by Tim Westover
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Jansen drove to the stand in early morning darkness, the sky packed with stars, sometimes eclipsed by curtains of trees and their veinlike branches. He climbed using the faded wooden steps he’d hammered into the maple years ago and sat on the narrow platform. The clean crisp air combined with the scent of wet leaves pleased his senses. A whippoorwill echoed across the forest. It was in these moments he thought of Dolores and her comforting eyes and warm embrace. Jansen did not care to think of how she died, but in a way, it made him not think about the other thing as much.
He studied the forest he’d known all his life. He’d worked for forty years just twenty miles from here over at Harper’s mine in Weaverville. He was no longer a miner. Some didn’t get a choice like he did, certainly not the four men in shaft 17. His mind went down to that disconsolate place, the dead white branches with elastic bands and bulbs on stonelike skulls. He tried to imagine what their screams sounded like, absorbed by tons of earth. He had missed that fate by only a few feet. No use to dwell on it, he thought. No damn use at all.
Jansen took a Thermos from his backpack and poured the steaming coffee into a plastic cup. The coffee warmed his hands as he sipped. His eyelids drooped, the caffeine not having the desired effect. He dozed off, holding the cup in his lap with both hands.
Thunder shook the woods, stirring Jansen from his sleep. The light was grey, the air cooler. He rubbed the cobwebs from his eyes and looked for signs of deer. The sky roared once more. Another morning, another storm, he thought. A frantic wind bullied the trees, and the ferns sang with its enthusiasm. Then Jansen heard panting. Running from the storm was another doe. She bounded north, south, and then east, confused. She stopped twenty yards from his position, and he fired, the rifle crackling through the woods, followed by a long low rumble. Lightning flashed to the eastern horizon, and gobs of rain fell, setting off whispers and promises of life. The doe fell, mouth open, tongue out. The rain dripped onto her soft eye, trickling down the curve of it. Jansen reached the animal and observed the hide. She was lying on her right side, so he flipped her over. His eyes went wide and his throat grew dry when he saw the mark. His lips moved, but he never heard himself say anything.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said. His mind went to the freezer and how he would feed himself over the winter. The union had reduced his pension, and his food budget was problematic. An old man’s got to eat, he thought. He’d worked his tail off for decades. He’d earned a retirement, earned this venison.
At the cabin, Jansen quartered the deer and placed the meat in the freezer. He went to bed, his head swirling with whiskey and the ambiance of the drenched landscape. The image of the soft deer eye, thick lashes, and chromatic leaves filled the back of his eyelids.