New Short Story

Here is another short story I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I work on these for fun when I have nothing else on my mind to write. This is loosely based on the one time my father went hunting with my grandfather. Enjoy.



The Eager Boy Hunter, The Deer, And The Hunter Father



Shelly had only fired the rifle two or three times, but since he seemed good enough at it, his father James decided to take him out hunting for deer, even though the boy could barely carry the rifle any distance, and had failed at, and despised fishing so fervantly that the boy had sworn to never get on another boat again. James had never seen someone exhibit signs of seasickness on a boat in a lake, but the boy had the first time James had taken him out. James had chalked it up to the fumes from the boat's engine spitting up into the boy's face. When it came to hunting, James did not imagine Shelly would ever be able to shoot, and hit a deer with a rifle, but to save the boy some babying from his mother, James was taking Shelly on any and all kinds of hiking, camping, or hunting expeditions he could.



Shelly loved spending time with his father, and while his true interests lie in reading science fiction novels in his room at night, and sneaking out of his room after James and his mother was asleep to creep around their property trapping night crawlers and fireflies in jars, he seemed extremely eager to please his father; to the extent of going on this hunting expedition in the extreme wilderness with little food to get by on, miles and miles from any major road or town. Shelly had faith his father could get them back to safety, no matter how far of a distance James demanded on trekking in order to find legal size, prize prey.



Shelly had the fascination with his father, and belief with his father being an invincible force in the universe, much like other young, pre-teen children did. The illusion of his father being all strong and all good in every way dominated his psyche to the extent that he was willing to prove to his father he was going to someday be as good of a man, if not better, if he dared to, and had good fortune, as his father always had.



They were standing on a ridge, overlooking a deep, forrested valley, when James spotted the deer- a huge buck; maybe one of the biggest he had ever seen, with it's protruding crown of antlers extending about four feet over it's head.



James thought of his friend Bradley, then. Bradley had been an old hunting buddy of his that had occassionally come out with James and his hunting crew on their expeditions, but had never scored a deer, and very rarely ever shot his gun at all.



Bradley had been a nature lover more than a real hunter. He would go out into the forest by himself, sit by a tree with his rifle set beside him, and draw pictures of trees and birds. Usually, he would end up falling asleep with his pen and paper in his lap, and his rifle, admonishly useless, crooked against the same tree he was.



The only time Bradley had ever spotted a prize kill it had been one of the times he had fallen asleep while lying back upon a large pine tree. A noise nearby him had awoken him, and in waking, he had opened his eyes to see the largest, most beautiful deer he had ever seen in his life. Since he was supposed to be hunting, and not really drawing pictures, he reached for his rifle, but it only took one snap of a twig underneath his body when he moved for the deer to take flight, and disapear into the woods. Because Bradley was studied in nature and tracking, he was able to run down that prize deer in about three hours. He got a shot at it eventually, but missed, of course, because he was a horrible shot with a rifle.



James thought about his friend Bradley, and Bradley's terrible luck with hunting, as he pointed out the prize buck in the valley below the rock-rim ledge he and Shelly were standing on.



"Are you going to take a shot at it, dad?"



Shelly asked, exhuberantly. The boy had already taken the safety off his rifle, and had it in shooting position; butt pressed against the crook of his right shoulder, his left hand gingerly holding the shaft of the rifle.



James chuckled under his breath, and pointed down at the deer way down in the valley, so far away, it seemed an impossiblity the bullet would even reach it, much less hit it.



"You take a shot, boy." James said, still chuckling. "If you're able to wound it, we'll go down there and finish it off."



Shelly got excited about his first shot at a real, live deer, and jumped up to aim. In shooting practice, when James had taken him out, Shelly had learned to shoot laying down in the way the military taught soldiers to shoot guns for the first time.



Now, standing on the ledge above the valley, aiming at the prize buck, Shelly aimed while standing upright on his feet. But his grip on the rifle was perfect, the way James had taught him to hold it, and his aim appeared somewhat accurate, so James didn't stop him when he aimed so quickly, and took a shot that seemed impossible.



The deer must not have heard the sound of the rifle firing, for it didn't move at all until the bullet entered it's body. James raised his binoculaurs to his eyes when he realized Shelly had actually hit the buck with his first shot. The deer convulsed, snapping it's spine backward, and then toppled sideways onto the ground in a violent spasm.



"Holy, fucking shit!"



James exclaimed, excited at first. He couldn't believe the boy had hit that deer on the first shot, from a greater distance than he had ever seen anyone hit a live animal from.



But then he looked around at their surroundings. They were miles from base camp, in an area impossible to bring his truck into in order to carry out the deer's body. He peered down at it with his binoculaurs again, to make sure. The buck did not move an inch.



"I hit it, didn't I dad?" Shelly asked. "Do you think it's dead? Do you think I killed it?"



The boy looked frightened now, instead of excited, and happy. He had seen his father unhappy before, and feared slightly his father's temper. His father did not look happy when he answered Shelly's question.



"I think you did kill it, son. We better get down there, and find out."



