High Hunt

by Eddings, David

Jack backed out from the curb, we all waved, and then we drove off.

  We stopped for a case of beer and then got out onto the highway. The sun was bright and warm, and we drove with the windows rolled down, drinking beer.

  "You get all squared away with Cap?" I asked my brother after a few miles.

  "I told him a little about what was goin' on," Jack said. "I don't know how much it squared away."

  "He probably understood," I said.

  "Hey," he said suddenly, "what day is today anyway?"

  "Sunday."

  "Man, I lost track up there."

  I laughed.

  We traded off at Cashmere, and I drove on over the pass. The sun went down before we got to the top, and I switched on the headlights.

  "Let's make a piss-call at the summit," he said.

  "Sure."

  We stopped and used the rest rooms and then drove down into the fir trees on the west side.

  "Dan," he said after a while.

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm sorry I threw down on you up there."

  "You didn't mean it, Jack. I knew that."

  "You'd have shot though, wouldn't you?"

  "I only said that to try to jar some sense into you," I told him.

  "Bullshit," he said quietly. "You were all squared off and so was I. It came about that close." He held up his thumb and forefinger about an eighth of an inch apart. "You had me cold, too."

  I didn't say anything.

  "What the hell was goin' on up there anyway?" he said suddenly. "I'd cut off my leg before I'd do anything to hurt you, and I think you feel the same way. What in hell got into us?"

  "McKlearey and that goddamned leper of a deer," I said.

  "Maybe it's best nobody found the thing," he said. "God only knows what might have happened."

  "I did find it," I told him bluntly.

  "What?"

  "You heard me. I found the son of a bitch and buried it before McKlearey got down there."

  "No shit?"

  "No shit. I wasn't about to get caught in the middle of a pitched gun battle."

  "You did that just to keep him from puttin' me down?"

  "You weren't listening," I said. "That's not why I did it. I'd have probably buried the damned thing even if you'd shot it. All I wanted to do was keep somebody from getting killed — probably me. You two were wound so damned tight you were ready to start shooting at anybody who came near you up there. Do you know that I had to back both of you off in the space of less than fifteen minutes?"

  "McKlearey, too?"

  "Hell, he was all squared away like Billy the Kid. I had to remind him loud and clear that I could take him if I had to. I got so many guns pointed at me that day I thought somebody had opened season on me.

  "Jesus, Kid, I'm sorry as hell."

  "Let's forget it," I said. "Everybody was all keyed-up."

  "Man, McKlearey sure fell apart at the end, didn't he?"

  "His hand was pretty badly infected," I said. "He might have been picking up some fever or something from that, I don't know."

  "Yeah, he was holdin' it pretty careful all the time. You want another beer?"

  "Yeah. I'm a little tired of whiskey for a while."

  We had another beer and bored on down through the darkness, following our headlights.

  We grabbed a hamburger and switched off again at Snohomish, and Jack drove on the rest of the way to Tacoma. We pulled into the trailer court about ten thirty.

  Jack called Clem and got an OK to hang the deer in a garage at the end of the court. Then we unloaded all our gear, said good night, and went to our own trailers. I sat on the couch in my filthy hunting clothes with my feet up and a bottle of beer in my hand. I was bone-tired, and I damn near fell asleep a couple times.

  "You look like the wrath of God," she said, coming in. She was still as cute as ever.

  "How did you get over here, Clydine?" I asked.

  "Joan's folks bought her a car. I've been borrowing it. I've been past here a dozen or so times since Wednesday." She came over and kissed me. "Did you lose your razor?" she asked. Then she sniffed. "And your soap?"

  "I've been busy."

  "All right," she ordered. "Strip and get into that bathroom."

  "The bathroom?" I laughed. "Not in the bathroom!"

  "Move it!" she barked.

  I grunted, sat up, and started to unlace my boots.

  "What a mess," she said, glaring at the pile of gear on the floor. "Are those things loaded?"

  "The rifle isn't," I said. "The pistol is, I guess."

  She shook her head disgustedly. "What were you doing with a pistol anyway?"

