by Thomas Clink

and Chris Krawciw
 

"Once a year boys," Hagen took a he-man swipe of the Tennessee whiskey that made Paul Edwards smile with anticipation. "Swept up this little charter company here over twenty years ago, bought it for deer dropings back durin' the Carter Administration."

Paul stared out the window of the Albatross. Thirty minutes earlier Lake Superior had passed five thousand feet below them like a giant white capped blue carpet. He'd spent a lot of time fishing in those waters and personally didn't mind being above the waves for a change. The blue had eventually given way to the greenery that was southern Ontario. At first there had been a few roads crossing the coastline, but as they moved further inland, the trees had just begun to swallow everything. In a few ways, it reminded him of his boyhood in northern Michigan, except in recent years Mother Nature had begun to loose that battle, but out here the old broad was still heavy weight champion.

"Popular misconception that real estate brokers hated Carter. Hell, do you have any idea how much green we put away buying up Chapter Eight's. Then goddam Reagan had to come along with his goddam recovery. He'll never know what a good thing he ruined."

Across from Paul, strapped in and white knuckled, sat his partner, Scott Cloud. On the ground Scott was a pretty stout man's man, but bouncing around in an eight-seater private aquaplane, Scott only looked a few shades better than the geek exec name Simone that Philip Hagen had brought along with them.

"Hey, Edwards!" Phil "just-call-me-Thrill-Kill" Hagen boomed, even though Paul was only a few feet away. "Looks like you're the only other one up to a snort. There's some cups in the overhead behind ya."

"Thought you'd never ask, Philly old boy." Edwards grabbed the whiskey like a practiced alcoholic, and bypassing the glasses, tipping the bottle's mouth to his own he up ended the fifth and drank deep. When it came back down again the flask was empty.

Scott groaned from his seat. Whether it was a here goes Paul again groan, or a if I did that I'd create a new Great Lake all by myself groan, Paul wasn't sure.

Hagen bellowed even deeper, letting a good ol' boy laugh work through his entire frame. "Think I'm gonna like you just fine, Pauly boy. Last time I saw something like that was in a Drano commercial."

"Break open another fifth, Philly boy and we'll go for an encore. Hey, you're rich, doesn't this thing have an in flight movie. How about Bambi?" 

The plane banked smoothly to the left, a pilot named Teague at the controls. Hagen answered with a gregarious yes over his shoulder, his Ray-bans aviator glasses seeming to fit too well. The guy knew how to fly, and owned the plane, but liked to use pilots and chauffeurs for everything except private retreats. He had the money for it.

The plane curved left again, or was it right, it was difficult to tell in the air, your insides shaking around like Jell-O, organs splashing together like some PTA mixer.

"Don't go too heavy on it, though," Hagen called back to him again as the plane straightened, "it's got to last."

"Sure," Paul said, breaking the fresh seal of a fifth of Royal Canadian. He emptied a modest portion into his mouth, followed by another. The sting was comforting.

When Paul brought the bottle down to his lap, he saw that what's his name, Simone, the Dobie Gillis look alike was looking at him. Paul offered him the bottle, but it was refused. 

"You live in Grosse Pointe, don't you?" Paul asked.

Every head in the cabin seemed to turn on the dwarfish man, waiting for an answer. "How did you know that?" Simone answered and asked. 

Paul grimaced and swished another teaspoon's worth of whiskey around in his mouth. "I used to work in Harper Woods," he said. "Besides, I'm a PI. Would you like to see your TRW report?. Don't worry, I won't tell the wife about the gold card."

This shut the geek up, and Paul relaxed, taking satisfaction in Scott's scorching glance. Cloud had looked forward to this trip ever since he'd received the phone call from Hagen, offering him two seats, some orange clothes, and a pair of rifles. Scott readily accepted the offer except for the rifles. He owned several. This trip, and the hope of more for years to follow, was a special kind of payment they'd accepted from Hagen after Paul had found a spiritualist who had removed a curse, haunt, spirit, or whatever the hell it was from an antique vase Hagen had purchased at a yard sale. Philly boy had sworn the thing had somehow caused a fire in his bedroom. Personally, Paul thought the fire was the result of sleepy hand that had missed the ashtray, but Phil didn't smoke. Not anymore. There was more, too, the weird noises he said he heard coming from the inside, the conversations he'd eavesdropped into without knowing, hearing his wife with her lover, stuff like that. Phil had been too afraid to destroy the thing, and so had hired them. Sometimes their reputation was too much to overcome. They were like the typecast stars of TV shows that had long since ended, but were asked again and again to make "special appearances" in character. Paul blamed it on bad luck. It was the only thing handy. 

"Really might want to take it easy, mate," the fifth man in the cabin was named Brad Quineville, and he'd remained silently cleaning his .30 odd six until now. Like Simone, Brad was also an exec. at Hagen's tool and die firm, Arbeitenhaus, but that was where the similarities ended. The man even smells like a hunter, Paul thought, if such a thing was possible.

"Why's that, Davey Crockett? You gonna tell me that guns and alcohol don't mix." Paul was finally beginning to feel the whiskey in his toes and he chuckled at his own comments. If there was one thing a boy from Cadillac, Michigan knew, it was that deer hunting wasn't about eight pointers and venison. It had more to do with six packs, deer blinds with electric heat, and pissing out in the great out doors like God intended men to.

"More right than you could imagine," Quineville continued. "That little bit of Jack you just swallowed is the last of it. For the next six days, we aren't drinking nothing but coffee, tea, and water."

Paul hesitated for a moment, waiting for the punch line, waiting for everyone else to start laughing. He looked from face to face as the plane started to descend toward Lake Chippewa, and the four thousand acres of nowhere that Hagen had probably purchased from the local Indians for beads and fish heads. Hagen was looking out one of the port windows like a proud father, Simone looked like as if he'd just realized he wouldn't be able to plug in his Mickey Mouse night light, and Quineville continued to clean his gun all the time appearing as if he'd prefer to just rip out the deer's jugular with his bare teeth. Turning to his partner for one last chance at solace, Paul watched as the first smile of the day crept across Cloud's stoic features.

"Welcome to Camp Chippewa," Scott muttered as the plane touched down with all the grace and beauty of a truck pull.
 

The light was getting very thin by nine o'clock. It bled in through the uncurtained windows of the cabin like the auburn hue of a freshly poured Heinekin. Paul and Scott were sharing a room of the immense cabin that during season could sleep a total of twenty. Paul unpacked his bag with all of the aplomb of a mortician preparing a corpse. Most of what he'd brought with him were items from what Hagen called his recommended list; two thick sweaters, several pairs of wool pants, hunting socks, etc.

"What about that infamous emergency pint of yours?" Scott was still having a good time prodding Paul over his forced sobriety, but there was almost still a sense of pity in his voice.

"Why should I bring her? I was figuring our billionaire friend here was going to be loading us up with the good stuff. Hell, I was thinking of sneaking out of here with a few extra bottles in my duffel. I tell ya, Scott, Hagen makes my dick itch."

"Is that good or bad?"

Paul grabbed the mattress that was rolled up at the end of the spare wire frame of his cot. He gave it a deep sniff, and took away the scent of pine and earth that he'd always associated with log cabins and his long walks in the woods as a young boy.

