Hunters (13 page)

He spent two and a half months in a Denver
hospital, where surgeons reconstructed what they could. It was not
much. A series of operations over the next five years corrected the
cosmetic appearance of Tim's genitals, so that he could pass
scrutiny in a locker room, but when he became old enough to make
the decision for himself, he declined penile implants. He did not
want a bulb and tube installed in his plastic decoys. If there was
nothing to pump, no sensation to be achieved, why bother? Besides,
by the time that decision needed to be made, Timothy Weems was a
different person from the fourteen year old boy who had wanted sex,
a marriage, children, and the safe and happy life his father had
before he had let his son's balls get blown off by a so-called
friend.

The accident and resulting surgery had
thinned and paled him, made him the subject of talk and speculation
among his friends, and caused a depression in his parents that
eventually led to their divorce once Tim left home. The accident
also caused Tim to try and prove to himself and the world that he
was a man, no matter what the configuration or efficiency of his
sexual organs. He found the key in an old R&B song he heard
just before his final operation.

The lyrics went,
Flip, flop, and fly, I
don't care if I die
, and it seemed true enough to him. What did
he have to live for anyway? So he took the life he cared so little
about and risked it. He drove boldly, played the most brutal and
dangerous sports he could find, and constantly looked for new ways
to test himself and raise his standing among his peers. But despite
his courage, he always felt pity and sometimes mockery in the eyes
and words of his friends. He knew he had to leave Colorado if he
was ever to escape it.

So after his graduation from the University
of Colorado, he came to L.A. There, family money and the force of
his own single-minded personality established him in another five
years as the darling of the upscale daring. His shop and social
calendar flourished, and both beautiful women and men made many
offers, all of which he declined, fueling the fires of
speculation.

Adding to his monastic image was the fact
that he would never take recreational drugs of any sort. It was a
refusal that lost him no friends or customers, since, to everyone
else, Tim Weems was the last person in the world to have to prove
he had balls.

The one outdoor activity that Tim Weems would
neither engage in nor approve of was hunting. He sold no guns nor
hunting equipment, and when people occasionally came into his store
and asked to be outfitted for bighorns or mulies or bear, Tim told
them that his shop didn't have any hunting gear at all, because
hunters were not sportsmen.

It was only natural that he would gravitate
toward Jean Catlett's arm of animal rights activity, for Tim was
more virulently anti-hunter than he was pro-animal, and it provided
a chance to directly confront what he considered the enemy that had
taken away his manhood.

But today, as he viewed that enemy through
crosshairs, he could not shoot. The first opportunity had come only
a half hour after he had secreted himself in the brambles where he
was completely invisible to passersby. He had removed his orange
patches and reversed his jacket to camouflage, and had even
darkened his face with mud so that it would be only another shadow
in the shadows.

But when the hunter had come by, looking as
stealthy and as treacherous as Tim had imagined, he had not been
able to kill him. The man had entered his sight picture, stood
there while Tim slowly started to squeeze the trigger, and then
stopped as though he sensed something nearby. It was the perfect
opportunity, a still target well within range, but Tim had done
nothing, only frozen in place until the man moved on.

He knew then that he could not shoot, that
there was nothing that could make him pull a trigger against a man
who was not threatening him with harm. Still, he remained in the
brambles, waiting for hours, thinking that his mind might somehow
magically change, and that the next hunter might bear so strong a
resemblance to the man who had shot him fifteen years before that
he would have no option but to pull the trigger.

But the next man was old, with a droopy
moustache that made him look more like someone's kindly grandfather
in a fairy tale than a bloodthirsty stalker of the woods, and a
woman came by in another hour, looking tired and disinterested. Tim
wondered if she were patronizing a husband who was a more avid
hunter. Whatever her situation, she did not deserve death.

