Hunter's Choice, page 9
The buck jerked for a moment, his head thrown up, and bolted west toward the tree line. A dark red spurt of blood arched from his side and he ran in that bouncing, bounding way deer have, but now this buck ran with a bit of a stagger, an awkward interruption to the deer’s usual grace brought on by pain.
Hunter watched it all, full of a combination of surprise, horror, and pity. By the standards he’d seen on all those hunting videos, it was a good, clean shot. A quick kill.
“Nice shot,” Uncle Rick said aloud. “Wow. Great job.”
Hunter put his rifle on safe, then dropped his magazine and pulled the bolt back to eject his round. “But Uncle Rick, I didn’t even—” He turned around and froze.
Standing right beside him, Yumi lowered her rifle and smiled. She cranked back the bolt and ejected her spent round casing. The casing for the bullet that had brought down the trophy buck that he’d been unable to kill.
He felt himself shaking with a crushing mix of anger and shame. Why hadn’t he just shot the thing? The sense of camaraderie he’d felt that afternoon on the tower was gone, replaced with outrage and disappointment. Yumi had betrayed him. If she’d only given him a moment more, maybe he would have dropped that buck himself.
“Great shot, kid!” said Uncle Rick. Yumi and her father high-fived, but then he pulled her into a hug. He wasn’t bothering to keep quiet now. “Amazing!”
Hunter hadn’t moved. He remained on the ground, looking back at his cousin openmouthed.
“What?” she finally said. “He was about to bolt. I was worried you weren’t going to shoot.”
“I was gonna,” Hunter said a little too sharply. He was trying to conceal his disappointment.
“Well, soooorry!” Yumi snapped. “I didn’t understand this was the everybody-sit-and-wait-for-Hunter-to-be-the-only-shooter-type hunting party.”
“Hey, hey, easy, now,” said Uncle Rick. “The point is someone in our party shot that deer.”
“Exactly!” Annette said. “But he’s getting away!”
Uncle Rick laughed. “I don’t think he’ll get very far.”
“But shouldn’t we be running to go get him?” Annette looked anxiously in the direction the buck had run. “How will we find him? He’s deep in the woods now.”
Uncle Rick started walking down the slope from the ridge. “We don’t want to follow too closely and bump him up now that he’s been shot. The more tense the deer is, the less he’ll bleed. This isn’t like football. We aren’t going to tackle him. The more closely we pursue, the more likely we’ll lose him. We’re hoping he goes away, but not too far, thinks he’s safe, and beds down to bleed out. If we’re right on his tail, he’ll keep running and die much farther away. We’ll wait awhile and then head in the direction he went and try to pick up his blood trail.”
“We’re really going to track the deer by its blood?” Annette asked.
“From here on out, this all gets pretty gory,” Uncle Rick said. “That’s just part of it.”
Yumi and Uncle Rick talked over her shot, discussing where she’d hit the deer, how she’d aimed, what a great trophy the deer would make. Annette asked eager questions, and a few times she squeezed Yumi in an excited one-armed hug.
Hunter tried not think about how the celebration should have been for the deer he took. He tried not to think about how Annette’s congratulatory hug should have been for him. He did not think of these things. He did not.
And Yumi was Hunter’s cousin and best friend. He shouldn’t be mad at her. They’d hung out together since they were babies. But then why had she stolen this deer from him? She’d known how much this meant to him. He’d been talking about this hunting trip for weeks. They’d discussed it just this afternoon up on the tower.
Worse than the fact that she’d stolen his deer was the fact that she was right. It wasn’t his deer. Today wasn’t all about him. And he had been stalling out again, unable to shoot. Reluctant to kill. And Yumi had nailed that sucker with a great shot. Wasn’t it better that the group went home with something rather than turning up empty-handed?
No. It wasn’t better. On Monday Kelton Fielding would tap Hunter on the shoulder and ask in that snide mocking voice he had, Hey, Hunter, did you take a deer this weekend? If his family had all come back without taking a deer, he could tell Kelton that. There was no shame in it. It happened to tons of hunters all the time.