"You tell me, Scott. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we just flew six hundred miles to come hunt deer two months before bow season even starts in Ontario."

"I doubt if he'd much worried about getting fined, Paul. I checked a map before we came, the nearest road is forty kilometers away, and the nearest town is called Weldberg, it's sixty kilometers and has a population of 84."

"Jesus, this guy has redefined B.F.E. Why?"

Scott, ever omniscient, answered, "Ten thousand buck a weekend, twenty men a weekend, between fishing and deer seasons open nine months a year, no quotas or limits, fully stocked lake, well fed and fully stocked deer population, and we're here on a free ride."

Cloud had already prepped his bed, and now plopped down in the middle of it to test the springs, producing a sound like a loose chain link fence being shook.

"I get the idea you would do everything but grab your ankles for this guy," Paul could hear the bitterness in his own voice and automatically regretted have made the comment. He'd been sober now for two hours, and was looking at at least sixty more.

Scott stretched out on the bed, crossing his arms behind his head.

"Paul, this guy is a good, solid client. He is beyond well-established and has thousands of friends. In short, a few good recommendations from Hagen and we won't ever have to worry about handing out subpoenas again. It could be our first and best chance at respectability."

Edwards sat down on his own bed and felt what he thought was a spring give way under his butt like a broken guitar string. 

It was about then that Thrill Kill Phil burst into their room wearing a shit eating grin, a fishing cap that would have made Andy Griffith green with envy, and a sweater with a mounted deer head displayed and the lively caption "DEER GIVE GOOD HEAD!" emblazoned across the bottom.

"Come on, boys!!" he bellowed. "We gotta go catch us some dinner!"

Paul immediately grimaced and wished that he were back in the city on the trail of the wild "Arby's" or "Olga's." He briefly remembered his last burger at Miller's Bar and thought how strange it was that he, a plain old country boy, had accustomed himself to the city almost too well. There were days that he'd never had to travel further than a two mile strip of Gratiot to get anything he wanted or needed, including women. Still, it was good to be in the wild again, some of the company excluded. Cloud he could put up with, already had for years in ways, but he wasn't so sure about the rest of them, especially

that guy Quineville, who treated his gun better than most men did their wives, and if things were going to develop in that way, who was he to stand in the way of a man's true love, although he imagined the sex would be rather painful. 

"Steel Dick coming with us?" Paul asked as he stood sluggishly, wondering if Philly boy expected them to fish like bears, just wait for a nice, plumb, juicy salmon to swim by, and grab it out of the water. No problem.

"Who?" Hagen asked. His face was a picture of the comic hunter for a moment, then it settled back into a practiced businessman's political glare, unreadable.

"You know, the Marlboro Man minus the cigarettes. All work and no blood makes Remington no money?"

Hagen sighed and Scott was glad that he did, it saved him the trouble, plus the anxiety of repeating to Paul what he had just said. 

"Be careful, now, Paully," Hagen said, Quineville's a good friend of mine. I've known him for years. Damn good businessman too. He knows where to invest, how, and when."

"I suppose he's a great kisser too," Paul said.

Hagen sighed again and looked at Scott, whose vein crackled forehead was beginning to show. Score one for the drunk, he thought. Scott had the dim idea that Paul was causing trouble just so he wouldn't have to go through this again next year and he didn't want to take chances that the next decoration the office purchased was a mounted rack. He promised himself to deal with Paul later, but then, quickly. The whiskey wasn't going to last for long. The ensuing hours would be the worst, he knew. A baby should only have to part with the bottle once.

Inside, Paul was dancing a little jig, the kind old sailors used to find enjoyable shortly after the captain ordered a measure of rum for everyone for a good day's work. Rum...

Hagen departed without even a backward glance or further directions. It seemed the camp's counselor had other fish to fry, while Scott took down a long wooden pole tipped in a thin, sharp iron spike, a fishing spear. That solved Paul's question of the poles. If only the Russians had...oh my God, he was thinking about politics. It was time for a drink. Uh-oh...

There were about thirty-five or forty fishing rods located in a specially outfitted closet next to the back door which led down to the lake.

Paul looked over the assortment with all of the excitement and anticipation of a middle aged woman picking out cabbage heads in a supermarket. A quick smile flashed over his features as he found a bit of nostalgia near the back. A twelve-foot bamboo pole, rigged with a plain old hook, and a traditional red and white stick bobber.

"Come on, baby," he muttered. "Maybe you and me can show these fancy city boys a thing or two."

Hagen and Quineville were already down at the lake, pulling out a wooden canoe from a rack of about five. Quineville threw a white package, about the size of a beer cooler, into the boat. It these boys were lying to me, Paul thought, tonight I'm gonna be turning them over a slow roasting pit. The two men cast off gently into the lake, leaving an echoing V in the water as they began to silently paddle away.

Simone apparently hadn't left his room yet, and Paul wasn't about to go looking for the guy, so it was going to be up to Scott and himself to give the executives some competition.

While Scott started to rummage around in the closet looking for a weapon of his own, Paul headed back around the front of the cabin where a small shovel was leaning up against the side wall. There was an abundant supply of lures and plastic worms amongst the cabin's supplies but Paul knew well enough that there was nothing better than live bait; a silk worm nest, some minnows, or the creme de la creme, freshly dug earth worms.

He left the pole at the edge of the woods and stepped into the underbrush a few feet. From the edge of the woods, he could still see the lake glimmering in the evening light through the white pines. Hagen and Quineville were now about two hundred feet out and were throwing what appeared to be bread crumbs out into the water. Paul shook his head at the city slicker's antics, now that he really thought about it he hadn't even seen them put fishing poles into the canoe.

Paul Edwards laughed softly to himself and then thrust the shovel into the dark rich soil of the woods.

And something large stirred in the woods not more that fifteen feet deeper into the bush from where he stood.

His natural instinct was to scream, but in a trained manner, Paul just slowly let his head rise to where the thing stood.

It must have been a least a fifteen point buck, he realized. Not many like that left back in Michigan, was his initial thought, they've all been hunted or starved out. The animal looked back at him with the deep, all knowing gaze that all wild animals seem to possess.

Paul whistled lowly and then spoke to the animal, "Tell ya what buddy, you don't bother me, and I won't bother you, deal?"

The deer seemed to ponder this for a moment, and then nodded back to Paul.

Edward's mouth dropped open.

And then the explosion came.

Paul's first thought was that someone else had seen the buck, and had decided to get in a little early hunting. But these thoughts were quickly dispelled. The blast had come from out on the water, and had sounded more like the crumpled thump of a depth charge in one of those old submarine movies staring someone like Henry Fonda or John Wayne.

The buck gave him a cross look of betrayal, another broken promise from mankind, and then bolted into the woods.

Paul heard Hagen's laughter echo across the entire lake area. He wasn't sure whether he should be impressed by the deer's seemingly cognizant understanding of what he was saying, or angered at whatever blasphemy the two lunatics out on the lake were committing. But Paul Edwards was sure of one thing, he needed a drink in the very worst kind of way.
 
