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Hunter Orange
By JPLuNaTiC
The morning was black. I stepped out of the camp, and the air began to gnaw, freezing. The moon wasn’t to be seen and I fumbled for the overhead light. The porch lit up. I looked for the gear I was to prepare. There was a bucket that had empty bullet magazines for reloading, and I needed to pull the gun cases from the truck bed. Dad was inside, dressing in layers.
Partly because all I wanted with my nervous energy was to pace and to fantasize about the upcoming hunt, and partly because the chill was eating me, I went back inside. The warmth washed over me. I heard my dad fumbling in the bathroom.
I took in the deer mounts on the wall; cobwebs hung in the racks of two stocky bucks. A duck, collecting dust, was suspended above the window, eternally poised for attack, over an abyss, where anything lurked.
The bathroom door opened. I rushed to the coffee table and began rearranging junk snacks. The clips were still empty. The cases never got taken out.
“Are we ready?” My dad asked, bundled in a heavy brown coat.
“Um… no… we still have to load the clips…” I looked up from the table, pushing cookie boxes into a symmetrical formation.
“What the hell have you been doing? Come on Alex!”
“I’ve just been…”
“Did you take your medication yet?”
My pill box lay among the junk I was pretending to organize.
“No, not yet… I was just going to…”
He walked outside, looking for the bucket with our clips, and I followed, without touching the pill box, leaving it behind.
“I assume you took the cases out though, right?” His tone indicated that he believed otherwise.
I gave no response, and he shook his head.
I was glad he was doing the work. I waited for him to leave the bathroom – because it was uncomfortable outside, I couldn’t concentrate. He gets the work done; I amble around, pretending to help and trying to avoid interrupting his labor groove. A few times I got carried away in hunting fantasies, inadvertently pacing off, and my dad would shout. I would mumble about there not being anything to do, and hobble back toward him.
I would end up standing there, hands in my pockets, shivering. As he worked.
After the pre-hunt tasks, my dad asked that I go over and see if “Danny and them were ready.” They were in the small companion camp next door; actually, it was a shed. They were all family this time; not customers, who usually attended these excursions. They were Danny, a cousin around my age, and his father (Uncle Red).
I discovered they weren’t ready. Uncle Red greeted me and explained they’d be out in ten minutes. I reported this to my dad and he heaved a sigh, sitting down on the porch swing in exasperation.
“Damn they’re so slow. Everything we do they begin.”
I hated to hear my dad talking like that. I have a blast with Uncle Red and Danny. And I always think my dad does to; on the ride here they laughed and joked the entire way. Everything seemed to be in their right places and I was content they found each other’s company enjoyable. But privately – Just dad and I, father and son – he would make Uncle Red the butt of his jokes; and I knew he was right about how Uncle Red “was like in slow motion.” But I didn’t like how he shared this. I wanted him to ease up. I thought Uncle Red was great.
“When we were at Mick’s, in the parking lot, I got out, you got out, Danny got out, I turn around, lock the door, Red hadn’t opened the door…” My dad looked barely awake, belittling Uncle Red in a soft voice on the porch swing.
I spun around the pole, full of nervous energy, ignoring him.
He looked at his watch, then over at me. “They’d better hurry up… gotta’ be in the stand before daybreak.”
“Is it a good day for hunting?”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
“I couldn’t hear you. You know that’s impolite.” My dad yawned.
After about 15 minutes, Uncle Red and Danny emerged. They were wearing army style camo, which struck me as more professional than the tree illustrations on my dad and I’s Realtree brand camouflage.
“All set?” said my dad, standing up from the swing, with a curious look on his face.
They then had an idle discussion about the weather forecast and the direction of the wind. Danny and I walked a little ways away yet didn’t say much.
I was ready to explode into a diatribe about the day ahead, but Danny wasn’t listening. Guess I had been awake longer; or he was enveloped in a complex fantasy of his own and didn’t want to give it up. By this afternoon we’d be wrapped up though; usually when we got to talking – especially about hunting – we’d really get lost in it, divulging intricate tactics that we’d never explain to anyone else: They weren’t secrets, but anyone else could point out the logistical flaws we knew they had. But between Danny and me there was an unspoken rule about not picking these apart. We both thought less, and more, with each other’s company.
But now Danny was quiet and we trembled together in the biting breeze.
“Danny, man, what took ya’ll so long? We’ll be in the stand after daybreak.” I heard myself saying, seeing the glaze in Danny’s eye.
I laughed in apology.
I bent down, picked up a rock, and chucked it into the abyss.
Uncle Red and dad were moving things around in the bed of the pickup. They were frantic and Uncle Red revolved stupidly around my dad’s exacting pace, with a look that mocked focus.
My dad said something, and Uncle Red laughed. I suppressed a smile, happy.
“Alex, Danny!” My dad gave an exaggerated wave for us to go over there. They were leaning against the truck bed now.