  "Trying to stay alive," I said, a little more grimly than necessary.

  "Men!" she said.

  By the time I'd finished showering and shaving, she had everything but the guns put away. She wouldn't touch them. She had fixed me up a big platter of bacon and eggs and toast.

  It felt awfully good just having her around.

  "Well," she said when I'd finished eating and we'd moved back to the living room, "did you bushwhack Bambi?"

  "Two Bambis," I told her.

  "Do you feel better now?"

  "I feel better, but not because I shot the deer," I said.

  "Something happened up there, didn't it?" she asked me. I don't know how, but she saw right through me.

  "A lot of things happened," I told her, "some good, some bad."

  "Tell me."

  "Do you have to get back home tonight?"

  "Not really," she said, "but don't get any ideas — it's the wrong time of the month."

  "No idea, my little wisteria of the workers," I said. "I'm too tired anyway." I really was.

  "I've missed the botanical nick names," she said, wrinkling her nose at me.

  "I've missed you, Rosebud."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  She leaned over and kissed me. "Did you unload that damned frog leg?" she asked me.

  "The what?"

  "The frog leg. The pistol — isn't that what they call it?"

  "That's hogleg, love."

  "Hog-frog, whatever. Get it empty. I'm not going to sleep in a house with a loaded gun."

  I reached over and took it out. She watched it the way some people watch snakes. I slipped the hammer and dropped the shells out one by one.

  "It's a hideous thing." She shuddered.

  "It saved my life a couple times up there," I told her. I was over dramatizing it, I knew that.

  "That's the second time you've made noises like John Wayne," she said. "Are you going to tell me what happened or not?"

  "I'll tell you in bed," I said. "It's a very long, very involved story, and we're both liable to tap out before I get halfway through it."

  "Did it turn out like a bad Western, after all?" she asked.

  "Pretty close," I said.

  We went to bed, and I held her very tightly and told her what had happened — all of it.

  I wasn't sure she was really awake when I finished the story. "... and that's it," I said, winding it up.

  "Was he really white?" she asked drowsily.

  "Kind of cream-colored."

  "He must have been beautiful."

  "At first he was," I said. "After a while, though, I got to hate him."

  "It wasn't his fault."

  "No, but I hated him anyway."

  "You don't make sense."

  "I never pretended to make sense."

  "Danny?"

  "Yes, love?"

  "Do you think Cap and Clint would like me?"

  "I think they'd love you, Blossom."

  She nuzzled my neck. "You say the nicest things sometimes," she said, her voice blurry and on the edge of dropping off.

  "Go to sleep, Little Rower," I said.

  She nestled down obediently and went to sleep quickly, like a child.

  I lay staring into the darkness, and when I did go to sleep, I dreamed of the white deer. It got all mixed up with a dream
about a dog until none of it made too much sense, but I guess dreams never really do, do they?

  The Parting

  34

  After she left for class the next morning I called Mike at work to see how Betty was.

  "She seems to be coming out of it OK," he said. "She's home now, but she's got to take it pretty damned easy."

  "I'm glad to hear she's better," I said.

  "Sloane and Larkin both called me after they came down — say, how sick was old Cal anyway? He says one thing, and Stan says another."

  "He was pretty damn sick," I said.

  "Yeah, I kind of thought he might have been. How was the hunt?" His voice sounded wistful.

  "The hunt was pretty good," I said. "Things got a little hairy a time or two though."

  "McKlearey?"

  "Yeah."

  "I figured Miller'd be able to keep him in line."

  "He did OK, but things still got a little woolly a time or two."

  "Did anybody get that white deer Sloane told me about?"

  "McKlearey shot him and he fell off a cliff. We never found him."

  "Too bad — say, Dan, I gotta get back to work. Gimme a buzz tonight, OK?"

  "Sure, Mike. After supper, OK?"

  "Right. Bye now."

  I guess his boss had been standing over him. I called the pawnshop. Sloane answered. His voice sounded a little puny, but otherwise he seemed OK.

