by Brian Hodge
Night of the Hunters
by Weston Ochse & David Whitman
“So then I says, ‘Well, go on then, girl, see if I give a shit,’” Rolly said, staring into each and every eye around the campfire like a born storyteller. “And then she ups and throws the goddamn hammer right into the brand new television screen. She looked at me like she done caught a five foot bass—like I’m supposed to be all fuckin’ impressed, and put her hands on her hips.”
Mason smiled at his friend and punched him in the shoulder. He liked Rolly. The man was much smarter than he played himself to be, but tended to wear his ‘Southern Boy’ like a second skin. “Damn, Rolly, you’re never going to be married,” he said, throwing the last of his burnt venison to Get, Rolly’s white poodle. “You might as well marry that damn mutt.”
Rolly grinned crookedly and slapped Get’s rump. “And you know something, she’d make a pretty good bride, too. That’s one bitch who sits when I tell her to sit, begs when I tell her to beg, and rolls over when she wants a good rubbin.” Rolly grinned, stared off into space for a moment and seemed to ponder the possible domestic qualities of a four-legged bitch as opposed to his normal two-legged ones, but snapped his eyes straight, then spun and glared at Mason. “Hey, Man, don’t be interuptin’ while I’m talkin.” He scratched his balls. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, so she’s standin’ there with her hands on her hips, the brand new television set smokin’ behind her makin’ it look like it was comin’ from her ears and the top of her head—a regular demon. So, not to be intimidated, I leaned back against the wall, smiled, and said, ‘It’s a good goddamn thing I used your credit card to buy that set.’ And then I got my fat ass out the door before she could get me with the hammer too.”
The faces around the campfire, primed with grins throughout the story, erupted into howling hysterics at the newest tale of their friend’s never-ending battle against the opposite sex. Billy Bob erupted into his trademark guffaws, his immense belly shaking up and down as he roared. Weasel giggled insanely. Forever Rolly’s moveable laugh track and sidekick, Weasel was already so drunk his body couldn’t decide which way to lean. Mason shook his head and grinned, laughing on the inside.
Just to the right of the campfire was the carcass of the bear that they had poached, its thick tongue sticking out of the side of its mouth with indignity. It had taken eight shots to bring her down and then about a dozen whacks from the baseball bat. Hunting was something that they all felt was their God-given right to do, despite any law that said otherwise. And Billy Bob, known as BB Spotlight by the sheriffs of thirteen counties, new every law there was going back to the state’s reintroduction to the Union after the Great War of Northern Aggression.
The close circle of friends were still rubbing the tears from their eyes when Get stood up, yelped once, and then darted off into the woods, almost knocking Billy Bob from his log.
“Get!” Rolly shouted, staring into the dark trees. “Get your ass back here, girl!”
Mason started laughing, this time on the outside and Rolly flashed him a look of irritation. “What in the hell you laughin’ at, Mason? This ain’t goddamm funny, there’s wild animals out there,” he said pointing to the dead bear as an example. “Besides, the last time she ran off in the woods she got sprayed by a fuckin’ skunk.”
Weasel jumped in with squeaking titters, “And that fuckin’ dog was flamin’ pink for a month after you bathed her in tomato juice. You had to walk her at night, just so’s the other dogs wouldn’t laugh at her.”
Mason laughed at the memory of Rolly, a picture of whom Joe Bob Briggs would put in a dictionary as the icon of Redneckocity, John Deere hat, lip full of Beechnut Wintergreen, tattered flannel shirt and greasy blue jeans, walking a hot pink poodle under the moonlight.
Rolly pointed a finger at Weasel, “You need to shut the hell up. And you, my edumacated friend,” he added, pointing at Mason, “And you need to stop laughin’ at my Get.” Rolly had stood up as his blood rose. He shook his head. “Every fuckin’ time somethin’ happens to Get, you sit around and laugh. You can’t laugh at a man’s dog.” He shook his head and sat down. “Never at a man’s dog.”