My dad, being the owner of this lease of land, lined up where each of us would be going. Uncle Red and Danny were going to set up at a good stand for varmint – They hadn’t purchased a deer this year. My dad and I were headed for the stand where my buck, the one I was after, all season, had been sighted. All four of us would pile into my dad’s truck, and Uncle Red and Danny would be dropped off on the way.
After this game plan, my dad asked if we had our hunter orange vests. We did. He made us put them on. Safety was always a concern for him, but this time I felt his speech was nearly condescending to my uncle. He had never gone into such elaboration for any of his customers.
The truck snaked down the road - a road that had been carved rather unsuccessfully during the off-season. The headlights bore a wide chasm of vantage in the black. Thorny brambles and nests of cacti formed a wall, choking the lane.
Beyond the headlights, and behind the truck, it was an abyss. A black unknown, a fearful black.
Minutes up the road we dropped Uncle Red and Danny off, and the little bit of joy from the lighthearted discussion between my dad and my uncle, and finally Danny and I’s excited jumble, was drained from the truck. It was replaced by a coldness that reflected the environment outside.
“Alex… I might just go ahead and let you hunt that stand alone. I may go to number three and knock down a varmint or two.”
I didn’t say anything. He looked over at me.
“You know what the deer you’re after looks like. You don’t need me to help you. So does that sound all right?”
“I uh… I don’t know. I guess. Whatever.” I said.
He laughed and shook his head, “What do you mean ‘I guess whatever.’ Does that mean you want me to go with you?”
I didn’t respond.
“Boy, I tell you,” he said “You’ve been hunting out here how long now? Five or so years… And you’re still scared to be up in that stand alone?”
“No, I’m not. I told you I guess we could split up. Whatever you want to do.” I did figure we could split like he wanted; thirty minutes to daylight at which point I’d be comfortable being alone – though really I’d rather avoid splitting.
“All right, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll drop you off about a hundred yards from the stand,” My heart dropped, “so we don’t spook anything by driving up. And then I’ll go to number three and see if I can bust us a pig.”
When the truck began to slow my heart began to race. We came to a stop across from a narrow cut in the woods, the entrance of which was marked with reflective tape; I saw it as a warning. It was bright, neon, and obnoxious in the headlight; it was disgustingly visible to my dad; he had seen it, we were stopping here.
“All right, go ahead and get out. Your gun is in the silver case in the back. Daybreak is in about 45 minutes.” He handed me a walkie talkie. “Kill anything early; I’ll be on channel two. Let me know so we can get back and clean him. Got it? I’ll be back at 10, otherwise.”
“Yeah, okay.” I stepped out the truck and didn’t bother to close the door gently – which was traditional when hunting, so as to not spook any animals in the area. My dad threw his hands up and shook his head with rage. I shrugged back. Truthfully, I wanted to scare off anything in the area. I didn’t want to be startled by anything in the dark.
I made it to the stand before meditating on my walk; spiraling through the latent, slumbering terror.
The stand was of the elevated box style. A wooden two man box mounted on top a tripod. I entered the box and satin strings washed over my face. Cobwebs. The stand hadn’t been used in some time. It swayed, and the wood rebelled. It was stale, possessed by dust.
I bent my head through the window, accepting fresh air. Everything was chilled; my hands were enveloped by my knees, trying to rid numbing.
My heart was quick and my breaths sketching as a jagged rock against concrete; each breath sent a cold, sharp vacuum in my chest, and turned my stomach.
Thirty minutes before dawn.
I was anxious, I was scared, I was concerned. And I didn’t see it. I looked at my watch, the digital watch, my walkie talkie; I kept it close. I fought my mind from the abyss and the stirring emptiness.
People spent away the darkness while hunting and never feared it. They were with their tact for deer. I was not; I was alone; with myself and nothing.
This was the hunt. I needed to get real; force myself to peel my ears.
Everything was quiet except for the crackles of wood; a jaded hunter ignores this. It’s heard, constantly. Rarely does it add up; a hunter would never try the math, never begin adding the vague in his head; but I was, I was adding and subtracting and dividing and the only results were the horrors in my head.
I was getting my first glimpses of the gnarled landscape. Pale blue clearings and cutaways. But there was still hardly any light. My eyes strained. Nothing exacting to hold on to.
When the light did come a weight lifted from my shoulders. With each passing minute the once pale shapes of the land became hard and sharp from my vantage. With each passing minute my fearful inner eye fell to true eyes. Eyes which had a tendency toward the beauty of it all. The south Texas landscape drew up into rolling slopes. I welcomed the environment like an old friend.
But I knew it. I was overplaying my appreciation. I wanted to be cheerful and kicked back in the great outdoors. But this hunt was the loneliest I had been on. I was usually with dad. And now I found my isolation unsettling. I made sure to keep that walkie talkie in an easy place.
I wondered if I were a true hunter. I had always thought I was. But tackling the sport alone stripped down what I thought I knew about it. The true elements of the hunt were cold. At least the sun was with me now, and I was beginning to feel warmth. I uncovered my hands and flexed my fingers.
