Martin slowly turned and weaved his way back through the crowd to his buddies. Another twenty minutes went by. Martin had his fifth beer. It was pushing 9:00 p.m. and they hadn’t eaten. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. It was Taylor. All conversation stopped and all eyes turned to Taylor.
“I think you’re going to like this next song,” said Taylor. “How about a little dance?”
Before Martin could speak, Richie nearly hollered, “Sure babe, I’d love a dance with you!” Laughter from the group.
“Guys, guys, let me introduce Taylor Thompson. She and I were good friends down in Madison. She’s up here visiting her parents,” said Martin.
“Let me just say,” Richie said, looking at Taylor; “if that means you guys dated in college, you have very poor taste in men.” Again, laughs all around.
“You gonna dance, or do I have to downgrade to one of these guys?” she said, smiling at all of them.
Like just about every other bar “Up North” there was a hardwood dance floor out in front of the jukebox. This one was about average size, no more than fifteen by fifteen feet. There were four couples who had been doing the two-step. The next song came on—a slow one—one of their favorites from twenty years ago. They danced slowly, her leaning in, so she could talk in his ear over the noise.
For just an instant, Martin felt a little bit light-headed. She grabbed his shoulder and gave it a good squeeze, brushing against him, ever so slightly. Martin looked across to the other side of the bar. His buddies were back to their lively conversation. His hand now held her head against his shoulder; her collar was damp against her hair. Ever so softly, she was sighing as they moved slowly in a tight circle around the floor. For some reason, Martin felt relaxed. He found himself leaning into her. Closing his eyes, he listened to the music. The thought of Liz swept by him, a thousand miles away.
“You still in the oil business?” asked Taylor.
“Yep, part of the evil empire, trying to kill the planet. And you.”
“Head of the DNR, trying my best to put guys like you out of business,” she laughed.
“Still married?” asked Martin.
“Wow, still Martin. You get right to the point, don’t you?” she said. “Divorced, three years ago. You?”
“Married, trying to stay that way,” said Martin. They went on to ask about old friends. She was only in Iron River for a couple of days. He was going to be busy hunting. The dance was coming to an end.
“Listen,” said Taylor, “I’d love to see you sometime. Maybe at one of the oil conferences we could have dinner, if you are okay with it.”
“Yeah, yeah, that would be great,” said Martin. He paused, contemplating his next words. “You know I still think about you.”
She was taken aback. “Really?”
“Well, I’m not a stalker, obviously, but we had something special.”
Taylor took moment, “I thought so too. Well, I gotta get back to my parents. Good to see you.” And with that, she walked off.
Martin quickly went over by the deer gang’s table and tried to work himself nonchalantly into the conversation. Of course, there was a lot of good-natured ribbing for Martin. Richie was first, “Jeez, season’s not even open and Martin has a doe already.” Big laughs again. Everybody was having a nice time. Martin was feeling the alcohol now. Finally, their table was ready. As their group headed toward the table, Martin peeled off to use the men’s room, running directly into Taylor on the way. Slowly, he steered her over against the wall to give her a hug. Unexpectedly for both of them, he kissed her on the lips. She arched her back and grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head, returning a long, deep kiss. His brother had waited back to pay the bill and saw everything.
Across the dining room, Martin caught passing glimpses of Taylor as she enjoyed spending time with her parents. She gazed across the room. When their eyes met, she gave him a big smile, shook her hair back over her shoulders, and then looked very businesslike back at her table as she and her parents placed their orders.
It was near the end of the meal when Martin headed for the restroom again. Too many beers. The knotty pine walls reminded him that he was really ”Up North.” The painted concrete floors showed this to be a place of practicality and prudence. Martin liked it. He was standing at the urinal when his brother walked in.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing out there?” said his brother.
“What do you mean?”
“What were you trying to prove with that tramp?” He continued. “Showing us all what a big man you are?”
He was talking very loudly, almost angry. Martin had seen him get this way before on a number of occasions—usually at parties where he drank too much and would pick a fight. Martin wasn’t in the mood to humor him this time.
“Frankly, it’s none of your damn business,” said Martin, barely masking his anger.