Mason slipped out a cigarette, leaned forward and lit it in the campfire. He was careful not to set the brim of his bright orange Tennessee Volunteers baseball cap on fire. He wore it every time they went hunting so Weasel wouldn’t mistake him for deer like he did the first time they all went shooting together. He grunted, stared at Rolly, then returned his gaze to the dancing flames. “I’m laughing because your dog’s name is an action verb.”
Rolly spit into the fire and shook his head at his friend. “Actually, Mr. Smarty Pants, it’s a transitive verb,” all vestiges of his ‘Southern Boy’ gone. He stood up, peered into the woods and began his patented whistle, the high pitched sound slicing through the quietness of the night.
Mason shook his head, wondering how a man who looked as one dimensional as Rolly could have so many levels to his personality.
“Get! If you get sprayed by a goddamn skunk again I’m leavin’ you out here in the woods!” Rolly looked over at the rest of the group. “I don’t know what I’m doin’ with a sissy ass poodle for a pet, anyway.”
“I told you, John Wayne had pups,” Billy Bob suggested. He had named his rottweiller a decidedly masculine name, not realizing that his dog was in fact a female until she gave birth. He still thought of John Wayne as a he, but it was an anachronism that Mason enjoyed.
“I ain’t takin’ no pups from a bitch named John Wayne,” Rolly spat, looking into the woods like a mother hen. “It’s un-American,” he said placing his cap over his heart. “Namin’ a female dog after one of America’s greatest heroes. Anyways, me and Get get along just fine. Goddamn that bitch!”
“That’s only ‘cause she can’t fit her paws around a hammer. I swear, if she had looked in a mirror and saw her pink fur, she would have broken every TV, mirror and window in your house just to let you know she wasn’t as fuckin’ gay as she looked,” said Billy Bob.
“She can’t be gay, asshole. She’s a girl,” said Mason, glaring at Billy Bob with one of those I am gonna come over there and kick your ass looks.
“Just calm down. Everyone calm down. She’ll come back. She knows you take care of her and she’s loyal,” Mason said, moving between the two.
Rolly glanced over at Mason for any kind of sarcasm. If there was one thing that Rolly couldn’t stand it was being made fun of, even by his closest friends. Mason had figured a long time ago that the whole ‘Southern Boy’ routine was Rolly’s way of short-circuiting people. It was okay to laugh at what he pretended to be, but never the real Rolly. Never laugh at who he really was. Lucky for the world, no one really knew.
Rolly stalked back over to the log and plopped down heavily. “She’ll be back. She needs to eat, don’t she? It’s not like she could hunt rabbit or anythin’, a little white, fluffy bitch like her.”
Weasel started laughing again. “That would be the shit wouldn’t it, Rolly? That little bitch walkin’ back into this campsite carryin’ a goddamn rabbit in her little mouth. Catchin’ the damn Easter Bunny. I bet even the squirrels would laugh at that.”
“I’ll tell you what, Weasel,” Rolly said, staring into the flames with a wide smile. “That bitch may surprise your ugly ass just yet.”
Billy Bob was staring off into the woods, his head cocked like he was listening to some far off music. It was the look he got when hunting. If anyone was the real hunter within the group, it was Billy Bob. The boy had hunted game from Alaska to Florida. His house was a museum to the hunt. From the alligator that greeted you at the front door, to the polar bear that seemed to hold the giant screen TV in its paws, to the wolverine toilet paper dispenser he had in the bathroom, he had over sixty stuffed animals and fish adorning the inside of his house. He was always the first one to lead the hunt, knowing exactly what the animal was thinking based on the shape and age of the tracks. He could dissect a bush in a hurricane a
nd still be able to tell what animals had passed by, when they had passed by and the reason they had passed by. Fat old Billy Bob was their animal expert. It was almost enough to make one ignore his alcoholism and tendency to take shots at invisible things after his third six-pack.
Mason passed Billy Bob, walked over to the cooler, and grabbed himself a beer. When he noticed that Rolly was beerless, he snagged him one as well and yelled “Pull!” like they were shooting clay pigeons.
Rolly expertly caught the beer and cracked it open, forgetting about his dog for the moment. He took a long sip and grimaced. “I think what I really need is a woman. That would set me up just right.”
