Normally he feels at peace out here, but this morning he keeps hearing the same thing over and over again: the thump of Corson’s body against the body of his truck bed. Can feel the impact.
It’s sacrilegious, but he finally digs out his phone, shoves in his earbuds, puts on Springsteen’s Nebraska. The music is quiet, but it’s enough to drown out his memories. He texts Deanne:
hey. had a good time last night. maybe after we meet megan and brooke at the diner after work we can go for a drive again
Knows she won’t be up for a couple of hours. Even though she wanted to come with him today, she thinks he’s crazy for getting up early on a Saturday morning to go sit in the woods. Sends another text.
anyway, just thinking about you
He plays through all of Nebraska and has moved on to Cash’s American IV: The Man Comes Around when he sees the buck. He moves the rifle as slowly as he can. The deer is only partly out of the trees, its hindquarters still in darkness. It stands proud and tall, like there’s nothing to be afraid of in this world of ours, none of the skittishness Jessup is used to seeing. The rack isn’t going to set any records, but it’s respectable, and Jessup figures there’s enough meat to fill the freezer.
He’s got the rifle up now, closes one eye to look through the scope. No wind to speak of, one seventy-five straight shot. The buck takes a few steps forward, turns broadside to him so Jessup has a clear shot for the heart, but the buck has his head turned toward Jessup. Through the glass, it looks like the deer is staring back at him. Jessup keeps his finger light on the trigger, breathes in, breathes out, in, out, in, out. Through the earbuds, the first sad thrum of Cash’s cover of “Hurt.”
The Ruger pushes back against his shoulder and the buck doesn’t move. Jessup is still peering through the scope, and the deer is still staring back, but then Jessup sees something change on the buck’s face. Jessup knows he’s imagining it, that the deer can’t possibly understand what has happened, but he could swear it’s a look of betrayal, as if the buck knew Jessup was watching from the woods, as if the buck thought he could trust Jessup.
He expects the buck to bolt, figures he’ll have to track him down, but the buck stays still for twenty, thirty seconds before its front legs suddenly fold, and then it’s like the deer has simply decided to lie down in the snow, and even as he walks across the field, Jessup can see the way dark blood soaks into the whiteness.
He crouches, takes a picture of the buck that makes the rack look good, texts it to Wyatt. By the time he’s stood back up and pulled out his knife, Wyatt has texted back.
nice! one shot?
one shot
how far?
Jessup types “175” but then erases it. When he’s gone hunting with Wyatt, Wyatt has always pressed him to try to shoot from a distance that is farther than Jessup can comfortably hit.
200
pussy
Jessup chuckles. Wyatt shoots a Remington 700 he got from his grandfather, and he keeps it zeroed out to three hundred yards. Claims it’s not worth hunting a deer closer than that. Of course, at the shooting range, Wyatt puts his grouping of bullets in a circle the size of a quarter from a hundred yards away, all the while joking that Jessup needs to cash a twenty-dollar bill.
He field-dresses the deer quickly. It’s messy work, and once he’s done, it takes him more than an hour to get it back to where he’s parked. Now, with the sun out, there’s no way for him to avoid looking at the back of the truck.
The plastic lens over the taillight is smashed, the bulb broken. And next to it, a foot forward, almost equidistant from the wheel and the back corner, there’s a dent. It’s small—he can cover it with his palm and does—but it’s there. He painted the truck and cleaned it up best he could with his grandfather, but at the end of the day, it’s still a heap of crap. Jessup knows this dent is new, can feel it bone deep that this one came from Corson. For a panicked moment, he thinks he sees blood, but he realizes it’s from the buck, transferred off his glove.
But it’s just a dent, he thinks. Not a burning arrow calling him out, nothing out of the ordinary on a truck like this, no reason to think it’s anything other than one of many small accidents and mistakes that the truck has seen over the years.
Oh, Jesus. Get ahold of yourself, Jessup. He’s squatting, rocking on his heels. The buck’s head is turned, eyes bugged out, the dead deer watching him, judging him. Stop thinking about Corson, Jessup.
He stands up, drops the lift gate, and turns to the buck, muscles the dressed deer up into the bed. He’s dirty and tired, and in manhandling the deer more blood leaks out. It’s a thin trickle out the back of the truck, a dark blossom in the snow. He sticks his gloved hand underneath it, lets the blood drip onto his palm until his glove is covered. He wipes it clean on the broken plastic of the taillight lens, on the metal of the truck bed, over the dent and the rust.
Don’t think about Corson.
Don’t think about Corson.
Don’t think about Corson.
He tries to close the gate, but the deer isn’t in far enough, so he has to climb up in the truck bed. He grabs the buck’s rack and pulls it all the way in. When he jumps back to the ground, he’s breathing heavily. People who don’t hunt think the hard part is bagging the deer, he thinks, stripping off his gloves and throwing them into the bed of the truck with the deer’s carcass, but the hardest part is just getting it home.