A darting figure was obscured by brush. About 100 yards away; just on the outskirts of the clearing. My heart thundered. My right hand shot towards the stock of my .30-06 rifle – But it froze there. My eyes scanned. I looked for a rack floating above the thorny brush; not just any rack; those ten very prongs that dad and I watched times before.
I would know those antlers. They were my own. I did the math.
And when I saw the antlers first, just how the stories always go, above the thicket; it was hunting. Now this was my hunting. The rest of the body followed; the deer timidly left the thicket and entered the clearing. He kept his head up, his senses working hard; and I remained frozen.
And then he surrendered, putting his head down, feeding on the thin grass. Carefully I mounted the rifle on the window sill. I put my eye to the scope; I had to calm myself; master my breathing, still every fiber of my body; trick my heart into a steady trot. I had to find a cure for my fever.
It was time, I told myself. But no, it wasn’t. It was not time. The crosshairs bobbed with every heartbeat. The harder I searched for a cure, the worse the fever became. Those ten prongs were no longer mine.
I had to relax. I saw the neck, saw through it, to the spine. Had to pull smooth. “Keep aiming, and keep squeezing.”
But when I pulled the trigger, it was a release; it wasn’t a shot, it was release. I had to let go of the fever; I had to spit it up. I couldn’t take it. I pulled the trigger.
And everything turned out. The deer’s neck pinched, kinked slightly; its knees buckled and it went down on them, before the lifeless body tipped over. The buck was dead. The ten prongs were my own again.
My initial reaction was surprise. The pressure, the weight, still stung; but the buck’s body was there, detached. An impersonal 100 yards away, clean. But my bewilderment was only fleeting; and perhaps the truest emotion of the hunt. But not now.
Grabbing the walkie talkie, I descended the stairs. I punched the button.
“Dad, guess what?”
Reaching the ground, waiting for his reply, I flexed my fingers. Things were heating up. The sun was ascending. I dropped the walkie talkie purposefully so that I was able to peel off my overcoat. I was brash, excitement now overwhelming me, as the kill sunk in. I looked over at the buck, lying some distance away.
“Dad? Can you hear me?” I had the walkie talkie again. He never made a response.
I waited. Nothing. “Hello? Dad?”
I doubled checked that it was on channel 1; it was. I triple checked. I was rooted to the spot under my towering box stand; all thought of progress toward the location of my kill vacated.
I turned the walkie talkie over in my hands, studying every knob, every mechanism. It was checking.
“Dad? I killed my buck. Can you hear me?”
The device was broken, I told myself.
“Dad, are you there? DAD?” My voice cracked slightly as I bellowed into the walkie.
I waited. My dad didn’t answer.
It felt as if my anxiety had liquefied and was in my gut; it rolled as I moved, and there was no way to drain it. I looked at my watch. It was 8. I still had an hour. I looked at the downed animal, remembering; I had to focus on the kill. But my anxiety didn’t drain; it swilled as I mechanically approached the body.
My shot placement was perfect; the center of its neck. Surely I had shattered its spine; I tried to force this accomplishment into my head and enjoy it. But I couldn’t. This was a trophy buck. But I was a detached observer now, not victor; for other shadows were shifting within. I circled the animal quickly; I saw but did not. I was ready to recede into malcontent.
“Dad?” I said with a textured voice, “Can you hear me? I killed a deer.”
I needed to stop. Every silent response was louder than the last. I began walking. It was 8:30. I decided I would get on the road and start walking the direction that he would be coming from.
As I moved up the trail, it seemed longer. The last time I used it was in a fierce rush, trying my best to not hear or feel. I had also made it with the roar of my father’s truck in the distance. And now, the area felt only dead.
I stopped. What was the point in meeting him part way?
I knew what I was doing. I was walking this way because it was part of a greater instinct that I was trying to suppress. My dad had gone to stand 3. That was about 500 yards away. Yes, I knew what I was doing; and at that moment, I let myself go. I began moving quickly – a trot – and then I broke into a run. The faster I moved, the more disturbed I got; the panic in my gut was being washed around viciously.
I ran until I found myself on the road, where I began walking instinctively, to catch my breath. The strangled road in front of me stretched away. I walked quickly, methodically.
The skies were clear except for buzzards dancing on the horizon.
I was surprised around the next corner. The cold, dead density flanking the road was shattered with an amazing orange.
Approaching it, I identified it as a jacket, hung over a grabbing, spindly thorn nest. The jacket was the same as I had worn; and left back at the stand. We had all worn hunter orange. I was mesmerized; my eyes worked hard to penetrate the thicket of the area.
“Dad?!”
I was certainly expecting to hear that familiar and hallow voice. I was sure my father was just inside the brush, tracking some animal he had wounded. But no voice did answer me back, despite my yelling several more times. Panic.
I peeled the jacket from the thorns, shredding it some, hoping that the rips were all mine. It certainly smelt like my father; and heavily. It was his size. This was his jacket.
