Authors: Harvey Smith
Jack nodded. He felt unnerved by the notion of heading out into the woods alone while it was still dark.
“You got toilet paper?” Big Jack asked.
Taken by surprise, Jack looked down at his lap. “No, sir.”
“Well goddamn, boy. You wanna wipe your ass with a stick?”
“No, sir.”
“Take some of mine then.” Big Jack reached over and opened up the glove box. He removed a roll of toilet paper that had been crushed flat and unwound a section that was four feet long. He wadded it up and handed it to Jack, who stuffed it into a side pocket on his jacket.
“Alright then,” Big Jack said. “You need anything, like a 'mergency, shoot in the air three times.” He paused, inhaling from his cigarette and studying his son. “Too cold for snakes, so you'll be okay.”
Jack opened the door and took his rifle down from the back window of the truck. He stepped away, out onto the edge of the dirt road and quietly shut the door, knowing not to slam it.
“I'll be back around lunch. Wish me luck, boy.”
“Good luck,” Jack said, but the truck pulled away as he spoke. The scarlet taillights receded as his father braked and took the truck around a bend, vanishing from sight. Soon even the engine, mostly idling along, was too quiet to hear. Jack turned and made his way off the crumbling dirt road and into the brush, hugging the barbed wire fence. Walking along, he tugged on his gloves against the cold.
When he reached the towering deer stand, he propped his rifle against a nearby tree. Searching around in the dark, he found a stick that was over a foot in length then climbed the ladder leading up into the stand, eight feet off the ground. With the stick and his small flashlight, he cleared away spider webs and searched the underside of the tall chair installed next to the window. Careful to make as little noise as possible, he wadded up the silver chain attached to the end of the flashlight and held it in his palm, the pewter antlers biting into his flesh.
When he was confident that there were no spiders, wasps or scorpions in the stand, he threw the stick off into the grass and climbed back down to the ground. He detested bugs with a fury and took no chances, even though it was really too cold for insects. He slung his rifle over one shoulder and climbed the ladder again.
It was still too dark to see, so he propped the rifle in one corner of the stand and settled into the chair. Long, low windows surrounded him on all sides. He looked out into the darkness, barely able to make out the black fields beyond. For a time, he imagined himself a sniper, waiting for the president's motorcade. Eventually, he settled back in the chair and fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes, the world was lit with gray light, allowing him to see through the scrub brush surrounding the stand. A lonely mesquite tree stood fifty yards away at the left end of a field and a dozen whitetail deer stood scattered around the tree. Jack blinked a few times and felt sleep fall away from him. He stared at the deer and licked his lips in the cold.
In the morning light, the color of their coats was one part autumn leaves, one part fireplace ash. They blended against the dead grass and cold dirt beneath them, standing like forest spirits around the twisted mesquite.
Breathless and quiet, he eased forward and put one hand on his rifle, lifting it without knocking it against the stand. In his mind, he saw his father laughing with glee, clapping him on the shoulder. Jack rotated the gun around with both hands until the barrel pointed out through the front window, parallel with the cold ground. Feeling with his sneakers, he positioned his feet on the lowest rung under the chair and pushed himself to the edge of his seat. He pulled the stock into his shoulder, his body settling down around the rifle, leaning against the window frame. Making a few small adjustments, he looked through the scope, out across the field.
At first his eyes focused on a spot far beyond the herd. He swept the barrel down by a few inches and the ground rushed by like the waters of a fast-moving river, many yards passing in a second. He settled on a doe, standing in perfect profile. The cross hairs were as fine as the legs of a wasp and Jack put them over her heart. His own heart flipped in his chest like a fish as he struggled to stay calm. Running on autopilot, he wanted to do everything right, everything perfect. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger slowly as his father had taught him.
The report of the rifle destroyed the tranquility of the field. Jack didn't even feel the gun kick against his shoulder. He lifted his eye from the rubber circle of the scope and watched as the deer raced toward the brush line like a pack of perfect athletes. The herd moved like the downward flow of water, all save one. The doe lay on the ground as the others fled.
