Watching Eagles Soar

by Margaret Coel

  It was his job. Dennis Michael Lockett was his name, but that was in the human world, before he’d become a deer. And not just one of the herd roaming the wilderness of Mount Massive. He was the chief. He took care of the herd. Even the bucks—including the old one-horn that lost half a rack last rutting season—bowed to him. Literally bowed. Bent their front legs and swung their racks up and down. Oh, they understood he’d come into the wilderness to save them from the cruelty of humans. Men tramping up the mountain with guns to harvest the dear. Harvest! Even the word was cruel.

  A rifle shot sounded in the distance. Pretty didn’t move, but Dennis caught sight of the tremor running along her flank and down her legs. She was waiting for him in the trees up above, head crooked back, brown, patient eyes beckoning him forward. He adjusted his rifle in the sling that he’d buckled over his orange jacket and started climbing. A snowy sky poked through the tops of the spruce trees. He had to duck past the branches covered with last night’s snow, his breath floating ahead in gray puffs. He picked his way through the ice-crusted undergrowth so that the scrunching noise wouldn’t alarm her.

  Maybe she’d let him touch her this time. Pat her back, scratch her ears a little, let her know everything was gonna be fine. He bet she’d like that.

  He was close enough to make out the drops of moisture on her coat. Just as he reached for her, she bolted, swinging her head and running for the meadow beyond the trees. She ran like a dancer, high on her toes, gliding around the branches. The pleasure in watching her almost eclipsed the stab of disappointment he’d felt when she’d turned away.

  Another rifle shot cracked the air. Dennis held his breath, trying to gauge the distance by the reverberations. Close. His heart felt as heavy as lead. The hunter was coming for his herd. And Pretty—where was she? In the meadow? There were no trees in the meadow, no protection.

  Dennis started running up the slope, crashing through the branches that tore at his jacket and scratched his face. He darted out of the trees and into the meadow. The wild grasses rose out of the ground like stalks of ice. Looming overhead were the barren, snow-dusted peaks of Mount Massive. Pretty stood about thirty feet away, her little head lifted toward the dark figure crouched in the outcropping at the far edge of the meadow. The hunter’s orange hat bobbed over the boulders.

  Dennis sprinted toward Pretty, waving his arms overhead so that the hunter would see him—an orange streak through the meadow.

  “Mine! Mine!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot.”

  The rifle shot almost knocked him off his feet. He staggered sideways before regaining his balance. Then he waved his orange cap toward the boulders, shouting and crying, “No! No!”

  But it was too late. Pretty was down, her golden body sunk into the grass. He could see the depression, like a grave. He stumbled forward, then dropped onto his hands and knees and crawled to her. She lay on her side, left leg twitching, brown eyes—so sad now—staring at him. He watched her heart thump against the shiny coat a couple times, and then she was still, her eyes frozen and dull. He ran his hand over her flank. Her coat was so soft, it made him weep.

  After a moment, he wiped at the moisture on his cheeks with his jacket sleeve and pushed himself to his feet. The killer was crouched in front of the boulders, shoulders and head jutting toward the meadow, as though he couldn’t understand why another hunter had claimed his kill. The fluorescent orange jacket and orange cowboy hat shimmered in the flat, gray light.

  Dennis reached back, unsnapped the sling, and pulled out his rifle, not taking his eyes off the killer. He brought the orange vest into the crosshairs before his finger squeezed the icy metal trigger.

  * * *

  Holy shit! Mickey Hoffman dove backward and clambered into the boulders. The bullet had whooshed past him like a rocket. His shoulder was burning. He took off his glove and dipped his fingers into the warm stickiness of his own blood. Then he pressed himself against the rough granite surface, unable to stop shaking.

  The crack of another shot reverberated around him, bouncing off the trees and boulders. Just his luck to run into some crazy coot. How’d he know another hunter was stalking that little deer? He hadn’t seen the guy until he came bounding out of the trees, yelling and hollering. Wonder the deer didn’t take off. But she was his kill. So the other hunter was pissed off, so what? He was willing to share the meat.

