Hunters (16 page)

For a second her terrible afternoon on
another rock with Butch entered her mind, and she thought, with a
spasm of terror, that maybe this was payback time, that the man who
truly deserved her love might die in the same way, and she
struggled upward, determined to reach Ned before his brake hand
lost its grip.

She was too late. Five feet beneath him, she
saw his eyes roll up so that only the whites showed, saw his hands
release the line and his legs buckle. It was as if someone had just
pulled his plug. He fell, as she had known he would. The safety
line caught and held him, but before it did, his limp body had
plunged into her, and a bony knee struck her in the face.

Her world exploded in white light, and before
she knew what was happening, she was sliding down the cliff face,
the rope slipping away, hissing through the figure-eight mechanism.
Megan clutched at it with her right hand, her palm burning as it
slid along it until finally her grip closed. By the time she slowed
to a stop, she was only ten feet from the bottom.

Above her Ned was dangling helplessly, his
hands and head moving in little starts and jerks. Now she did what
she knew she should have done before. She tied two prusik knots,
one above and one to a sling in which she cinched her feet. By
pulling up her legs and sliding up the knots as she went, she
slowly ascended the face on the rappel rope.

It was a slow process, but the sight of Ned
dangling far above her made it seem even slower. She kept thinking,
Don't fall, don't be Butch, don't be Butch...oh God, please
don't fall...

By the time she reached him, he had regained
consciousness. His eyes were pressed tightly shut, and he had
curled into a ball that somehow still tried to hug the face of the
cliff.

She crooned to him as she approached him,
telling him that everything would be all right, that soon she would
be at the top and she would haul him up after her. That was exactly
what happened.

When she had pulled him to the top, he had
scarcely been able to help her get him on solid ground. She had had
to drag him over. It was not until she had pulled him several yards
away from the edge that he was finally able to sit up, look around
him, and feel shame for what he had done.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I am so damned sorry.
I shouldn't have even tried it. I could've gotten us both
killed."

"It's all right. It's okay, I'm glad you at
least tried."

"I
knew
I couldn't, I knew
something
would happen. Oh Jesus, Megan..."

He embraced her, and she felt terrible, not
because of what he had done, but because of the way she had put him
in a situation that he could not handle. She had not meant to hurt
him, but to help him. The scenario had seemed like some TV movie,
where a woman's guidance and wisdom and strength could overcome her
lover's fears and make him a stronger man. But there were some
things, she now realized, that even love could not cure, and she
had been wrong to try and make Ned any stronger than he already
was.

He never tried climbing again, nor did Megan
ever attempt to talk him into it. Sometimes he would watch her
climb, but always from the bottom of whatever face she challenged.
Ned could handle towers well enough. When they vacationed for
several days in Gettysburg, he had climbed the observation towers
handily, but Megan noticed that he always held the railings and
looked straight ahead when they climbed down again, rather than
look through the grated metal steps to the ground far below. And
when they took the glass-fronted elevator to the top of the
National Tower, Ned was very careful not to look out until they had
reached the top.

It was all right, though. She thought no less
of him for his weakness. In fact, it endeared him to her all the
more. And it was their secret, something that they alone shared. It
didn't mean that Ned was a coward. She had never thought that of
him, and what he had done in the past two days dispelled any
thoughts of cowardice anyone else might have had.

She felt safe with him, as she always did
after making love. When she wasn't with him, and especially during
hunting season, she worried about him, and now more than ever. But
she still felt safe when he was with her. It didn't matter who was
after him, or even after the both of them. She knew they would be
all right whatever happened.

They put together a decent lunch from Larry Moxon's
pantry, then sat down and started to watch a rental video that
Larry had out from the St. Mary's Video Superstore. It was about a
bus with a bomb on it, and although Megan thought she might have
enjoyed it under other circumstances, the crazy terrorist, played
by Dennis Hopper, reminded her too much of the faceless band who
were, for whatever reason, killing hunters in the woods. So she
kissed Ned and retired to the kitchen, where she made some instant
coffee and chose an Elmore Leonard paperback from a small stack of
books wedged among the canisters.

