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Chapter 1
A twig popped as the
animal shifted its weight and Jake Keller spied the deer under the low canopy of an oak off to his right.
The old man’s
vision was nearly as poor as a deer’s and the half-light and ground fog and jitters that brought water to his eyes didn’t
help. So, he was not surprised when it was his ears that located the deer. Sound had halted his passage, stopped him dead
in his tracks and with the rifle half raised to his shoulder, and it was sound that found him the deer, a sound as familiar
as the tick of a clock. The snort of a deer catching wind of him and sneezing in distaste. Keller knew it was close, watching
for him even as he searched for it, both of them peering round in the dim light, eyes seeking some movement, ears straining
for sound.
Silhouetted trees on
either side of the hollow shut out the weak light of the rising sun and wreathes of mist floating off the stream shrouded
the draw. Keller sniffed and thought he detected a trace of the musk a Whitetail gives off when nervous or excited. The damp
air was heavy with a mingling of scents – the buttery odor of decaying humus, the tang of pine, the acrid stench of
oak. The smell might only have been in his imagination. Still, the man’s hands quivered, his heart quickened its pace,
his throat went dry and his eyes watered again. “Steady, fool,” he cautioned himself, “you never got buck
fever before and there’s no reason for it now.”
A crow cawed in the
distance and Keller cocked his head. That wasn’t the sound that had stopped him but it was quickly followed by the one
that found him the deer.
Nervously, the buck
paced, straining its dim vision to locate the man, ears erect and twitching, snorting now at every other breath, blowing to
rid its nostrils of the man stink. Keller grinned as he saw the buck had foolishly trapped itself in a position with only
one avenue of escape. Thick, tangled walls of catbrier and laurel hemmed it in on two sides and, on the stream-side, a high,
eroded bank prevented escape. The only exit was to come past him. Keller raised his rifle and waited.
The buck an old and
grizzled warrior, snorted once more, threw back its antlers and lunged. The buck came running, passing on his left, not more
than fifty yards away. A perfect shot. Keller sighted and fired.
The Whitetail somersaulted,
skidding its front against the earth. Then, with a sudden and painful display of exertion, the deer pulled itself erect, stumbled
into the brush and was gone.
Keller’s rifle,
as old as he, had jammed after the first shot. By the time he expelled the spent cartridge and chambered another, the animal
was out of sight.
“Belly-shot!
Sonofabitch!” Keller growled, spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the brown leaves at his feet. Belly-shot! Never
had he made such a poor shot. Sure, the light was poor. Sure, he’d been rattled (hadn’t even expected to see a
deer so soon let alone one with a rack that big. Jeez, had to be at least a twelve-pointer). But, hell, there weren’t
adequate excuses for a shot like that. He didn’t know whether to blame himself, his ancient rifle or the circumstances.
Voicing a string of profanity released the tension a little, though it didn’t entirely dissipate his anger.
Sighing, Keller settled
with his back against an oak, sinking down carefully on creaking old legs, then flopping heavily the last few inches.
Propped against his
tree now, Keller sighed again and shook his head. Nothing he could do now but wait. He would wait a half hour until the wound
began to stiffen and loss of blood forced the deer to rest. Then he would follow its spoor, easily discernible by the spattering
blood of a stomach wound, to where the creature hid. Then, he would complete the kill.
He wasn’t one
of those city-slicker hunters who were all over his mountain these days, fools who never even took their rifles out of the
case let alone practiced before opening day and who blasted away at anything that moved and who were more interested in drinking
beer and bragging to one another down at Molly’s than they were in hunting. They belly-shot deer; plenty of them. Keller
had found some, too late to do them any good.
If a hunter didn’t
track a belly-shot deer and finish the job, then the animal would crawl off to some secluded place and suffer a long and painful
time before death. That wasn’t going to happen to his deer. Sureshot Keller had killed a lot of deer in his time, but
no one could say he had ever purposely left one to suffer.
Still, Keller had to
admit, his priority now was not compassion for the animal he had crippled. He had to dispel this discontent he felt with himself.
He had failed in his ability as a hunter, and this hurt him most of all. Not many understood what it meant for him to be identified
as he was for so many years. Paul had, because it was the same with him. Jake doubted if Andy and Janet did. Leda had understood
him from the beginning, and he had loved her for that as much as anything else. She’d known he was a hunter. And, he
had not lived by his profession, but for it.
Jake Keller, the hunter.
That was how everyone in the village knew him. Some called him lazy behind his back and said he might have prospered if he’d
worked his land as hard as he hunted. Mostly, the men envied him and the women were glad their husband weren’t like
him.
He was a hunter. It
was as certain a fact as the rugged mountains surrounding the rural Pennsylvania
valley where he lived. He had supported his family by farming. But, it was only when he was in these mountains pitting his
wits against some wild creature that he lived his true profession. That’s how it was, and he’d been proud of his
reputation.
That’s how it
had been, he thought, and now it was gone. He’d refused to listen when Andy tried to tell him. But, what would he do
now? A man is his vision of himself and when that’s taken away, can he continue to exist?
Now, having belly-shot
a deer, crippled it, when he should have killed it clean with one humane, accurate shot at that distance, now Keller could
only wonder – was he still a hunter? Or, instead, was he only an old man who used to hunt? |
