With winter upon us, we’re going to need more than a hope and a prayer over our remaining greenhouses. And with game near the farm as scarce as it is, we are forced to expand our hunting grounds into the forested, rolling hills east of the farm. Felix leads us, his knowledge of the area always an asset. Still, these are not the same hills they once were, and though our quarry has led us here, none of us are fooled into believing we are the only predators abound. There’s a reason we’ve never ventured further than a mile into these woods before now.
The day breaks unaccompanied by the sun which lays hidden behind an overcast sky. I eye it with unease, a long hike home soaked and freezing is the last thing I want to deal with. I force it from my mind. We’re out here regardless. No use in worrying over something I have no control over. I return my focus to my surroundings, eyes scanning for movement, ears tuning in on the sounds beyond our breaths and rustling leaves. I do so in search of threats as much as I do for game. We pause as we approach two adjacent hillsides, taller than those around them, their slope rising quickly and steeply.
“There’s a small pond on the other side of these hills,” Felix says, a small smile gracing his face. “You should remember it well,” he tells Leon. I find myself smiling as well. Suddenly my mind takes me away from these cold winds and dreary sky, away from the worry and stress to a time when neither existed. It was the summer of my 13th year, the sun bright and bold in the afternoon sky as we explored the hills on ATV’s. It was a dry year, turning the pond in question into little more than a mud pit, the shallow water barely reaching halfway up our tires. We took full advantage and raged through, drifting and sliding and covering ourselves with mud with reckless abandon. It was an afternoon like so many before it, the three of us together, living in the moment, completely unaware how precious and golden those days were. And then disaster struck for Leon.
He was making a pass through the mud when he braked a little too hard, turned the wheel just a little too sharp and upended his ATV, sending him sprawling into the swampy mess. I remember feeling the momentary concern for him closely followed by the hilarity as he quickly stood up, unhurt and completely soaked through with mud. Though he didn’t get injured, the pond did its damage. I laughed with Felix on the bank of the pond until Leon’s curses died down and he grew quiet. I called out, asking if he was alright. He didn’t answer for the longest time, his back to us and his head hanging. Eventually, he turned around, holding out his phone in explanation. Ruined. His first phone, a birthday gift from his parents, not even a month prior. He was in shit deeper than the mud he currently stood in and he knew it. Leon ended up having to wait till Christmas before his parents gave him a second chance at a phone, and in the years that followed he was sure to take much better care of them.
“Crazy that a fried phone could ever feel like the end of the world,” Leon says. His smile is forced as he looks around. Is it because of what the world has become? Or is it in looking back at the boys we were that fills his eyes with such sadness? Both I’d imagine.
Felix clears his throat after a pause. “Anyway, figure we split up from here,” he says. “Moe, you and Vince take the right ridge. Leon and I will take the left. Both sides should offer plenty of sightlines. As good a place as any to hunker down for a bit.”
“Good luck,” I say as we part. Vince and I ascend at an angle to combat the steep rise. My legs tire quickly, calves and hamstrings burning in protest. I’m weaker than I was on the trail. Body thinner, the paltry diet and hours of physical work leaving me taut as a piano wire. It’s reduced my stamina to shit. We tackle the hill in sections, taking several breaks to catch our breath and check our backs. When we reach the top, it’s in relief to momentarily rest our legs. We space ourselves some sixty feet apart and settle in.
The pond below is more full than in my memory, the storms over the past months swelling it up. It sits close to the base of the adjacent hillside where Leon and Felix are posted, at the edge of a small clearing surrounded by sparsely set trees. As Felix said, it’s a good place to hunker down. I sit with my back against a tall pine, eyes scanning below hoping, praying for movement. But the forest remains still and silent save for the occasional bird going to and fro between branches and sky.
Time passes slowly, made worse by the dull ache in my stomach. I study the terrain with quiet intensity as if I could see what’s not there if I just focus hard enough. Worry eats away at the back of my mind. I look back at these past few weeks, at the tension that’s taken root between my family. I may not solely be to blame for that, but I can’t deny my share. I’ve messed up, made mistakes. That’s why today’s so important. We have to bring something back. It’s a mental need as much as it is a physical one. A meal—a real meal of grilled meat after what we’ve grown accustomed to could go a long way—could give us hope to cling to long after the calories have been spent. This could be the salve we need to get back on track. We just need a little bit of luck.
But the morning stretches toward the afternoon without a sign of game. The sun still hides, the sky above churning slowly, thickening into a deeper shade of gray. Were this the old world we’d have deemed this hunt a failure by now—would already have started hiking back toward camp for lunch and a beer. How different this hunt is from those of my past: the difference between hunting for sport and hunting for survival. Turning back empty handed isn’t an option, not while the weather holds and night remains hours away.
I look toward the adjacent hillside where Felix waits, debating if I should get his attention and suggest finding another area to scout. And then the air is pierced by the deafening boom of a rifle on my right.
“Damn it!” Vince curses.
“What was it?” I quickly make my way to him.
“Buck,” he says, adrenaline coating his voice. “Big bastard too. I hit him but he didn’t drop. Took off over that null.” I follow his finger to the smaller hill in the shadow of our own. “We can track him down. He can’t get too far before he bleeds out.”
