Will Henry awoke to the persistent tugging of small, insistent hands.
“Wake up, Dad. The sun’s up. It’s time, huh? Isn’t it time?”
Will sat up, although it was mighty tempting to just roll over, snuggle against his wife, and go back to sleep. He rubbed his eyes, blinked, and glanced out the window. A half-mile to the east a faint rose light showed at the crest of Sawyer’s Ridge. A beckoning light. He felt the old excitement quicken his pulse.
He turned to the boy fidgeting before him and smiled. “It is at that, Tom. It surely is.”
* * * * *
Frank Slaughter cut his lights and turned from the paved county road onto the weed-choked farm lane, ignoring the “Posted – No Trespassing” signs tacked to the bordering pines. He slowed to a crawl, steering carefully in the false light of dawn. A deceptive ground fog shrouded the track, masking the ruts and gullies he vaguely remembered from his scouting trip in late August. Sweat slicked his hands and he gripped the wheel hard as he squinted through the dirty windshield.
The right front tire dropped into a wash-out and the truck lurched, its suspension creaking. Slaughter cursed, babying the gas, and the old Ford grunted and surged out of the rut and up over the top of a small rise.
Slaughter shut off the engine as he glided down the other side and stopped in a small meadow. He sat, trembling and sweating, listening to the engine tick as it cooled.
After a minute he eased open the door and slid out.
Quick now. Speed and stealth. He pulled open the back door and took out the gun case. Tugged the Remington from the oiled leather. Loaded it. He scooped up the fifth of Wild Turkey from the passenger seat and tucked it in his vest pocket. It was chilly out – a man would need a nip of the old Irish to keep the nip from his bones. He grinned.
His old climbing stand was in the truck bed and he took it out. It was weathered and worn, the wood warped and cracking, camouflage paint peeling, the safety strap frayed and rotting. He really should throw it out and buy one of those new fangled fiberglass jobs – but he’d made this one himself. Hard to junk something you’d created with your own time and sweat.
Slaughter started to cross the farm road, then paused. A scattering of deer tracks patterned the lane where it wasn’t grown up in weeds. He went to one knee, ran his fingers over the impressions. Plenty of deer on Henry’s place, some a fair size. But he hadn’t come for any old deer. Just one buck in particular.
The one he thought of as his buck.
He scowled. Other tracks were visible, intermingled with those of the deer. Padded tracks, with a faint trace of claws.
He’d noticed the spoor of wild dogs when he’d previously scouted the land. The dogs were still here, it seemed, roaming Henry’s land, more than likely running the deer.
Wild dogs were the bane of hunters, nuisance animals harassing the deer population. Slaughter had shot his share of dogs, had enjoyed it. Some had worn collars. That hadn’t bothered Slaughter one bit – man should keep his dog put up.
Well, he wouldn’t be killing dogs today. He had a higher purpose. He grinned again, and then stood, his knees popping.
He crossed the road, worked his way along the edge of the meadow, and entered the dark woods.
* * * * *
Grandma had biscuits in the oven and gravy simmering in the skillet when Will stepped into the kitchen. Papa lounged at the table, cleaning a lever action Ruger .44. He smiled at Will.
“Morning, son. Where’s Tom?”
“I made him shower first. He didn’t like it much. The eagerness is eating him up.”
Papa laughed, slid the breach back into the gun, and clipped it in place. He worked the lever once, then sat the gun aside.
Will settled into his chair with a sigh, and Grandma brought him a steaming cup of black coffee. He sipped, enjoying the scents of the kitchen.
Tom’s day. Will half-smiled. The boy was ready, sure enough. Will had taught him well, prepared him for this first time. Just as Papa had instructed him, and Great-grandpa had taught Papa. For generations of Henrys past. Tom’s day. A special day.
A boy’s first hunt was one to be remembered.
Tom bounded into the kitchen, all nervous energy. He sat down to a steaming plate of pancakes Grandma put down before him and attacked them with a ravenous appetite.
Papa grinned. “Good Lord, boy, don’t your Daddy ever feed you?” Tom smiled shyly around a mouthful of pancakes.
Helen Henry came into the room wearing a comfortable robe. She ruffled Tom’s hair, then spied the coffeepot.
“Big day for you, huh, kiddo?” she drawled sleepily. She poured a cup of coffee and glanced at Will. “Sure he’s ready, Hon?”
“I’m ready, Mama,” Tom answered for his father. “Dad says he’s not seen a finer man in the woods. Didn’t you, Dad?”
“Sure did. But don’t let it go to your head.” He smiled reassuringly at his wife. “The boy’s got potential, Helen. He’ll make a fine hunter, for sure.”
* * * * *
Slaughter crossed a shallow creek and wound his way uphill to the spot he’d chosen for his stand. Early sunlight washed the brow of Sawyer’s Ridge, and Slaughter cursed. He was late. He prayed fervently that the big buck had not already passed.
He slid his climbing stand from his shoulders, fit it around the trunk of a lean Loblolly pine, and worked his way laboriously up. Twenty feet off the ground he stopped and locked the stand in place. His breath came in short gasps, steaming in the frosty air. He tried to relax, let his heartbeat slow. Sweat trickled into his eyes and he wiped his face with a sleeve. He unslung his rifle.
From this stand he had a perfect view of the game trail crossing the flank of Sawyer’s Ridge.
Slaughter smiled, lifted the gun, sighted along the trail.