  “Hold on,” Mickey shouted. “Let’s parley.”

  The guy fired off another shot. Pieces of granite, sharp as needles, exploded in Mickey’s face. What the hell? His heart knocked against his ribs. He had to get out of here before the crazy coot killed him.

  There was another shot, then another. He started crawling through the boulders. His truck was in the trees about twenty feet away. He’d have to make a run for it, but the coot would pick him off for sure. Crouching low, he worked his way out of his jacket, then took off his cowboy hat and rolled them together, fiddling with the jacket snaps until he had a floppy basketball, which he threw as hard as he could across the boulders, away from the trees. He sprinted for the truck. The sound of the rifle shot shook the ground under his boots.

  He threw his rifle into the cab and, wincing with the pain in his shoulder, jumped in after it. He stomped on the accelerator and headed into a narrow tunnel of trees before turning away from the meadow. The truck bounced over the scraggly brush and up onto the dirt road, tires squealing, rear end slipping on the hard, icy ground. The campsite was five miles away. He hadn’t spotted any other vehicles parked in the area. Chances were good the crazy coot was on foot.

  Mickey drove with one hand, and clamped the other over his shoulder. The blood oozed through his fingers.

  He drew in a long breath. He was safe.

  * * *

  Dennis clambered over the boulders and stared at the pickup bouncing down the mountain, belching black smoke from the tailpipe. The mixture of grief and anger that boiled inside him was so strong he had to hold on to the edge of a boulder to steady himself. Distracting the hunter was the oldest trick in the book, and he’d fallen for it. Even the old bucks knew the trick, but Pretty—she hadn’t been on the earth long enough to know how to survive. He should have protected her.

  He knew where the killer was going. All them killers stayed at Halfmoon campsite. Five miles down the winding, narrow jeep road. Two miles, the way the crow flies. He could run down the mountain like a deer. He’d be waiting when the killer pulled in.

  * * *

  Deputy sheriff Shelly Maginnis knocked on the front door of the two-story Victorian house on West Seventh Street in Leadville. Strips of brown wood poked through the faded yellow paint on the facade. The once-blue trim around the windows was almost white. She glanced around. Black clouds drifted down the slopes of Mount Massive, west of town. There was a cold bite in the air. It would snow again today. It always snowed in October in deer-hunting season.

  She knocked again, wondering what was taking Mrs. Lockett so long to respond. The woman had called the sheriff’s department thirty minutes ago. Sheriff Nichols himself had spoken with her, then planted himself in the doorway and surveyed the empty desks in the outer office. The other two deputies were already out on calls. She was the only one free.

  “Maginnis,” he’d shouted. “Get over to Marybelle Lockett’s place. See what the hell’s going on with Dennis. Don’t know why his mother don’t put that boy in an institution. Gonna be the death of her, if he don’t kill somebody else first.” He’d paused at that, then disappeared back into his office.

  Shelly didn’t mind taking the call. She’d known Dennis Lockett all her life. Went to school with him, until Dennis dropped out of Leadville High somewhere around tenth grade. Sure, he was an oddball, but who wasn’t these days? She’d have a talk with Mrs. Lockett, then talk with Dennis and see what was bothering him. In any case, it felt good to get out of the office. She’d been cooped up indoors with paperwork for two weeks while th
e other deputies had taken the calls. It wasn’t just that she was the only woman: she refused to believe that had anything to do with it. She was the greenhorn, that was all. She still had a lot to learn.

  She pounded on the door and pressed her face against the oblong block of beveled glass to one side. The blurred figure of Mrs. Lockett emerged from the kitchen in back and headed into the living room. A second passed before the door creaked open. The woman wasn’t much older than fifty, Shelly guessed, but she looked ancient, with deep furrows in her brow and eyes red-rimmed from crying. Her gray hair was pinned back, except for a strand that had worked loose and fallen over her cheek.

  She said, “You gotta help my boy.”