We signal to Leon and Felix and set out, scampering down the hill after our quarry. We reach level ground and sprint the short gap between hillsides. A quarter of the way up the hill we pause, blood splattered against the fallen leaves marking the spot where the deer was shot. It swims before my eyes and I have to close them against the sudden bout of lightheadedness. Control the breathing. In. Out. In. Out. The feeling fades and I open them again.
“You alright?” Vince asks.
“I’m good,” I say, shaking it off. “Let’s go.”
We follow the blood trail with renewed vigor, the prospect of meat allowing me to fight against my protesting body. At the crest, we pause in search for our prey. No movement catches my eye, the forest thicker on this side. Silently we descend, our movements slow and measured as we are forced to scan for signs of the buck’s passage. I’d feel better if Felix were with us, his tracking skills much better than our own. But he and Leon have yet to catch us. We’re on our own for now.
“Blood,” Vince says. He’s gone to a knee and rubs it between thumb and forefinger, dying it red. “Must have passed—” He’s struck silent by the sound of a gunshot. Wordlessly we brace ourselves against two close-growing trees, our rifles un-safetied and held at the ready. My heart beats loud in my ears as I strain to hear past the silence. Buh-bump. Buh-bump. Not three beats later another gunshot shatters the quiet. I curse, unable to tell where the shots are coming from. Surrounded by hills, the sound is hard to pinpoint, hard to gauge the distance.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“Push forward,” Vince replies. “Buck has to be close. We have to track it, you know how badly we need the meat right now.”
I do know. It’s that knowledge which has kept me from retreating already. There’s risk in moving forward. But I think of the amount of blood we’ve followed. How much farther could it have traveled? Surely the buck would have bled out by now, right? I think of the ruined crops we were forced to scrap and of those whic
h still remain in danger. Another hard freeze could take our situation from bad to critical. The thought of my family, starving and desperate as winter settles around us is enough to make up my mind. It’s a risk we must take.
“We should wait for Leon and Felix,” I say.
“There’s no time,” Vince says, his tone changing, desperation creeping into his voice. “Those shots could be close. We have to move. Now.” I’m unconvinced, but Vince isn’t about to let my indecision stop him. “Wait here if you want. I’m going.”
Before I can say or do anything, he leaves his cover and darts forward. Cursing, I follow. I can’t let him go off on his own. We proceed with our rifles half raised, ready to fire at a moment's notice. Adrenaline rages through me. Every sound is amplified. Each shape at my peripheral making me do a double take. Another splatter of blood coats the side of a bush and we pick up our pace. My pulse quickens. Logic says we have to be close.
“There!” Vince says, voice buzzing with excitement.
I see it. It lays motionless some forty feet to my right, half concealed by brush. I approach with the deer cautiously, ready to put it down should it have some life left in it. It doesn’t. Vince turns to me and I can’t help but smile.
“Good work, cuz,” I say, slapping him on the back. We haven’t had a bounty like this in some time, surviving off of small game and whatever we could scavenge. A buck this size will go a long way. It’s exactly what we needed.
“Just glad we found the thing. Bastard had some fight in him.” He sounds as relieved as I feel. He leans his rifle against a tree and unsheathes his knife. “Time to get bloody.” Vince goes to a knee to begin dressing the kill. He pauses, knife hovering over the corpse.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He looks up, worry replacing the excitement that shone in his eyes moments earlier. “He was shot more than once,” he says. A sinking weight fills my stomach at his words. The gunshots we heard. We’re not alone in tracking the buck. And if we beat the other party here, they can’t be far behind.
“Shit,” I say, shouldering my rifle and unholstering my Glock. “We have to move. Grab a leg and let’s drag it out.”
Before either of us can reach out to do so we hear it—breaking twigs, the tread of fast-moving feet on fallen leaves. Our rival party approaches. I strain my ears in vain to identify their number but it’s impossible to tell. It’s not until they are nearly upon us that I see them. They move like shadows shifting in and out of sight, a half dozen at least, using the density of trees to cover their advance. They fan out into a semicircle formation with us at the center. Vince and I brace ourselves against tree trunks on either side of the buck, pistols out. The gun is of little comfort. If it comes to a shootout, we’ll lose. Stupid. We should have waited for Leon and Felix. Better yet, we should have turned back when we first heard the gunshots. We took a risk and it backfired. Now we’re facing the consequences.
I peek behind my cover and count the gun barrels facing us, seven in all. Bad odds. My mind races a mile a minute, desperate to figure a way out of this. Nothing comes to me. We’re pinned down and outmanned.
“Whatever ideas you’re cooking up over there, forget them.” The voice rings out cool and languid as if the speaker already grows bored of the situation. “Fact is we’re not all that interested in you. All we want is the deer. You lay down your guns nice—”
“The deer is ours!” Vince yells out, cutting the voice off. I stare at him in disbelief. Does he not realize our situation? The voice remains silent a beat, perhaps regaining his composure after unexpectedly getting cut off.
