath—in and out, in and out, ragged gulps of air that couldn’t keep up with the need to breathe. The buck lay motionless. His eyes continued to stare out at Tucker, only now they were lifeless. Tucker dropped the knife and put his hand to his chest.

  His heart was pounding. He looked at the buck again—legs crumpled beneath his body, antlers sticking up like dead branches fallen from a tree. Tears began to well up in Tucker’s eyes. He brushed them aside. More replaced them. He began to tremble. Then shake. Then he broke. Falling to his knees, Tucker Renfro cried out for the first time in over seven years, a great sob that emptied like water into his cupped hands.

  “Tucker?” The voice came from behind him, soft and searching.

  Tucker whirled on his knees, almost falling backward. Duane Renfro stood at the edge of the meadow, leaning on his crutches, peering into the woods. The rain had drawn dark streaks on his hunting cap and jacket shoulders. Tucker tried to call out to him, but his voice caught in his throat.

  Duane hesitated for a moment, then tried again. “Tucker?” He hobbled carefully into the woods and around the birch tree, feeling his way with his crutches. He saw Tucker. “Ah,” he said, “I guessed from talking to Livi that you might be back here. She didn’t know exactly where—” Then he saw the dead buck.

  Tucker swallowed hard, fighting to keep back the tears. Finally words came out. “I … didn’t think … I didn’t think it would be like—” His voice caught again, and he began to cry.

  Duane moved closer. Dropping his crutches, he slowly knelt in the wet grass. He looked for a long moment at the arrow in the buck’s chest. Then he turned and gently put his hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “I know,” he said, “it was like this the first time for me, too. I didn’t expect the pain. It runs both ways, into the hunter, too.”

  Tucker wiped the tears from his face with his wet jacket sleeve. His voice came out shaky. “Nothing ever turns out the way I want it to. Nothing!” He raised his hands into the air, then let them drop limp onto his lap. “Why can’t something go right for a change, Dad? Why?”

  Duane searched Tucker’s face with his eyes, then let his gaze wander off into the trees. It was lighter, near sunrise, and the rain had completely stopped. Duane took off his hunting cap and shook the water from it, then put it back on his head, and looked at his son. “Livi told me about the letter from your mother,” he said.

  Tucker stiffened at the sound of his sister’s name. He turned and looked at the buck, and the arrow in his chest. He slowly reached out and touched the white tip of one of the antlers. I am a hunter for The Tribe. I have passed the final test of worthiness.

  “She also told me about what happened between the two of you this morning, the things that you said,” Duane continued. “You really wanted your mother and me to get back together again, didn’t you?”

  Tucker didn’t answer. I am a warrior.

  Duane let out a sigh. “You want to know why something can’t go right for a change,” he said.

  Tucker kept his hand on the buck’s antler. The Tribe. The Tribe. The Tribe.

  “I guess I’ve asked myself that same question a million times—especially why something can’t go right with your mother and me. But I’ve always answered by telling myself that it’s her fault we aren’t all together, that she is the one who split us up. I’ve always blamed her, come up with excuses for myself, just like I’ve always come up with excuses for everything.”

  Tucker looked up and started to protest. “No, Dad …” The movement he caught out of the corner of his eye stopped him. Through the trees and across the meadow he saw only a short glimpse of Livi walking down the porch steps of the house. She was carrying a suitcase in each hand.

  Duane didn’t notice. His back was to the house and he was intent on his point. “Yes, I have, Tucker, but now I’ve finally realized that all the excuses in the world will never make things go right. Me blaming your mother or you blaming Livi won’t do it, either. All it will do is push us further apart, stand in the way of things getting better.”

  Tucker grabbed a quick glance back over Duane’s shoulder. Livi was walking down the driveway toward Tamarack Road. He reached into his pocket for the carving of the Indian. Running his fingers over the eagle feathers of the war bonnet, he let them gently fall down onto the face. The carving was so familiar he could picture the chief as clearly as if he had brought it out into the morning light—the high cheekbones, proud chin, distant eyes. Looking back to Duane, Tucker stared. Something had changed, or maybe become more clear. Tucker saw for the first time that the Indian likeness he had carved himself, and held so many times, had the same facial features as his father.

  Gathering up his crutches, Duane used them as ladders to pull himself up. “No more excuses,” he said with a smile, and offered his hand to Tucker, “how about that?”

  Tucker stared at the extended hand for a moment. Then he took it, letting his father—despite the unsteadiness of crutches and a cast—help pull him to his feet.

  “Come on,” Duane said, giving Tucker a hug, “let’s go back to the house. We’ll take care of your deer later.”

  Tucker looked out at the driveway again. Livi was nowhere to be seen. He looked up at Duane. “I’ll meet you there, Dad,” he said. “There’s something I need to do first.”

  Then he ran across the meadow toward Tamarack Road.