But now he’d feel that horrible TapTapTap and Kelton would be like, Hey, Hunter, I heard Yumi shot a buck for you. Too scared, huh? Had to have a girl kill a deer for you? Kelton wouldn’t stop there. He’d get all the other hunting kids in on it too.
The guys would light him up for this. Hunter wanted to punch something, to scream at the world.
After about half an hour the four of them walked down the slope from the South Ridge, heading west in the direction the wounded deer had run, toward the point where it had vanished into more dense woods. When they reached the tree line the deer was nowhere in sight. Uncle Rick pointed to a large splash of blood dripping from a low shrub. “You can usually tell within the first hundred yards if he’s bleeding good enough to keep going or if we need to back off and give him more time.”
Uncle Rick was whispering now, looking around the ground for blood.
“Psst.” Hunter signaled the others and crouched to point at a patch of dark red blood, like paint, on a bed of pine needles. A few drips trailed away from the patch in a northwest direction.
Uncle Rick checked it out, smiled, and patted Hunter on the back. Hunter pointed in the direction of the drips, and Uncle Rick nodded. Hunter almost smiled. A bit of the excitement, the buck fever, was returning as he helped track the buck, even if he hadn’t shot the thing.
But just because the pursuit was exciting didn’t mean it was easy. It was a solid forty yards before they found more blood. They fanned out as they hiked up another slope. Just as Hunter began to worry they’d lost the trail, that maybe they were going to leave a wounded animal suffering in the woods, he saw another splash of blood on a rock. He gave a little whistle for the others, and by the time they’d gathered, he’d noticed disturbed pine needles and dirt and hoofprints heading in a more western direction from that point.
“That’s good,” Uncle Rick whispered. “He’s bleeding real solid.” He took a few more steps in the direction of the tracks, noticing more blood on a low tree branch. He motioned for the others to follow.
Now the group took big steps, and faster, barely avoiding the temptation to run, eager to find the buck Yumi had wounded.
Suddenly Uncle Rick dropped like a rock to the forest floor, groaning in pain. He bit his lip to muffle a curse, curling up on his side around his rifle and gripping his ankle.
“What happened?” Yumi was on her knees beside him in an instant.
“Stepped in—” He gritted his teeth against the pain. “Rabbit hole or something.”
Uncle Rick rolled to sit up, still wincing in pain.
“Should we call for help?” Annette asked. “Anyone have a first-aid kit?”
“No, no.” Uncle Rick grunted. “I’m fine.” He pushed himself onto the knee of his good leg, and then started to stand.
“Dad, maybe you shouldn’t try to—”
Uncle Rick grimaced and fell again. He laughed a little. “Oh man, does that hurt. This is stupid.” His eyes watered.
“We gotta go for help,” Yumi said. “We’ll find Grandpa and Uncle Dave.”
“No,” said Uncle Rick. “We’ll lose the trail.”
“But you’re hurt,” Yumi began.
“I don’t think it’s broken. Twisted or sprained.” Uncle Rick squinted his eyes. “Not life-threatening. I’m fine. Now, listen. You kids go on ahead. Like we’ve been doing. Find one spot of blood or deer tracks, then look for the next.”
“I’m not leaving you alone out here.” Yumi folded her arms. “It’s like the Army soldier’s creed I read. ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade.’”
Uncle Rick smiled. “This is Idaho, not Afghanistan.”
“You can’t make me leave you here,” Yumi said.
“We can’t leave an animal that we wounded out there in the woods!” Uncle Rick said roughly.
“Me and Annette can track the deer. You two stay,” Hunter said.
For a moment Hunter thought he saw a hot look of anger from his cousin. Was she mad at him? Did she think he was trying to take her trophy deer? But then she nodded her agreement.
“Go,” Yumi said. “We’ll catch up if we can.”
Uncle Rick signaled a thumbs-up. “Good luck.”
Hunter flashed a curious look at Annette.
She shrugged and smiled. “Let’s go get that deer.”