I noticed that a walkie talkie had fallen from it in my alarm; picking it up, I realized it was off. My dad had his off the entire time. I was infuriated. How could he not bother to notice? And there I had been, clutching mine in the dark, double checking, triple checking it, anxious. And he couldn’t be bothered to have his on, or remember to.
Holding that walkie, I noticed how free my hands had been. I left my rifle; it was a distance away because of my nerves. And that offered a clear memory. One of those little moments I see constantly in my head, even though I’ve forgotten many more important ones.
I was six years old, hunting with my dad; not in Texas on this holiday lease, but back home in Louisiana. We were hunting wild pig in a humid, wet area, where a swamp met higher hardwoods. It was green and lush here, and sticky, and choked. The area as plays in my head drew in, swallowed me, filled the edges, and stuck to my shirt.
I was alone on the trail, running from a noise, towards some place my dad would be, in a clearing; I told him what I heard, that it was pigs. My dad wasn’t as excited as I thought he would be. He asked, calmly, why I didn’t shoot one. I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t even have my rifle with me; it was back at the tree, where I heard the sound.
Due to an encounter where I was charged by a wounded pig, I had gained an instinctive fear of the animals. So when I heard the pigs I ran for it, already being on edge. I left my rifle.
Now, that may not have happened exactly as I’m recalling. I’m not sure. It’s just a piece of a memory; it dances around. But I for sure had left my rifle. And the talk that came next, what I felt, is surely the reason it dances.
My dad had asked me where my rifle was. I pretended to come to the revelation that it was gone, and that maybe I had accidentally, unknowingly, placed it somewhere and forgot it. But the truth was that I was six, and was awkward with a rifle. It didn’t make me feel secure, it made me feel clumsy; I wanted to flee those noises as fast as possible. I’m not totally sure why I was scared to pick up that rifle. But that was it. And I remember my dad being dumbfounded. He told me to never leave my rifle, “we were hunting for God’s sake,” and he wanted to know how I was supposed to kill anything.
I felt guilt then. I had done something stupid. I had panicked. “We were hunting for God’s sake.” And now, standing here on this road, I felt it again. It was time to be rational. I was going to go back to my hunting stand, climb up, and sit down with my rifle, and wait; without looking at my watch, without worrying. I could walk back to the camp if he didn’t show up. But no, why wouldn’t he? Obviously he would show up. I would sit in that stand and wait; and not think any ridiculous thoughts, like that one. With my rifle, and my trophy buck, and I would know exactly what I was doing.
As I began to walk away, my dad’s voice called out. He was just inside the brush. “Alex!”
“I’m right here!” I yelled back, eyes working hard.
He emerged and gave me an empty look, which I couldn’t read. He stared down at me, for a minute.
“What are you doing?” He asked, rather calm.
“I was just…” My voice cracked slightly. “Oh, I killed my buck. You wouldn’t answer the walkie talkie… so I just figured I’d start walking this way, and saw your jacket…”
He nodded his head, seemingly accepting this story, without hint of suspicion or question. “So you got him, huh? That ten point we’ve been looking at?” He smiled.
The liquid in my gut had evaporated. Just minutes ago was an alien experience, something horrible and silly, and I was guilty, and detached from that. “Yep, it’s him. One shot, dropped him. Snapped the spine.”
“Knew you had his number. All season. Watching. Waiting. We miss him a few times, and the first time you’re up there alone and you nail that sucker. It was meant to be… to tell you the truth, man, I didn’t know if we were ever going to get that ten. Did he come into the food plot? He never would… damn… I can’t believe it…”
“Yep. He came right in. It ended fast. I can’t really remember, it was a blur.”
“Well, let’s get over to him, we can clean him early. Good that you killed on the first day. You got your tag. No pressure now. You can spend the rest of the weekend killing varmints… seen lots. I followed some pigs this morning, couldn’t get a shot. Little suckers. Good eating size.” He was excited. “Wait until Danny sees that buck, huh?” He looked at me. “What you think it’s gonna score? One twenty, one thirty? Somewhere in there.”
“Yeah, maybe, I don’t know. He’s not that big.” I said.
“Aw, no, that thing has - the uh, the mass, or the base of those tongs, are huge. That goes a long way in the score.”
“Uh… maybe.”
“I’m telling you, Alex. That thing’s in the one twenty range.”
We were walking fast now; pass the orange marker, into the cut. My dad was leading the way. I was stumbling along in a trance, acknowledging none of the surroundings, caring about none of the surroundings. I was on auto-pilot.
He glared at me. “Pick up your feet when you’re walking in the woods like this. There could be pigs at the stand right now- but hey, where’s your gun?”
My heart dropped, and I became more interested in my footfall. “I must’ve left it at the stand.”
“We’re hunting for God’s sakes. Never leave your rifle.” He shook his head.
“Hey…” He said slowly, “did you remember to take your pills this morning?”
