High Hunt

  “Yeah?” Lou said, his jaw tightening.

  “Knock it off, McKlearey,” Sloane said; he wasn’t smiling. Lou grumbled a bit, but he shut up.

  “Anyway, this is the deal,” Mike went on. “It’s fifty bucks each for ten days. He’ll buy the food, and we’ll pay him for it when we get there. He figures about thirty bucks a man. It would usually be a helluva lot more, but, like I told you, he’s just getting into the business, and so he doesn’t want to charge full price yet.”

  “How the hell is he gonna feed us on three bucks a day each?” Jack demanded, taking a straight belt of whiskey from Sloane’s bottle.

  “We’ll eat beans mostly, I expect,” Mike said. “I told him we weren’t exactly rolling in money, and not to get fancy on the chow. He said we could get by with a little camp meat to tide us over.”

  “Camp meat? What the hell’s that?” Lou asked. He was being deliberately dense.

  “He’ll knock over a doe once we get up into the high country,” Mike explained. “We’ll eat that up before we come out. All the guides up there do it. I guess the game wardens don’t much care as long as you don’t bring any of the meat out—or if they do, there’s not a helluva lot they can do about it.”

  “Good deal,” I said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Now,” Mike went on, “he said we’ll each need a rifle, one box of shells, a pair of good boots, a good warm coat, several pair of heavy sox, a couple changes of clothes, and a good sleeping bag. Oh, one other thing—he wants us to put our clothes and stuff in some kind of sack so we can hang them here and there on the packhorses.”

  “Hell,” Lou said, “why don’t we just roll ’em up in our sleeping bags?”

  “Then what do you do with them at night, you dumb shit?” Jack demanded.

  “Hang ’em on a fuckin’ tree,” Lou said.

  “They’d be soaking wet by morning,” I told him.

  “Can everybody get all the stuff I just read off together?” Mike asked.

  “Shouldn’t be much trick to that,” Jack said. “The clothes shouldn’t be any problem, and Cal’s bringin’ most of the guns. Sleeping bag’s about the only big thing, if a guy can’t borrow one.” He took another drink of whiskey.

  “Miller says it’s colder’n hell up there in the high country,” Mike said, “and we damn well better be ready for it. I wouldn’t recommend skimping on the sleeping bag. He says he’s got the tents and cookware, so we won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Oh, hey,” I said, “I was down at that surplus store downtown. I got a pretty good bag—army job—for about ten bucks. Some of you guys might want to check them out.”

  “That sure beats the twenty or thirty they cost at the department stores,” Jack said. His voice sounded a little thick. He’d been hitting the jug pretty hard.

  “I’d have to take a look at them,” Lou said, his voice surly. By God! He was still fighting this thing, even now. If he didn’t want to go, why the hell didn’t he just say so and quit bugging the rest of us?

  “I guess that’s about everything then,” Mike said, looking at the list. “We get together at Sloane’s on the evening of the eighth for a final check-through on all the gear, and then we leave at midnight on the ninth.”

  “One thing,” Jack said. “Are we gonna take pistols or not?”

  “What did Miller say about it?” I asked Mike. I hoped to hell that he’d vetoed the idea. A guy might stop and think with a rifle, but a damned pistol is just too easy to use.

  “He didn’t say, one way or the other,” Mike said.

  “Well,” Jack persisted, “are we gonna take ’em or not?” He’d been pushing the handgun business from the very start, but he’d never told me way.

  “All right,” Sloane said, “let’s take ’em.” There went my last hope. Most of the guns that were going were Sloane’s, from the pawnshop. If he’d said no, that would have been it.

  “I’ll take that .45 automatic,” Jack said. The gun he’d pulled on me that day. That just brightened hell out of my whole evening.

  “Say,” Stan said, coming into the conversation for the first time, “while you’re all here maybe I can get a question answered. I’ve shot a lot of birds, but I’ve never shot at a big animal. This may sound a little silly, but where exactly are you supposed to aim for?” Stan was trying to be one of the guys, but he still seemed a little stiff.