CHAPTER 12
HUNTER AND ANNETTE WALKED OFF IN THE DIRECTION they could best figure according to the blood and the tracks. Every few yards, Hunter looked back, both to check on Uncle Rick and to make sure he was still traveling the right direction from the last sign of the deer’s course.
They walked on through a pass between two gray boulders. Quiet. Alert for any movement.
“Hunter!” Annette hissed, pointing to a dark spot about five yards ahead on a flat rocky patch of ground.
The two of them hurried up to the point. There was a lot more blood there than at the last places they’d seen it. It wasn’t puddled as much as before. Part of the blood was smeared, and dirt and small rocks were scraped around. The buck had stumbled here. With no experience tracking, Hunter had no idea how much farther the buck would go. But he was bleeding a lot, and Hunter was certain he had fallen here. Surely the buck would die soon.
“Which way now?” Annette asked.
Hunter didn’t know. There didn’t seem to be any hints about the direction the deer had taken.
He broke a branch on a shrub near the new blood spot. That would let him be able to keep track of the location so they could come back to this point on the trail if they lost it. “Let’s circle around from here. Watch for other broken branches, hoofprints, or more blood.”
He and Annette split up to check the area around the last blood spot he’d marked, but though he looked carefully, and for what felt like a long time, there was no other sign of the buck. He worried they may be losing the deer. He was certain they were losing daylight. Once the sun went down, the buck was gone.
He and Annette agreed to widen their search area, looking for clues up to thirty yards from the place he’d marked. Still nothing. The low sun was shining in their eyes and casting long shadows. Had the change in the light affected his ability to find the right clues?
This was no good. He needed to make progress, and soon. He stopped scanning the ground around him and surveyed the broader area. If he, Hunter, had been shot, and was trying to run away, where would he go?
“Downhill would probably be easier,” he whispered.
“What?” Annette hissed, rejoining him.
“If he’s hurt, maybe he doesn’t want to waste energy going uphill. Maybe he’d go downhill.”
“And maybe he’d look for cover,” Annette said. “Try to hide in that thicker brush down there.”
Hunter looked at her, not hiding anything anymore, not trying to act tough or as if he knew what he was doing. “Maybe. I hope so. Come on.”
They were rewarded fifty yards later when they spotted a big splash of blood. Annette was almost jumping as she put her hand on his forearm, smiling brightly. A trail of blood drips led them in the direction they’d both guessed before, and the two of them hurried off about as fast as they could while still being safe. You had to be careful running with a rifle in hand.
More blood on a decently worn deer trail. Some fresh deer pellets. Hunter led Annette down a narrow path through thick brush.
He froze. She bumped into his back. And slowly, very slowly, Hunter crouched down to the forest floor, Annette right behind him.
About thirty yards ahead of them, lying in his own blood on a bed of thick dry grass, his head drooped a little, was the buck Yumi had shot.
A new energy surged in Hunter, as he’d at last found their prey. He’d made up, at least in part, for his pathetic inability to shoot the animal. If he hadn’t tracked the deer, they’d have lost it for sure. Now when people looked at this buck’s head on the wall and told the story about how it was taken, he’d at least be part of the team effort that brought it in.
Slowly, quietly, Hunter crept closer. He could see the animal’s pain, his heavier breathing, big huffs through his nose, blood matting down his side. A slight trembling in his legs.
“There are bubbles in his blood,” Hunter whispered to Annette, not to avoid scaring the deer away, for the fight had bled out of him now, but out of respect for the buck. “Different signs in the blood give different clues about where the deer was hit. Looks like Yumi scored a lung shot.”
Somehow the buck understood Hunter was here, fixing him in his big, blank, black-eyeball gaze. Hunter worried for a moment that he’d ruined everything, alerting the deer to send him running away to vanish into the night. But this buck was done running. He’d never get up again.
His eyes met Hunter’s, and without thinking, Hunter stood and stepped closer to the wounded animal. The deer watched him, and seemed to communicate a certain resignation, like, OK. I’m done. You got me. I’m going to die. Are you happy about it?