Mason shook his head and finished up his cigarette, flicking it into the fire. He often wondered how he had found himself in the company of men like this. He owned and operated a used car lot back in town, made a decent living, but nothing spectacular. The kicker was that he had a master’s degree in literature. That and a dollar bought him coffee every morning. He really hadn’t done much with it other than scribble in one of his growing pile of notebooks every day. Maybe one day he would be a bestselling novelist.
Mason met Rolly and the rest of the crew at The Fish Pond, a local bar he started going to after his divorce. They had hit it off right away. Rolly may not have any college experience, or even high school for that matter, but he was smarter than a whip. Rolly was entirely self taught, reading any book that you handed him. Any book. Mason remembered the stern shut up and never talk about this look he got when he was helping Rolly clean out his garage and a box fell over, emptying a sprawl of romance paperbacks. To this day, Mason had respected the friendship enough to never mention it. Still, Rolly knew a little bit about everything, an aspect of his personality that was often masked by his redneck persona. Yes, Rolly was a redneck, but he was an educated redneck. The worst kind, thought Mason with a smile.
Weasel listed off to the side of the campfire like a boat that had tacked into a strong wind and began to piss into the grass, fighting balance, gravity and the complication of the process. Mason and Rolly watched that with amusement until Weasel did one final jig, bounced off a tree and zipped up.
“You know something, Mason?” Rolly said after taking a particularly long sip of his beer. “I got my eye on Sheela. I think I’m fixin’ to make her mine.”
Sheela was a waitress down at the Barbecue Pit, a favorite local restaurant, with a decidedly unoriginal name. “Shit, Rolly,” Billy Bob said from where he sat perched like Humpty Dumpty on a log, thumbs caught in his rainbow suspenders. “Sheela is John Reynold’s girl. John will whup your ass but good, you even so much as wink at her.”
Rolly winced like he had been stabbed and looked over at Mason with a pained expression. “Why can’t you shut your ass the hell up, Billy Bob? I wasn’t even talkin’ to you. Besides, I whipped Reynolds’s ass twice already.”
Billy Bob snorted. “Yeah, when we was twelve years old at fuckin’ summer camp.” He broke out into his trademark guffaws. “As I recall Rolly, John had his arm in a cast when you ‘whipped his ass’.” He started laughing again, this time joined by Weasel.
“You know something? I got something to say to you, Billy Bob,” Rolly said, his face turning sober. “And you too, Weasel.”
Billy Bob shook his head and smirked. “What’s that, Rolly?”
“Fuck you,” Rolly said nonchalantly and then shot daggers at Weasel. “And fuck you too. Fuck all of you. John Reynolds will have his ass back in a cast if he even comes near me.”
Everyone started laughing, simply because Rolly had managed to keep a straight face through the whole thing. A stranger watching the conversation would probably think that a fight was about to occur. When they saw the deer, everyone suddenly stopped.
It glided from out of the trees and into the clearing, its eyes angry black slits. It snorted through its nose, a ball of red and white fur in its teeth. A huge rack of blood encrusted antlers shook with each plod of the cloven hooves. All the men stared, entranced by the deer’s demeanor, their guns forgotten at their sides.
It approached the campfire and spat something into the dirt with a damp thud. A round, sticky mass of red and white hair lay on the ground. Mason thought he could see Get’s teeth sticking out of the wet, furry ball.
The deer stood glaring at them in defiance as it slowly made eye contact with every one of them. Mason felt cold uncertainty slide through his veins as he stared back into the penetrating eyes.
“Ixtli!” the deer shrieked and they all jumped. Billy Bob leapt up from where he sat, turned to run into the woods screaming, and ran full speed into a low branch. He sagged to the ground in a heap. Mason had a fleeting thought that his terrified friend might think the animal had come to extract some unique punishment for killing and mounting so many of its cousins.
The deer gave one final snort of apparent disgust and darted off into the darkness. Mason and Rolly glanced at each other, their eyes wide over open mouths. Billy Bob lay on the side of the log where he had passed out, his belly threatening to burst the buttons on his plaid shirt. Weasel’s mouth was opening and closing rapidly as if he had something to say, but couldn’t quite bring himself to tell it.