  “Right through the neck,” Lou said, poking at Stan’s windpipe with his finger. It was supposed to look like a demonstration, but like always, Lou poked a little harder than necessary.

  “Depends on how far away you are,” I said. “I wouldn’t try for a neck shot at two hundred and fifty yards. Best bet all around is right behind the front shoulder.”

  “Right through the boiler factory,” Jack agreed. “I’ll go along with Dan on that. You’ve got heart, lungs, and liver all in the same place. You’re bound to hit something fatal.” He sounded drunk.

  “And you don’t spoil much meat,” I said. “A few spareribs is about all.”

  “But for God’s sake, don’t gut-shoot,” Mike said. “A gut-shot deer can run five miles back into the brush. You’ve got to track for hours to find him.”

  Stan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “When it gets right down to it, I wonder if I could really pull the trigger. I went out once after deer, but I didn’t see anything. I thought about it that time, too. A bird is one thing, but a deer is—well, a lot more like we are. It might be a little hard to shoot if you think about it too much.” Oh, God, I thought, the Bambi syndrome.

  “Shit!” McKlearey exploded. “You make more fuss about a damn deer than I ever did about shootin’ people! It’s the same thing—just point and pull and down they go.” McKlearey had taken an instant dislike to Stan—just like I had to him.

  Stan looked at him. “I guess it’s what you’re used to,” he said. These two were about as far apart as two guys are likely to get.

  “If you feel that way about it, why are you comin’ along?” Lou said belligerently.

  “Lou, why don’t you shut up?” Mike said. “You’re getting obnoxious.”

  “Well, he gives me a pain.”

  Stan stood up. His face was set. He looked like he was getting ready to paste McKlearey in the mouth. I was a little surprised to see him take offense so easily—maybe Monica’s chipping was putting him on edge.

  “Sit down, Stan,” I said. “He’s drunk.”

  “What if I am?” Lou said. “What if I am?”

  “That’s enough, Lou,” Sloane said. His voice was rather quiet, but you could tell he meant what he said. Sloane could surprise you. He was such a clown most of the time that you forgot sometimes just how much weight he could swing. Not only was he big enough to dismantle Lou with one hand, but he could fire him when he got done.

  Lou sat back and shut up.

  We talked about it a little more, and then went back into the living room with the girls. I had a couple more beers and sat back on the couch, watching. Margaret seemed to be pretty well loaded. Her voice was loud, and she seemed to be hanging around McKlearey. I thought that she’d have had better sense. I hadn’t been counting drinks on her, but she was flying high.

  Claudia came over and sat beside me. “You boys get everything all squared away in there?” she asked, her deep, soft voice sending the usual shiver up my back.

  I nodded. “I think everything’s all lined up.”

  “Sounded like there might have been a bit of an argument.”

  “McKlearey,” I said. “I wish to hell he’d show up someplace sober some time.”

  “He’s rotten when he’s drunk,” she agreed, “but he’s not much better sober.”

  “He’s a real creep,” I said.

  “I wish Calvin would get rid of him,” she said. “I just hate to have him around.” She paused for a moment. “Dan,” she said finally, “what’s the problem with Mrs. Larkin? She had no reason to talk to Margaret and Betty the way she did.
”

  “I don’t know, Claudia. I think what it boils down to is that she doesn’t want Stan to go on this trip, and she’s doing her level best to make things miserable for him.”

  “Oh, that’s sad,” she said. “Is she that unsure of herself with him?”

  “I thought it was the other way around,” I said. “She seems to have him on a pretty short leash.”

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “A woman doesn’t do that unless she’s not sure of herself.”

  “Never thought of it that way,” I said. Suddenly it all clicked into place. Claudia knew about her husband and his affairs, and it wasn’t that she didn’t care—as Jack had said that first night. She probably cared a great deal, but she knew Cal and the squirming insecurity that kept driving him back to the gutter for reassurance. She could live with it—maybe not accept it entirely—but live with it. But why Sloane, for God’s sake?

  “Oh-oh,” Claudia said, “trouble.” She nodded her head toward the dining room. I saw Jack and Margaret standing in there talking to each other intensely. Margaret’s face was flushed, and she looked mad as hell. They were both drunk.