 
 
 
 

Paul stared at his plate and imagined the calm lake's surface suddenly disturbed by an air bubble. Tiny ringlets spread out concentrically, in growing rings, finally disappearing at the fringes of the shore. What followed to the surface was the image on his plate, scrambled fish. Not much of the meat had been saved, of course, but when you could simply skim across the surface in a canoe, it was an easy matter to collect dozens. Civilized man's version of fishing. G.I. Joe the fisherman. Toss in a few conservative grenades and dinner was served. Several more fish steamed in a frying pan nearby, a few more hung from a fishing line on a peg by the door, one with its head already missing. Fishing line. How quaint. The place smelled like a gynecologist's clinic, only better. Now Paul understood the "cast a thousand hooks" reference. 

What was worse was the deepening ache in his belly. He'd taken a few bites, choked them down, and thought he'd imagined a faint plastique flavor, tried a few more, then was sure. Scotty was gonna pay for this one, but his number one rule was please the clients. He hoped that his smile didn't seem too bleak.

"Not hungry?" Hagen asked, stuffing another forkfull into his mouth. Droplets of grease clung to his moustache. 

He felt Scott's eyes on him long before the detective answered for him.

"He had a big lunch," Scott said.

Hagen grunted. "You know, Paul, if you don't like the food, just say so. I don't mind. Quineville cooked it." 

Like almost all cooks, Quineville had dined above the stove, taking bites when he thought no one was looking, or, like a practiced European chef, had made a great show of it when sure the morsel was ready. He sat across the table from Scott with a dirty white rag in front of him, a can of 3-in-1 oil open in his left hand. Every few moments, Quineville would tip the can over a vintage AK-47, spilling a few drops over the metal barrel and custom made wooden stock. The blue-gray steel shone and smelled as deadly. It reminded Paul of his father, certainly as meticulous, but never as crazy. Quineville on the other hand, was as crazy as he was meticulous. He wiped the oil over the wood, almost like a massage, until it had soaked in. He did the same with the barrel and Paul wondered if steel absorbed oil. It seemed so.

"Sorry, Quince," he said. "I'm just not into it."

Quineville grunted. "Please don't call me that. There was a neighborhood bully who used to call me that."

"Sorry," Paul said, glad that the clip was empty on the table and waiting for the oil.

"It's ok. Make it up to me tomorrow. By this time we'll be having venison steak smothered in garlic and onions."

Paul could almost hear the group's collective stomach moan with the thought. It was like walking into a Meijer at 3 am after a long day's work. The thought of pickled pig's feet would water mouths then. 

The rest were too busy devouring their mutilated trout to bother with him. Paul swayed to his feet, excusing himself on the pretense of his bladder, and went into the kitchen.
 

The pantry was more of a small walk in closet hidden in the corner of the kitchen. There was a shower curtain that hung across the entrance and Paul had to fish for his lighter in order to see his way into the dark crevice. What greeted him was the smell of his mother's cellar from back home; must, mold, and the slightly fruity scent of preserves.

The lighter grew warm in his hand as he peered at the dimly lit labels. Somewhere there had to be a can of beans, or some other nondescript veggie that didn't remind him of fish in the slightest.

"You sure this Edwards guy is kosher?" Paul heard plainly enough from the kitchen. Hell, one thing about the great outdoors, he recalled his father saying, at night you can hear a mouse fart from across the house. Quince, he realized, reminded him of the aforementioned mouse, or at least one of the rodent's slightly larger cousins.

"I think he had something a little more pastoral in mind," Cloud chipped in.

"Hell," Quince continued, quite loud enough, Paul realized, that the man must have been purposefully trying to get his attention. "I thought the boy was from the country. Fishing, hunting, wild game; this should be right up his anal alley."

"Where he comes from," Paul could distinctly hear agitation growing in Scott's voice. "They generally don't fish with explosives, or hunt with fully automatic assault rifles."

Quineville guffawed at this remark, and then Paul heard a hand slap across wood.

"Beauty, isn't she? None of that chink imitation shit for me, this baby's Russian. Picked it up over there myself, hell, after the fall you could nab one of these for a couple hundred bucks, American."

Paul felt smelt something that was more like burning chicken than scrambled fish, and realized the hand in which he held the lighter was started to get a little warm itself. He stood there a few moments in the dark, sucking his singed thumb, and feeling more and more like the wus that Quineville was painting him out to be. He heard Cloud excuse himself from the table with some lame excuse about catching some sleep before the big hunt began in the morning.

Once Scott's ambling steps could no longer be heard, Quince muttered one word, which sounded a lot like "wussies" but started with another letter entirely.

"Keep your mouth shut, Quin," Hagen shunned. "Where did Edwards go to, anyway?"

"Don't worry, he's probably back outside communing with his little furry friends. Probably trying to pawn a pint off a bear."

"Communing with mosquitoes is more like it," Killy Philly laughed at his own joke with a grunt.

This was followed by a high nervous giggle that made Paul think of Pee Wee's Playhouse.

"That's very funny, Mr. Hag..." Simone chirped.

"Shut up, Sim!" Hagen bellowed. "You'd have to be fucking Pinnochio to brown nose me."

From that point on their talk degraded into a bunch of gibberish, either that or Paul didn't care enough to pay attention any longer. He had a vision in his head of the three of them sitting out there around the table of fish bones, sipping there manly mineral waters, telling there manly jokes and stories. Quin (a name that always reminded Paul of Eskimoes) and Hagen were probably passing a Marlboro back and forth while the court vassal, Simone, fawned over them. There was no way he could exit the pantry now, if he had to look at them he'd blow fish gut all over the cabin.

Then something wisped up to his nostrils as he leaned against a set of shelves that stood taller than himself. Not preserves this time, it was more rich, almost chocolately. Paul turned and flipped the lighter again. It only took a moment to find the source.

It was an industrial size bottle of McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract, the type of thing a husband might by at a warehouse club, but any sane wife would never touch because they knew a person couldn't devour that much extract in a lifetime. It was probably a long forgotten veteran of some birthday cake or cookie tray.

Edwards grabbed it with his free hand like it was the last bottle of Vaseline in a porno theater.

"Thirty-five percent alcohol," he muttered to himself. "That makes you seventy proof baby." As he rolled the label in his hand he felt that the outside of the bottle was quite sticky. After shoving his lighter back into his pocket, and plunging himself back into the welcome cocoon of almost pure darkness, Paul caressed the bottle with both hands. The reason for the stickiness was quickly discovered, the cap was ajar, practically unscrewed to tell the truth. But at this point of the game, it would have been like kicking Cindy Crawford out of bed because her feet were too big.

Paul tipped the bottom of the bottle into the air and didn't let it come back down for quite some time.
 

The first thing Scott heard was, "Auntie 'Em, zat you?" The question was followed by a hoarse fit of giggling, interrupted only by a choking sound and a few coughs. "Good shit. Smooth," Paul said, followed by the, hollow, splashing sound of a half empty jug tilting back down. 

Scott smelled vanilla and was suddenly too weary to sit up to look at his partner, or even to curse. An inward OH MY GOD was good enough.

"You'll never guess what I found in the pantie, er, pantry, Scotty boy?" Paul slurred. He'd somehow reached the distance between the door and the floor of Scott's bunk bed. The thought of vanilla laden vomit splashing his back crossed his mind, but if drinking were a sport, Paul was a pro, except with tequila. He kept his face hidden.

"Smatter? You seen me drunk before, Scott."

"Go to bed, Paul. Sleep it off. We're supposed to go hunting in about four hours."

