Tripwire

“Get some help!” Mike screamed.

Tom and Rich stood in front of him, mouths gaping. They looked at each other, then to Mike and the body lying at their feet. He was sobering up now. They all were, and in a damn hurry. Mike’s hands and the sleeves of his orange jacket were soaked. So much blood. He couldn’t believe there was so much blood.

“Deer don’t b-b-bleed like th-this. What the h-hell?” He was hysterical and stammering. Mike looked up at Rich, his eyes wide and desperate. “Get some Goddamned help.” Rich stumbled back two paces, unable to tear his gaze from the scene. The train wreck wasn’t over.

A tornado whipped thoughts into a frenzy in Mike’s head. How did this happen? Why was the guy wearing brown, out here, in the middle of the fucking woods during hunting season for Christ’s sake? Why couldn’t he have stayed sober this time? Would he have pulled the trigger so fast if he was? Did it even matter anymore?

His hands pressed hard against the single bullet hole in the man’s chest. Fallen on his back, he still managed to wheeze in air, if only barely. The hole bubbled then sucked in blood with each breath. His eyes were open but no one was home. He was gone. Checked out and en route to that big woodland park in the sky. Mike knew it, yet he couldn’t let go. The nearest hospital was hours away, out here in the thick forests of northern New York. This guy was gone the second Mike heard a twig snap twenty yards away, while his mind focused on bagging the first buck of the season.

Winter had begun to descend on the world. A cold, arctic snap of air swept down from Canada, coating the barren trees and thinning pines with a light glaze of frost. Steam from the dying man’s body drifted through Mike and into the frigid air. It creeped Mike out something fierce. ‘He’s passing right through me,’ he thought, still pressing on the wound with all his weight. The man was growing cold. Mike’s red wool hat had fallen off during the commotion and now the painful bite of winter chomped at his ears. His chin dropped to his chest and his blood soaked hands fell to the ground on either side.



Tom couldn’t move. He looked at the lifeless body on the ground and couldn’t believe this was happening again. The hunt, the booze, the laughs. All gone. Ripped away in the blink of an eye. He played by the rules the first time and he still did time. He hadn’t pulled the trigger then and didn’t now, and he’d be damned if he’d go through that hell for anybody.

The bright blue morning had given way to gray skies. The smell of snow hung in the air. Tom looked through the trees and studied the leaf-littered ground. He knew mid-November soil was not frozen solid yet. That would be helpful. Scanning the immediate surroundings, Tom was looking for something in particular. He couldn’t see what he wanted and began to walk deeper into the thicket. Rich called after him but Tom had disappeared.



“Wh- ... where’s he goin’?” Mike asked. He remained on his knees, facing his victim. He looked up at his Rich who had taken several steps away, trying to catch a glimpse of Tom. Rich stopped next to an insect ravaged pine, its lower branches reduced to hard, sharp stumps that stretched out in effort to tear at an unwitting passer-by. His head bobbed from side to side, searching for Tom. It was like looking for a ghost. Rich suddenly wondered why they had chosen this place to hunt. You could barely see twenty feet.

“I don’t know,” he answered, still scanning the region. “He’ll be back.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you? Come back?” Rich made his way back to his friend and knelt next to him. Mike had shot his share of deer but this was entirely different. His body felt sluggish, like he was suspended in honey. He could’ve been dreaming all of this, but he knew better. The smell of death was much too real, and much too close.

Rich thought about it. He thought about it long and hard. What it boiled to was that he didn’t know. Neither one of them knew Tom all that well. Tom had been introduced to them by a mutual acquaintance when they spoke of their annual hunting trips in a deli back home. He seemed like a nice enough guy and agreed to bring all the beer they needed in exchange for a seat in the truck. They knew him now for little more than three weeks. He realized they didn’t know him at all.

“Can’t worry ‘bout that now,” Rich stated. “We need to get this guy outta here. We need to get outta here.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Mike shook his head and his eyes grew large in their sockets. “What did I do, Rich? What did I do?” The heel of his blood stained left hand dug into his forehead. He began to rock back and forth on his knees.

Rich put an arm around his shoulder. “It’ll be all right. We’ll get through this.” Rich shuffled on his knees to the lifeless body and rifled through the man’s pockets. There was nothing but loose change and a comb. It struck Rich as odd; a man wandering in the woods, dressed in non-descript clothes, a faded brown suede coat, black jeans, and a black hat, during hunting season and miles away from civilization. Rich found it peculiar and rather unsettling. He began to wonder just how deep into the woods they wandered. Was it possible they had encroached on someone’s backyard?

“Grab the body and come with me.” Neither one heard Tom return. He approached from behind and they spun startled to their feet.

“Jesus Christ. Scared the shit out of me.” Rich’s anger was apparent. He stared at Tom unflinching. The guy had been quiet for most of the trip so far. This might have been the most he spoke since they set up camp last night. “What’re you talking about?”

“We’re taking care of it. Now.”

“Yeah, we’re taking him to a hospital.”

Tom dropped his chin, shook his head, and stepped forward. Rich was easily half a foot taller but suddenly felt intimidated. There was a look in this man’s eyes he didn’t know. A determination of some sort. This man wasn’t bargaining. “I don’t think so.” He stopped less than a foot in front of Rich. Michael made it to his feet and took several small steps back. He had created this mess but wanted no part of whatever Tom was planning.

“We can’t hide this!” Rich waved his hand over the dead man. “Are you suggesting we-”

“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling you.” Tom took another step closer. His nose turned up, nearly touching Rich’s chin. The look in his eyes was grazed with a touch of instability. A loose cannon. “I’ve been here. This happened to me already. I didn’t pull no trigger then and I still got fucked. You think I’m gonna do that again? Fuck you. No fuckin’ way. This guy’s gone. Vanished. Plain and simple. Now grab him and let’s go.”

Rich had no answer. He looked at Mike and those eyes told him he was beyond making any decisions, or even contributing to the solution. Mike was slipping away, almost as far as the man growing cold on a nest of leaves. “No, we’ve got to do the right thing.”

Tom whipped a handgun from his pocket and thrust it in Rich’s face. He growled, “Then you’re gonna stay right here with ‘im.” He pressed the gun into Rich’s nose until he was forced back, the heel of his right foot catching the body, nearly knocking him over. They all had weapons and they were away from the world. The problem was, too many people back home knew they came out here together. They all had to return together, or not at all. Tom made it clear how they were dealing with this.

Rich stepped reluctantly over to his friend and the two of them looked at Tom. “We bury him. A hundred yards from here,” Tom directed. “There’re enough rocks we can use so nothing digs him up. Then we leave.” As he started to turn and lead them to the spot he had found, he turned back to them one more time. “This is our little secret. Don’t forget that. Anyone finds out and God help me, I’ll bury yer ass right out here next to him.” To drive his point home, he fired his gun at the corpse. The man’s jacket puffed and Mike winced as the bullet ripped through dead flesh with a thump.



It was the last time Mike and Rich ever hunted. It was the last time they ever did anything together. As they dragged the body across the crunching leaves, Mike couldn’t help wondering how long until he snapped his own twig and caught his own fate.