I hadn’t. “Oh, I… no, I don’t think so.”
“Boy, boy, boy… you know what that does to you…”
When we broke into the clearing - the empty, bare, clearing - my dad stopped at the threshold, and studied the food plot. He scanned the far end. He studied every cutaway and niche, those which appeared pale, blue, and lumpy in the early dawn, and were now sharp and busy with undergrowth. There were no pigs. “If they had any, we must’ve spooked em’… and you with that yelling… well, where is he?”
It took me a second. “There, look… to the right of the feeder… see that black arch looking thing, there… on the edge. See its rack?”
“Well, damn, that’s him all right.”
*******
We hung the antlers on a tree near the camp, with the hide, to dry it out, and let the insects consume what we hadn’t cleaned. We put some cuts on ice, for tonight.
Dinner. The four of us, gathered in my dad’s camp, at our flimsy plywood table, with our comforting, cheap plastic untensils, and a napikin with my buck’s backstrap and pork from a small pig Danny and Uncle Red killed. The deer was a little tough.
“But four shots in the chest, with a .243, right into its chest. Now that’s a tough animal… that’s a real tough animal,” Uncle Red intoned in a serious voice, “and I know Danny hit him perfect that first shot. He didn’t go down. He was flipping and squealing, trying to get up, and I said Danny,” Uncle Red chuckled briefly, “I said, Danny, shoot him again. He shot. It dropped, and boy, it got back up, and boom, Danny had nailed it again.”
My dad was nodding his head incessantly, adding “Pigs are tough animals to bring down. Real tough.”
“Yep, boy they sure are, and finally, I just said ‘give me the gun Danny,’ and I put one into its temple, and that was it of course, on that fifth shot.”
My dad nodded, “Yep… yep,” pulling at his venison with ferocity.
Uncle Red took a break from storytelling to eat, and the table went latent. “That’s some good pork. Real tender, real good.” He said between mouthfuls.
“Is it?” Said my dad, without looking up, “the deer ain’t too bad either.”
“A little tough…”
The sun had long descended and the windows were black and they looked over the table. The dusty mallard, above my head, guarded the abyss.
The dog was barking, frantic, just on the porch. My dad turned his nose up, listening. “Sounds like she’s cornered something… a possum, armadillo, somethin’.”
“Mmhmm.” Uncle Red hummed.
“Alex, go see what the hell the problem is.”
“No, no, Alex, I got it.” Uncle Red said, standing up, and then walking off.
“Thanks Red, make sure you put her up in her kennel.”
“Yep, yep, sure thing.”
Watching Uncle Red retreat through the door, dad reached over and took a slab of pork; piling it next to the picked-over helping of my buck. “Your dad’s gonna be a while, eh, Danny?” He laughed.
Danny looked up. “Um… yeah… he’s a little slow.”
I felt uneasy; the look on Danny’s face. My dad’s look of amusement.
“Is your mom that slow too?” My dad asked.
“Um…”
“No, dad,” I broke in, “you’re like 400 times faster than anyone else. No one else has to do things in like… such a rush.” I said light hearted. “When we were at Mick’s, in the parking lot, when we were leaving, you were fixing to drive off and me and Danny were only like half-way in the truck.” I looked at Danny, and he laughed.
“Yeah, I guess I am a little fast… damn, this pork is good.”
“Dad’s special recipe.” Danny replied.
“Tastes slow cooked.”
Everyone began laughing, but Danny broke off, and then so did I.
When Uncle Red returned, and the meal was broken up, and everyone speculated about the varmint hunting in the morning, Danny and I retreated to his camp, to play video games. Uncle Red stayed behind with my dad. Dad warned me to take my medicine in the morning.
The companion camp was small. One room, two cots, and a small television. We drug the cots to the base of the television; the screen was blurry, irritatingly blue. Danny and I could play games on it though, and we sat on the cots.
Turning off the lights, the television was painful in the black. It was a strobe, knitting my eyes and burning me. I imagined being in the wilderness, isolated in the abyss, and I would look around and see the flashing blue in the distance, a beacon, coming from our camp, where me and Danny were occupied with our video game.
“Danny, did you see a lot of stuff this morning?” I asked.
“No, just the one we shot. Just that pig. It was really quiet, really still. Didn’t even hear much. Did you see a lot?”
“Well, just that buck. I thought I saw something else. I heard a lot, really.”
“What else?” He asked.
“On the way in, on the trail, I was alone, and I saw something in the brush, but I was scared. It was big though, I couldn’t really see what it was. I saw it fast and it was gone. But I think it followed me the whole time, I heard things, and I was scared. Really I ran to the stand.”
“Huh? What was it? What did it look like?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell. But when I was up in that stand, in the dark, it probably was only a few yards from me. I heard it, but I couldn’t see it. It was watching me. It was creepy. I thought about yelling… but you, know, I don’t know.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, it was weird. I heard it rattling.”
“Rattling?”