  17

  Minutes later, Tucker was at the creek bed. It was no longer dry. Puddles had collected around the larger rocks. The cracked dirt of summer had turned to mud. Tucker hopped from rock to rock as he crossed, daylight now reaching well into even the deepest thickets of trees.

  Once on the other side of the creek bed, Tucker knelt and searched the soggy ground with his fingers. At one point he hesitated, rechecked a small area, then lifted some fallen leaves. A fresh footprint lay beneath. Water was still dripping down the sides. He traced the outline of the track with his fingers, then stood and ducked quietly into the tunnel leading through the brush to the clearing.

  Livi was sitting in the entrance to the tipi, a pad of paper in her lap, pen in hand, when Tucker stepped out from behind the big cedar. She jumped to her feet when she saw him, spilling the paper onto the ground. A look of fear came over her face.

  “I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t be here!”

  Tucker started to speak. Livi stopped him, blurting out her words: “I just wanted …” She hesitated and quickly picked up her paper. She stuffed it and the pen into her jacket pocket, then hastily picked up her two suitcases. “I just wanted to leave you a letter.” Her voice was apologetic, her eyes looked down. She tried to laugh. “You know how I am about letters.”

  Tucker nodded. There was a moment of silence.

  “I cleaned my stuff out of your room,” Livi finally said. “It’s just like it was. You can pretend I never came.”

  Tucker walked over to the fire pit. “I guess you bought a round-trip airplane ticket, huh? Knowing you’d go back?”

  She stole a quick glance up at him, then looked down again, but said nothing.

  He knelt and poked at the coals. They were cold, drowned in the morning rain. “Mom will be glad to see you.”

  Her answer came in a near whisper. “Yeah.”

  Tucker kept poking at the coals. “You didn’t tell Dad you were leaving.”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t make myself say it. So I—”

  “Left him a letter,” Tucker finished for her.

  Livi smiled, but only a small one that quickly faded from her lips. She jiggled her suitcases. “These aren’t getting any lighter. I guess I’d better be going or my arms will stretch right down to my feet. I called a taxi to take me to town. I can ride the bus from there to the airport.” She moved a few uneasy steps toward the big cedar, sort of scooting sideways, head down. Tucker stood. She immediately turned and started into the tunnel.

  �
�I was mad,” Tucker said to Livi’s back.

  She stopped.

  “That’s why I said those things earlier.”

  Livi turned around and faced Tucker. The expression on her face was blank. She started to speak, then stopped, puffing out her cheeks as if they were full of words. When they came, they came in quick bursts. “I just wanted to be your sister, that’s all. I just wanted for all of us to be together. You told me to get out of your life.”

  Tucker shuffled his feet in the wet dirt. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  Livi raised up on her toes. “You made it clear from the first day I got here how you meant it. I just didn’t want to believe it.” She turned back toward the tunnel. “I won’t bother you anymore with my stupid jokes and contests and letters. You can have your life back the way you want it. I’ll go back to Kentucky to mine.”

  Tucker stuck his hand down into his pocket and stepped after her. “Did I ever show you this?” he asked.

  Something in the tone of his voice made Livi stop and look back. He pulled a small piece of wood from his pocket and held it out so she could see it. It was the carving of the Indian chief.

  “I made it myself,” he said.

  Livi said nothing, only looked up into Tucker’s eyes.

  Tucker rubbed his fingers over the face of the chief, then back over the carved feathers of the headdress. “And I’ve got this journal called Winter Court. It’s a record of all the important events of my tribe, just like the Indians used to keep on a buffalo skin.”

  She still looked up at him.

  “But a tribe needs more people than just me to really be a tribe … like Dad.”

  Her brown eyes seemed so much like those of a deer.

  “And you like to write …”

  A smile began on her lips.

  “… so I was wondering”—he paused and held the carving of the Indian chief out for her to touch—“if you might be interested in hanging around and helping me with it.”

  Livi reached out and ran her fingers across the smooth wood of the carving, over the face and the intricate feathers of the headdress. Gently, she touched the palm of Tucker’s hand. They both smiled, a smile that soon spread ear to ear. Then they walked from the clearing and headed home.

  About the Author

  As a kid, Tom Birdseye was decidedly uninterested in writing—or any academic aspect of school, for that matter—never imagining that he would eventually become a published author. And yet, nineteen titles later—novels, picture books, and nonfiction—that is exactly what has happened. His work has been recognized for its excellence by the International Reading Association, Children’s Book Council, National Council of Social Studies, Society of School Librarians International, Oregon Library Association, and Oregon Reading Association, among others. Combined, his books have either won or been finalists for state children’s choice awards forty-three times. Life, it seems, is full of who’d-a-thought-its. He lives and writes in Corvallis, Oregon, but launches mountaineering expeditions to his beloved Cascades on a regular basis.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1990 by Tom Birdseye

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-4610-0

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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