  "How are you feeling, Cal?" I asked him.

  "Hell," he said, "I'm OK now. I was startin' to come out of it by the time we got back down the hill."

  "You see a doctor?"

  "Yeah." He giggled. "Claudia was on me about it as soon as I got back. He says it happens to guys my age some times. He's got me takin' it kinda easy for a couple of weeks."

  "Good idea," I said. "Oh, we got your deer for you."

  "Hey, great, man — how big?"

  "Five-point. He's in prime condition."

  "Thanks a lot, Dan. Who shot 'im?"

  "I did. Miller and I went out and found him."

  "Shoot out the liver?" He giggled.

  "Not a chance," I said. "Old Clint was threatening to burn me at the stake if I did."

  He told me he'd call a processing plant to take care of the deer, and I said I'd drop the hide and horns by later that morning after I'd cleaned my guns.

  After I hung up I sorted out all my hunting clothes and took them over to the washhouse. Then I went back and cleaned my guns and McKlearey's rifle. Then I bundled up Lou's gear and the two deer hides and drove on over to the shop.

  "Come on in, Dan," Cal called as I pushed my way on in with a big armload of gear.

  "I brought Lou's stuff on over," I said.

  Cal wanted to know where Lou was. He hadn't shown up for work that morning. I told him that I didn't know and filled him in on the way Lou'd taken off from Clint.

  "God," Sloane said, "that doesn't sound like Lou. He's pretty irresponsible sometimes, but he's never gone that far before."

  "He was pretty badly shook up," I said. "I don't think he was thinking straight toward the end." I told him about McKlearey's shooting the white deer and then not being able to find it.

  "God damn," Cal said, "you say he took that .38 along with him?"

  "That's what Clint said."

  "Christ," he said, his face darkening, "that damn gun's on the record as being here in the shop. If he's gone off the deep end or something and does something stupid with it, it could get my ass in a helluva lotta trouble."

  "Shit," I said, "I hadn't thought of that."

  "Now what the hell do I do? I don't want to report the gun stolen — that'd get him in all kinds of trouble. I wish I knew where the hell he was."

  "Beats me, Cal. He didn't even say good-bye when he left."

  Sloane shook his head. "I'll figure something out," he said. "You want a drink?"

  "Sure."

  "Come on back." He jerked his head, and we went on into the back room. I dumped Lou's gear in a corner and Cal reached down the bottle and handed it to me.

  I took a belt and handed it back to him. He capped it up and put it away.

  "Doctor said I oughta back off for a while," he said. "I'm cuttin' way down on my smoking, too — and I'm on a diet."

  "Jesus, Sloane, you're going whole hog, aren't you?"

  "Let me tell you, man," he said seriously, "I could feel the buzzards snappin' at my ass up there. The doctor told me I came about that close to havin' a coronary." He measured off a fraction of an inch with his fingers. "Goddamn heart was workin' doubletime to make up for the lack of oxygen. About one more day and I wouldn't of made it back down. He says I gotta quit smokin', cut way back on the booze, lose fifty pounds, and get ten hours sleep a night. Christ, I feel just like a goddamn invalid."

  "Jesus," I said, "you were sicker'n any of us figured then."

  "I was sicker'n I figured even," he said. "That damned doctor like to scared the piss outa me."

  "You're going to be OK, aren't you?"

  "Oh, I'll come out of it OK. He said there wasn't any permanent damage, but little Calvin's gonna walk the straight and narrow for a while."

  "Not a bad idea," I said, lighting a cigarette. I saw the hungry look in his eyes and mashed it out quickly. "Sorry, Cal," I said.

  "It's a little tough, right at first," he said.

  We went on back out to the shop.

  "You know," he said, "its funny."

  "What?"

  "You remember that day up there when I told you I was gonna buckle down after the trip — maybe grow up a little?"

  "Yeah," I said, "I remember."

  "Looks like I'm gonna have to do just exactly that." He giggled, suddenly sounding like the Cal I'd always known. "This ain't exactly what I had in mind though."