“It sure as hell is my business. We all come up here together and you make an ass out of yourself with some tramp.”
“She isn’t a tramp and all I was doing was having a little dance with her. You are really starting to piss me off,” said Martin, raising his voice in return.
“You were practically screwing her right in front of us. You are a married man for Christ’s sake! Grow up!” And with that he rammed his pointed finger into Martin’s chest.
Things had been building up in Martin. His work. Liz and the divorce. He was tired and in no mood.
“Just get out of my face, brother—you’re drunk.”
His brother was red-faced, “No you’re drunk,” he retorted, giving Martin a push.
“Now you’re going to get it,” said Martin. He pulled back his fist and then struck out fiercely in the close confines of the bathroom. The blow landed evenly across the chin of his brother who fell back against the wall. He didn’t go down, but his head snapped back decidedly as he came to a stop. Momentarily stunned, he was then back on Martin with fists flying. Martin rammed his shoulder into him and slammed him a second time into the wall. Just as they were hitting the floor, two other guys came into the restroom and found them groveling about on the cold concrete floor. After twenty seconds of scuffling and cursing, the strangers pulled them apart. Martin’s brother was still enraged and was getting the short end of this fight. He had a set of deep red dots where Martin’s knuckles had made their mark. Martin was regaining composure.
“Leave me alone. You’re my brother, but you’re not my big brother anymore,” said Martin.
“Jesus, Martin, cool off. I was just telling you to watch your manners in this place,” said Martin’s brother.
Martin said, “Just stay out of my business.”
“You’re still a tough little son of a bitch. You get pissed off enough, you’re liable to do anything. Turns out you’re still kind of a tough bastard.” Said Martin’s brother.
They walked out of the restroom, and shortly they were back in their cabins, all asleep, with visions of trees and lakes and trophy bucks dancing in their heads.
CHAPTER 11
Morning, the ruffian, rustled them from their beds at 4:30 a.m. Martin was never the first one up. He looked hazily from beneath the heavy covers as the others slowly rolled out. As he rose to his feet, the sick smell of greasy bacon almost brought Martin down. In one move, he ran his long stockinged legs through old jeans and into his old leather-topped sorrel boots, waiting patiently at the foot of the bed. A down vest over a flannel shirt and he was in the bathroom splashing cold water in his face. Soon they were rocking back down Forest Road 411 toward the huge, empty dark forest. Martin had the farthest to walk to get back to his deer stand. He liked it that way.
It was fifteen degrees. A gentle breeze was coming down from the Lake to the north, just as his father had predicted. The stars were out, joined by a quarter moon now low on the horizon. Martin was walking, rifle in hand. He was headed west on the North Country Trail. Without breaking stride, he levered
a cartridge into the chamber. In the darkness he checked the safety. Reaching in his left pocket, he pulled out a clip of four more shells and listened as the clip clicked reassuringly into place. The cold was quickly eating into his hands. Quickly he completed his maneuvers and pulled on his wool gloves. His hands were feeling thicker with each passing second. Without breaking stride, he unzipped a game pocket in the back of his coat. Cradling the rifle in one arm, he reached back with the other and produced a small, halogen flashlight from the pocket, then continued down the snow-covered path. He could clearly make out the path in the lingering moonlight. Intermittently he flipped the flashlight on and off, showing the path ahead. No fresh footprints were in sight. He would be the first of anyone into these backwoods today.