Was he? Was Hunter happy about it? Forget for a moment who shot him. Was he happy to see this hunt a success, to see this beautiful animal bleed out like this? This was a huge part of the whole point of hunting. In his head he knew this was right, that if Yumi hadn’t shot this deer, a wolf or cougar might have killed it, savagely. This was nature. He’d been through all the arguments a thousand times in his head, but it was different now, watching the buck in his last moments.
The buck kept looking at him. Hunter started to raise his rifle to put the deer out of his misery, but then the buck stretched his neck, his whole body shaking. His eyes went wide. Then he laid his head down on the grass, and with one final, shaking groan, the deer died.
“How do you feel?” Annette said quietly after a long moment.
“Are you going to write what I say in the newspaper?” Hunter asked.
“No,” she said. “I just want to know if you’re OK.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the deer. “I’m not a baby.”
“Of course not,” she said. “You’re a decent human being who respects nature and doesn’t like to see any living creature suffer. You’re a hunter.”
“I didn’t shoot—”
“You might have, if Yumi had given you more time. Anyway, you tracked him, found him here.” Annette twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “From what I’ve learned today, the point of hunting is taking an animal, not just killing it. Tracking the animal is as much a part of hunting as shooting it.”
“Maybe,” Hunter said, stepping up to the deer. It was a fine buck, and Yumi had shot it right where Dad, and Grandpa, and Uncle Rick always said they should. “Now we just have to figure out how to get this big guy out of here.”
Hunter set about the next task, finding Yumi and Uncle Rick and maybe the others to see about bringing this deer home.
CHAPTER 13
“WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” ANNETTE ASKED HUNTER AS they both looked down at the buck.
“I’ll go back for Uncle Rick,” Hunter said. “You OK to stay here?”
“Am I OK to stand here in the woods?” Annette replied. “Yeah, Hunter, I’m not helpless.”
“Sorry,” Hunter said. He was eager to get back to check on Uncle Rick and to figure out what they were supposed to do with this deer now. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s fine,” Annette said. “I was just teasing you.”
Hunter took off his blaze-orange vest. “Here.” He threw the vest up on a branch overhead. “It should be safe to go without my vest. Nobody else ought to be shooting out here. I’ll be better able to find my way back with that bright thing hanging up there.”
“But can you find your way back to Yumi and your uncle?” Annette asked.
Hunter shrugged. “Oh yeah. I know these woods. No problem.” He did not feel as confident as he sounded, but he didn’t want to admit that to Annette. He started up the slope in the direction from which they had come, stopping at the crest of the hill to look back at Annette. She smiled and waved. Hunter allowed himself a little sigh and kept going, looking for the signs he’d followed on his way to the deer.
Somehow, without the excitement of the chase, the way back seemed longer than the path on which they’d pursued the buck. Despite what Annette had said, Hunter began to worry about her. The sun was getting low, and if he was growing nervous about being alone in these woods, how must Annette feel?
Finally, Hunter caught a glimpse of blaze-orange out of the corner of his eye, and realized he was off course a little. He backtracked through some heavy tall shrubbery toward Yumi and Uncle Rick, but stopped, noticing the two of them were involved in a tense conversation.
“This is pathetic,” Uncle Rick said as he rubbed his ankle. “I can’t believe . . .” Grimacing in a lot of pain, he managed to stand, almost all of his weight on his good left leg. He took a tiny hobbling step and groaned.
Hunter was surprised they hadn’t spotted him, but realized he’d left his blaze-orange vest in the tree back by Annette and the buck. He was blending in perfectly in all his camouflage.
Yumi reached out to her father timidly. “Can I help? Maybe I could—”
“No, I got it.” Uncle Rick kept going, with little hop-limp steps. He even sped up, though nobody would really call that speed. Just a jerky, painful, limping movement, a few inches at a time. At one point, he even put the butt of his rifle to the ground and tried to use the weapon as a crutch. Was the rifle clear? If there was a round in the chamber and it accidentally went off, it could kill him.
But he was in pain, and he was mad, and he was, Hunter was pretty sure, embarrassed. Though why he should be ashamed just because he was hurt, Hunter didn’t know. Yumi looked at her father worriedly.