Finally, at 4:00 in the afternoon, Tim Weems
ejected the cartridges from his rifle, slipped them into his
pocket, and pushed his way through the brambles that hid him,
moving slowly and carefully so that he would not be torn by the
tiny spikes. He continued to think, as he had for several hours
without coming to a conclusion, what he would do next. He knew he
could not share in tomorrow's slaughter, but at the same time he
could not betray his friends. He still felt that what Jean had
planned and the rest of them were carrying out was valid, but he
could no longer be a part of it.

There was only one way out, and he decided on
it as he pushed the last tangled wall of brambles from his path. He
would tell them tonight that for reasons of his own he could no
longer be part of the group, would swear to silence and hope they
would believe him, and then leave. If they did not want to let him
go, well then,
Flip, flop, and fly
, he didn't give a
damn.

He felt lighter now that the decision was made, and
stepped from the thorns into the light, and into the path of a high
velocity bullet.

R
icky Willis was
starving for a deer. He had been hunting for five years and had
never even gotten a good shot at one. His campmates, with whom he
worked at the Marienville Tool and Die, had made Ricky's deer
deficiency a running gag, and Ricky was getting damned sick of it.
Even Lefwich, the little mousy guy who handled the accounts, had
bagged two in five years, and the ragging was getting on Ricky's
nerves.

Two of his six companions got their bucks the
first day, so it wasn't all that bad this year, but there was even
money down that Ricky would still be buckless by the end of the
week, and a hundred of it was his. Now he had more than meat and
antlers to worry about. He also might have Peggy wondering where
the hell a hundred bucks of her house money had disappeared to.

So when Ricky heard something moving
stealthily through the brambles he lifted his rifle. He couldn't
tell what the animal was, but from the amount of space it took up,
it was big, and was moving left to right. There wasn't a lick of
blaze orange on it, so he knew it wasn't a hunter, and by the time
it got out of those brambles it might start moving so fast he
wouldn't be able to get a bead on it, like that eight-point he had
lost two years before.

So when he saw what looked like a brown
texture emerge, he thought
fuck it, it's a doe, I'll stick it
back in the brambles
, and fired.

It wasn't a doe, though. It was a man, which
Ricky realized right away when he heard the strangled moan, and saw
arms fly as the force of the bullet shoved the man back into the
brambles.

"Oh Jesus," Ricky said. "Oh shit shit
shit..." He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do, then
realizing that he couldn't run away, not because he was scared of
being caught, but because he had just done something stupid
big-time, and couldn't walk away from it, not when a guy was hurt
bad and might be dying.

So he ran up to the man, babbling, "Oh jeez,
mister, I am so sorry, jeez, are you okay, oh Christ, man..." The
man was lying on his back in the brambles, and Ricky was surprised
to see that although he was breathing shallowly, as if he couldn't
take in a good breath, he also seemed to be laughing. Ricky
wondered if maybe he was crying instead, but when he looked at the
muddy face as carefully as his panic would allow, he saw the man
was indeed grinning as his breath chuffed, bubbles of bloody froth
forming at the corners of his mouth.

"Now just stay still," Ricky said, thinking
the pain must be making the man lose his marbles. He could see that
the wound was in the man's chest, on the lower left, maybe a few
inches below the guy's nipple. Ricky must have missed the heart.
Hell, if he'd hit him in the heart, the guy'd be dead, right?

Ricky unzipped the man's jacket, then whipped
off his own and pressed it against the man's chest. He couldn't see
the wound well, but at least it didn't seem to be spurting blood.
"You hold this against you now, you hear? I'm gonna go get some
help..." Then he remembered that firing three shots was a distress
signal, and he picked up his rifle and fired three times in the
air. "That'll get people here. They'll help you while I get big
help. You tell 'em I went, you hear?"

The man grinned wider and nodded
slightly.

"You got friends around here?" Ricky asked.
"Where your friends huntin'?"

But the man shook his head. "No friends," he
managed to get out. "Alone...all alone..."

Well now, Ricky thought, wasn't that a
helluva way to hunt? And wearing camouflage too. A sudden rush of
anger went through him at the man for being so goddam stupid as not
to wear blaze orange. Served him right to get shot, he was that
dumb.

