rarity.
The eight-point marched into the green field, placing himself between the does and the mature interloper. Like gladiators, they circled each other slowly, heads low. The larger buck had perhaps three years and forty pounds on the eight-point, whose antlers were half as massive. The older deer’s muscles were better defined, his neck twice as thick, and his muzzle turning gray. It was like a hound facing off with a mastiff.
The more experienced animal charged and although the eight tried to sidestep at the last moment, the larger deer hit him in the shoulder with his broad chest, knocking him off balance and skidding him sideways into the soft ground. The eight-point spun, lowered his head, and struck the larger animal head-on, locking antlers. With muscles tensed, they twisted their horns like wrestlers for advantage. The harsh clicking of antlers went on for a long minute until the smaller buck lost his footing and tumbled to the ground, expelling his breath in a hiss.
The bigger buck backed up and lowered his head. As he tensed for the rush, the other deer quickly made it to his feet and shook his head.
Lurching, the eight rushed the twelve. The sound of their antlers colliding was like a gunshot. The twelve’s weight sent the eight reeling, and he whirled and lowered his head again, but the larger buck raked a blow down his length that opened the hide on his back leg like a razor. The smaller deer was breathing hard as his grizzled elder circled him carefully, seeking a vulnerable spot to ram.
Winter was watching the battle with such intensity that the unexpected clap of gun thunder raised him off the bench.
3
A dull boom in the distance brought Sean Massey to full consciousness. It took her a second to orient herself to her surroundings, enough to realize the sound was actually a rifle report. Morning light gave the closed curtains inside the motor home a warm yellow glow. She yawned and looked at the splayed toddler sleeping peacefully on her back beside her. Winter and Faith Ann had managed to get up and get out of the thirty-two-foot-long motor home before dawn without waking her.
She slipped out of bed and dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and ankle-high muck boots. Closing the bedroom door behind her, she looked out into the galley where Rush Massey, her fourteen-year-old stepson, sat at the table, dressed warmly for the day ahead. He had his fingertips on the page of an open book, the paper blank but for the raised dots of Braille. He tilted his head as his bright blue eyes seemed to focus on Sean.
From under the table, Nemo, Rush’s Rhodesian ridgeback Seeing Eye dog lying with his chin on his forepaws, turned his eyes on Sean and wagged his heavy tail.
“Morning, Sean,” Rush said cheerfully. “You hear that shot?”
“I sure did.”
“I bet you a dollar it was Daddy’s ought-six. I bet Faith Ann couldn’t shoot one,” Rush said. “I bet Daddy had to do it.”
“You think that was them shooting?” Sean asked, taking a box of cereal off the counter and filling a bowl. “There are a lot of hunters around here.”
“I know it was. The direction was right and the loudness too.”
“And you think Faith Ann doesn’t have what it takes?”
“She
Sean smiled.
“I ate right after they left,” he said. “I washed my bowl. I know it was them since the stand is east of here and about four hundred yards away.” He pointed over his shoulder. “It was definitely from that direction. We’re parked on a northeast by southwest bias.”
Sean put her hand on Rush’s head as she passed by to sit down across from him.
“You want a cup of coffee?” Rush asked.
“Would love one, you dear boy,” she said, pouring milk into the bowl.
Rush rose, opened the cabinet, got a cup, and, using his finger to gauge the level of the rising hot coffee, filled it to an inch from the lip. After replacing the pot, he set the cup on the table before Sean and took his seat across from her. She looked into his eyes. If she hadn’t known the orbs were painted acrylic, she would have sworn he was studying her.
Rush had lost his eyes in the plane crash that had killed his mother, Eleanor, a flight instructor who was giving her young son lessons when a Beechcraft Baron entered the landing pattern from above and behind the two- seater Cessna and swatted the smaller plane out of the sky. A seasoned pilot, Eleanor had somehow managed to retain enough control so that-even though the small plane, whose back was broken by the collision, fell to earth from an altitude of five hundred feet-she had crash-landed with enough forward speed that Rush wasn’t killed. A section of the shattered windshield cut just deep enough into his skull to destroy both of his eyes without damaging his brain. Eleanor wasn’t as lucky. Her brain stem had been functional enough to let doctors put her body on life support until Winter, then a deputy U.S. marshal, arrived to hold her just before the machine was switched off. As per her wishes, the doctors had managed to harvest most of her organs, and Sean had seen the collection of letters written by grateful recipients.
Eleanor’s heart had gone into an eighteen-year-old girl. Her liver had been sectioned to save two recipients, both middle-aged men, and her undamaged kidney had been implanted in a woman.
Sean finished her cereal and set down the bowl for Nemo, who rose and lapped the milk slowly. She gazed out the window beside her at the opening in the trees where the logging road entered the woods.
The land was owned by Billy Lyons, a high school friend of Winter’s. He was a lawyer who had missed the hunt because he was in the middle of a trial in Memphis. Winter’s other regular hunting buddy, Larry Ward, friend since middle school, was the chief financial officer for a large securities firm and had pressing obligations that kept him in London. Sean and Winter had decided to make it a family event and rented the motor home to add a degree of comfort not afforded by the one-room, wood-frame shack the men usually shared. The cabin was fine for a group of men, but between the wood-burning stove, mattresses that looked like they’d been salvaged from the side of the road, and an outhouse fifty feet from the back door, it didn’t rise to the level of comfort Sean thought Faith Ann deserved. And Olivia Moment Massey, their child, was at the stage where she walked where she chose to go, wanted to do everything herself, and, when frustrated, was vocal at a disturbing volume. Enough said.
Nemo went to the door and stared at it, whining once-his signal for wanting to be let outdoors.
Sean looked out the window and saw something orange moving up the road through the woods. She smiled when she realized that it was Faith Ann wearing a Day-Glo vest. She was alone and without her backpack or her gun. As Sean stared at the approaching child, she saw crimson lines on her cheek, like war paint made in what appeared to be blood. And she was crying.
Sean ran from the motor home and met Faith Ann before she reached the parking area near the skinning shed.
As Sean approached, Faith Ann tilted her head and stopped short.
“He’s dead!” Faith Ann yelled.
4
Putting on his coat, Rush raced out, following Sean and Nemo, his head tilted upward, listening.
“What’s the deal?” he asked.
“He’s dead,” Faith Ann said in a strained, trembling voice.
“Who’s dead?” Rush asked her.
“Rudolph,” Faith Ann said, sniffing a little but smiling proudly. “A mean old twelve-pointer.”
“No shit!?” Rush blurted.
“Rush Massey!” Sean exclaimed. “Watch your language.”