  Shelly followed the woman into the tidy living room with an Oriental rug spread over the wood floor and crocheted doilies on the high-backed Victorian chairs. The air was close and stale, like the air in a museum.

  “What’s going on?” Shelly waited until the woman dropped into one of the chairs before she sat down across from her.

  “Every time hunting season comes around,” the woman began, “Dennis gets himself into a tizzy. No telling what he might get up to. You gotta bring him home, Shelly, where I can look after him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Staying in that old prospector’s cabin on Emerald Lake.”

  Shelly could picture the place. Kids in Leadville grew up hiking in the mountains around town. They knew all the prospectors’ cabins and abandoned mine shafts and wagon roads left behind from the time when silver and gold had flowed out of the mountains like molten rivers.

  “Haven’t seen my boy in two weeks now,” Mrs. Lockett went on. “I been taking his food up to the cabin every couple days, but he ain’t there. Oh, I know what he’s up to.” She was wringing her hands in her lap. “He’s out with the deer herd.”

  “Hunting?” Shelly heard the surprise in her voice. Dennis was always a sensitive kid, the perfect target for the other boys to bully. She couldn’t imagine Dennis hunting.

  The woman leaned so far forward, Shelly thought for an instant that she would tumble out of her chair. “My boy don’t go hunting deer. He is a deer.”

  “What!”

  “I’m trying to tell you, Shelly, that Dennis thinks he’s a deer. He’s got himself a human body, but inside, he says, he’s a deer. He says it’s his job to protect the rest of the herd up on Mount Massive ’cause he’s got advantages. He knows all about people. So he wears an orange hunting jacket and cap and goes out with the herd, thinking the hunters’ll see him and won’t shoot.”

  “Dennis’ll get himself shot by accident.”

  The woman flinched, and Shelly regretted having blurted out the thought. She would have to learn to keep her thoughts to herself.

  Mrs. Lockett drew herself upright, as if she were drawing on some invisible reserve of strength. “I guess he’s safe enough with his orange on,” she said. “It’s them hunters I’m worried about. They come after Dennis’s herd, he’s likely gonna shoot ’em. You gotta find him before he kills somebody.”

  Shelly got to her feet. She could see the campers and pickups that had been crawling through town all week, rifles locked in frames across the rear windows. Dozens of hunters heading into the mountains to harvest deer. And waiting for them was a crazy man with a rifle.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she managed.

  She’d started for the door when the older woman propelled herself out of her chair. “Wait a minute,” she said, heading toward the kitchen.

  After a moment, she returned and handed Shelly a bulky brown bag. “Will you take this here food up to my boy?” she said. “Some bread, vegetables, fruits, nuts. Deer don’t eat meat, you know.”

  * * *

  “Deer don’t eat meat?” Shelly repeated the words out loud as she drove south through town on Highway 24. Hard to tell who was crazier, Mrs. Lockett or Dennis. At any rate, Dennis was the one with the rifle, and she was going to have to find him before he killed somebody.

  She was halfway to Emerald Lake on the two-lane road that wound around the base of Mount Massive—too far out of town, she hoped, for the sheriff to call her back—before she picked up the radio and called the office. When she had Sheriff Nichols on the line, she told him what Mrs. Lockett had said.

  “Soon’s they get in, I’ll send Ellis or Moore after Dennis,” the sheriff said.

  “I’m twenty minutes from the cabin.” Shelly steeled herself for the reply.

  “Damnit, Shelly. The man’s dangerous.”

  “I’ve known Dennis for years.” A man who thought he was a deer? She didn’t know him at all. “I’ll be okay,” she heard herself saying.

  “Stay in contact. Oh, and Shelly. You got orange with you?”

  Shelly glanced around at the supply kit in the back. “Yeah.”

  “You put it on, hear?”

  * * *

  Shelly drove the Bronco up what passed for a road, the engine screaming in low gear, tires crawling over the rocks and slipping on the ice. Last night’s snow glistened on the branches of the spruce and alpine fir that clawed at the sides of the Bronco. The rock-strewn slopes and shadows of the forest rose on both sides of the road. She had a sense of the mountain itself closing in upon her.

