High Hunt

by Eddings, David

  "Lost him the same time I lost my wife," he said quietly. Then he didn't say any more for quite a while.

  We rode on down into the valley and got into the pine trees.

  "Creek there," he said. "Wind'll be comin' up the draw this time of day."

  "Good little clearing right there for the horses," I said pointing.

  "Should work out about right," he said.

  We went on, dismounted, and hooked Ned and Miller's big Morgan to a couple of long picket-ropes. We unhooked our rifles and went on down into the creek-bottom. Miller's rifle was an old, well-used bolt-action of some kind with a scope that had been worn shiny in a couple places from being slid in and out of the case so many times. It had obviously been well taken care of.

  "I see you brought that hog-leg along," he said, nodding at my pistol belt.

  "Starting to be a habit," I said. "Besides, I keep extra rifle cartridges on one side, and my knives are on it," I said. I still felt a little apologetic about the damned thing.

  "Can you hit anything with it?" he asked me.

  "Not at any kind of range."

  "You shootin' high or low?"

  "Low."

  "You're pushin' into the recoil just before you shoot," he said. "Clint always used to do the same thing."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Just before you fire. You push your hand forward to brace your arm for the kick." He held out his right forefinger pistol-fashion and showed me.

  "Maybe you're right," I said, trying to remember the last time I'd fired it at a target.

  "Get somebody to load it for you and leave a couple empty. Then shoot it. You'll be able to spot it right off. Barrel dips like you was tryin' to dig a well with it when you click down on an empty chamber."

  "How does a guy get over it?"

  "Just knowin' what you're doin' oughta take care of most of it."

  I nodded.

  "Well, son," he said, grinning at me, "let's you and me go huntin', shall we?"

  "Right, Cap," I said.

  "You take the left side of the creek, and I'll take the right. We'll just take our time."

  I jumped the creek, and we started off down the draw, moving very slowly and looking around.

  Miller stopped suddenly, and I froze. Slowly he pointed up the side of the draw and then passed the flat of his hand over the top of his big hat. No horns. Doe.

  She stepped out from behind a tree, and I could see her. Miller and I both stood very still until she walked on up out of the draw. Then he motioned, and we went on.

  The trees were fairly far apart, and there wasn't much underbrush even this close to the creek. The floor of the forest was thickly covered with pine needles, softened and very quiet after the rain from the day before.

  A faint pink glow of sunlight reflected off the snow-fields above began to filter down between the tree trunks. The air was very clean and sharp, cold and pine-scented. I felt good. This was my kind of hunting.

  We walked on down the creek-bed for about a half hour or so, spotting seven or eight more deer — all does or small bucks.

  We went around a bend, and Miller froze. He poked his chin straight ahead.

  I couldn't see the deer. Apparently Cap couldn't either, at least not clearly. He kept moving his head back and forth as if trying to get a clear view between the trees. He lifted his rifle once and then lowered it again. He held out his hand toward me, the fingers fanned out. Five-point.

  Then he pointed at me and made a shooting motion with his hand, his forefinger extended and his thumb flipping up and down twice. He wanted me to shoot. Shoot what, for God's sake?

  I put my scope on the woods ahead, but I couldn't see a damn thing. Then the buck stepped out into an open spot about a hundred yards away and stood facing me, his ears up and his rack held up proudly. I started doing some quick computations. I leaned the rifle barrel against a tree to be sure it would be steady and drew a very careful aim on a point low in the deer's chest, just between his front legs. I sure didn't want to mess up this shot with Cap watching me.

  I slowly squeezed the trigger. When a shot is good and right on, you get a kind of feeling of connection between you and the animal — almost as if you were reaching out and touching him, very gently, kind of pushing on him with your finger. I don't want to get mystic about it, but it's a sort of three-way union — you, the gun, and the deer, all joined in a frozen instant. It's so perfect that I've always kind of regretted the fact that the deer gets killed in the process. Does that make any sense?

  The deer went back on his haunches and his front feet went up in the air. Then he fell heavily on one side, his head downhill. The echoes bounced off among the trees.

