Universe 8 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Terry Carr

  Seabury picked up the rifle. “Let’s get one first, then we’ll see.” He started to follow the tracks down the hill toward the valley. He stopped and called back. “Are you coming along?”

  Kevin waved. “I’ll catch up.”

  * * * *

  Seabury was slow and clumsy on the trail. He did not have a trained eye and a rocky break would throw him off momentarily. He was in rougher country as well, and had to watch his footing.

  He reached level ground and made better time. The tracks were easier to follow here. Kevin was still not in sight, but Seabury really didn’t care. He could do this by himself—he would show Kevin, and Tom. He hurried on, almost running, until he came to the bank of a wide, shallow stream. Melting ice crawled out from the bank for a few meters, then gave way to open water. The tracks ended here; one print could be seen on the mushy ice, and that was all. Seabury searched the far bank, but saw only bushes and snow. There was no reason for the deer to have gone straight across anyway.

  Something snapped behind him. Kevin stood in the path, laughing. “I guess that’s it for today. Mr. Seabury.” he said. He turned to go, and Seabury, after a moment, followed him.

  They said nothing to each other all the way back.

  * * * *

  A wind had come up on the wav back to the lodge. It was a cold wind, whipping rain that promised snow. Inside his room Seabury shed his clothes, glad to be in out of it. He went downstairs to ask Russell if there had been any calls. “Nothing.” Russell said. He had a small TV set up behind the desk and was watching a weather report. “Looks like we’re in for a good snow “

  “Yes, it got cold and wet pretty quickly.”

  Kevin came through the hallway and passed in silence. Russell looked after him, then said to Seabury, “You and Kevin getting alone all right?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “Well, I get worried. I haven’t had much trouble with him; he’s a good boy. Missed his mother when she moved out a few years ago, but that’s natural. With this Methuselah business—I don’t know, he seems different. Older, maybe. Doesn’t really kid around any more. He’s nineteen and he seems to be watching what he does like he was, oh hell, my age.”

  “Or mine.”

  Russell laughed. “Yeah, the two of us. I wonder what’s ahead for him, though. He might live forever, but what kind of life’s it gonna be? Population changes and all— this other stuff, how things change. Hell, I know I couldn’t adapt to most of it. That’s why I’m out here in the sticks.”

  “I don’t think any of us can really adjust. We have to . . . deal with the situations we find ourselves in, the best we can.” He excused himself and went into the living room, by the fireplace. A low fire burned. Seabury eased himself onto the couch. He hadn’t noticed earlier how tired and sore he was. He thought about Sara and Tom—still no word from either of them. Perhaps they were only doing what he had asked them to do: Let me get away for a while. I just want to get away. As he said it he hadn’t completely believed it—and he grew to disbelieve it. But he had come to this place. He sighed. His back hurt so much.

  * * * *

  The wind shook the window. Seabury woke from sleep with a start. There was a blanket over him, and a huge fire roaring in the room. Russell was piling some logs in the woodbox. “You’re awake.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Around nine. I threw a blanket over you. You could catch a hell of a cold sleeping down here without a blanket.”

  Seabury laughed. “So my mother always said.”

  “Yeah, mine, too. If you want dinner, or a drink—”

  “No, no thank you. I think I’ll just ... lie here, for a while.”

  Russell nodded silently and left.

  * * * *

  He could remember how it started. He had seen it coming and that, perhaps most of all, was what tore at a small, fragile thing inside him. Perhaps he could have prevented it. You take a busy man and a younger wife, the wife works as a low-echelon executive for a textile company, the husband is in electronics and robotics. The wife meets a younger man and is attracted to him, and the brief affair that follows is nothing new, for either the husband or the wife. This is liberation, after all—but this time it isn’t quite the same. This young man is special, someone different. But she still loves you: so she suggests, why not all three of us? It’s a common thing, she says, knowing you’ve always prided yourself on your openness. The younger man seems nice, if unassuming and unambitious, and you’ve heard that such a relationship might be more stable, more mature. Casually (all the major events in your life happen casually), you agree. But there is something growing inside you, and something dying.

  * * * *

  Snow still fell the next morning, but the wind had died. The lodge road could be seen only as an opening in the trees. Seabury ate breakfast alone. It was still early. He hadn’t shaved or changed clothes since the day before. It was the breaking of two lifelong habits, and breaking them gave him an oddly thrilled feeling.

  Kevin came into the kitchen and began to program breakfast. He didn’t see Seabury. “Good morning,” Seabury said.

  The boy almost jumped. “What are you doing up?”

  “Thought we’d get an early start.”

  Kevin shook his head. “Not today. I have to go into town. Besides, look out there! You know how much fun it would be to slog around in that. I’m going to have a tough enough time making it to the clinic as it is.”

  “Your treatments.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “No hunting today, then.”

  “No, I told you. It wouldn’t be any good.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “If it stops snowing by afternoon, yes. We might have some tracks by tomorrow morning. If they’re out there at all. If they didn’t just take off.”