Paul tittered. "Oh yeah, I forgot. You gonna use the Gatling Gun or the SCUD? I've got dibbs on the grenade launcher."

Cloud sighed. His partner smelled like a batch of cookies that had come out of the oven horribly wrong. "Paul, these are potential clients and you know that I like to hunt."

Edwards snorted. "Yeah, but you're prey usually walks on two legs and gives a lot better head." Scott heard the jug go up and down again. He thought that Paul would have made a great stand in on hee-haw as one of those singing idiots, drinking vanilla because they couldn't afford whiskey.

"Don't get mean-drunk," Scott said. "I'll flatten you before I let you make more a fool out of yourself on this trip than you already have. Hagen thinks you're a snob, Quineville thinks you're effeminate, and Simone is scared to death of you."

Paul belched.

"Go to sleep," Scott said.

"OK, OK," Paul said. He sluggishly swung a foot up onto the lower rung of cross-pieces that connected the two front posts, heaved himself up, slipped, and fell with a violent whoosh of air leaving his lungs. The vanilla jug had remained clasped in his hands like a pen in the corpse of a writer's. 

"It's a lot more comfortable down here anyway," Paul said. "Except I can smell your feet."

"That's not my feet," Scott said. "My feet are down there."

"Then your breath," Paul said.

Scott sighed. "Give me the bottle."

Paul belly laughed almost loud enough to wake Heffner, Jean-Claude, and Peter Lorre, then slowly quieted as Scott made to swing out of bed. 

"That's what I've always loved about you, Scott," he said, "always telling jokes...but really, I've behaved myself until now. I've spent years in the country, Scott. I know what it is and what it's about. I don't have to kill nothing to prove stuff."

Scott knew that it was almost over when Paul's grammar was about to go. 

"Besides, venison ain't never been as tasty to me as a burger from Miller's Bar. I left the country for a reason, Scotty...aw shit, it don't matter. I'm sorry, really I am, but I really don't care what they think..." Paul paused. "You awake?"

"Barely."

"So...what have you learned, Dorothy?" Paul said and snickered between quick drinks of the vanilla.

"That you've drunk too much."

"True," he said, and slowly ambled to his feet. "Guess I'll go commune with nature for a minute. Water the grass. Be back in a few minutes."

"Good night, Paul," Scott said, and quickly went to sleep before he had to listen to more, and find himself caring.
 

Paul passed the outhouse like a rich man passes a cheap whore. He'd never like the smell of the things, and once as a small child he plopped down on one that had a hive of wasps nesting just under the lid.

No, for him it was the call of the wild.

Paul was dimly aware of many things as he stumbled into the woods, but they were all swimming together into that great oneness of the truly toasted. It was kind of a Zen-alcoholism type thing. He was aware of the trees rushing by him as he searched for privacy in the deeper woods, he was aware of an all consuming need to shake the dew off his lily pad, and in some dark recess of his mind, he was aware that all was not well in Hootersville. He wasn't just feeling drunk, he was sorta feeling sick, and he wasn't feeling sick in a drunk kind of way, he was feeling sick as in I shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms that Mamma told me never to eat type sick.

"Make a siss for Mommy," Paul chanted as he stumbled through the deep underbrush.

After an endless drunken jaunt Paul finally snagged a foot underneath a root and watched in rapt anticipation as a stump rushed up to caress his falling face.

He awoke somewhere very deep into the night, and even deeper into the woods. He looked down to find that he had his thing in his hand, and he dimly remembered having a dream about swimming in the warm waters of St. Thomas.

If Paul had wet himself he didn't notice, or didn't care. The drunkenness had fled from his mind like a Mexican from the boarder patrol. But something new was entertaining his brain, something that made him feel like he'd taken the brown acid at Woodstock.

The forest swam before him underneath the pale moonlight. Milky white flesh--just seeing if you're paying attention, Chris. He would have been worried about being lost, except that in his satiated stumbling he'd left a trail that a blind, paraplegic Indian could follow.

Somewhere off in the distance, through the surreal world of weaving foliage and darkened shadows, Paul saw a glimmering light. His head grew heavy, and his sight grew dim, he knew he had to stop for the night.

There was little doubt, even in his present condition, that it was a campfire. And where there's a campfire, there's campers, and where there's campers, there's beer.

Paul stumbled on toward the light like a moth, and with about as straight of a path.

"Beer," he chortled like a lover. "Mountain-fresh-ice-water-cold-like-beer. Finally, Cloud comes through for me." 

Paul moved closer to the circle of light, his head still swimming with vanilla dreams, his breath just as flavorful. The land rose up gently, leveling off in a stately stand of douglas firs. The light painted the leaves closest to the blaze yellow, the rest in shadow. He ambled up the slope, deciding not to call out their names, but they couldn't be hunting already, unless Quince had already staked a claim.

A trail of smoke painted its way toward the treetops, glazing the burning yellow with splotches of gray. Paul's temples were beginning to throb with the unfamiliar hum of nearly a liter of vanilla and he tongue tasted heavy. He couldn't have shouted to them even if he wanted to, he realized. Slowly, voices mixed in with the crackling of wet fir and pine pitch. It smelled comfortable and warm, and as Paul crested the shallow summit, he peered over it, gaped, and dropped to the ground, crushing the nearly empty vanilla bottle beneath him.

"What a kick," he said to himself, looking down. "'cept I ain't drunk." 

What was left of his heart had already crept up into his throat and lodged there, somewhere between the cords that made sound. He could only croak.

The fire was ringed by a circle of deer, bucks, in fact, sitting cross-legged, their horns dully shining like ivory beneath lamplight. His father had dabbled with scrimshaw, pictures painstakingly scraped into smooth ivory, and then coated with ink, drying fast into the crevices. They'd made simple, clever, beautiful pictures, and that is what their horns reminded him of, only sharper. 

The bucks chatted among themselves, slowly passing around a bottle of Jack from hoof to hoof, swigging quickly, and then on again. A few of them muttered beneath their breaths, others swore and cursed. Not one of them laughed, as if deer were supposed to or something. Paul doubted himself for a few, long moments, doubted everything, in fact, the fire, smoke, trees, and even the bottle of JD, until he heard:

"Mother fuckers. They got my mom this time of year, you know," one said, an eight-pointer. He accepted the whiskey, tipped in up and wiped his, well, wiped his lips, Paul guessed, with the back of his--leg?

"Oh, shut up, Bambi," another said from across the fire. This one seemed a little young, the stubs of his horns not yet quite sharp from rubbing against saplings. "It's the way of things."

Bambi took another swig. "Oh yeah?" he said. "Let me ask you something. YOUR mother ever get trapped in a forest fire? YOU ever wander alone at night, watching everyone scatter from the heat? It was horrible. Never wanta see another one of them assholes again. Mother fuckers."

Bambi passed the bottle on, and lit a Marlboro light with a Zippo lighter. The buck pocketed it somewhere and shook his antlers like a depressed man.

A few bucks nodded assent and snorted.

The mood seemed particularly grim, except to Paul, whose heart had made its way back into his chest. He squinted back tears, hoping that they were from smoke or laughter rather than fear. 

"I just don't get it," another one said, his horns tipping up and down in thought. "What do we do to them? We leave them alone, don't we? We never go into their houses and start shooting their women, stringing them up by their feet and gut them, do we?"