“Yeah, I think. Scraping and rattling and breaking things.”
“It was probably just some varmint… pigs are noisy like that and they crash around. Not like deer. Deer are careful and you can’t hear them coming. Pigs and stuff, are noisy.”
“No, it wasn’t that kind’ve rattling. It knew what it was doing. I think it was doing something pretty complex, like that. I don’t know. It was really weird, and I was scared, you know?”
“What did it look like?”
“I told you, I don’t know. I just saw its shadow or something on the trail, it was still pitch black. It could’ve been anything but something we’re used to, you know? I would’ve recognized it. I can tell, you know? But this was different, it was weird, like trust me, you would’ve freaked out. You would’ve gone insane. This thing was really watching me, I know it was. Watching. I was so creeped out.”
“Yeah, whatever. Yeah.”
I looked out the window, but saw empty black. My heart was beating in my chest; I scared myself, with my own story, and I felt it outside the camp maybe.
Danny was mashing his controller erratically, focusing more intently than ever on the football game; but running a horrible route, and the AI tackled him for a big loss. He didn’t even blink; his face was stone.
I moved toward the window, but then broke off. I returned quickly, down on the cot, tucked my legs under the covers, and let myself be absorbed with the glow from the television, watching Danny play.
“Hey, Danny, wanna just keep playing until we’re undefeated? We have all night. In just five hours we’ll be going hunt. Let’s just play all night. We could.”
“No, I’m going to sleep. I was just fixing to quit. I’m tired.”
The idea of lying in the dark, not being able to sleep, with thoughts touring the abyss against my wishes, was killing me. The walls were thin in this camp; sounds bled through them in the still; maybe the scraping, the rattling. “No, come on Danny, we’re almost undefeated. Let’s just keep playing.”
*******
In the morning, I was awoken by Uncle Red, who had spent the night in my dad’s camp, and was returning to prepare for the morning hunt. It was earlier than usual.
Back in my camp, dad was stirring in the bathroom. He was halfway through his morning ritual. I remembered his final words last night, and I took my pills.
In a tired daze, I sat on the sagging, shredding couch, rubbing my eyes. It was peaceful here. Looking at the mounts on the wall, I wondered when mine would be there. I imagined the story people would ask for, when they saw it; and the one I would give them, and the one I would reflect embarrassingly to myself; the entire, brash affair.
Seeing the organization of junk snacks on the coffee table, I remembered what I needed to do, suddenly, as if I woke for the first time today. I stood up, still exhausted, and stepped out of the camp, into the freezing. It was funny how radically the temperature shifted in darkness and day, out here.
I pulled our gun cases from the truck bed, setting them on the dirty picnic table. I found the bucket with empty bullet magazines, and I began reloading them. I put each full magazine with their respective rifle case. I was in a daze, but I knew what I needed to do, with that gear. And then I set each case back in the truck bed.
“Dad getting ready inside?”
I turned around and was greeted by Uncle Red, who looked bright and alive, with Danny at his side, who looked dead tired. I pushed my hands into my overcoat. “Yeah, I guess he is…” And then I added, quickly, “But he should be out in a second.”
“Yep, yep…” said Uncle Red.
The door swung open. My dad looked surprised by the gathering. “Early, eh Red?” He said, putting his boots on.
“Oh, just a little. Yep.”
“Got everything ready this time, Alex?”
“Uh… I think so.”
He looked me in the eyes, nodded his head. “Good, good.” He walked down, and immediately engaged Uncle Red in a discussion about the weather (“Winds out of the north, that’s good.”)
Danny approached my side, as if by default. “What you think we’ll see today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully some coyotes or pigs or whatever.”
“Yeah… maybe so… Do they have a lot?”
“I guess, yeah.” I said unconvincingly.
The antlers hung in the tree to our right. “Man,” I said, walking over to them, “they look bigger each time I see em’. I think it’s going to score one twenty. Look at the brow-tine…”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty nice deer.”
“It’s a freaking awesome deer.”
“It’s pretty good.” Danny was pacing away. “Next year, when we buy a deer, I wanna’ get one like that.” He stopped and looked into the expanse of darkness. “I think we’re going to kill a lot this morning.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You don’t think?”
“Maybe.”
*******
I found myself again hunting alone. It was a different stand this time; it seemed in better shape, sturdy. There was no pressure now, because I was after varmint; not that I didn’t enjoy hunting varmints. It was great fun.
But the woods were dreadfully tedious this morning. Even the walk in the dark failed to stir my imagination. It was mostly quiet and I saw mostly nothing. Even after the feeder went off; nothing obliged. After about an hour of the still, boredom set in. Paralyzing boredom at dawn, when everything drew into complete focus.
I took out a handheld and began playing. A pointless card game. And I played it until I got a headache, until I was so wrapped up I wouldn’t notice if anything entered the food plot. I was oblivious. And bored. And the minutes went by, and finally the hours.
