As I stared into his face I saw a double dose of anxiety and fear, and other feelings so jumbled they made my head hurt. And that’s when I knew he was the one I’d sensed in the woods whenever I saw the white deer. Not an animal at all, but a boy. A teenaged boy.
He was staring over my shoulder. I whirled back around to see the first hunter pointing his gun at all three of us, calling to his friends to hurry up and come. I glanced back at the boy and saw his expression change from scared to furious. He struggled mightily to keep the little deer’s body covered with his own. She had cut herself on one of the fence spikes as she tried to jump out, and a patch of bright blood was spreading on the inside of a pink haunch. She was frantic with fear, pulling the boy this way and that, desperate to get away, though he gripped her firm. The hunter steadied his aim, not caring if anything stood in his way. He was smiling, salivating over his prize.
“Get out of the way!” he called to us as his hunter friends joined him.
“No!” the boy shouted, his voice angry and deep, like a lion’s roar.
The boy and the deer were behind one of the gravestones, which shielded them from the knees down. I planted myself between that hunter and the boy’s exposed back, then raised my arms and waved them frantically over my head to make the biggest possible target.
“Zoë! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” Henry thundered from above.
Henry was half running and half falling down the slope toward us. The others were lining up on the rise behind him: a panting Maud Booker, her shotgun trained on the hunter pointing his gun at us; the sheriff and his deputy; then Fred, Franklin, and Helen, with Bessie and the Padre slowly bringing up the rear, both of them leaning heavily on Harlan, who shouted, “That’s my Zoë! You give ’em what-for, darlin’!”
I’d never been so scared in my life. Ray had shown me that hunters thought they owned the outdoors and everything in it, but I hadn’t truly believed it till I was staring down the double barrel of a shotgun. That hunter stood his ground, looking straight at us through his sights, but as the witnesses multiplied, his sureness faltered. He glanced nervously at Maud and her gun, then at his hunter buddies, who’d stepped back and off to one side, then at the sheriff, who unsnapped the top of his gun holster, fingered the pistol butt, and yelled loud and clear, “Everybody stop right where they are!”
And everyone did. Everyone but Henry.
He kept barreling down the hill like a charging bear. The deer’s panic escalated behind me, the boy having to work harder as Henry came.
“Stop, Uncle Henry, please!” I shrieked.
To Henry’s everlasting credit, he did. But he looked mad enough to breathe fire.
“Zoë,” he said loudly, as grim-faced as I’d ever seen him. “I want you to come here. Now.”
“I can’t, Uncle Henry.”
“This is not a discussion,” Henry said firmly.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Henry,” I hollered. “You can send me back to that hospital or wherever they send bad kids, I don’t care. But I’m not moving.”
Fred shook his head and muttered some exasperation I couldn’t hear, but Henry just stood there staring at me, like I’d pushed him way past exasperation or even fury. Finally a resigned look passed over his face, and he did something that will impress me for the rest of my days. He walked sidelong down the hill, very slowly, till he was maybe ten feet in front of me, and put himself directly between me and that hunter’s gun.
He turned to face me then, his back to the hunter. He looked steadily at me. Not angry, not upset. Dead serious, though. Then he turned around so we faced that hunter—together.
For the longest minute of my life, the hunter stood sighting us down the barrel of his gun, Henry still as death and staring back at him. I glanced behind me. The deer was pop-eyed with fear and wanting to bolt from hunters and barking dogs—all of us. The boy, too. Everybody kept still, watching me and Henry and the hunter. Time slowed, and even the birds seemed to hold their breath.
The hunter’s shoulders finally slumped. He lowered his gun and dropped his eyes. Sheriff Bean walked over and took the gun without any fuss.
Then the sheriff turned to everybody. “My Thanksgiving dinner is at this moment growing ice-cold on Mrs. Bean’s much-fussed-over dining room table.” Then he turned to the hunter. “Curtis, you and your friends are going to give all your firearms to my deputy. Provided each one of you can produce a valid hunting license, you may pick up your firearms at the sheriff’s department first thing in the morning. Everyone not invited to dinner at Dr. Royster’s will now go home to enjoy Thanksgiving Day with your friends and relations.”
“That woman chased us with a gun!” one of the hunters shouted. “We weren’t even on her land. We were up by Lenter’s Creek—”
“Putting you on my posted land,” Fred cut in.
“Not Lenter’s Creek,” barked another hunter. “Big Woods.”
“Church property,” called the Padre.
“The mayor’ll hear about this,” Curtis said, pointing at