  “I think we’ll find them. I feel it.”

  The boy stopped eating. “You feel it. Good.” He stood up and took his plate to the disposal. “Well, then, practice your shooting today. Tomorrow you’ll really be ready.”

  “I’ll do that,” Seabury said, returning the boy’s mocking tone.

  Kevin blushed. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. It’s just—I don’t know, maybe the treatments are affecting me. I get rude.”

  Seabury smiled. “It’s okay. Let’s say I’m used to it. See you later.”

  The boy left, and from the window Seabury watched him go. The shuttle flew off toward the gap in the trees where the now invisible trail lay. Seabury followed it with his eyes until it disappeared, and thought about the deer, out there in the cold.

  The snow stopped just after noon.

  * * * *

  They started north from the lodge early the next morning. “The tracks were headed that way a couple of days ago,” Kevin said. “There’s also a lot better protection against a storm up that way—trees, ravines and things.”

  “Sounds good,” Seabury said. He felt rested and ready. The rifle was light on his back and there was extra spring in his legs. He felt as if he could run, really run, for hours. He looked forward to the hills and the hunt.

  The snowfall had not been as heavy as it had seemed to Seabury. Looking out the window at the whirling, wind-blown mess, he had expected snow up to his knees and heavy going. But he found that he sank only to his ankles until he hit tougher base snow.

  They headed out between two hills, up a winding valley that took the lodge out of their sight. The trail sloped gently upward, and they followed it for what seemed to Seabury to be an hour, until it finally began to slope down, out of the trees, and widened. Kevin said nothing the entire time; he was only a hypnotic robot drone slogging steadily along in front of Seabury. They saw no tracks.

  “Stop here for a while,” Kevin said. “I’m going on ahead to see if I can pick something up. If they’re in this area, they had to come through here at least once. I’m going to check back that way a bit. I can do it fastest alone. I’ll only be gone about ten minutes.
Wait.” He handed Seabury his rifle and sprinted off.

  Seabury stood alone in the clearing. He felt good—a little more tired than he had been, maybe, but a brief rest would take care of that. His feet and hands were cold, though. He jumped up and down a couple of times and clapped his hands. He wished Kevin would hurry up. He was anxious; the day was bright, yet he felt he had to do something quickly. In his mind he rehearsed what he would do. The rifle was an old one with a bolt action. It would need to be loaded. He did that now. Pull back, slap the shell into the chamber, close it. Set yourself. Safety off. Sight, the aim. Squeeze. Crack! The deer jerked violently to its side and lay bleeding in the snow. That was all there was to it.

  “Seabury!” Kevin called, and Seabury turned to see him waving from a hundred meters away. He shouldered the two rifles and hurried over to him.

  “Look here,” Kevin said. He knelt and took off his glove. Seabury shaded his eyes against the glare: he saw one set of deer tracks. “I’ll bet it’s one of your does. You may be in luck. She’s headed toward the turnaround.”

  “Turnaround?”

  “Valley with only one way out. It’s a long way off, but if we get going we might catch her before she figures it out.”

  “Let’s go then,” Seabury said.

  “Yes, sir!”

  * * * *

  They walked for minutes, then for an hour, then for nearly two. The trail was easy to follow, but it suddenly began to get rugged. Trees had fallen across it in many places, some recently and some not so recently. Seabury had to climb, and he was getting tired. He stopped halfway over one, and leaned against the bank. Kevin stopped, too. “Let’s go, Pops. You were the one who wanted to haul ass after this animal, so let’s haul it.” And Seabury climbed the rest of the way over.

  The deer had apparently had troubles in one place: the tracks doubled back over each other many times, then went up and across a fallen tree on the side of the valley. Kevin began crawling up the same way, but he slipped and slid down in a heap. He rolled over. “Christ!” he said, brushing snow away from his neck.

  He looked so comical sitting there in the snow that Seabury began to laugh. Kevin looked up. “What’s so goddamn funny, you old wreck?” he snapped.

  Seabury stopped laughing. “That’s no way to talk, Kevin. So I’m old. It happens to everyone—” He paused. “It used to, anyway.”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve seen this coming. I’ve almost been able to feel your goddamn eyes on my back. Look, sir, I’m sorry I was born when I was. I’m sorry you were born when you were. What the hell can I do about it?”

  “You can stop acting like a spoiled child. I don’t resent your . . . good fortune to have been born at a time when you have a chance at immortality.”

  “The hell you don’t resent it.” Kevin stood up. “You resent it because there’s nothing you can do about it. So you come out here to kill dumb animals, for fun!”

  Tom could have said that. Seabury was silent for a moment, then he spat and snapped his rifle around and pointed it at Kevin’s stomach. “Can’t I do something about it? You young son of a bitch, you may not think I can use this thing, but at this distance even an old wreck like me could blow you and your immortality all over the hillside. Think about that!”

  Kevin stared at the rifle. “I guess,” he said, “you could.”

  “You’re damned right I could.” He lowered the rifle. “Now—let’s forget it and go.” He was trembling.