B
y 2:00 the video
was over, and Ned was getting edgy, wondering when Larry would
call. Megan suggested he call Larry in town, but when he did he got
a busy signal. After three more tries, Larry picked up, and Ned
asked him if he had any news.

"They're still working on it. Game Commission
at Harrisburg is going nuts. They haven't been able to notify all
the victims' families yet, so they can't give out all the names.
Every damn hunter's wife in the state is calling in, asking if one
of the victims was her husband. They're working on finding you a
place, and Bill Whitson promised he'd get back before the end of
the day with a temporary reassignment."

"Hell, Larry, why don't we just forget it?"
Ned said.

"Fat chance. I told Bill it was a matter of
life or death. You're getting out of here, buddy. It's no big deal,
they can do this. It's just a matter of finding the time to check.
Now just watch another movie or read a book. You'll probably have
to spend the night again with me, though, then get a start in the
morning."

"Anything else happening?"

"Like?..."

"Like any more shootings?"

"No. At least we have that to be thankful for. I can
authoritatively say that as of 2:25 today in Elk County, no hunters
have been shot." Ned waited for the punch line, and it came. "At
least we haven't heard about it yet."

C
amp Kessler had
been founded in 1937, and had been named after a popular blended
whisky of the day. Jim Lincoln's father Russell had come up with
the name, and the other three men with whom Russell Lincoln had
leased the land and built the cabin on it were equally amused by
the choice. Though none of the men were heavy drinkers, they
thought the name made the camp sound hale and hearty, and on the
first day of the 1937 hunting season, they had drunk a toast with a
fifth of Kessler.

That year three of the four men got deer, and
one of them shot a second for the less fortunate hunter to take
home. With four deer in the first season, the name was considered
lucky, and was retained. A plaque was carved for the front door
with the first names or nicknames of the camp members, and was
updated through the years. Names were never removed, only added, so
that by today there were a total of thirty-two names on the
weather-worn maple plaque. Six men made up the present membership
of Camp Kessler, three of whom were sons of the original four
members, and two of whom were
their
sons.

Jim Lincoln, one of the second generation,
sat inside the one-room cabin, looking through the camp log. He had
been lucky enough to get his deer the day before, so far the only
member so blessed that season. He had thought about going out and
trying to bag one for the one of the others, probably his son Ben,
but had decided that it was too damn cold, and stayed at the camp.
The fire in the cook stove kept the cabin warm and toasty, and he
used the time to fill in the past few days in the log.

He idly wondered what was happening in the
world outside, then dismissed the thought. They had no radio up
here, and had never had one. It was a long standing rule of the
camp that during the week of deer season, the outside world was
barred. The sole electronic device was a small weather radio that
would alert them to storms.

When Jim was done with the log, he read the
entries from the old days, and felt waves of nostalgia, both for
his own past hunts and for a time he had never known, sweep over
him. This was the all too rare time, alone in this cabin, when he
most missed and most strongly felt the presence of his father.

His dad, dead for ten years now, was here all
right. He had loved this place better than anywhere else on earth,
just as Jim loved it today and, he hoped, Ben did as well. Here,
and in the woods outside, was where Jim and his dad had bridged the
gap that years had put between them, and first talked as friends
and comrades. It was where Jim had first learned that his father
was not just a father, but was also a man with his own thoughts and
dreams and disappointments.

Now Jim closed his eyes and sat, listening
for the soft, strong voice of his dad, who could checker a gunstock
as easily as he could sight in a rifle, and who could tell you
exactly where the big buck were going to pass by. Jim heard him,
but only in his mind. Still, that was enough, and he spoke aloud in
the cabin, talking to his father, telling him about his worries and
his joys, saying that he hoped he was as proud of his grandson as
Jim was, saying all the things that he would have said if his
father could have come back in the flesh.