  "Hot damn!" Cap yelled, his face almost chopped in two with his grin. "Damn good shot, son. Damn good!"

  I felt about fifteen feet tall.

  I jumped the creek again, and the two of us went on up toward the deer.

  "Where'd you aim, son?"

  "Low in the chest — between the legs."

  He frowned slightly.

  "I'm sighted an inch high at two hundred," I explained. "I figured it at a hundred yards, so I should have been four to six inches above where I aimed. I wanted to get into the neck above the shoulder line so I wouldn't spoil any meat."

  "Or the liver." He chuckled.

  "Amen to that. I'd get yelled at something awful if I shot out another liver."

  "Old Clint can get just like an old woman about some things." He laughed.

  The deer was lying on his side with blood pumping out of his throat. His eyes blinked slowly. I reached for my pistol.

  "You cut the big artery," Cap said. "You could just as easy let 'im bleed out."

  "I'd rather not," I said.

  "Suit yourself," he said.

  I shot the deer through the head. The blood stopped pumping like someone had turned off a faucet.

  "You always do that, don't you, son?" he said.

  I nodded, holstering the pistol. "I figure I owe it to them."

  "Maybe you're right," he said thoughtfully.

  We stood looking at the deer. He had a perfectly symmetrical five-point rack, and his body was heavy and well-fed.

  "Beautiful deer," he said, grinning again. "Let's see how close you figured it. Where'd you aim?"

  "About here," I said, pointing.

  "Looks like you were about eight inches high," he said. "You took him just under the chin."

  "I must have miscalculated," I said. "I'd figured to go about six high."

  He nodded. "You was shootin' uphill," he said. "You forgot to allow for that. It was a hundred yards measured fiat along the ground — only about seventy yards trajectory though."

  "I never thought of that."

  He laughed and slapped my shoulder. "I don't think we'll revoke your license over two inches," he said.

  "Tell me, Cap," I said, "why didn't you shoot 'im?"

  "Couldn't get a clear shot," he lied with a perfectly straight face.

  "Oh," I said.

  "Well, son, let's gut 'im."

  "Right."

  With two of us working on it, it took only a few minutes to do the job.

  "Why don't you go get the horses while I rig up a drag?" Cap said.

  "Sure." I leaned my rifle against a tree and took off. We were only a short distance from the horses really, and it took me less than ten minutes to get them. I rode on back, leading Miller's big walnut-colored Morgan.

  "You move right out, don't you, son?" Cap said as I rode up.

  "Long legs," I said.

  "I'm just about done here," he said. He was sawing at a huckleberry bush with his hunting knife. I got off and handed him the big knife. He chopped the bush off close to the ground.

  "That's sure a handy thing," he said. "Almost like an ax."

  "That's what I figured when I got the set," I said.

  He'd rigged up a kind of sled of six or eight of the bushes packed close, side by side, and lashed to a big dead limb ac
ross the butts and another holding them together about three feet or so up the trunks. He doubled over a lead-rope and tied it to the limb across the butts. Then we lifted the deer carcass onto the platform and tied it securely with another lead-rope. He tied a long rope to the doubled lead-rope at the front of the drag and fastened it to his saddle horn.

  "You want me to hook on, too, Cap?" I asked him.

  "Naw," he said. "Trail's too narrow, and old Sam here's big enough to pull the bottom out of a well if you want 'im to."

  We stood for a moment beside the place where the deer had fallen.

  "Good hunt," he said finally, patting me on the shoulder once. "We'll have to do 'er again some time."

  I nodded. "This is the way it ought to be," I said.

  "Well," he said, "let's get on back, shall we?"

  We mounted and cut across up to the trail.

  "Damn nice deer." Clint grinned when we got back to camp.

  "Look at that shot," Miller said. "Right under the chin at about seventy or eighty yards uphill. The Kid there could drive nails all day with that rifle of his at about two hundred yards. Made the gun himself, too. Restocked one of them old Spring-fields."

  "He fishes OK, too," Clint said, "and it don't seem to me he snores too loud. Reckon we oughta let 'im stay in camp?"