  Her voice rose a little higher. “I’ll drink as much as I damn well please, Mister Alders,” she said.

  “You’re gettin’ bombed, stupid,” Jack said. Loaded with charm, my brother.

  “So what?” she demanded.

  “You’re makin’ a damn fool of yourself,” he said, his voice mushy. “You been crawlin’ all over Lou like a bitch in heat.”

  “What if I have?” she said. “What’s it to you?”

  “Grow up,” Jack said.

  “He doesn’t seem to mind,” she said.

  “He’s just bein’ polite.”

  “That’s all you know, Mister Big Shot!” Margaret said, her voice getting shrill.

  “Shut up,” he told her.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up, Big Mouth,” she said loudly. “There’s a few things you don’t know, and maybe it’s time I wised you up.”

  “Oh, boy,” I muttered, “here we go.” I glanced over at Lou and saw him easing toward the door. I shifted, getting ready to move. If anybody was going to get a piece of McKlearey, it was going to be me. If this blew, I’d stack him up in a corner if I could possibly manage it.

  “Will you shut your goddamn stupid mouth?” Jack demanded.

  “No, I won’t,” she said. “I’m gonna tell you something, and you’re gonna—”

  Then he hit her. It was an open-handed slap across the face but a good solid shot, not just a pat. She rocked back, her eyes a little glazed. I came up moving fast and got hold of him. Claudia and Betty got Margaret and led her off toward the bathroom. She seemed a little wobbly, and she hadn’t started hollering yet.

  “Let’s get some air, buddy,” I said to Jack and took him on out through the kitchen door into the backyard.

  “That stupid big-mouth bitch!” he said when I got him outside. “She was gonna blab it all over the whole damn room about her and McKlearey. I shoulda had my head examined when I married her.”

  He knew about it. He’d known about it all along.

  “That was a pretty hefty clout you gave her, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Only way to get her attention,” he said, trying to focus his eyes on me. “Got to hit her hard enough to shut her up.”

  “Maybe,” I said. There’s no point in arguing with a drunk.

  “Sure. Only way to handle ’em. Couldn’t let her shoot her mouth off like that in front of everybody, could I?”

  I could sure see why he didn’t stay married for very long at a time. I took his car keys out of his pocket and sat him on Mike’s lawn couch. I didn’t want him getting any wild ideas about trying to drive anyplace.

  “Why don’t you cool off a bit?” I suggested.

  “Good idea,” he said, leaning back. “It was gettin’ pretty hot in there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “God damn, I’m glad you came back home, little brother,” he said. “You’re OK, you know that?” He patted my arm clumsily. “Never knew how good it’d be to have you around.” His eyes weren’t focusing at all now.

  I stood there for a few minutes, and then I heard a snore. I decided it was warm enough. I’d pour him in the back seat of my car later. I went back inside.

  “Really? That sounds terribly exciting,” Monica was saying. She was sitting on the couch with Lou, and he was telling her war stories. She was up to something else now, and I thought I knew what. Lou, of course, was just stupid enough to go along with her. Somebody was going to have to shoot that son of a bitch yet.

  I glanced at Stan, and his face made me want to hide. “Or maybe her,” I said to myself. Her little tactic was pretty obvious.

  Mike came over to me. “Jack OK?” he asked quietly.

  “He’s asleep on that couch thing in the backyard,” I said. “We’ll have to wring him out to get him home.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said, “he gets drunk pretty easy sometimes.” He stopped a minute. “Come on out in the kitchen,” he said, jerking his head. I followed him. “Dan,” he said hesitantly, “is something going on between Margaret and Lou?” I looked quickly at him. I’d thought that he was about half in the bag. He was a shrewd bastard and no more drunk than I was.

  “Yeah,” I said shortly. Again I knew I could trust him. “Jack knows about it, too,” I added.

  He whistled. “Son of a bitch! This could get a little intense. And the way that Larkin broad is throwin’ her ass at him, Lou’s likely to get a piece of her before too long, too. You know, Dan, this has the makings of a real fun trip.”