For forty-five minutes he pressed on. It was almost three miles back to his stand. His only companion now was the snow speaking softly to him as it squeaked under his broad boots. He paused briefly to unzip the top and bottom of his heavy jacket. He also unzipped the side seams of his pants. The wear of carrying himself over this distance now had his body overheating. His glasses steamed over in the morning air. The sweat was beginning to roll off him. He had to get cooled down before he soaked through everything he had on. He pulled open his jacket and unbuttoned both his goose down vest and heavy, red wool shirt. The white wisps of steam silently dissipated out into the starlight. He sensed motion in the black fringes beyond him. He held his breath. He moved his trigger finger over the safety. He listened. An animal of some type moved from left to right behind him, across his trail. His heart beat rapidly in his throat. His glasses were still fogging over. For two minutes he stood motionless. Now the cold was creeping over him again as he remained motionless. He moved carefully to silently survey a full circle of territory around him, then he dutifully launched off again down the trail. In twenty minutes, he came upon a deep drop of the trail angling decidedly south as it fell over the hill. Again, he stopped and looked to his right. The forest floor rose steadily over a distance of perhaps a quarter mile. In a long, even line across the dark horizon he could make out the ridge. This was his jump-off from the trail. He moved toward the ridgeline. Moving in the darkness and using his flashlight sparingly, he picked his way along, avoiding downed trees and the thickest brush. After six hundred yards he came across the run. He could see it first in the powdered snow ahead. The beam from his flashlight fell across tracks that had been left by more than a dozen deer during the night. The snow flurries had begun to softly fall. He paused briefly over the trail. At least three or four of the sets of tracks were fresh. Gazing about, Martin picked a group of three aspens standing together in easy reach of the deer trail. The spot was downwind from the deer run. This was to be his deer stand, his point of vantage for the day. Each of the trees was about a foot in diameter. Martin stood in the center of the three trees and looked carefully for a few minutes in each direction. There was heavy brush behind him downwind, running parallel to the trail. Facing into the wind he could look to his right for the final distance up to the top of the ridge. To his left and ahead he could look clearly across the falling landscape. He checked his watch—5:50 a.m. The legal time to begin shooting was six thirty. Another forty minutes. Martin scraped away the snow to enable himself to change his stance quietly without the crunching of snow. He unshouldered his pack and leaned it gently against the outside edge of one of the trees. With his knife he sliced off a half dozen sprigs that protruded from the trees across his newly claimed space, enabling him to freely swing his rifle if needed. Any one of those branches could rasp loudly across his clothes or block the swing of his rifle or vision if they were not cut back. He was a bit over three miles from any road. The moon was long lost over the horizon, and the cold, light breeze still wafted through the trees. In total silence he clicked the safety off, and then on. The simple click seemed deafening. He rolled the rifle back into the cradle of his arm. Then he again scraped the snow in a tight circle in front of the largest tree. He zipped up his legs and outer jacket and leaned back squarely against the tree. Alone, in the predawn wilderness, Martin was ready for anything.
Time passed slowly. The predawn emptiness now gone, Martin took a break and poured a cup of steaming black coffee. He unconsciously calculated the length of the walk back to the trailhead. Already, his eyes were raw from the cold, dry breeze. Five hours of standing motionless had taken their toll. With each graying swirl in the brush he had stared intently and fully in search of the all-too-elusive prey. With the day had come the rumbling of distant gunfire across this wilderness. For the most part, the sound of gunfire was distant. But along the way there was also an occasional sharp, close crack of a rifle, perhaps only a mile or so distant. Some shots were in sequence. Three or four shots close together was probably a hunter firing as his target followed a weaving, slicing path through thick woods. A lonesome shot followed methodically with a second telling shot was an experienced hunter. He had awaited his trophy and brought justice to it. Next, Martin heard, off in the distance, four shots. Each shot was spaced seconds apart. It was a hunter, most likely in a tree stand with a large caliber rifle, taking careful aim at his quarry as it ran breakneck across an open field. The seconds between shots followed the deer as it raced across a field likely to be littered with the stumps, treetops, and new pine fingerlings of a summer’s past pulp harvest.
For Martin there had been nothing. He had not seen a deer. He had not seen another hunter. He stood quietly in the middle of the three trees. His three friendly sentinels rocked aimlessly and silently in the breeze. Martin had plenty of time to think. What had brought him here? What had gotten him to this point? What does a man do when he begins to understand that getting by isn’t good enough any longer? It was a Saturday morning. By now Liz was on her third cup of hazelnut and was readying the kids to be out for the day. The initial excitement of the morning was gone. Martin could feel the cold air and snow slowly numbing his feet. He hadn’t moved more than a step for almost five hours. He remained standing. Rigid. The first day, the slightest movement of a hunter could scare off that one trophy buck of a lifetime.
