father?
Then there was the visitation at Lynch and Sons, a place where Luke had been a dozen times for funerals of grandparents, uncles and aunts and now his own father. It seemed like hundreds of people came up and talked to him, and he couldn’t remember one thing anyone said. People young and old shaking his hand and hugging him. All he wanted to do when it was over was be by himself.
He had a clearer recollection of being at the gravesite, watching the casket being lowered into the ground. His mother would look over at him, but he couldn’t make eye contact with her. He felt too guilty.
After the funeral, he went in the basement and smashed his bow, the Darton Apache, on a structural steel post in the furnace room, breaking it in two pieces and then four, knowing it could never be repaired and vowing he’d never pick up another one again as long as he lived.
He didn’t believe in God after that,’ cause it didn’t make sense. How could this happen? Why’d God let it? He hurt inside and started drinking to feel better. Found a bottle of schnapps in the liquor cabinet and poured it in a white plastic flask he bought at Rite Aid. He drank before school, the hot licorice liquid burning his throat, but it numbed him, eased the pain, and now he was buzzed most of the time.
Then one morning in homeroom, Jordan Falby, a lineman on the football team, grinned and said, “Hey, McCall, been deer hunting lately?”
Luke, outweighed by sixty pounds, got up from his desk and swung the edge of Algebra II into Falby’s cheekbone and blood spurted and Falby yelled and brought his hand up to his face and Luke swung at him again and then kids were grabbing him, holding him back as Miss Hyvonen, their teacher, came in the room and freaked.
Luke was suspended indefinitely pending an inquiry, the assistant principal, Helen Parks, a plump nervous woman with red hair, said.
Luke had to call his mother and had to wait till she came and picked him up. When they were in her Land Rover pulling out of the school parking lot, she looked at him and said, “What’s going on?”
What’d she think was going on? She open her eyes this morning and forget what happened?
“What did Jordan Falby say that set you off?”
Luke told her.
His mom said, “I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
Luke couldn’t imagine his mother hurting a fly.
She said, “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you. I want you to see someone.”
Luke had been thinking about killing himself for a few weeks. The pain he felt wouldn’t go away. It was there in his head before he opened his eyes in the morning and stayed with him till he fell asleep at night, if he could.
He considered sleeping pills. Take a handful, nod off and it was all over. Or he could shoot himself. Load one of his dad’s shotguns, put the barrel in his mouth, and boom. It might be effective, but he didn’t want his mom finding him on the basement floor with his head blown off. That wasn’t right. Carbon monoxide was another possibility. Drive in the garage, close the door and let the car run. After giving it a lot of thought, sleeping pills seemed like the best option. But where would he get them? Did you need a prescription?
His mom said, “When were you going to tell me you quit tennis?”
Her voice brought him back. “Didn’t I?”
She glanced at him and looked angry. She turned away, staring through the windshield.
First light. Luke could see now, walking behind his dad along a ridge that sloped down through big Michigan timber and thick cover. They stepped over a fallen birch tree and maneuvered through tangles of alder and fern, boots sloshing on wet leaves. They’d walked a couple miles, at least. His ears were cold and he could see his breath, wide awake now after a slow start.
His dad stopped and took out binoculars and glassed a stand of oak trees in the distance, a place where whitetail liked to hang out and eat. He lowered the binoculars and looked at Luke. “What happened with Lauren?”
“She said she wanted to be friends. We both kind of decided.”
“You’re probably better off. Having a girlfriend’s a lot of work.”
“She’d get mad if I didn’t call her every day, and sometimes, even if I did.”
“Girls are different, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Yeah, they seem a little odd at times.”
His dad smiled.
“Just wait. You haven’t seen anything.” He handed the binoculars to Luke. “Have a look?”
Luke gripped them, brought them up to his eyes, and panned stands of oak trees and birch and aspen and cedar, the leaves still green, and followed another ridge up to a stand of maple. No deer, but the light was coming and he could make out the shapes and contours of things. A black squirrel darted across the trail and disappeared.
They kept moving through thick cover, feet unsteady on the slick terrain, approaching an area where the leaves were matted down.
Owen said, “Looks like they just got up from a nap.”
Luke said, “Check this out.” Pointing to tracks that went uphill to a stand of oak trees on a ridgetop in the distance.
The canopy was high and thick, and it was dark as they followed the deer tracks upslope toward the trees. His dad stopped and pointed at deer poop, slick and green and still steaming.
“They’re close. Remember what you used to call it?”
Luke didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Gucks. You’d say, ‘Daddy, I got to go gucks.’” Owen looked at him and grinned. “It’s the perfect word, isn’t it?”
“How about Grandma? I’d tell her I had a stomachache, she’d say, go sit on the toilet and do some popsie doodles, or popsies.”
“Like we were living in a Disney movie,” Owen said.
Luke liked that.
“The pros, like Del Keane, put their hand in it, tell you what Mr. Deer had for breakfast. Want to try it?”
Luke made a sour face.
They followed the tracks over a berm to a ridgetop that was littered with acorn husks, a sign that deer had been there. From the high ground, they could see the tracks continue downslope through a funnel of trees to a cornfield in the distance.
Owen said, “Give me about twenty minutes, then head down. I’ll push them at you.”
“How do you know they’re in there?”
“It’s got everything they need: food, water, and shelter. Make your way to the edge of the tree line and be ready. You’re only going to get one shot. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
Luke sat on a tree stump, the Darton Apache resting across the tops of his thighs, thinking how cool and exciting it was being out here. He scanned the woods with the twelve-power Zeiss binoculars, the sun rising fast now behind him. He caught glimpses of his dad in the distance, a dark shape, disappearing and reappearing through the trees. He panned right, saw something move, adjusted the sight, focused on a deer tail swinging back and forth. He panned left, saw a leg and followed it to the thick body of a high-racked ten-pointer. The deer lifted its head, rumen drooling from its mouth, sensors on full alert. The buck snorted and stomped its hooves and took off, Luke trying to follow it with the binoculars. Losing it in the thick woods.
He turned and picked up his dad again moving along the perimeter of the cornfield about a hundred yards away, the stalks at least a foot taller than him.
Owen pulled two brittle cornstalks apart and entered the field. He moved along a row that was so straight he could see down a hundred yards, the result of GPS, now available on farm equipment-taking any guesswork out of planting crops in straight lines.
The ground was pitted and irregular, puddles of water covered with a thin layer of ice that broke easily under his weight and made a sound like glass cracking. His boots were wet and soon heavy with mud, making it harder to walk. He carried a Browning Mirage in his right hand, the bow weighing a little more than four pounds with its