Relaxing, he released his breath in a steamy burst. His nose was running and the tip was cold, so he wiped it on the forearm of his coat. Calm settled over him as he studied the field.
Her adrenaline might enable her to get up and run if he approached now. He knew stories, practically since birth, about wounded deer running for miles or turning on hunters and goring them. Peering through the scope again, he watched as she kicked on the ground, still moving, but not as much as he had expected. The hole in her shoulder faced up to the sky and was dark, barely noticeable. Eventually she was completely still. With the other deer gone, he felt alone with her in the field. Another five minutes passed. Sometimes he lifted his head to look out across the field where nothing moved.
As he climbed from the stand and crossed the field, he hunched forward against the cold wind that pushed itself across the open terrain. The rifle hung over his right shoulder as he approached, almost as long as he was tall. The ground was wet with dew, but was not quite frozen. A damp trail stretched out behind him in the grass, leading back to the stand.
His mind reeled when he drew near the mesquite tree where the doe lay. Having only been close to horses and cows, the deer was tinier than expected, her body more delicate.
I killed a baby, he thought.
His heart went cold and his head felt light as he imagined his father's rage. He could visualize Big Jack's expression and he saw the others back at the camp house laughing at him, berating him for breaking some primal rule of hunting. He knelt beside the body, resting utterly motionless on its side. His fear faded and tears blinded him as he looked into the black eye of the thing before him, trying and failing to commune with her through the orb that was set like a precious stone in her face. With one hand, he reached out, stroking her fur as he might a sleeping dog. The coarseness surprised him.
“I'm so sorry,” he said aloud, wondering at the quietness of his own voice. His breath made fog in the air before him.
Keeping a vigil, Jack sat in the grass next to the doe for a couple of hours until his pants were damp with moisture from the ground and his teeth chattered in his head. Several times, he started crying. Ashamed, he blinked back his tears each time, drying them with his sleeve.
His father's truck came up the road just after eleven. Wiping his eyes a final time, Jack stood and turned toward the approaching sound. The truck door slammed and Big Jack emerged from the brush, smoking as he crossed the field.
“What you got?” he called over the wind.
Jack struggled to keep his throat from closing. “I think I screwed up,” he said. He tried to find the right words…something to shift the blame or ameliorate his wrongdoing.
Big Jack drew close. Looking down at the deer, maniacal glee lit up his face. “Goddamn, boy.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I'm sorry…it looked bigger through the scope.” He struggled with his tears as they threatened to return. “I didn't mean to shoot one so young. It was an accident.”
In confusion, Big Jack looked up at him. Finally understanding what his son was saying, he shook his head fiercely. “Nuh-uh, boy. What the fuck you thinkin'? That's a doe…they don't get much bigger'n that.” Big Jack knelt beside him in the grass and rested one hand on the deer's neck. “You just ain't seen one on the ground like this.” He looked at his son closely. “You done real good. This is a good deer…a good kill.”
Jack took a breath. “Really?”
“Yeah, oh yeah. I ain't even killed anything yet. You did good.” He reached over awkwardly and pawed his son's shoulder then patted him on the back. “Tomorrow I'll probably get an eight or ten point buck, but this is your first year huntin'…a doe ain't bad.” Big Jack smiled at him across the body of the fallen animal.
Jack watched his father, soaking in the words. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I just didn't know. It looked so small.” He looked back at the deer, pride intermingling with sadness.
Big Jack picked up the doe and slung it over his shoulders, ignoring the thickened blood. Together the two of them walked across the field and into the brush, heading for the truck.
At the end of the weekend, Big Jack drove home from the lease, smoking and staring ahead as the evening hours passed. Occasionally he spoke, offering his son some bit of wisdom as the truck blew along the highway.
“Ain't a lot of people knows this,” he said at one point, “but Jesus was a sand nigger.” He tilted his head and regarded Jack seriously across the space of the truck. When his son didn't challenge this revelation, Big Jack fell back into a murky, satisfied silence. He gripped the notched steering wheel with one hand, a cigarette poking up between his knuckles.