“What in Jesus H. Christ was that?” Rolly whispered, his face ashen. He looked like he had just been punched. “I’d like to say that somebody spiked the fruit punch, Mason, but judgin’ by the look on your face I’d say you just saw the same thing that I saw.”
Mason looked tired. “I think that this is the first time in my life that I’m speechless. I pretty much thought it was impossible to do that to me anymore.”
Rolly stood up slowly and began scanning the woods for any signs of trouble. “What in the hell did he say, Mason? It sounded like ‘Ixlee.’ What the fuck does ‘Ixlee’ mean? More importantly, what the fuck is a deer doin’ sayin’ it to me…us.”
Mason was shaking his head back and forth, his eyes scanning the surrounding darkness. A deer had just walked…no, not walked…strutted. A deer had just strutted out of the woods, spoke to them, dropped a dead dog at their feet and paused to give them the evil eye. Things weren’t good. With that thought, he immediately grabbed his shotgun and began stuffing shells into it.
Rolly, knowing a good idea when he saw it, did the same. Weasel was too busy watching Billy Bob’s belly, mesmerized by the rise and fall of the massive plaid mound, to worry himself with anything simple and sane like self-protection. His body leaned forward with Billy Bob’s every breath as if he was about to be sucked into the silver dollar-sized belly button.
“What in the hell should we do, Mason?” Rolly whined. “You’re the one with the college degree.”
Mason grimaced and brought the gun up, sighting into the trees nervously. “Rolly, you’d think something would tell you that I wasn’t taught in school what to do when Bambi turns into a fucking psycho lunatic.”
Weasel started giggling insanely and fell off his log. His chortles could be heard from the weeds like a madman in some forgotten asylum.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Mason, Bambi’s one dead deer. That motherfucker killed my goddamn dog!” He looked down at the dog’s corpse. “Oh, Get, what in the hell did he do to you?”
Billy Bob suddenly awoke and sat up. One hand went to the bulging knot that sat in the middle of his head like a third eye and the other reached for the thirty ought six.
“Man,” he said chuckling to himself. “I just had the weirdest dream. There was this deer you see,” he said levering himself back onto the log and grabbing a beer. “There was this deer and he spoke to me. He said, ‘You asshole. We are tired of this shit. Prepare to die.” Billy Bob chuckled again until his eyes rested on the battered corpse of Get.
He noticed Mason and Rolly alternately staring at the darkness between the trees and him, aiming down the lengths of their guns. He studied the ground and saw the prints. He squatted and ran a hand lightly over the powdery ridges, his knuckles around the gun tightening until they were white.
Suddenly, he stood. He grabbed his pack full of shells and slung it over his back, then gripped the rifle at port arms.
“Hey guys, I am just gonna run back to the truck and check somethin,” he said, his steps getting quicker and quicker. As he hit the forest edge, he broke into a run, leaving Rolly and Mason gaping at his departure.
It was a few seconds before Rolly broke the silence with a question. “What did he mean the deer said, ‘Prepare to die?’ All I heard was ‘Ixtli’ or what-the fuck.”
Mason turned to answer, but they both froze as Billy Bob’s screams pierced the air from far off to their left. It was silenced by a roar.
“Oh fuck, Mason, that was a goddamn bear!” Rolly shouted, his gun shaking as his eyes roamed around the dark trees, trying to penetrate the blackness. He glanced hurriedly up and noticed Mason’s ass shimmying up a tree. “Where in the hell you goin’, Mason? You ain’t goin’ to get very far hidin’ up in a damn tree.”
“You got a better idea?” Mason asked, not bothering to turn around as he struggled to hold onto his gun and climb up at the same time.
Rolly had to acknowledge that he didn’t, and began to follow his friend. Weasel, who had sat up when they weren’t looking, watched them like a little kid fascinated with monkeys at the zoo.
Rolly and Mason both managed to find a good-sized branch to perch themselves upon and began to study the ground below. Each snap and rustle made their hearts leap in their chests.
“What about him?” Mason asked, indicating Weasel, who had found the marshmallows and was toasting several over the fire, oblivious to reason and common sense.