I saw an orange flickering through the woods; it was my dad approaching. The hunt had finally ended. I was ready to leave the stand; there was nothing in the area worth finding; deer maybe, but I needed varmints now.
“Nothing, huh?” My dad asked, as I descended the stand.
“There’s nothing here. I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything. It was boring.” I began leading the way up the trail. “How about you? Kill anything?”
“No... I saw a coyote. But it was too far. Never would’ve made the shot.”
“I guess it was too bright with that moon out last night? The animals fed all night and are still bedded down?”
“No, I don’t know son; I did see that coyote. And I heard some pigs too. I wonder if Red and Danny killed?”
“I didn’t hear any shots…”
“Guess it’s just one of those days.”
Back at the camp, Danny and Uncle Red stood at the cleaning slab. It was a square cement base, with hooks now suspending two pigs in mid-air; one was split from its anus to its ribcage, and had been hallowed out, a gut bucket below.
“Well, how be damned.” My dad said. “So who killed what?”
“I killed one and dad killed the other.” Danny replied.
“Yep,” Uncle Red broke in, “these two came in together with like four of five others ones, bigger ones. We shot at the same time, on the count of three. Flattened em’ right there. About a fifty yard shot.”
My dad was studying the gut bucket. “Oh boy, she was pregnant.”
There was a fetus in the pile; pink and rat-like.
Uncle Red nodded his head. “Yep, yep. She was. That was the one Danny shot. I told him ‘that counts for two.’ He’s one ahead of me now.” He frisked Danny’s head, laughing.
“Well,” said my dad, “not really. I saw some pigs, but I passed em’ up.”
I didn’t understand him. He told me he saw only a coyote.
“Oh,” said Uncle Red, “you passed some up, eh? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, we have an ice chest full already; I didn’t think we needed more.” He paused, and then added “I don’t want anymore for myself. But it’s good that you killed, kill as many as you want. They’re varmints. We leave in the morning anyway. That was your last shot; you may not be out here for awhile. Make the most of it.”
Uncle Red nodded. “Say, what did you do with Alex’s rack?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not on the tree anymore. We figured you moved it.”
“Huh? No, no, I didn’t touch those antlers. Alex, did you move them?”
“No, I didn’t touch them either.”
“That’s odd.” My dad said. “Is the hide there?”
“Oh yeah,” said Uncle Red, “yeah, the hide is still there. The antlers are gone though.”
All three of us migrated to the tree where my dad had left the hide and rack of my buck yesterday. It was clear though, that today, the antlers were missing. It was only the hide on the tree.
And I remembered seeing the antlers this morning. And so did Danny, he quickly chimed in.
“Now, what could’ve done that?” Asked my dad.
Uncle Red shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ve had raccoons take carcasses and gut piles off before...”
“Yeah, they will do that.” Said my dad. “But they didn’t touch the hide.” He studied it closely; it was pretty dry now, leathery. “What you bet the piece of that skull cap on those antlers was still a little meaty? I bet something did haul it off. That’s a real shame. I hope we can find it.”
But after an hour of searching the vicinity of the camp, we came across nothing. There were no antlers to be found. We were all cut up and itching from the briars, and drenched in sweat, and thirsty; my dad most especially, who had looked hardest, almost panicked, for my buck’s rack.
I was disappointed in losing my trophy, but I think my dad was more so. He repeated the same sentiments, numerous times; “That’s a shame. That’s a real shame. What a good buck that was.” He felt truly bad.
*******
Dinner was unceremonious. Uncle Red cooked his pork, and it was fine. But my dad left early for bed, because he ‘didn’t get much sleep last night,’ adding ‘don’t forget to take your medicine in the morning, Alex.’ Danny and I left for the companion camp to finish our game.
There, with our cots, the glow of the television, Danny felt like talking.
“Alex?” He said.
“Yeah?”
“You remember how last night you said you saw something in the woods and heard it rattling? And you thought it was watching you?”
I hadn’t taken my medication yesterday. It was anxiety. I was nervous, and I couldn’t control myself. But Danny was being stupid.
“No, I didn’t say that.”
Danny dropped his controller. “But yes, I know you said that.”
“Umm… maybe. No, I don’t know. I can’t remember. Why?”
“Because this morning I think I saw the same thing.”
“What? I didn’t see anything. What do you mean?”
“You said you heard it rattling and scraping or something, and you saw shadows. And when I was walking to the stand this morning, I heard that rattling. And I think something was there.”
“Uh… whatever. Just keep playing.” I handed the controller back to him.
“I can’t believe you don’t remember what you said last night. I know you said it. You had to have said it. And I’m telling you I saw it this morning.”
I was stone faced, watching the television.
“What do you think it is?” He asked.
I shrugged, shaking my head. “The rattling is bucks fighting. You know what that sounds like. Its rut. They fight a lot right now. Those plastic antlers people use as hunting calls sound just like rattling.”
Danny gazed out of the window. He was foolish; he hadn’t seen anything this morning. He looked away from the window.