More snorts and grunts of assent. A few new trails of cigarette smoke mixed in with the fire's. The bottle of whiskey gurgled up and down.

"I saw that happen once, you know," Bambi said, taking another drink. His cigarette was burning low to the filter, an arc of ash tilting precariously close to the ground. "His name was Cupid. Yeah, I know. No jokes, assholes. He was young, fresh out of the forest. Didn't know his antlers from a stick in the ground, but he was a good buck. Yeah, a real good buck. He'd been rutting with his doe. She was a sweet one too, her white tail just begging for it. She never recovered. A high-powered slug took his tail off just when he was about to come. Cupid's doe got away and told me what had happened, but it had been too late. I saw that son of a bitch in orange gut him right there. The stink almost made me gag. Then he dragged Cupid away, took him to a shed, blood everywhere, and strung him up. Put a hook right between the tendons of his hoof and leg..."

The other bucks groaned with the thought, a few puffs of smoke following them. Bambi drank and continued.

"...I don't know why I did it. Probably because I was too young and stupid myself to believe that I wouldn't be next, or too angry about the death of my mother and friend, but I followed that orange bastard. They got these things called windows. Can see right through them. Looked in his shed, and watched Cupid get skinned. I never knew a pelt could stretch so far. Or peel away so easily..."

The rest of the deer had grown silent with the story and stared into the firelight. 

"That's happened to all of us at one time or another, Bambi," one said.

"Manshit!"

"You're too fuckin' angry, you got to let it go."

"I aint lettin' nothing go, I'm gonna get those bastards."

More snorts and grunts.

Bambi was obviously drunk, Paul decided, unlike himself, who now wished that he hadn't found that bottle of vanilla.

One of the bucks shot up from the circle and began pacing around the fire on his hind legs, wildly gesticulating with the other two. He was wearing a pair of glasses.

"We're the oppressed, I tell you! Look at yourselves! Go on---look! That's right! You--you--you--and you--you're all pathetic, sitting around here like the defeated. Taking comfort in the bottle...Cupid didn't have to die in vain, you know...we didn't land in the Upper Peninsula, the Upper Peninsula landed on us!"

The speech was greeted by wild, beastly snorts and howling, and Paul shivered. 

"That's all jim fine and dandy," the young, sarcastic buck cut in again. "But what are a bunch of herbivores to do, regurgitate grass at them?"

"No," the one called Bambi said, his voice hollow and cold enough to make Paul chance another look from behind his sane shielding wall of vegetation. The eight pointer's eye's glowed red in the firelight, almost a brilliantly as Rudolph's nose. He reached down from his cross legged position into the shadows next to his loin and pulled up something that made Paul's heart race faster than a new episode of Models, Inc. "This time we're gonna get us some justice, this time we've got the guns." Bambi held Quince's Russian-made AK deftly in his hooves.

The other deer stood up on their hind legs and walked over to view what was apparently Bambi's secret stash of stolen arms.

One grinned, for lack of a better term, as he held Paul's .38 pistol to the sky. Edward's began to wonder about his apparent hallucination, how could the deer pull the triggers when the guards would be too small for their hooves. As if in answer the one with his own pistol stuck out his long, well practiced, salt block licking tongue and depressed the trigger with ease. The gun jerked like a live thing in his hooves as it discharged into the misty shrouded night sky. With the explosion there was an instant of fear amongst the cervine gathering, it was not easy to go from hunted to hunter, but there arose a look of utter joy and power on the beast's maw once he'd realized he was the cause of fear for a change.

The other deer began to lift the weapons to the sky and each discharged a few rounds, careful to save their ammunition, Paul noted, but just enough for, for, well...for target practice, and he now believed he knew who they were practicing for.

Bambi stood up now, he was at least an antler above the rest, and an obvious leader. He led them in a heathen dance around the campfire, all of them shouting and cavorting like a herd of wild (deer) banshees. Paul was reminded of something from his childhood, a book he had read for Ann Barden's class back in the ninth grade, The Lord of the Flies.

The young, sarcastic deer was the last to reach the pile of arms. With utter confidence, he reached down and retrieved the bamboo fishing pole which Paul had been intent upon using earlier that day. Realizing that he now held the largest and longest weapon of all, a great look of joy came over the face of the young buck and he joined the others in the jubilant dancing, thrusting the bamboo rod at the sky in an utter frenzy.

Well, Paul realized, no one ever said deer were very bright.

Suddenly Bambi stopped his dancing, and slowly the other deer followed suit. The leader's nostrils flared like a fat man before the first course in a really good restaurant.

"The wind has changed," the deer began. "I smell something strange, but yet very, very familiar."

Paul believed this to be the beginning of his exit lines. Hallucination or no, his head wasn't going to end up on any deer's mantle.

"What is that horrible stench, Bambi?" the bespectacled deer asked, his rhetoric no longer hiding his new found aggression.

"It's a human, trying to hind his scent with some kind of flower or spice. He's close my friends, very close. He must not escape to warn the others of his herd."

Paul turned to run as silently as he could. The blazing fire with its pops and cracks hid his initial flight. He had watched enough thriller movies to know to watch his feet for the proverbial twig that would snap like a firecracker underfoot and give him away. It was while doing this that the branch dead in front of him clotheslined him across the neck and knocked him flat on his back.

"There he is!!" a shout sounded out from not too far behind him. "It's the fat one, get him."

Paul knew he could never live it down, even the deer were dissing him now.

A spray of automatic gunfire ran across the ground a few feet from where he lay. The leaves which made up the ground floor of the woods flew into the air as the bullets plowed into their lifeless bodies.

His head was still beyond woozy from his battle with the bottle of vanilla, but he had been under fire before, and had always been able to perform when inebriated, he wouldn't have any semblance of a sex life if he didn't. Paul regained his feet and ran blindly into the woods.

They gained on him with ease. Where he became entangled in the undergrowth that not even a country boy could avoid, they could bolt more than twenty feet through the air.

Paul heard laughter from all about him in the woods. They were ahead of him, and behind him. They were playing with him like the last drink of the night.

After a run in the dark that seemed like hours, Paul came to a small clearing that overlooked the edge of a lake. The mist was spread across the peaceful surface like a caul, but the moonlight still made dim sparkles across the surface.

The laughter continued from the woods, it was close, damn close. Paul took one deep breath just as several deer burst into the clearing at once. Edwards dove into the water.

He couldn't out run them, but he knew for certain he could out swim them. Paul swam the first forty feet underwater. They fired a few shots at him from shore after he surfaced, but their aim wasn't much to speak of.

The cold water rejuvenated him, helped clear his head of the vanilla. He threw up in the lake several times over the next few hours, but felt better for it. 

By the time he finally found the lights of the cabin, his arms and legs were like lead.

He drug himself from the water with one thought in mind, he had to warn the others. Paul pulled his body from the lake, shivering and sick. He struggled for several minutes with the cabin doorknob, as if it were some Rubick's cube.

He fumbled into the cabin, promptly stumbled over the welcome mat that had cheery little pictures of shotguns and deer's heads emblazoned across it, and passed out on the kitchen floor. 
 