  Kevin moved slowly, picking up his cap and rifle. “If it means anything, I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “You said that once already.”

  He looked at the ground. “I mean it this time.”

  “I said forget it.” He was still shaking. He had almost pulled the trigger—how did it feel to kill?

  The boy made the climb and held out his hand for Seabury. Seabury slung the rifle on his back and pulled himself over. They started walking again, Kevin keeping a good distance ahead.

  * * * *

  It was all Sara’s fault, Seabury thought. If she hadn’t wanted the situation to develop, it never would have. He had only let it happen; she had made it happen. Maybe she was making something else happen. Maybe she and Tom were making plans that didn’t include him. Maybe they had moved while he was gone—no, that was silly. The business. He was getting tired.

  He fell into the rhythm of the tracking. Walk a bit, climb or go around, walk again. Kevin was silent ahead of him, and he went only as fast as he seemed to think Seabury wanted to go, no faster. It was early afternoon now. They had a quick lunch, then continued on. “It isn’t far,” Kevin said at last, “and these tracks look fresh.”

  Seabury only nodded.

  The trail began to drop ever so slightly. Ahead lay a ring of hills. This was the turnaround. “Here,” Kevin said. “She’s down here. I know it.”

  “You feel it,” Seabury said.

  A brief laugh. “Yeah, I feel it. I’m going to go back up around and try to flush her. She’ll have to come back this way. If you plant yourself down here somewhere, you’ll get one shot. Don’t bet on getting two. She’ll probably be running like hell.”

  “Okay, where do you want me?”

  Kevin led him down the trail a little further. Three logs lay across the trail here. Two of them had been there for a while; they were half-buried by the snow. The third sat higher, at waist height. “Get behind these,” Kevin said. “You’ll have a good field. She might not stand out against the trees, and the sun isn’t too good here, but you’ll see her because you’re looking for her.”

  “She can’t get out anywhere else?”

  “I’d be very surprised. The place has steep sides. With the snow, I think a mountain cat might have trouble. No, she’ll be through. Watch.” He went back up the trail and disappeared, leaving Seabury alone.

  This is it, he thought. He unslung the rifle and leaned it against one of the logs. He set himself in the snow, comfortably, but in such a way that he could move quickly. He snapped the safety off and pointed the rifle between the top and the bottom logs.

  He could hear nothing except for his own sounds of breathing and shifting. There wasn’t even the familiar rustling of branches as the wind brushed through them. The snow was cold against his backside. He heard a far-off yell—Kevin. Then nothing for a longer time, and then yelling again. He peered down the trail, but saw nothing. Where was she? She had to be here. Kevin had said so, unless he was getting some sort of revenge—

  Yelling again; this time it was closer.

  He heard a snap, and there she was. She stood less than twenty meters away, brown and white against the trees and the snow. She looked at him as she picked her way, twitching her tail once, then twice. Seabury was careful not to move. Slowly, he turned the rifle, sighting down the barrel. Please, he thought, and holding his breath, squeezed the trigger.

  The gun kicked into his shoulder and the deer recoiled, then toppled. The echoes of the rifle report sang down the valley. Seabury was frozen: he could see that the deer was only wounded. She twisted and tried to crawl, staining the snow with blood. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t how he had expected it to be at all. You either missed or you killed—nothing halfway. He didn’t know what to do.

  He set the rifle aside and pulled himself out of the blind. His muscles ached from sitting so long, and he was out of breath. That surprised him. He hadn’t been doing anything, had he? And the deer was still writhing on the ground near a fallen tree—more slowly now. The bullet had hit her in the flank above her left foreleg, and she kept stretching her neck toward it, as if she could fix whatever was wrong with her if only she could touch where it hurt. Seabury cursed himself for not having used a modern weapon, one that killed at a touch; there was nothing he could do now but watch.

  There was thrashing in the distance behind the deer. Seabury picked up his rifle. Another deer? No: it was Kevin, struggling through the heavy brush. He appeared on the edge of the slope and crawled dow
n. “I heard a shot.”

  He looked in the direction Seabury was looking. “Jesus,” he said, “you got her.” The deer twitched visibly. “Goddammit, she’s not dead!”

  “I know,” Seabury said.

  “What’s the matter with you? She’s suffering!” He thrust his rifle at Seabury. “Finish what you started!”

  Seabury didn’t move. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t? An hour ago you were ready to shoot me in the guts. Well, I’m telling you: finish what you started!”

  The wind whipped suddenly, spraying snow over them. The deer was still alive, and the crimson stain was bigger and darker than ever. Seabury took the rifle and walked over to the deer. He cocked the weapon, disengaged the safety, and aimed the muzzle at the deer’s head. Her eyes were open: terrified, Seabury thought. He closed his own eyes and gently squeezed the trigger. He heard the sharp crack and felt the rifle recoil. The deer’s head jerked once, then became still. Seabury could see a tiny hole under her ear. He gripped the rifle with all his strength, as if he could break the weapon in half with his bare hands.