James and Shelly hiked then, down around the cliff edge, into the valley, along a running stream to where the buck's body lay. The deer was dead; that much was certain. How to get it's remains from this far-off place to where James could properly remove the head, antlers, and meat was a problem James had not bargained on in letting Shelly take a pot shot at it.



James got out his carving knife, and got to the task of skinning and butchering the deer's carcass so they could carry it out of the valley.



Shelly became ill immediately watching his father cut up the fresh corpse of the deer like it was a giant shrub he was weeding and pruning into proper form. It was much like the time he had gotten sick from the fumes on his dad's fishing boat, only slightly worse because he had not eaten lunch yet, and his sickness was a constant dry heave.



James was cursing, and losing his temper in such a way that he was not properly butchering the deer. Blood was everywhere; on the ground, all over James' pants and arms and legs, and even flowing down the small creek the buck had been drinking from before Shelly's miracle shot had killed it.



"God! Fuck!" James yelled, discovering the bullet lodged within the deer's heart. That explained why the buck had died instantly.



"Fuckn'! Fuck! God! Fuck!"



Shelly continued to dry heave vommitt into the bushes. His gaze was transfixed on the creek, which had turned a scralet-blood red color; with occassional entrails of stomach, intestine, and other bits of flesh and organ he could not recognize.



"Why don't we just bury the body?" Shelly asked James, between heaves.



James spun around, his carving knife, hand, and entire forearm stained with blood and grissles of flesh.



"You killed this goddamm, fucking deer in some way I cannot comprehend, and we are going to do this the proper way! If we leave this dead, fucking shit out here there will be coyotes, and wolves, and verman out here fighting over it! Jesus! How the hell did you hit this fucking thing from way up there?"



Both Shelly and James gazed back up at the cliff line that Shelly had shot from; neither really believing in a realistic way that Shelly actually had nailed the deer right through the heart from a hill above a valley that they could barely see the top of while standing next to the deer's body.



"I'm sorry, dad," Shelly said, heaving his dry heaves again, and almost breaking into tears.



"Don't be sorry, goddammit!" James yelled. But then he quieted down, seeing the boy really was upset, and not just sick.



"You shouldn't be sorry, I mean. That was a great shot. One in a million, I'd guess. I've never hit anything from that distance. Especially, not something this big. This is a prize buck, son. We can sell this meat, and keep these antlers as to prove how big it was. But I'm not going to leave a big mess out here in the middle of no where for someone else to clean up. We gotta haul it out, somehow. And that's the problem. And that's why I'm mad. Not at you. Just at the situation. This damn buck must weigh about three, or four hundred pounds. We don't have enough gear to store it's hide, much less all the extra weight it's packin'."



Slowly but surely, James got the hide quartered, and then he hacked up the quarters into even smaller pieces. Within an hour he had all the deer's remains wrapped in plastic and packed up in his pack, and he had Shelly loaded up with all of their supplies. They had done their best to clean up most of the blood and entrails that were in the creek, and a long the rocks on the side of the creek. In the end, though James had done his best to clean the surrounding environment of any kill-sign, there was still a lot of mess on the ground when they began hiking out.



They made it most of the way back to camp before stopping to rest, and drink some water. Shelly was exhausted, and practically starving. James could tell his being sick, and the long walk with the extra gear was wearing the boy down. He stopped them to rest when he was sure they were within distance of reaching their base camp before sundown.



"You see how we did that otu there, son?" James asked, wanting to drive home the importance of what he thought the boy should learn from the experience.



"I've known men that will go on killing rampages while on hunting trips. They'll kill as many deer as they can, take the head, and antlers, and leave a big, gorey mess behind. It's not just typically illegal, son. It's just plain wrong. You don't come out to a place like this and start killing deer without being prepared to clean it the proper way, and leave whatever area you are in as clean, or cleaner than how you found it."



James continued, after a brief pause.



"That is the real hunter's way, son. That is how a real man conducts himself. In nature, in society; it doesn't matter where you are."



"I guess maybe, I might like fishing better, if I didn't get so sick."



James laughed then, and patted the boy on the back of his head.



"You'll probably like just camping out, and hiking around, instead. We've got two more days out here. And the hell if I'm going to go out and try to best this buck you shot. I might hike back out to that spot tomorrow, and try to figure out how the hell it was you hit this goddamm prize buck from on top of the moon."



Shelly snickered then, thinking he had finally impressed his father enough that maybe he didn't need to keep coming out on these wilderness adventures. Camping and hiking seemed alright to him. Shooting the rifle was fun, too. But he hoped he never had to kill something as large as that deer again. That had been just too much blood and guts for him. He would have never fired his rifle had he known he was going to kill it. Although, at the time when he aimed, it had seemed like an easy shot. Even from way up on the hill the deer had been so big it seemed like an easy target. Maybe, he thought to himself, he had taught his father a hunting lesson, instead of his father teaching him one. He knew he was a good shot after only being at the shooting range a couple of times. His father knew now, too. So Shelly felt like he never had to fire at a live animal ever again, if he didn't want to.