 
 

He was more aware of the pain than the voice when he began to awake, an icicle blast against his face that reddened a few moments later, and then another, and another. Somebody was beating the shit out of him, and he wasn't even drunk this time, or unknowingly hitting on someone's girlfriend. He tried to mouth the words, but every time he did, the freezing hand struck him again. Spittle spilled from his lips while his tongue worked feverishly. The wooziness in his head had been replaced by dull thudding. Vanilla was officially off the list--unless in case of dire emergency.

"Deer," he finally moaned.

"Finally!"

It was Quineville--good ol' boy Quince, patron saint of flannel, gunpowder, and dirt bikes. Nothing like a taste of home.

"Deer," Paul moaned again, and tried to open his eyes. His body felt whole, no AK 47 slugs anywhere in him, but exhausted. He hadn't felt like this since his last trip to Mt. Pleasant.

"That's right, Edwards! We're on a deer hunting trip."

Something in Quince's voice wanted to say "expedition," but that would have been presumptuous, even for him.

"They can talk," Edward's said.

There was a pair of hands on his coat's collar, violently shaking him. His hair was still damp and musty. 

"The son of a bitch is still drunk. He's delirious! He smells like vomit and chocolate cake! Quineville slapped him again and this time Paul's eyes snapped open with the force of the blow. He promised himself that he would return dear Quince's favor one day.

"Edwards!" Quineville shouted. "Where are our guns?"

Paul started to laugh and turned himself over on his stomach. His laughter became a giggle fit and his ineffective fist pounded lazily on the floor. "The deer have them," he cackled, his fist thumping into the wood, "and they're coming for youuuuu!" 

Paul stretched a finger toward Quince.

Quineville lost patience and raised Edwards so that he was sitting up. Paul watched an open hand go back, this time, too icily, hesitate, and stop.

"What the hell are you doing?" Scott asked.

Paul slumped back down to the floor. "Ahhh," Paul said, his voice tired, gentle, and thankful, "the cavalry. Pauly go sleepy bye now."

Quineville dropped his arm and gestured toward Edwards like a man remarking on something pathetic. 

"He took our guns," Quineville said. His face was full of scorn.

Scott came into the kitchen and went toward Edwards, coldly brushing by Quince. "Paul's never been that drunk," he said, "and he only does crazy things on tequila."

Quineville sneered. "You should put him into detox."

Cloud stared back at him. "I should put you in a box."

"Ding Ding!" Paul said from the floor. "Round one goes to Carnal Cloud! Would you care for a rematch, Quince? Just remember, I brought along my tape of the Rocky soundtrack."

"That's enough Paul," Scott said. 

"Told ya I could make him shut up," Paul said.

"Paul..." Scott said, his voice carefully measured. 

Paul sighed from the floor, muttering something about sinking his battleship.

"If he didn't take our guns, then where are they, huh, Cloud? You know, I thought I liked you, being Phil's friend and employee, but now I'm not so sure. Where the hell's my AK 47?"

Hagen came into the kitchen from down the short hallway that led to his bedroom. He was wearing a terrycloth, white robe, Spartan, like the rest of the cabin, and was rubbing out the sleep from his eyes. Simone sat impassively at the table. There was a bowl of corn flakes in front of him, the milk still in the carton. He looked to be the only sane one home, if he hadn't been so afraid. 

"What the hell is going on here?" Hagen asked.

"That's Scott's line," Paul said from the floor.

"Our guns are missing," Quineville said. "Mine and Simone's for sure, anyway. That drunken asshole says the deer have them, but I think the son of a bitch has freaked out on vanilla, and your boy, Cloud here, is being a very ungracious guest."

"I doubt that," Hagen said. "Scott?"

"I don't know anything about the guns, at the moment, Paul is sober, and I'm only ungracious when my partner's getting slapped around like a dead fish."

Hagen looked at the both of them like a father trying to decide between two sons. He sighed and let it drop, for the moment, anyway.

"Are you sure you didn't misplace it?" Scott asked. 

Quince ran an irritated hand through his hair. "People don't misplace good Russian hardware," he said. "Unless you're Russian. I kept it in my closet, but now it's gone. Simone hasn't seen it, either, and says his thirty-odd-six is missing, too. I want to know where the asshole put them. Hunting's best early in the morning, you know."

Hagen ran a hand over the stubble on his chin and frowned. "Scott," he said, "see if your rifles are in your room, I'll check for mine."

"They're not there," Scott said. "I noticed when I got up," but I still have my .38. Paul's is gone."

Hagen's surprised looked swivelled into the back of his head and he went back to his bedroom. He stormed back a few moments later, swearing. "Gone," he said.

Simone popped open the carton of milk and poured. The corn flakes made a happily crackling sound.

"Someone's fucking with us," Quince said, and looked down at Paul. 

Edward's was still mentally dealing with his night's vision and wondered if, in his vanilla-crazed delerium, he could have swiped the armaments and thrown them in the lake, but his own gun? No, he'd never been that drunk, or that stupid. Still, he hated that feeling of not knowing, not knowing for sure or what he had or could have done under that one hundred proof promise.

"Paul," Scott said, almost cooing to him now. "Tell me what happened."

Paul sighed and struggled to sit. "Who did you piss off when you were young?" Paul asked him, and Scott knew what he was talking about. "Crazy shit again, man. Stuff that isn't supposed to be real, but it is."

"Tell me."

"By the time I'd sobered up, I'd made it to the top of a hill about a half mile into the woods. I saw a campfire, smoke, heard voices, and thought it was you guys..."

"But..."

"The deer, man. The deer are pissed and they have our guns."

Everyone in the room started to laugh except Scott, cut suddenly short by a spray of bullets slashing through the windows in tinkling chaos, and into Simone. Simone toppled back onto the floor, still in his chair, a spoonful of corn flakes on his cheek. It was almost a ridiculous sight, a grown man in a white robe, a spoon still in his hand, bleeding milk. He moaned, too shocked to scream, and tried to brush the flakes away, but one arm was paralyzed, stuck to the floor where the meat of his breast flowed into his shoulder. A pool of blood had already started to form on the floor, or was soaked into the cloth. He'd scream later when the pain would hit.

Everyone hit the deck, except Paul, who was already there, cursing himself again for the lack of a pint.

"I always new that if we were going to buy the petting zoo, that Simone would be the first to go," Paul groaned. Everyone else was in a panic, but Paul was used to it now, his nightmare was just continuing, for everyone else it was a new and exciting as fresh spore in the snow. "He was kind of like the guy with the red shirt in Star Trek who always went down with the landing party. Everyone always knew what he was doing there, except for the poor sap."

More bullets came spraying through the window, some were even tearing through the logs of the cabin.

"I always knew," Paul continued. "That if I ever made it to the Enterprise that I would never be that sap with the red shirt. Blue, yellow, hell, I'd wear one of those slinky mini skirts, just not the red shirt of courage."

Still more bullets, tearing three-quarter inch holes through the side of the cabin, letting little streams of early morning sunshine beam through.

It's going to be a beautiful day outside, Paul absently thought.

"That's my AK," Quince was shouting. "God, you've got to appreciate the raw power of that rifle."

Simone gurgled up some blood and milk over his chest in appreciation of Quineville's fine artillery. His already pale complexion was beginning to fade, and Paul shared a quick look with Scott, Cloud shook his head.