When Jim opened his eyes, he could almost see
his words drifting upward to the plank roof, seeping into the
cracks to stay there always, a part of him merging with the wood of
the cabin, to be there when he was long gone, so that Ben could
always come, sit quietly, and find a part of
his
father.

Then he chuckled at himself, at a middle-aged
man's fantasy of seeing ghosts when he knew better. Still, a part
of him believed, and, he knew, always would believe. It was
harmless, and made him feel better to think some remnant of his dad
was still around. He had been too strong a presence in his life to
ever think that he was really gone for good.

The strange thing was the way in which Jim
seemed to be
becoming
his father. His older relatives were
the ones who noticed that he now looked a bit like Russell, and his
vocal inflections were occasionally so close to his father's that
it sometimes gave him a shiver, not of fear, but of delight to know
that his dad was still alive in him. Maybe that was our
immortality, he thought, to live on in our children. If so, it was
enough.

Jim Lincoln got up and went to the icebox.
The big block of ice they had brought in was almost melted, and
they had replaced it with chunks chipped from the slow running
parts of the stream that passed by the cabin on its winding way to
the Sinnemahoning Creek. The misshapen chunks were enough to keep
the contents cold, and Jim passed by the cans of Schmidt's to grab
a Diet 7Up. The camp rule was no beer until the day's hunting was
done, and Jim wasn't much of a beer drinker anyway, having
inherited his father's distaste for alcohol, in spite of his having
christened Camp Kessler.

He had just popped the tab when he heard a
voice outside. He couldn't make out the words, and thought that one
of his campmates was returning, triumphantly, he hoped. But when he
opened the door, he saw a stranger.

The man was big. His red face was clean
shaven, and he was immaculately geared. He was cradling a .30-06
that looked either new or very well cared for. "How are you?" Jim
said, thinking that it had grown colder since he had last been out.
His words made huge puffs of steam in the cold air.

"Doin' good," the man said. "Better if I
bagged myself somethin'. You wouldn't be Jim now, would ya?"

"Yeah, I'm Jim. Do I know you?"

"Ran into Ben yesterday—that's your boy,
right?. We got talkin' and he told me about your camp here. Mighty
pretty."

Jim smiled with pride. "Well, it keeps us
warm anyway."

"God knows that's important." The stranger
looked at Jim's buck hanging head down from a long iron pipe. "See
somebody got one."

"Yep," Jim said. "Got him yesterday."

"Lucky you. Everybody else still lookin' for
one?"

Jim nodded. "Still hunting. I was pretty
lucky, I guess. Got him just a quarter mile from here. About a
fifty yard shot. Ten-point. Going to have him caped and mounted.
Never did it before, but this is the biggest one I've ever
gotten."

The stranger nodded. "Gonna stick his head
up, huh? Well, you're right, that's a pretty big deer. I get a
trophy like that, it'd be fun to stick its head up, that's for
sure." The man laughed then, and Jim wondered what was so funny.
When the man looked at him again, his stare seemed as though he
were appraising Jim in some way. The sudden silence bothered Jim,
and he felt that he had to say something to break it.

"So did you get a shot at any so far?" he
asked the man.

"Oh yeah, I got a shot all right. In fact, I
brought one down yesterday."

"...But I thought you were still
hunting."

"I am." He grinned.

"But if you got one already..."

"I don't pay much attention to limits," the
stranger said. "Way I look at it is, the more I get, the better I
am."

A surge of anger shivered through Jim.
"That's a...pretty selfish way to look at it, isn't it? When there
are hunters out here who haven't gotten any yet?"

The man stuck out his lower lip in a mockery
of contemplation. "No, not really. See, me and them, we're huntin'
different things. In fact, my only competition is
my
campmates. And by cracky, as if right on cue, here they come now."
The man looked behind Jim.