From his deer stand, Martin looked down through the forest toward a stand of pines about three hundred yards away. It looked a bit swampy just on the other side of the pines. Sometimes, Martin would find a trail where the deer would tend to run toward the thick cover of pines, skirting an adjoining marsh. Standing silently, he slowly rotated his head to the right, and then back again left. Nothing in sight. Breathing shallow, he paused a bit longer, listening intently for any tell-tale crunching of snow or snapping of twigs. He heard nothing. Looking back toward the pines again, he shuddered from the cold creeping down his back. Finally, he snapped the safety on his rifle off and then on again. It was time to stretch his legs. He strode off cautiously through the open woods. It was easy walking, but at first, he found his steps deafening in the quiet, gray woods of winter. He thought he would walk down to the swampy area.
As he neared the pines, he began to make out open shallow pools of water near the marshy area. The pools weren’t frozen, even though the air was still a good ten degrees below freezing. Pausing every fifteen steps or so to look around, Martin knew there had to be natural warm springs under the forest floor, keeping the water from freezing here in the early winter. At last he found himself under the broad boughs of the pines. He had heated up again and he stopped momentarily to unzip his jacket and slip off his gloves. He looked north now up the little tree-covered valley. Old hummocks of earth and peat, scattered along the bottom of the valley were strewn with marsh grass, berry bushes and prickly ash. Beside one of the swampy pools, he turned to check the path on which he’d just come. As he turned, he carelessly grazed his hand across one of the one-inch spurs of a prickly ash, slashing the back of his hand from the wrist to his middle knuckle. Martin let out a low, painful grunt as the limb snapped away. Grimacing, he shifted his rifle from his left arm to cradle it in his right and then lifted his left hand to inspect the da
mage. It wasn’t dangerous at all, but it was deep enough to bleed like crazy. Martin stood there senselessly watching as the blood ran down the heel of his hand and splattered brilliantly in the stark, white snow. Kneeling now in the snow, he leaned his rifle carefully against a small sapling and reached with his good hand into the zippered back pocket of his blaze orange coat. In a second, he retrieved a large, weathered roll of toilet paper. After rubbing freezing snow across the wound to clean it out and wipe away some of the blood, he quickly wrapped the toilet paper around his hand a number of times to stop the bleeding.
Martin was on his knees. Suddenly, from the rise to his right, came a crashing sound so loud that Martin’s first instinct was to duck down; perhaps it was a rifle shot. Instantly, three deer careened through the brush and trees, running with heads down, obviously spooked. Still kneeling, undetected and sheltered, Martin reached for his gun. In a second, it was on his shoulder. He picked an opening and held on it. Deer Number One went blazing through his scope, no horns. A second later and Number Two followed. Martin held his position; no horns. And then immediately, Number Three came into view—all horns; a huge, beautiful buck deer. Martin stuck his sights on the big buck, waited for a clear opening and ripped off two deafening rounds. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Martin heard the dull thud of the stag’s body drop to the forest floor, less than seventy feet away. Jumping to his feet, Martin raced forward through the trees, gun in hand, fearing that perhaps a graze or a flesh wound had only momentarily stunned the magnificent animal. Then he was upon the big deer lying on the ground, and saw that he had shot it through the heart. It was lying in a contorted position in the snow. Its dance with life and death was now complete. Martin’s heart was racing. He sat down on one of the snow- and ice-covered hummocks and stared at his trophy. For several minutes, he stared alternately at the big buck and gun. An indescribable feeling of power came over him, turning quickly to feelings of guilt and sadness. Even when he was hunting as a kid, killing never bothered him. He still offered a silent tribute to this beautiful animal. In the last three days, Martin knew he had become a different man. He would do whatever had to be done. Maybe he still had the killer instinct; it had just been buried for a while. He looked silently up the quiet little valley as more flurries of afternoon snow began to drift through the trees. Martin steeled himself against the wind. The death here, and the thought of his aging parents, and the thought of his family back in Houston melded together. Staring at the small pools of water in front of him, he followed the snowflakes as they dropped into the oily, iridescent glimmer of each small pool in the swamp.
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