"Do these bastards know how much it cost me to rebuild this place?!" Hagen roared. "I'll have to replace those damn logs, It'll be a bloody fortune."

"I'm sure you'll have no problem suing their asses," Paul chimed in. "They've got a few bucks."

"Quite a gun," Quineville muttered for everyone to hear. He had scrambled to neatly place himself against a corner of the wall near the kitchen entrance. 

Scott had drawn his gun and was lying flat on his stomach, the snub of his .38 pointed toward the shattered window. He didn't know whether to believe Paul or not, but in situations like this, he was usually right, alcohol or not. 

Hagen, army trained, snaked across the linoleum as if he were passing beneath barbed wire, and started to work on Simone's shoulder. Simone was still conscious, and heading toward shock. Hagen grabbed the leg of a chair, slid it over, and slowly propped the bleeding man's legs up on the seat. This seemed to help a little, but like a backwash, another spurt of blood spattered the floor from the wound. 

"Here, bite down on this," Hagen said, and clamped a wooden saltshaker into Simone's mouth. He watched his friend's teeth clamp shut on it and score the wood like a pushpin into cork. 

Glass cupboard doors, Formica, molding, and bits of plaster spontaneously exploded. Hagen's favorite china skittered to the floor in pieces, and a martini glass spun around before tipping to the floor. "Jesus Christ!"

"Bad shots!" Quineville yelled. "We should be able to take them!"

Paul lay on his back, wondering what they were serving at the buffet at China Moon that afternoon. "Hard to get those hooves around those trigger guards, you know," he said.

"Would you fucking shut up!" Quineville erupted. "There's nothing out there but a couple of rubes having fun. Probably quit firing in a minute."

Paul sighed. "Ok, but when you're stuffed and mounted on a tree trunk somewhere, don't tell me I didn't warn you."

Now they could hear the precision firing of a thirty odd six. The single bullets came slicing in through the window, picking off nothing in particular but Hagen's disbelief and disappointment. 

"Circle the wagons!" Edwards shouted. He could have gone for an egg roll about then.

Hagen crossed underneath the imaginary barbed wire again, and crept up beside Scott, who was busy trying to decide the angle of the machine gun fire. He decided he'd head for the thirty odd six shooter. If he missed once, then he'd have his chance. 

Simone had passed out, his pain for the time being forgotten, and his bleeding had slowed to a red ooze, the saltshaker still clamped in his teeth. 

"How is he?" Scott asked.

"He'll live if we get him out of here," Hagen said. 

More glass, china, and bits of wood flew everywhere. Quineville seemed to be appreciating the destruction through the wondering eyes of boy. 

"There gonna have to come checking on us soon. See how many of us are dead..." Scott said. 

"I could get the axe from the other side of the house," Hagen said.

"Wouldn't do any good," Scott replied. "There's no fire coming from that side of the house, but I'm betting there's an ambush there. Trying to flush us out...clever..."

Hagen grunted. "I could go check," he said. 

Scott nodded his ok and Hagen was already halfway across the kitchen.

"Quince!" Scott yelled. "How much ammunition did you bring for your AK?"

"Twenty clips! He should have gone through about two so far!"

Paul rolled his eyes back further into his head. "Who'd you expect to meet out here, the Red Army?"

It was at times like these that Edwards often called upon the words of his wised grandfather who was 87 and still giving the crones at the nursing home the high hard one every chance he got.

"Petry," he always said (the man was senile after all). "If necessity is the mother of invention, then blind fucking panic is certainly the illegitimate father."

He waited for a pause in the shooting, and then another moment for the hangover induced echos to die off.

"Hey, Bambi," he screamed. "If we shot as bad as you your mom might still be alive."

The pause continued just long enough for Quineville to ask him what the hell he was talking about. Paul glance back at Cloud who mouthed to him, "Bambi?"

Scott suddenly burst out the door and shot all the bad deer dead. The End. Just seeing if you're still paying attention, Chris.

"I think I got their attention," Paul breathed as Simone chimed in with a few tearful whimpers of pain.

"Are you sure we wanted it?" Scott replied.

It was then that the short fused plastic explosive came sailing through the demolished window and landed in Simone's bowl of Fruit Loops.

"Boys," Hagen sputtered. "I don't know anything about an ambush, but that's a thirty second fuse. We might as well see whose pecker is the biggest cause somebody's gonna have to go out that door first."

Scott Cloud, man in motion, feared by men, adored by women, quickly got to his feet.

When the door swung open, the first bullet caught him in the stomach. Cloud grunted and kept on pushing, there was no stopping now, the others were depending on him. The next volley was from a shotgun, maybe it was even Cloud's own twelve gauge. Nevertheless, his right shoulder evaporated and his arm dangled loosely at his side. Scott roared and tore off the useless appendage, flinging it into the nearby woods which were now only a matter of yards away. The next shot was from the second chamber of the shot gun, and this time it took his head clean off. Bits of skull and matted black hair littered the air for a moment, but nothing was going to stop Cloud now as he pushed on to the lip of the forest.

"Jesus, Cloud." Hagen roared from not to far behind him. I've had that bear for twenty years, you're gonna pay for that you hear me, you're gonna pay!"

"Now!" Scott shouted as he tossed Smokey the bear aside and three rounds loose into the woods where he perceived the shooters to be. There were no tell-tale screams to let him know if any of the shots hand found a warm home, but there was some scurrying in the brush as the gunners quickly relocated.

Quineville was the first out the door, running like a drunk to the restroom. He was followed by by Hagen and Paul who were carrying the ever increasingly limp body of Simone. 

Scott tossed Smokey the Stump aside and flung himself onto the ground before the next spray of AK 47 fire rippled the ground into dust. Cloud rolled and fired, spending the last three rounds toward the forest. 

Hagen roared in pain and grasped his lower leg. A spout of blood appeared where a bullet had cleanly sliced through the meat of his leg. It always the same, Cloud thought, between the hunter and the hunted. 

Paul was rolling wildly, a human top across the ground like Dom Deluise in a bad Ron Howard movie. The only thing that was missing was yelling "fire, fire," but that was illegal in most states. Luckily though, this was Ontario, and everything was legal, so long as you weren't caught. 

Quineville was hunched somewhere behind a woodpile, again enjoying the spectacle, probably wishing that he had brought popcorn for the feature. 

Cloud quickly reloaded his .38, and looked into the trees. Everything was quiet--like in Platoon before the ambush. 

Here we are, in Ontario, no one around, and we're being shot at by anthropomorphized and very pissed off deer. Might not ever see Detroit again. So much for that dart league I was gonna join, and might as well say goodbye to the fellas at the AA center. Just as well, I guess. Knew I'd buy it someday, but killed by deer? Something about that just wasn't right. Wasn't literarily correct for a country boy to get killed in the country--no, better to get knifed in a big city bar. More ironic impact. 

Scott watched the tree line for any brief sign of movement.

Whoever was out there was probably camouflaged in some way, maybe wearing those mottled green and brown ponchos made to resemble so many spots in a forest that couldn't be picked out by a single glance. A rifle shot echoed off the woodpile and Quineville gasped at actually coming near danger. Paul thought that they would soon be smelling the familiar odor of shit encased by Levis, only that everybody knew that Quineville's didn't stink.