Perfect.
Satisfied, he lowered the rifle and took out his flask. He sipped, then tilted the bottle and had a deep pull. The whiskey flooded his gullet with liquid heat, warming him, loosening him up.
Now all he had to do was wait.
Slaughter was used to waiting. He’d waited all his life for a bragging buck. Waited while his friends harvested the big ones. The trophy heads. The Boone and Crockett contenders.
He’d waited since last winter, when he’d first heard the stories of the monster buck that ranged over the Henry farmstead. He’d waited for that perfect time, when the Henrys had left home on a trip to Disney World and the farm was empty, carefully scouting the land, confirming with his own eyes that the rumors were indeed fact.
Now all he had to do was wait just a little longer. Wait for the buck – his buck – to come to him.
* * * * *
Three generations of Henrys crossed the pasture next to the house and headed towards Sawyer’s Ridge. Will carried a short barreled .3030, Papa the Ruger .44.
Tom trotted beside them, trying to match the pace of the adults. Will watched him, amused. He remembered how, as a boy, the eagerness had so conflicted with the need to seem nonchalant, unconcerned, at home in the world of men and game and guns.
They entered the woods at the back of the pasture – will holding down the barbed wire so Tom could cross – and descended a slight slope, treading carefully on frost-slick leaves. They jumped a creek, and Tom paused to examine deer tracks along the bank.
“Near big as my hand!” he whispered. His eyes were huge. Papa laughed gently.
“That ‘ol boy has a spread, too,” he said. “And I know where he beds.”
“Down in the bottom?” Will asked.
“Uh-huh. And we’ll sit up and wait for him, right where he’ll be crossing the Ridge.”
* * * * *
Slaughter fought the cold with intermittent nips from his flask. The sun was behind him, casting broad shadows on the south slope of Sawyer’s Ridge.
He was angry. He’d arrived at the stand too late, and the damn buck – his Boone and Crockett buck – had slipped away. He’d have to slink away, too, hoping he wouldn’t be seen, and come back another day.
He started to sling his rifle preparatory to climbing down when movement tugged at his peripheral vision.
A great whitetail buck trailed from the shadows. It moved cautiously, stopping often to sample the slight breeze. The buck stepped lightly, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. Sunlight glanced off burnished antlers.
The breath caught in Slaughter’s throat. For a moment all he could do was stare. Then, glacier slow, he brought up the rifle and sought the buck through the scope.
* * * * *
The blind was not to Will’s liking, but it was all there was to hand when they’d topped the ridge and glimpsed the buck angling along the game trail below them. They’d quietly dropped to the ground, Will privately pleased that Tom made no more sound than he and Papa.
Will eased along the ridge, flanking the buck and slightly above it, until he found a spot that offered concealment and a clear field of fire.
Tom and Papa slipped down beside him. Tom was breathing hard, his eyes bright. Will watched the pulse beating strong in his son’s neck. Papa pointed across the ridge.
“There he is, boy. See him, there? You’d best get ready.”
Shaking, Tom hunkered down behind the brush and began his preparation as the buck ambled out from behind an alder thicket and started down the hill.
* * * * *
Slaughter cursed as he lost sight of the buck for an instant. But then it re-appeared from a clump of alder, presenting him with a classic shoulder shot.
He took a breath, relaxed, let it out. The scope steadied on a spot just behind the deer’s foreleg. Slaughter took up slack on the trigger.
The butt slammed viciously into his shoulder, followed instantly by the sound of the shot – Jesus God that was a hard recoil! – and the buck took off through the trees – did I miss, God damnit, did I miss? – and he tried to work the bolt but something was wrong with his hand, didn’t seem to want to work right – and then he was falling, the rotted safety strap giving way, losing his grip on the rifle, landing on his back with bone-crushing force. He gasped, the wind knocked from him, and lay staring stupidly up at the sky, fighting to draw breath.
He struggled, pushed himself into a sitting position, his chest heaving – and cold, fresh air filled his aching lungs. He leaned heavily against the tree trunk, staring at the thin, bare branches laced across the sky.
His back hurt terribly, but didn’t seem to be broken. His right arm, however, was completely numb.
Fell out of the damn tree, he thought. Missed the deer and fell out of the tree. Teach me to drink on stand…
He felt a wet pulsing from his shoulder and looked down. Blood flowed from a great wound below his collar bone.
What the fuck, he thought. Then he remembered. The searing pain in his shoulder. The sound of a shot.
He heard a noise and looked up. Two men stood before him, an old man and a younger one. The young man held a rifle. As Slaughter watched, the man worked the bolt and ejected a spent cartridge.
Slaughter’s eyes widened. “You shot...?” he whispered.
Then he saw the boy.
He stood beside the young man, naked as the day he was born. And Slaughter saw an eagerness in his eyes, a hot, wild yearning.
“He’s all yours, son,” Slaughter heard the young man say.
And as Slaughter watched, horrified, the boy’s form shimmered, shifted. He sidled forward, dropped to all fours. His face lengthened, elongated. Grey fur appeared, spreading, covering the lean body. Frightful teeth sprouted from a misshapen jaw.
Much too late, Slaughter realized that the tracks he’d seen earlier had not been made by dogs.
“I’ll get rid of the truck,” the old man said.
These were the last words Slaughter heard as the young wolf leaped on him.
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© Richard S. Freeland 2008
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