  She’d come around a wide bend when she spotted the logs piled across the road ahead. Dennis. He didn’t want hunters in the wilderness. She shook her head at the futility: he couldn’t block all the roads.

  Shelly parked with the front bumper up close to the logs and got out. The snow blowing off the trees felt like ice pelting her face, and the wind pressed her uniform against her skin. Shivering, she pulled on the orange vest over her jacket, glad for the extra layer of clothing. Then she put on the orange cap.

  A rifle shot cracked the cold air, followed by another and another. She stared at her own rifle locked in the frame inside the Bronco, debating whether to take it. She had her revolver; she was suddenly conscious of the weight of the gun on her hip. But a revolver in the mountains with the far distances . . .

  She unclipped the rifle from the frame, grabbed the bag of food, and headed up the road. The ground was hard with the cold and snow; the pine needles crackled under her boots. After about a half mile, the road veered to the right. She turned left into the forest and started climbing the steep slope. The air was filled with the odors of dense undergrowth and fallen, rotted trees. As she ducked past the branches, snow showered down on her. Icy flakes stuck inside her collar and dripped down her back.

  She was breathing hard when she reached the top of the slope. Beyond the tree line, the lake lay quiet and gray under the heavy sky. In the clearing, close to the shore, was the cabin, a lopsided wreck of old logs topped with a rusted tin roof. The place probably hadn’t changed much since the day the prospector had walked away a hundred years ago.

  “Dennis!” Shelly called. She stayed back in the trees, her eyes searching the cabin and the clearing. No sign of anyone.

  Hoisting the rifle, she hurried across the clearing to the cabin and pushed open the door. A column of gray light fell over the bunk against the far wall. In the center were a chair and a table of sorts that consisted of a plank on two upright logs. A dark jacket hung off a hook on the log wall, and next to the jacket was a rack of guns. The top space was empty.

  Shelly set the bag of food on the plank table and went back outside. Silence, except for the wind in the trees and the distant crack of a rifle. She looked around, half expecting to spot Dennis lurking about somewhere. She could make out the faint mark of her own boot prints in the snow, and, beyond the cabin, leading back into the trees, another set of boot prints, as clear as if Dennis had left her a map.

  She fingered the radio on her belt, debating whether to check in with the office, and then decided to wait. Dennis had probably heard her approaching and was hiding nearby. She wouldn’t have any trouble finding h
im.

  She started following the boot prints. For the most part, they moved in a straight line through the trees, but here and there, they doubled back, and then shot ahead again, as if Dennis wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. Shelly crouched low, not taking her eyes from the trail. It was easy to get disoriented in the mountains; it happened to hunters all the time, and it was the sheriff’s deputies who had to go out and find them.

  She could see the boot prints running ahead into a meadow. And there were other prints now: small bisected marks of deer hooves. The meadow was a good hunting place, she thought. Close to the lake, plenty of wild grass. And the hunters had a clear shot from the trees and rock outcroppings around the periphery.

  Shelly stopped at the edge of the trees. She could hear her heart thudding in her ears. The meadow was almost a perfect circle, quiet and peaceful, layered with ice that glinted like glass. On the opposite side was an outcropping of granite boulders, and rising over the meadow, the brown, snow-washed shoulders of Mount Massive. The meadow was no place for a human being in hunting season; no place for a man who thought he was a deer.

  When she was certain there was no movement around the periphery, Shelly started forward, glad for the orange vest and the too-big orange cap that flopped over her ears.

  “Dennis! Where are you?” she shouted. The grass was trampled, as if he’d been running, hitting the earth hard, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Then she saw the brown hump. She moved closer. Somebody had harvested a deer: a young doe, probably a yearling, stretched on its side, thin legs frozen in the air, brown eyes staring into nothingness. Odd, she thought. Hunters didn’t walk away from the kill. They cleaned the carcass and took the meat.