The trip passed like this, mostly quiet, punctuated by intermittent bits of conversation that randomly brought the boy to alertness, breaking through his daydreams. The ash-green quality of the East Texas landscape gave way to dusky olive then to black as the light fell. The truck finally came off the interstate highway and began to pass through the streets of Lowfield.
Jack was glad for the silence. He was physically exhausted, but also felt a weariness of spirit. The weekend had wrung him out, leaving him drained. He leaned his head against the cold glass of the window, thinking about his favorite comic books and sex, sometimes weaving them together. Cold air leaked around the door of the truck where he leaned against it, licking his right shoulder and his back with a chilly tongue.
The light fixture over the garage door was covered in cobwebs. It cast the truck cab in gold as they came to a stop in the driveway. Jack felt grimy. When he shifted in his layers of clothing, he caught little whiffs of smoke from the fire barrel. Sometimes he smelled something else, which he suspected was blood from the doe.
They got out of the truck and Big Jack opened the garage door. Unloading the bed of the truck, they worked quietly, piling their gear on the garage floor.
Ramona and Brodie came out through the kitchen door.
“Tornado-Bornado, tornado-Bornado, tornado-Bornado.” Brodie buzzed along with excitement at their return.
“What'd y'all get?” Ramona asked, smiling. She took a drag from her cigarette and laid her hand firmly on Brodie's shoulder. “Anything? You got deer back there that Brodie can see?”
“I wanna seeee,” Brodie whined.
Big Jack drew back his head and straightened his shoulders. “Sure as fuck, we do…you think we went all the way out there to come back with jack shit?” His lighter made a clinking sound as he popped it open with his thumb and deftly lit a cigarette.
The entire family walked to the back end of the pickup truck. Big Jack dropped the tailgate and pulled back the tarp, revealing the bodies of the two slain deer. They lay stretched out on forest-green trash bags. Reaching low, he picked up his youngest son and set him down in the bed of the truck. Brodie's eyes went wide as he looked at the faces of the dead animals a foot away.
Big Jack took the head of the spike buck he had killed and lifted it up. “Look at it, boy.” He said the words in the sing-song voice he sometimes used around Brodie. “Your daddy killed a buck…someday you'll get one of these here.”
Jack marveled at the black, cloven hooves and the elfin legs. Again he was struck by how delicate the animals were, how ghost-like and fey. He reached out and stroked one of the doe's forelimbs, tracing the coarse fur downward and running his thumb over the dewclaws just below the lowest joint in the foot. The smoke from his parents' cigarettes settled over him as he leaned against the cool metal of the truck. Again, he offered the doe a silent apology.
The plastic trash bags crinkled as Big Jack shifted the head around, holding it by the antlers. Before breaking away, he eyed Jack suspiciously, uncomfortable with his son's demeanor. “Alright, we gotta get this goddamn truck unloaded,” he said. “It's late…” He dropped the spike's head and scooped up Brodie, plopping him down onto the driveway.
With her cigarette dangling from her lips, Ramona lifted him to her hips and took him inside, allowing Jack and his father to continue unloading. Squinting as the smoke curled up into her left eye, she mumbled over the cigarette as she moved out of the garage, “I gotta get Brodie into bed.”
Carrying his sleeping bag into the center of the garage, Jack watched the kitchen door close at her back. After each armful, he went back for another load, careful to avoid disturbing the bodies of the deer. Passing the length of the truck, he turned his head slightly each time and gazed at the face of the doe, studying her dark, upturned eye.
When the truck was empty and everything was safely inside, Big Jack reached up and closed the garage door with a grunt. The wood and glass rattled and snapped. The metal runners gave a long squeal, thirsty for WD40. Jack flinched as the door boomed down onto the cold concrete floor.
Big Jack slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his black and green pocketknife. “Now we gotta cut up this meat,” he said.
Chapter 14
1999
People were filling the Communion Hall, a large room decorated in styles from several decades. Black and white tiles covered the floor, worn to gray in places by foot traffic. Everyone mingled or sat in metal folding chairs as they waited for Big Jack's farewell service to start. His body rested elsewhere, in a room dedicated to the funeral ceremony.