AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I LEAVE WITHBo before dawn, my bow and the rifle both strapped over my shoulder. There’s no choice any more, not with daylight so precious, but I’ve gotten used to the dark. I keep a lantern on my belt; I know how to navigate by the thin light of the stars, reflected off the ever-present blanket of snow.
I make little sound as I walk, stepping in yesterday’s footprints. My feet are warm, wrapped in rabbit fur sewn to the trimmed-down soles from dad’s boots, with the ice cleats lashed to them for better grip. The cleats are vital once I step out onto the lake.
I’m cautious every day, even though it’s been weeks since the ice froze enough to hold my weight. My fishing hole is at least a foot deep by now, and every day I have to break through the ice that’s formed overnight. But I’ve seen a crack appear after a windstorm, black water lazy and hungry beneath it.
Things can change in an instant. If you aren’t ready, they won’t give you the courtesy of a second chance. I’m out of those.
I stand on the lake and shut my eyes as the light comes up over the eastern trees. The forest is never silent. Not even in winter. Sound carries across the ice. It has a thin echo to it; it will try to trick you. These are the lessons I’ve learned in the last few weeks, as the days have gotten colder and snows have fallen.
This morning I’m not listening for anything in particular, just listening. I like to do that as often as possible. It makes me feel like I’m keeping track of my little kingdom.
I know where branches fall from the weight of snow. I know that there’s another fox around here somewhere, even though I haven’t seen him. And I know that a moose crashed through the woods near the cabin last week. Luckily, he never came close enough to bother me.
I try to keep track of the days, but sometimes I forget. I don’t know how long the winter will last. I think I am through the worst of it, though. The ice storms that made everything freeze into one solid sheet and kept us trapped inside the cabin for a week were the worst of it. Worse even than the days so brief they were barely a gray spot on the horizon. Worse than the windstorms, when I lay awake waiting for a tree to come crashing down on top of us.
But we haven’t died. Not yet.
A delicate sound reaches my ears. Something moving through the trees. Big but nimble.
Bo’s ears prick beside me. My heart thuds. A deer. I’ve seen them, of course. Does and bucks. Big and winter-lean, but even snow-starved they’ll have meat on them—more meat than I can comprehend, living on fat little birds and stringy rabbits and an endless succession of fish hauled up from the ice-capped lake.
The field guide has become my bedtime story. I read the sections on skinning and dressing deer over and over, imagining having that much meat at once. I could store it now, pack it in ice; I could even smoke it.
A deer would feed us for a long time.
I move toward the sound. The snow on the ice makes it easier to find purchase, but I still take every step with care, remembering that crack. Winter is long, but not forever. Ice melts. And gaps in the ice can be hidden by snow, and by a film of ice that seems solid up until you trust it with your weight.
The wind blasts my face, thin and sharp. Good. It’s carrying my scent away from whatever is in the woods.
The movement reaches the edge of the trees and I stop. My father’s coat is gray. The snow has been falling all morning. My arms and legs are wrapped with pelts for warmth, rabbit and ermine; they are as pale as the ice. If I don’t move, I might be missed.
The deer emerges. A doe. She’s moving away from me, along the shore. She slows, picking her way over a gnarled, snow-shrouded log. I lift the bow.
Bo tenses against the ground, ready to run, but he holds for my command. I try to move like a tree would move, buffeted by the wind. Nothing to be concerned about.
The doe pauses, ears twitching and gaze rotating around her surroundings.
Please, I mouth. I loose.
The arrow strikes her side. She runs.
I follow. I jog, settling into a gait my leg can manage. The deer is out of sight, crashing through the trees, but the blood on the snow draws me a clear path to her, and Bo courses after her ahead of me.
The snow is dimpled where the deer collapsed on one knee. She thrashed her way back to her feet, scattering pink-tinged snow; her tracks continue forward.
Bo’s crashing converges with the deer and he barks, a sound that shudders through the trees. He’ll flush her back this way, wearing her out without letting her get too far away.
She doesn’t charge straight back, but I abandon the blood trail to intercept her as she turns to run parallel to the lake. The crashing slows. Bo starts up an endless snarling, barking tirade that I know means the deer has stopped. I pick up my pace.
I find Bo and the deer in a little clearing. The deer has collapsed forward and is trying to rise. Blood bubbles from her nostrils in a pink froth. Her eyes roll back in her head, but the arrow has obviously pierced something vital. A lung, I think, looking at the froth on her muzzle.
“Shh,” I say. I walk up with one hand out as if to calm her. She jerks, trying and failing to rise, and this time she falls to her side. Her legs thrash.
I walk behind her. She’s weakening, but a hard kick from her would still hurt.
I draw another arrow. I don’t want to get close enough to use my knife on her. I’ve killed rabbits and stoats in the snares that way, my hands protected by thick leather gloves, but if I stoop to slit her throat, I’m worried she’ll find a last burst of energy and hurt me.
I steady my shot, breathe out, and end it.