“What’s that now?” Annoyance has crept into that bored voice, reminding me, oddly, of a school teacher irritated at a student for speaking out of turn.
“I shot it first. Tracked it. Reached it before you did. By all right’s it’s mine!” I understand where Vince is coming from: the desperation to bring back food, the injustice of having something so valuable snatched right from under him. But he’s letting his emotions blind him of the reality we’re facing. Right or wrong, we’re not walking away with the deer. He just doesn’t see it. Those surrounding us know this truth, and that knowledge is heard in their mocking laughter.
“By all rights, you say?” Another voice, this one deeper and full of cruel amusement. “Child, where have you been? What’s right hasn’t mattered in some time.”
“And in any case, the deer fell by my bullet,” the original voice adds. “Which means that by right, it belongs to me.” Vince makes to say something but the voice steamrolls him. “Enough! The deer is ours, end of discussion. What I’m offering you is the chance to walk out of here alive. I’ve done enough killing these past months. I really don’t want to add you to that list. So take my offer and leave. Right now. Don’t raise your guns against us, don’t try and take what’s ours. Just leave. You have five seconds to decide.”
Vince is about to open his mouth when I too cut him off, earning a scowl from him. “How do we know you won’t just shoot us when we leave our cover?” I ask.
“That’s a risk you’ll have to take. Not like you have any other options. And you’re out of time...So what’s it going to be?”
He’s right. Our options are either fight and die, or retreat and possibly live. There’s no choice between the two.
“Alright,” I yell. With a prayer, I leave my cover and begin backing away. Vince stares at me, anger and disgust written all over his face. But my retreat leaves him with no choice but to follow. I eye the gun barrels staring at us with a stomach twisted in nerves, waiting for their bullets to tear through my body and take me from this world. But the moment never comes. The guns remain steady and threatening until we leave them behind, the forest swallowing them back up. Still, it’s a good ten minutes before I breathe freely again. The moment is short lived as Vince wheels on me, finally letting loose his frustration.
“Why the hell did you back down so easily?” he asks.
I stare at him a moment in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I ask. “What choice did we have?”
“We could have stood our ground,” he says. “We could have negotiated to take back at least some of the meat. We had options but you threw them all away.”
I sputter for a response. “Were you somewhere else just now?” I ask. “What about that situation makes you think we should have stood our ground? They had seven guns on us, Vince. Seven. There was no negotiating with them. If we tried, I doubt we would be here now. We definitely wouldn’t have any meat. Why would they give us anything when they had all the leverage?”
He shakes his head and spits on the ground. “Guess we’ll never know now, will we?” he asks. Before I can respond he shoulders past me and it’s only a whistle to my left that keeps me from shoving him back. Instead, I turn and see Leon and Felix emerge from the treeline and jog my way.
“Holy shit! Talk about dodging a freaking bullet,” Leon says as they reach me.
I shake my head. “You saw what happened?” I ask.
`Felix nods. “Yeah. We were almost to you when we heard those guys crashing through the trees. Decided we should keep out of sight, try and get to a better vantage point in case things turned south. We never found one—not a good one anyway. We’re lucky they let you walk.”
“Tell that to Vince,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
They look to Vince who already has climbed halfway up the hill, his back to us. “He just needs to cool off,” Felix says. “He’ll come around.”
“Can’t totally blame him though,” Leon says. “That buck would have made a huge difference.”
Don’t I know it. The same anger that’s built inside Vince resides in me as well. I swallowed it because I had to, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Just thinking of all the meat we might have brought back makes returning home empty handed all the more difficult. But I remind myself that focusing on that anger won’t change anything. The dye has cast. I have to shake it off and move past it. Ea
sier said than done.
Vince’s sour mood permeates the air as we travel. Even keeping my distance I find it hard to ignore. Every few dozen feet his glare lands on me, the blame reflected in his eyes. It’s a test of my patience to remain silent, and they are quickly wearing thin.
“You know you might have actually spotted another deer if you didn’t glower at me every ten seconds!” It’s at the outskirts of the farm that I finally snap, my frustration getting the better of me.
Vince’s eyes widen in surprise before quickly narrowing again. He forces a humorless laugh. “Yeah, maybe,” he says. “We also could be carrying some meat back right now if you didn’t balk the first chance you got.”
“Really? This shit again?” I ask. I should let it go. Arguing will do nothing but make the situation worse. But right now I’m too angry to care: at Vince, at having the deer snatched away from us, at the unforgiving world we live in. I couldn’t hold my tongue right now if I tried.
“I was the only one of us who was using their brain. What the hell would you have had us do? Start shooting? Butcher seven men all so we could take home a fucking deer? Cause that’s where it was heading. They weren’t backing down, and if we didn’t, bullets would have started flying.”
He sneers at my words. “You’re a damn physic now, are you? You know all this would have happened?” He shakes his head. “Ever think that they wouldn’t want to die over a deer either? That maybe they would have let us go with something rather than let the bullets fly?”
“You wanna know what I think?” I ask. “I think you’re starting to sound a lot like your dear Uncle Richard. Letting your hot head dictate what you say and do without thinking it through first.”
A Cruel and Violent Storm Page 14