But Ricky had been the shooter. He should
have made sure before he shot, and he hadn't. Now it was his
responsibility and maybe a lot worse. Maybe he'd go to jail.

Shit. If he did, he did. He would see it through.
After all, he knew what it took to be a man.

T
hat evening, the
Wildlife Liberation Front found themselves once again reduced in
number. Timothy Weems had not been at the pickup point in Potter
County where he was supposed to meet Michael Brewster.

Michael had waited an hour, his jeep turned
so that no one could see its license plate, and watched the hunters
walk out of the forest. He listened to the radio, but heard nothing
about any shootings, and wondered when they would find the body he
had left. When darkness came, he waited another half hour, then
drove back alone to St. Mary's.

Jean Catlett, Chuck Marriner, and Sam Rogers
were in Jean's room with the television on when Michael came in. He
began to say
I lost him
, but Chuck Marriner, smirking as
broadly as ever, held up a hand.

"Yeah, we know," Chuck said. "No Timmy."

"Is he here?" Michael asked, thinking that
maybe Weems got back some other way.

"Nope. He's
there
." Chuck pointed to
the TV screen. "Local news had him on at six. Now it's seven,
they'll repeat it."

"Christ," muttered Michael. "Is he dead?"

"No," Jean said coldly. "But he got himself
shot."

"Who did it?"

"Some hunter. Thought he was a deer."

Michael's mind raced. "Does that...they know
who he
is?
" If that was the case, it was all over.

"No," Chuck said. His feet were propped on
Jean's bed, and he held a longneck beer bottle in his hand.
"Timmy's being a good little soldier."

"They don't know who the fuck he is," Sam
said. "He ain't tellin'."

"That doesn't mean he won't," Michael said.
"Or that they won't find out. What if somebody recognizes him,
links him with us? The guy at the front desk, for example."

Chuck snorted in derision. "Hell,
I
barely recognized the photo they took. You think some dumb desk
clerk seen a couple hundred other hunters this week gonna remember
one?"

"Timothy had no I.D. on him," Jean said.
"He's feigning amnesia. But they found him in camouflage, and they
probably suspect—"

She stopped talking when a black and white,
full face photo of Timothy Weems came up on the TV screen behind
the newscaster. The story filled in the rest of the details for
Michael, and the newscaster ended, "Authorities have not yet said
whether they suspect any connection between this man and the murder
of an Elk County hunter yesterday, as well as several other
shooting deaths and one probable homicide reported today in north
central Pennsylvania."

"Mine, I bet!" Sam said, bouncing up and down
on the bed.

"Shh!" Jean frowned. "This is new."

The newscaster went on to say that details
were sketchy, but that three more bodies had been found, two dead
from gunshot wounds, and one from stab wounds. "Police will not
speculate on whether or not these deaths are linked. The names of
the victims are being withheld until families have been
notified."

Michael shook his head. "They got Timothy.
That's just perfect. We're in it deep now."

Chuck Marriner swung his feet off the bed and
stood up. The move startled Michael. "We're
already
in it,
buddy! Or did you forget what we went out for today?" He pointed
his finger like a gun and stuck it against Michael's head. "A
little bangeroo, remember? You get yours? Or was that third one a
real accident?"

"I got mine. And I cut the ear too. They'll
put two and two together. How about you?"

"Dropped him this morning. And Sam carved
hers."

The TV news hadn't said anything about Ned
Craig, and Michael looked at Jean. "You didn't find Craig?"

She shook her head quickly and viciously.
"Not yet. But I will. After tomorrow. So he knows what's coming for
him."

"They're going to be looking for us soon,"
Michael said.

"Let 'em," said Chuck. "All we need is two
days—one if we're lucky—and we're outta here. Tomorrow morning we
cruise down to the camp, wait for the jolly huntsmen to come back
in one at a time, and do the work."

"Any chance you can get to Craig tomorrow?"
Michael asked Jean.