Scott thought he saw the muzzle (mussels?) flash, and took aim there. He carefully squeezed off a round, heard a grunt, and saw a white tail pop out from between two trees, only--only that it hadn't popped out on four legs, but two...

A burst of machine gun fire answered his bullet and tore through the house again. The wooden frame was riddled with black spots in the rough, brown wood. Hagen was probably going to have to rebuild the whole thing. Too much daylight was shining through now. Scott inched his way forward in time to see the spot where he had lay still erupt into a conglomeration of flying sod and dirt. Paul had somehow reached the edge of the woods and was safely propped up against a fallen tree. Scott didn't check on Hagen, just hoping that he had scurried back into the house like any good, wounded infantryman would do. 

"You can't win!" Scott yelled, and pushed himself forward. Grunts and snorts came from the forest, followed by an almost ritualistic burst of jihad-like fire into the air. 

Another tail scurried behind a tree from behind another. They were moving now--unsure. Maybe he had wounded one of them. Scott saw a patch of brown fur edge closer to the spot where Paul had buried himself. 

"Paul!" Scott yelled, but by that time, the two-legged deer had already leapt from the woods and had pointed his trusty bamboo fishing pole at Paul, the hook swinging free. It was obvious the animal was having trouble finding the trigger, as all that he could do was shake the rod at Paul, who was too busy with either fright or hilarity to pay attention, his head rolled down into his gut in laugher. 

Scott fired and hit the deer squarely in the neck. The slug tore a golf ball sized hole through it, and the animal toppled onto Paul, the rod snapping in two as it fell.

Another tail leapt into the clearing and Scott fired again, missing this time, and he dumbfoundedly watched the animal scurry back into the green escape. 

Another spray chewed up the bark and wood next to Paul's head, and Paul stopped laughing, trying to struggle free of 250 pounds of venison. 

Now the forest grew silent again, except for the racket being made by a little yellow bear who was stuck in the hole of a tree near by.

"Oh me, oh my," said Piglet. "How are we ever going to get him unstuck?"

As Paul released himself from the corpse of the young deer whom he recognized from the fire the night before, the horror of it all began to sink in.

He watched as Cloud carefully began to roam the clearing watching the woods for movement.

"Cloud," Hagen cried through clenched teeth, like a bad ventriloquist in pain. "Simone's dead, and I'm not going to be do the Jane Fonda workout myself for at least a few months. Take the other two and try to get the hell out."

"Shut the hell up," Cloud shot back at him. "Be a martyr on your own time."

"If I still had my gun, these bastards would all be in the smokehouse by now," Quineville whined from behind the wood pile.

`If you hadn't brought the damn thing in the first place, maybe Simone would still be eating his Froot Loops,' Paul thought to himself.

The gunfire had silenced the early morning birds but the other sounds of the forest began to win out now; the hum and buzz of insects, the trickle of a million drops of dew finding their way to the ground in a soft rain, the wind rustling through the leaves in a well worn cliche.

And then the fifteen point deer from the forest the morning before stepped into the clearing with all the majesty of Moses parting the Red Sea.

Paul watched as Scott reeled and brought the snout of his .38 to bear on the deer. Edwards was about to tell him not to, that this deer wasn't one of the rabble rousers, when he saw that his partner was already lowering his gun.

"Shoot the fucker!" Quineville roared.

"He's not armed," Scott muttered back, as if he found Quineville's obscenity and violence barely worth a reply.

Paul hadn't let his eyes stray from the buck, as the beast regarded each of their party with his calm, brown eyes. The animal hadn't flinched when Scott had brought his gun to bear, and looked as defiant as ever as it turned its mighty rack to the woods where the shots had been coming from. It snorted and whinnied several time.

After a few moments, the AK-47 flew from the woods and onto the dirt floor of the clearing. Soon, the other weapons followed as the ground of the clearing began to resemble a gun and knife show.

When the rain of weapons finally ceased, the buck turned back to the humans, and to Paul in particular.

"I am truly sorry," it began, speaking in plain English with only a slight inflection due to its Canadian accent. "Our young have been unruly here. The loss of life," he bowed his head to the ground where the young deer lay, and then to the edge of the woods where Hagen lay crippled with Simone's lifeless body, "is abhorrent to us. They stole your weapons, and stole your language, as I do now. I apologize for this, and assure you that it is not our way. We leave such barbarism for those less civilized."

As they all stood, knelt, or laid there in silence the buck turned and left. There were many question that Paul would later wished he'd asked, such as how to stop world hunger, but it all seemed to slip his mind at that moment.
 

They spent the next four days waiting for the pontoon aircraft to come and pick them up. There was no radio to signal for help, and hiking it out of the woods was not on anyone's Christmas wish list. So they sat it out. Simone was buried not far from the cabin. Hagen assured them that once they were out of the woods, so to speak, he would have the body exhumed and returned to the man's family.

Scott and Paul didn't speak much about it over the next several years. Hell, Scott didn't speak much about anything to begin with, and so many strange things had happened to them over the years that it barely qualified as cocktail conversation.

It didn't even stir a memory when one fine spring day, Paul had to go out to Farmington Hills on a case. A young wife, Jean Quineville, had called them. Like so many other customers she began her request with the phrase, "Someone recommended you, they said you handled odd cases."

It seems that the young Mrs. Quineville was a newlywed. When she had moved in with her new husband she had heard voices coming from her husband's den from her very first night in the house. At first she thought they might be from a TV or radio, but there were none in the den, and the voice would stop the moment she set foot in the room. She would prod her husband at night, when the constant voices would keep her awake like the nagging words of the ghost in Hamlet. He would grunt and tell her she was crazy, to shut up and go to sleep. But she knew that he heard them as well, he would toss and turn as the voice cried out again and again.

She thought she was going insane.

Paul could see why Scott had let him come out on this one; the woman was emotionally distraught, not very attractive, and married. He lent her what comfort he could, using soothing words and telling her there were half a dozen explanations for what was going on, even though he'd be damned if he could think of any.

He arrived at the house at about four in the afternoon, and Mrs. Quineville told him her husband would be home shortly.

"Could I look in the den alone before he gets back?" Paul asked in his you're-crazy-but-you're-paying-so-I'll-be-nice-to-you-anyway-voice.

The den was like any other Yuppie's. Gun rack, fire place, book shelves; in other words, disgusting.

But then he saw the head on the wall.

The eyes were buttons now, and they would never match the calm serenity of the deep brown orbs which they had replaced, but all else was the same. Fifteen points.

Quince entered the room behind him.

"What the hell are you doing in here, Edwards?" he bellowed. He was a little more bald, and a little more paunchy, but it was definitely Quince.

"You bastard!" Edwards roared as he closed the gap between himself and the other man within a few seconds, and pushed him to the ground like a broken toy. "Couldn't you just leave it alone? He saved our lives for Christ's sake."

Quineville was red with either anger or shame, Paul didn't care which. It took him a few moments to recover himself.

"Do you know how rare it is to find a buck with fifteen points these days? I don't need to give you an explanation, I don't owe you anything."

Paul thought of drawing on the man right there, pulling out his revolver and just plugging the guy, but before he got the chance, a deep voice with a Canadian accent rang out from over his shoulder.

"Would you two please stop it? And would one of you please get me down from here, I think I'm getting termites!"