  "Somebody once said that a guy shouldn't make promises to himself," I told him. "He winds up having to keep them."

  "Boy, mat's sure as hell the truth," he said.

  He gave me the address of the packing plant where they'd process the deer for him, and I told him that Jack and I would get it over there for him that afternoon.

  About noon, Claudia came in.

  "Hello, Dan," she said in her deep voice.

  "Claudia," I said. She still gave me goose bumps.

  "How many cigarettes, Calvin?" She wasn't badgering; she was just asking.

  He mutely held up three fingers.

  "Truth?" she asked.

  "Ask Dan," he said.

  "He's only had one since I got here about ten thirty," I said. "Cross my heart and hope to turn green all over."

  She laughed, and her hand touched my arm affectionately.

  "And how many nips from your hide-out bottle?" she asked him.

  "What bottle?"

  "The one on the top shelf in the storeroom."

  "How'd you find out about that?"

  "I've always known about it," she said.

  He stared at her for a minute and then started laughing. "I give up," he said. "What the hell's the use anyway?"

  "How many?" she repeated.

  "Not one. I gave Dan a belt, but I haven't touched a drop."

  "Good," she said. "I'm not nagging you, Calvin. This is for your own good."

  "I know, dear," he said. It was the first time I'd ever heard him use any term of endearment to her.

  "You'd better run on along home now," she said. "I put a big bowl of salad in the refrigerator for you."

  "I'm startin' to feel like a damn rabbit," he complained. "I got lettuce comin' out of my ears."

  "But you've lost weight, haven't you?" she said.

  "Yeah, I guess so," he said grudgingly.

  "And take your nap this time," she commanded.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  I said good-bye to him, and he went on out. I'd been ready to leave, too, but Claudia had given me a quick signal to stick around. After he left she turned to me, her face serious.

  "Just how bad was he up there, Dan?" she asked me.


  "He was pretty sick," I told her. "He couldn't seem to get his breath, and there were a couple times when he couldn't keep anything down. We all figured he'd snap out of it, but he just couldn't seem to get adjusted."

  "Why didn't you send him down earlier?" she asked.

  "I don't think any of us really knew how sick he really was," I told her. "A couple times it seemed like he was getting better. He'd go on out hunting and things seemed to be coming along fine, but then he'd conk out again. We were all watching him pretty closely, but he kept telling us that he'd be all right in just a little bit."

  She shook her head. "Men!" she said. "You're all just a bunch of overgrown children."

  "I've been finding that out," I told her.

  "I'd die if I lost him, Dan."

  Sloane?

  I guess it must have shown on my face.

  "You don't understand, do you, Dan?"

  "It's none of my business really," I told her.

  "I know," she said, "but I want to tell you anyway."

  Why me, for God's sake? Why always me?

  "I think I'm as happy now as I've ever been in my life," she said, looking out the window. "For the first time, Calvin-needs me — not just the fact that I can keep his books or pick out furniture or any of that. He needs me. When he came home, he was frightened — terribly frightened. He came to me for the first time without making it some kind of deal — you know, TU do this for you if you'll do that for me.' It was the first time he didn't try to buy me. You have no idea what that means to a woman."

  "I think I do," I said quietly.

  "I suppose maybe you would," she said. "You seem to see a lot of things that other people don't." She looked steadily up at me for a minute. "You see, Dan," she said finally, "I can't have any children. I did something pretty stupid when I was about seventeen, and I had an abortion. It wasn't even a doctor who did it, and of course I went septic. I wound up losing everything." She passed her hand across her lower abdomen. "Calvin and I decided not to adopt children — I suppose we could have, but we just decided not to. So Calvin is my baby. That's the way it's always been."

  I nodded.

  "But this is the first time he's ever turned to me this way. Maybe it really isn't much of a basis for a good marriage but —” she shrugged.

  "It's probably as good as any," I said, "and better than a lot of them."

  She smiled at me. "Thank you," she said, "I thought you'd understand."

  We talked a while longer, and then I took off. She was one helluva woman.