What’d she think was going on? She open her eyes this morning and forget what happened?
“What did Jordan Falby say that set you off?”
Luke told her.
His mom said, “I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
Luke couldn’t imagine his mother hurting a fly.
She said, “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you. I want you to see someone.”
Luke had been thinking about killing himself for a few weeks. The pain he felt wouldn’t go away. It was there in his head before he opened his eyes in the morning and stayed with him till he fell asleep at night, if he could.
He considered sleeping pills. Take a handful, nod off and it was all over. Or he could shoot himself. Load one of his dad’s shotguns, put the barrel in his mouth, and boom. It might be effective, but he didn’t want his mom finding him on the basement floor with his head blown off. That wasn’t right. Carbon monoxide was another possibility. Drive in the garage, close the door and let the car run. After giving it a lot of thought, sleeping pills seemed like the best option. But where would he get them? Did you need a prescription?
His mom said, “When were you going to tell me you quit tennis?”
Her voice brought him back. “Didn’t I?”
She glanced at him and looked angry. She turned away, staring through the windshield.
First light. Luke could see now, walking behind his dad along a ridge that sloped down through big Michigan timber and thick cover. They stepped over a fallen birch tree and maneuvered through tangles of alder and fern, boots sloshing on wet leaves. They’d walked a couple miles, at least. His ears were cold and he could see his breath, wide awake now after a slow start.
His dad stopped and took out binoculars and glassed a stand of oak trees in the distance, a place where whitetail liked to hang out and eat. He lowered the binoculars and looked at Luke. “What happened with Lauren?”
“She said she wanted to be friends. We both kind of decided.”
“You’re probably better off. Having a girlfriend’s a lot of work.”
“She’d get mad if I didn’t call her every day, and sometimes, even if I did.”
“Girls are different, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Yeah, they seem a little odd at times.”
His dad smiled.
“Just wait. You haven’t seen anything.” He handed the binoculars to Luke. “Have a look?”
Luke gripped them, brought them up to his eyes, and panned stands of oak trees and birch and aspen and cedar, the leaves still green, and followed another ridge up to a stand of maple. No deer, but the light was coming and he could make out the shapes and contours of things. A black squirrel darted across the trail and disappeared.
They kept moving through thick cover, feet unsteady on the slick terrain, approaching an area where the leaves were matted down.
Owen said, “Looks like they just got up from a nap.”
Luke said, “Check this out.” Pointing to tracks that went uphill to a stand of oak trees on a ridgetop in the distance.
The canopy was high and thick, and it was dark as they followed the deer tracks upslope toward the trees. His dad stopped and pointed at deer poop, slick and green and still steaming.
“They’re close. Remember what you used to call it?”
Luke didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Gucks. You’d say, ‘Daddy, I got to go gucks.’” Owen looked at him and grinned. “It’s the perfect word, isn’t it?”
“How about Grandma? I’d tell her I had a stomachache, she’d say, go sit on the toilet and do some popsie doodles, or popsies.”
“Like we were living in a Disney movie,” Owen said.
Luke liked that.
“The pros, like Del Keane, put their hand in it, tell you what Mr. Deer had for breakfast. Want to try it?”
Luke made a sour face.
They followed the tracks over a berm to a ridgetop that was littered with acorn husks, a sign that deer had been there. From the high ground, they could see the tracks continue downslope through a funnel of trees to a cornfield in the distance.
Owen said, “Give me about twenty minutes, then head down. I’ll push them at you.”
“How do you know they’re in there?”
“It’s got everything they need: food, water, and shelter. Make your way to the edge of the tree line and be ready. You’re only going to get one shot. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
Luke sat on a tree stump, the Darton Apache resting across the tops of his thighs, thinking how cool and exciting it was being out here. He scanned the woods with the twelve-power Zeiss binoculars, the sun rising fast now behind him. He caught glimpses of his dad in the distance, a dark shape, disappearing and reappearing through the trees. He panned right, saw something move, adjusted the sight, focused on a deer tail swinging back and forth. He panned left, saw a leg and followed it to the thick body of a high-racked ten-pointer. The deer lifted its head, rumen drooling from its mouth, sensors on full alert. The buck snorted and stomped its hooves and took off, Luke trying to follow it with the binoculars. Losing it in the thick woods.
He turned and picked up his dad again moving along the perimeter of the cornfield about a hundred yards away, the stalks at least a foot taller than him.
Owen pulled two brittle cornstalks apart and entered the field. He moved along a row that was so straight he could see down a hundred yards, the result of GPS, now available on farm equipment-taking any guesswork out of planting crops in straight lines.
The ground was pitted and irregular, puddles of water covered with a thin layer of ice that broke easily under his weight and made a sound like glass cracking. His boots were wet and soon heavy with mud, making it harder to walk. He carried a Browning Mirage in his right hand, the bow weighing a little more than four pounds with its quiver loaded with carbon arrows.
Wind whipped through the cornfield, rattling the stalks that sounded to Owen like the percussive beat of a jazz tune, and bringing with it the intermittent reek of cow dung and skunk and the heavy smell of wet hay.
He watched a hawk swoop in from a scattered cloud formation and dive like a fighter jet into the field and then soar back up with something squirming in its talons.
Owen adjusted his Detroit Tigers cap, pulling the brim down to keep the sun out of his eyes. Although his body was heating up under layers of thermal insulation and camo, it was cold. He could see his breath. He went about fifty yards and listened. The wind blew and the stalks clattered. It was tough to hear anything else.
He cut left through the field now, going against the grain, pulling stalks apart and knocking them down. It was the only way to cover a big area fast. He came to a stretch of field where the stalks were mowed down like a semi had driven through. He followed the path and heard them before he saw them: five deer, two big bucks and three does, stopping to eat corn destined for the farmer’s silo and eventually to sell as livestock feed.
He knew the wind would bring his scent right to them, but they wouldn’t know what direction it was coming from. He came up behind them and started yelling and they scattered, the bucks going one way, the does, another-Owen chasing the bucks, pushing them toward Luke and the cover of high ground-Owen catching glimpses of the bucks jumping, antlers clearing the seven-foot-high corn as they ran.
Luke moved down the ridge toward the cornfield. He stopped, brought the binoculars to his eyes and glassed a wild turkey and then another one-a whole family walking in a line through the woods. He let the turkeys pass and made his way to the edge of the tree line. Leaned against a big maple and waited. His nose was running and he wiped it on the sleeve of his camo shirt.
From this position, he could look straight down a row into the cornfield. He leaned his bow against the tree, slipped off his backpack, opened it, took out a plastic bottle of Gatorade, a cool blue flavor called Frost and unscrewed the top, taking a long drink. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye. A rabbit hopped out of the field and ran into the woods.