And that was it. Danny was interested in the game again, and we played for an hour or so.
“Alex, are you tired? I’m not.”
“I am.”
“No, come on.” He said. “We just as soon stay up now. We won’t get but four hours of sleep anyway. Let’s play this all night. We’re leaving in the morning.”
I was exhausted. We had searched for my buck’s rack all day. And I was bitter about it, too. My head was heavy, my shoulders were tight. I wanted to sleep soon.
“No,” I said, “I’m pretty tired. I guess I’m going to bed now.”
Danny started to say something, but stopped.
*******
I was asleep the minute I laid down.
But soon after I woke. It was despairing; I felt as if I had just fallen asleep. Now it was time to pack. In the freezing cold. I hung my legs over the bedside, and the glow from the clock caught my eye.
It was only three in the morning. Relief washed over me, and I thudded back into bed. But something had woken me nonetheless.
Turning over, I thought I heard a rattling, very faint outside the camp. My medication must have worn off by now; I looked at the clock again, compulsively, despite having just seen it. Yes, I knew it. My mind was anxious. It had worn off. I was just nervous again. I looked at the clock. And then I heard a clear rattling.
I sat up, ears peeled.
But I heard nothing again. It was unsettling. I knew the window was to my right, and although I couldn’t see it in the dark, it felt as if it were gazing into me. The abyss. I thought about my missing antlers. Were they outside right now, something rattling them in the dark?
Danny was in his cot at my left. I suddenly had a compulsion: I should wake him and excitedly explain that there were bucks fighting outside the camp. The rattling.
But I didn’t. I laid back down. My heart dancing and my breath sketching. And amazingly, I drifted into an uneven sleep.
When I woke again, Danny was gone. I immediately sat up and climbed from bed. It was bright outside, too bright. I had over slept. Noone had come and gotten me. I jumped from bed.
I ran down the hall, pass the bathroom, and into the living room. I needed my medication, I couldn’t forget to take it. But it wasn’t there. My pills weren’t on the little coffee table, they were missing. I couldn’t remember if I had moved them. Maybe I had. Or maybe dad had moved them. Where was he?
The bucks on the wall looked different. And then I realized, with a jolt, a horror; they were missing their antlers. None had racks. It looked as if they had all been sawed off, at the bases. The antlers were gone.
A breeze swept through. The door was open. I began moving toward it; but it felt as if I were treading through a bog. I couldn’t move. I was stuck. A blanket was smothering me, strangling my legs; and then I realized, yes, they were. I was in bed again.
I sat up. My heart thundered. The clock said it was only four. I was back in the companion camp; it was only a nightmare. My uneasy mind. I brought to reason everything that had not happened. I had never gotten out of bed; I wasn’t even in my dad’s camp. Merciful relief.
But I had not imagined the rattling.
*******
That morning, in the daylight, we packed. Our clothes, our toiletries, our junk food, and the ice chests; Uncle Red took the pork. We packed and that was it. Everyone was sleepwalking. The weekend had been draining.
And I was glad, for the time, for the packing, that we were going. I decided not to take my medication; because we were leaving. I didn’t need it today. We were driving back home, to Louisiana. And I wouldn’t face the abyss. It was carefree.
When we folded my buck’s hide and put it into the pickup, my dad took his last opportunity to despair.
“Alex, I’m sorry. This is a real shame. That was a pretty deer. A pretty rack; it would’ve scored one-forty maybe. It’s a shame that it’s gone. Oh, well. At least we have a story to tell, and photographs. And the hide of course. Maybe we’ll get you another rack next year.”
“Um… yeah, maybe so.”
I hated to admit it to myself, but maybe I found my dad’s heartbreak more interesting than having antlers anyway. And when we piled into the truck, I was looking forward to the drive home. I was looking forward to my dad and Uncle Red joking with one another, and the laughter, and the recounts of the weekends, and the speculation.
As we drove down the dirt road, carving our way towards the main highway, I watched the marker, the neon tag marking the trail into the killing of my first buck, go by.
And into the next turn, I thought I saw an orange flash that shattered the density of the foliage. It flickered in the woods, into the brush, but it was gone, as the truck pushed away and I could no longer see.
Into another turn, we jumped a small herd of deer. They were all does; no antlers among them.
No racks among the deer on the road.
And as we erupted from the wild, and onto the isolated, lonely, two lane road, I felt a pang of anxiety. My heart rate increased; it increased even in the midst of my dad’s joke, and Uncle Red and Danny’s laughter.
A nervous stick in my abdomen, as we gained speed, up the road, pulling far away. I looked back.
And I felt it building. I felt something building. There was no payoff, and it was still building, even in the end. Because now, it wasn’t over, I hadn’t seen; it was still out there; out there with my antlers. And Danny had experienced it to. And it wouldn’t end. I felt the panic rising up, as we drove away from the abyss.
8/17/2006 4:58:32 PM
(Updated: 8/27/2006 11:17:04 PM)
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