  Miller looked at me for a minute. "He'll do," he said. We all grinned at each other.

  "How 'bout us all havin' a drink?" Miller said. "I'll buy." He went into his tent and came out with a fifth of Old Granddad. He poured liberally into three cups and we stood around sipping at the whiskey.

  "I ain't had so much fun in years," Cap said. "It was a real fine hunt."

  "I ain't too much for all that walkin' you're partial to," Clint said, slapping one of his crooked legs.

  Cap chuckled. "I told you that rodeoin' would catch up to you someday. Any action up there on the hill this mornin'?"

  "Heard a couple shots earlier," Clint said. "No signals though."

  "Probably missed," Cap said sourly. "Them two are each so worried that the other one's gonna get that damn freak that they can't even shoot anymore."

  Just thinking about Jack and Lou almost spoiled the whole thing for me. I tried not to think about them. The morning had been too good for me to let that happen.

  29

  At lunchtime I rode up the ridge to pick up Jack and Lou. Jack just grunted when I brought him his horse, and McKlearey took off down the hill ahead of me. They'd both moved uphill a ways, McKlearey onto my old post, and Jack up to Stan's.

  I came up to the corral about the time Lou was getting off his horse. Jack was waiting for him.

  "Now look, you son of a bitch," he started. "I told you to do your goddamn shootin' in your own territory."

  "Fuck ya!"

  "I mean it, goddammit! That goddamn deer came out right in front of me, and you were at least five hundred yards away. You didn't have a fuckin' chance of hittin' 'im. You shot just to run 'im off so I couldn't get a clear shot."

  "Tough titty, Alders. Don't tell me how to hunt."

  "All right, motherfucker, I can see the whole hillside, too, remember. I can play the same game. And even if you dumb-luck out and hit 'im, I'll shoot the son of a bitch to pieces before you can get to 'im. You won't have enough left to be worth bringin' out."

  McKlearey glared at Jack, his face white. They were standing about ten feet apart and they were both holding their rifles. Jack's hand was inching toward the butt of his automatic.

  "That's just damn well enough of that kinda talk," Miller's voice cracked from behind them.

  "This is between him and me," Jack said.

  "Not up here, it ain't," Miller said. "Now I don't know what kinda trouble you two got goin' between yourselves back in town, but I told you the first day to leave all that stuff down there. I meant what I said, too."

  "We paid you to bring us up here," McKlearey said. "not to wet-nurse us." His eyes were kind of wild, and he was holding his rifle with the muzzle pointed about halfway between Jack and Cap.

  I'm still not sure why I did it, but I slipped the hammer-thong off my pistol. I think Lou saw me do it because he slowly shifted his rifle until it was tucked up under his right arm so there was no way he could use either of his guns.

  Miller had thought over what Lou had said. "I guess maybe we better just pack up and go on back down," he said. He turned his back on them and walked back up to the fire.

  "We paid for ten goddamn days!" McKlearey yelled after him.

  I hawked and spit on the ground, right between them.

  "He can't do that," Jack said.

  "Don't make any bets," I said flatly. "You guys made a verbal contract with him that first day. He told you that if there was any trouble in camp, we'd all come out. You agreed to it."

  "That wouldn't stand up in court, would it?" Lou asked.

  I nodded. "You bet it would. Particularly around here. If you were going to take him to court, it'd be in this county, and the jury'd all be his neighbors." I wasn't that sure, but it sounded pretty good.

  "Well, what the hell do we do now?" Jack demanded.

  "You might as well go pack your gear," I said. "He meant it about going back down."

  "Who needs 'im?" Lou said. "Let 'im go."

  "It's twelve miles back to the road, McKlearey," I said, "and he'll take the horses, the tents, and all the cooking equipment with him. Even if you got that damned freak deer, how would you get him out of the woods?"

  He hadn't thought of that.

  "You sound like you're on Ms side," Jack accused me.

  "How 'bout that?" I said. I walked off down toward the pond. It was a helluva goddamn way to wind up the trip.

