Hunter

It was cold, but not cold enough not yet. The sun was still slipping slowly below the horizon, and still managing to warm the earth below. The deer wouldn’t be out until a little past nightfall, when the cold urged them to move and seek food. Seek warmth. Bobby waited patiently under a tree, well hidden by the foliage, and his innate ability to be completely unperceived. He was fifteen, and shaping up to be one of the world’s best hunters. He had the talent, being able to blend in at will, and to see beyond what most people can see. A steady hand, an eye with perfect aim. Those abilities were his from birth, and honed by years in the woods of Tennessee or Montana, above the ranch his family lived and worked on. He also had discipline, and stuck to rules about the hunt, taught to him y his grandfather and uncles, and father, before he was killed. Tonight, the hunt was not about pride or a trophy, for the code forbid this, rather about practice, and food. He’d keep half the deer’s meat for his family, and sell the rest. Of course, he didn’t really need the practice. He’d been shooting his whole life. The first time he felled a buck, a real one, big proud and strong, he’d been ten. Before that his game had been small, rats or birds, but it was always well shot. He respected the guns, the prey. Hunting was his religion, like all the generations of Darko men, which could be traced back to the Civil war. He’d waited that day, covered by the forest and his skin, as he watched. And then there it was. Big, proud, strong. Beautiful. Bobby paused for a moment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to kill an animal as beautiful as that, a testament to the love that God had put into every creature on his green earth. Then the thought was gone. He lifted his rifle and shot, just once. And the buck fell. Little ten year old that he was, he moved toward it, noted the glassy, empty look in its eyes, and knelt to touch the blood. It was still warm. Then he stood, intending to call his grandfather, so he could see what Bobby’d done, when he stopped. Something was wrong. No, not wrong, different. He was different. Ten year old Robert, affectionately called Bobby was gone. In his place was Robert Lee Darko, a man. He was called Bobby by choice. His other kills could not compare to this, to the feeling it gave him, to the fact he took life. He said his family’s hunting prayer, the one he had said before the hunt, over the body and waited for his grandfather. Bobby, because he still liked to be called Bobby, shook himself lightly to clear himself of the memories and waited. A thought, one that was relatively new that had begun to appear more frequently in his head clouded his thoughts. What would it be like to kill a man? Would it be better than the buck? Would the blood be as warm? He’d toyed lazily with the idea of the army or navy. His ancestors were military men. His grandfather was. Two of his uncles. And his father, whose military career had ended in a spectacular explosion that had scattered his parts as far as five miles, splattering foreign soil as his wife waited for news half a world away. Bobby shifted, his neck wet, and gazed into the mist creeping across the forest floor before him. The unnatural patience of a hunter that he had learned kept his features calm and muscles still, even with his excitement, less and less with time, and his discomfort within. His skin was his barrier, his moat against the outside world. Unless he let the bridge down, no one could touch him. Then, with that special light-footed magic, deer began to slip in and out of the mist in front of him, dancing, playing, and if he wanted it, dying. Still Bobby Lee waited, because they were not wanted he wanted, not yet. And then there he was, the buck, the one, stepping out of the mist with a powerful, regal stride. Bobby lifted his rifle, no hesitation this time, and aimed. The deer fell dead. His body, ready for this for hours, moved quickly and purposefully. The same glassy dead look and brain matter on the ground. The blood still warm on a chilly night. Bobby Lee wondered how soon he could join the army.

This was supposed to be a one time story, but I liked the character of Bobby Lee Darko too much to let him go to waste. So in the future there are probably going to be several stories or snapshots of his life.