  “You know it, buddy,” I said. “We may have to haul that Jarhead son of a bitch out of the woods in a sack.”

  “He’s pure trouble. I wish to hell he was out of this little hunt.”

  “You and me both,” I agreed. “Mike, you’re not screwing anybody’s wife, are you? I don’t think my nerves could take any more of this crap.”

  He laughed. “Betty would castrate me,” he said. “You got no more worries.”

  “God”—I chuckled—“what a relief.” I looked on into the living room. Monica was really snuggling up to old Lou, and he was lapping it up. “We’d better get McKlearey away from her before he throws the blocks to her right there on the couch,” I said. “She doesn’t know what she’s messing with, I don’t think. Or maybe she does—anyway, she can diddle with King Kong for all of me, but I’d rather not have Stan watching.”

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll get him to help me with Jack. You want us to put him in your car?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “you’d better. Here are the keys. Why don’t you drive him on over and take McKlearey and Sloane with you? I’ll bring Marg along in Jack’s car when the girls get her straightened out. Then I can run you guys back here. That ought to break up the action a little.”

  “We can hope,” Mike said and went to get McKlearey and Cal.

  This whole damned thing was getting wormier and wormier. We’d be damn lucky if any of us got out of the woods alive. I went on back to the bedroom to see how the girls were doing with Margaret.

  12

  BY the next Saturday we were all getting things pretty well in shape. I had decided that I could find enough clothing in my duffle bag to keep me warm and dry in the woods. All I needed was a good warm jacket and a red hat. There was no trick to locating those.

  It took a little more scrounging, but I found a guy—a GI out at the Fort, I think—who sold me a whole bucketful of .30-06 military ammunition at five cents a round. I suspect that he’d stolen it, but I didn’t ask.

  That morning I took my guns to the police range and began the tedious business of sighting in the rifle. It was cool and cloudy, with no wind—a perfect day for shooting. I finally got it honed into a good tight group about an inch high at two hundred yards and decided that would do it. Then I went over to the pistol range and pumped a few through that old single action .45. I came to the conclusion
that if I ever had to shoot anything with it, I’d better be pretty damn close.

  I was supposed to pick up Clydine about three thirty, but I still had plenty of time, so I swung on by Stan’s place on the way back from the range. I knew he was having a real bad time, and he needed all the support he could get. Monica was making life miserable for him, if her behavior at the party was any indication. For some reason this hunt had become a major issue between them. I figured that if he could just win this one, it might change the whole picture.

  “How’s it going, old buddy?” I asked with false cheerfulness when he answered the door. The place was still uncomfortably neat.

  “Not too well,” he said with a gloomy face. “Sometimes I think this was all a mistake.”

  “Oh, come on now,” I said. “You’ve just got the pre-season jitters.”

  “No. Monica isn’t really very happy about my going. She said some pretty nasty things about you and the others when we got home Wednesday.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said. “Wednesday night was kind of a bummer anyway. Don’t let it shake you—her being against it, I mean.”

  “Still,” he said dubiously, “it’s the first really serious disagreement we’ve ever had. I don’t know if it’s worth it.” She just about had him on the ropes. I was goddamned if I’d let her win now.

  “Look, Stan,” I said, “no woman has ever been that excited about her man’s wanting to hunt and fish. It’s in the blood—you know, basic functions, cave-keeping and bringing home the meat. Modern women have got us cave-broken, and they hate to see us reverting. But a man needs to bust out now and then. Give him a chance to get dirty and smelly and unhousebroke. It’s good for the soul. Deep down, women really don’t mind all that much. Oh, they put up a fight, but they don’t really mind. It puts things back in perspective for them.” It was crackpot anthropology, but he bought it. I kind of thought he would. He wanted to win this one, too.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, wanting to believe.

  “Of course,” I told him, “you’re dealing with primitive instincts, Stan. Monica doesn’t even know why she’s fighting it. You can be damn sure, though, that she really wants you to stand up to her. She’s testing you, that’s all.” That ought to throw some reverse English on the ball.