  I guess both Jack and Lou did a lot of crawfishing, but Miller finally relented. I suppose he really didn't want his first trip as a guide to wind up that way. Anyway, they managed to talk him out of it.

  Much as I wanted to stay up there, I still thought Miller was making a mistake. I went back to camp and moved all my gear into the empty tent.

  "You don't have to do that, Dan," Jack said quietly as I started to roll up my sleeping bag.

  "We'll both have more room this way," I said.

  "Christ, Dan, you know how McKlearey can rub a guy raw."

  "Yeah," I said, "but you're grown-up now, Jack. You're not some runny-nosed kid playing cowboys and Indians." I stopped in the doorway of the tent. "One other thing, old buddy," I said, "keep your goddamn hand away from that pistol from now on. There's not gonna be any of that shit up here." I went on out of the tent. McKlearey was standing outside. I guess he'd been listening.

  "That goes for you, too, shithead," I told him.

  Christ! I was right in the middle again. How the hell do I always get myself in that spot?

  It took me about fifteen minutes to get settled in, and then we ate lunch. Nobody talked much. Both Jack and Lou went back to their tents after we finished.

  "I probably shouldn't have changed my mind," Cap said quietly. "I got a feelin' it was a mistake."

  "They've quieted down a bit," I said. "I'll go on up with my brother from now on — maybe I can keep nun from getting so hot about things."

  "What's got them two at each other that way?" Clint asked me.

  "They just don't get along," I said. I knew that if I told them the real story, it would blow the whole trip. "This has been building for quite a while now. I thought they could forget about it while they were up here, but I guess I was wrong."

  "Sure makes things jumpy in camp," Miller said shortly.

  "It sure does," I agreed.

  Jack wasn't too happy about my going up the hill with him, but I don't think he dared to say much about it in front of Miller.

  When we got up there, he wouldn't talk to me, so I just let it go.

  A good-looking five-point came out just about sunset, but he ignored it. No matter what he might have told Miller, he was still after that freak. After shooting time, we rode back to camp without waitin
g for Lou.

  "That was a nice deer you got for Sloane," Jack said finally. I guess he wanted to make peace.

  "Fair." I said. "It was a lot of fun hunting that way."

  "How'd you do it?"

  "Miller and I just pussyfooted through the woods until we spotted him."

  "Sloane'll be pretty tickled with him."

  That seemed to exhaust that topic of conversation pretty much.

  Supper was lugubrious. Nobody talked to anybody else. Jack stared fixedly into the fire, and McKlearey sat with his back to a stump, watching everybody and holding that filthy bandage out in front of him so he wouldn't bump his hand. I wondered how bad the cut was by now.

  I fixed myself a drink and settled back down by the fire.

  "Watch yourself, Danny," Lou said suddenly, his eyes very bright. "Same thing might happen to you as happened to Sullivan."

  It didn't make any sense, so I didn't answer him. I noticed, though, that after that he concentrated on me. He seemed to flinch just a little bit every time I moved. Did the silly bastard actually think I was going to shoot him?

  "Bedtime," he finally said. He got up and went to his tent. Jack waited a few minutes, and then he went to his tent, too.

  I talked quietly with Cap and Clint for a while, trying to stir up the good feeling we'd had going that morning, but it didn't quite come off. I think we were all too worried.

  I went on back to the latrine. On my way back to my tent I heard a funny slapping kind of noise over in the woods. I stopped and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark a little more. Then I saw a movement.

  It was McKlearey. I guess he'd rolled out under the back of his tent or something, and he was back in the trees practicing his draw.

  He was getting pretty good at it.

  30

  Clint woke me the next morning, and I rolled out of the sack quickly. It was chilly, and for some reason it seemed darker that morning than usual. Then it dawned on me. The moon had already set. It had been going down earlier and earlier every morning, and now it was setting before we even got up.

  Breakfast was as quiet as supper the night before, and we had to take the lantern down to the corral with us when we went to saddle the horses. Miller seemed particularly grim. We mounted up and rode on up the ridge. It was a damned good thing the horses knew the way by now because it was blacker than hell out there.