CHAPTER 6
THOUGH THE MORNING was clear and crisp and the whole world seemed suffused with the golden light that filtered through the fall foliage, Matt’s mood was as dark as when he had awakened an hour ago to the shrill buzzing of the alarm. He’d snaked one hand out from under the quilt — wrapped so tightly around him that it felt like a shroud — silenced the clock, and wondered why he couldn’t just stay in bed.
It was his birthday, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t he just do whatever he wanted to do? Besides, it didn’t feel like he’d slept at all. Then he rolled over, turning his back on the morning light streaming through the window; closing his eyes against it.
It had not worked.
His skin still crawled with the memory of the touch during the night — the touch that had to have been no more than a dream, but that even now he could still feel in his loins. Better to face the day than risk slipping back into the nightmares of sleep.
But he was starting to think he was wrong, that maybe he should have just stayed in bed.
When he’d come downstairs to find his stepfather waiting for him, he knew right away that nothing from last night had yet been forgotten. His dad hadn’t said anything, but Matt could tell he was still pissed off. As they checked over the guns on the big refectory table in the den, Matt waited for the storm to break, but as the minutes had ticked by and the silence held, he finally figured out his dad’s game.
And now, an hour later, the six of them were deep in the woods to the west of the house, and hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of a deer, and it seemed like nobody was speaking to anybody.
“Why don’t we just give it up?” Matt asked, stopping abruptly.
“What’s the matter, Moore?” Pete Arneson said, his voice edged with sarcasm. “You want to quit on this the same way you quit on me?”
Matt glowered at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Pete and Eric Holmes exchanged a glance, silently sharing the moment on the practice field when Matt had purposely let Eric charge through, then Pete’s eyes settled on Matt again. “You know what it means.”
The two boys stood glaring at each other, and their fathers remained silent as well. Then Bill Hapgood spoke. “What’s he talking about, Matt?”
“I don’t — ” Matt began, but Pete didn’t let him finish.
“You’re screwing up! You’re screwing up everything. What the hell’s wrong with you lately?”
“Nothing!” Matt flared. “Why don’t you all just leave me alone, okay?” The words were out of his mouth before he even realized he was going to say them, and now it was too late to snatch them back. He could see the anger burning in Pete’s eyes, and feel Eric glaring at him too. “Who needs any of you?” he shouted. He turned away, pushed past Eric and Pete, Marty Holmes and Paul Arneson, and started down the trail.
“Matt!” his stepfather barked, breaking the tense silence in the aftermath of Matt’s outburst. From force of habit, Matt stopped and turned back. “You don’t talk to your guests that way.”
Matt’s face burned with humiliation at the tone of Bill’s voice but he wasn’t about to back down. “They’re not my guests,” he shot back. “This whole thing was your idea. I didn’t even want to come.”
Bill Hapgood’s jaw tightened. “Be careful, Matt. You’re walking a very thin line. Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t give you the right to talk to your friends or your father — ”
“You’re not my father!” Matt exploded. “I don’t have a father, remember? You’re just the man my mother married!”
“Now just hold on, Matt,” Marty Holmes cut in. “If I were you — ”
“You’re not me,” Matt flared. “None of you are! So why don’t you all just — ”
Pete Arneson grabbed Matt’s arm. “Look!” he whispered excitedly, pointing upward. They were standing on the bank of Granite Creek, a quarter of a mile above the falls for which the town was named. Across the stream a craggy face of stone rose in a steep bluff for nearly forty feet. A seven-point buck gazed down at them from the top of the bluff. “Jeez!” Pete whispered. “Did you ever see one that big before?”
They peered up at the buck, and the enormous animal, feeling their eyes on him, looked back at them for a moment. But as Eric Holmes lifted his rifle to his shoulder, the deer shied away and disappeared.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” Bill Hapgood said as Eric lowered his rifle. “Any buck that’s been around long enough to get that big isn’t going to just stand there and let us shoot him.” The storm between Matt and his friends dying away almost as quickly as it had come up, Bill began issuing orders. “If we’re going to get him, we’ll have to split up. Matt and I will cross the stream and climb the bluff here, and you guys spread out. Marty, you and Eric head downstream toward the falls, while Paul and Pete go the other way.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll meet back here at ten — that gives us a little less than two hours. If none of us have him by then, we’re not going to get him.” His voice dropped. “And just make sure that if you shoot at something, it’s that buck, not one of us.”
“If he’s still up there at all,” Marty Holmes muttered, warily eyeing the steep face of the bluff and wondering how sure the footing might be.
“He’ll be up there somewhere,” Bill replied. “He wants to come down to the river to drink, so he’ll stay close. See you back here at ten.”
The group split up, and as his stepfather picked his way across the shallow stream and began working his way up the bluff, Matt hesitated.
Maybe he should just go home right now.
But that would only make things worse than they already were. And maybe if they were by themselves for a while, he and his dad could straighten things out. Taking a deep breath, Matt made his way across the stream, then slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed his stepfather to the top of the bluff.
Ten minutes later, as they were working their way along the edge of the bluff searching for the deer’s tracks, a flicker of movement caught Matt’s eye.
The buck was standing in a thicket about fifty yards away, its ears flicking rapidly as it searched for sounds that might indicate danger. But as Matt raised his rifle, the deer vanished into the woods.
“He smells us,” Bill said softly. His eyes still fixed on the spot where the deer had been, he tilted his head to the left. “Circle around that way. We’re upwind of him, so if I stay here, he’ll still have my scent. And you can bet that he’s in there somewhere, watching us. But if you circle around so he can’t smell you, you might get close enough to get a good shot.” When Matt made no move to start closing on the prey, Bill’s voice hardened slightly, leaving no room for argument. “Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you’re entitled to do any damn thing you want. It’s time for you to grow up. And it’s time for you to bag your first trophy. Understand?”
Matt’s face burned. All he’d wanted to do was talk to his dad, to try to straighten things out. But —
Without a word he disappeared into the woods.
* * *
A QUARTER OF an hour later Matt was on the other side of the thicket. For the last two minutes he thought he could hear the deer moving restlessly in the underbrush, and now, as he moved slowly toward the sound, the big buck came into view.
It was standing about forty yards away, its head up, its ears pricking as it tried to pick up sounds that might indicate danger.
Matt eased his rifle — a brand-new Browning BAR 30–06 with a Bushnell sight — off his shoulder and flicked the clip and chamber open. Putting one shell in the chamber and four more in the clip, he snapped the clip closed and released the safety. His fingers tightening on the satiny maple of the Browning’s stock, he braced its rubber butt firmly against his shoulder. His right forefinger curled around the trigger as his left hand steadied the semiautomatic rifle.
