The Never Game. Джеффри Дивер

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       9.

      Colter Shaw, fifteen, is making a lean-to in the northwest quadrant of the Compound, beside a dry creek bed, at the foot of a sheer cliff face, a hundred feet high.

      The lean-to is in the style of a Finnish laavu. The Scandinavians are fond of these temporary structures, which are found commonly on hunting and fishing grounds. Colter knows this only because his father told him. The boy has never been outside California or Oregon or Washington State.

      He’s arranged pine boughs on the sloping roof and is now collecting moss to provide insulation. The campfire must remain outside.

      A gunshot startles him. It’s from a rifle, the sound being chestier than the crack of a pistol.

      The weapon was fired on Shaw property because it could not have been fired anywhere else; Ashton and Mary Dove Shaw own nearly a thousand acres, and from here it’s more than a mile’s hike to the property line.

      Colter pulls an orange hunting vest from his backpack, dons the garment and walks in the direction of the shot.

      About a hundred yards along, he’s startled when a buck, a small one, sprints past, blood on its rear leg. Colter’s eyes follow it as it gallops north. Then the boy continues in the direction the animal came from. He soon finds the hunter, alone, hiking deeper into the Shaw property. He doesn’t see or hear Colter approach. The boy studies him.

      The broad man, of pale complexion, is wearing camouflage overalls and a brimmed cap, also camo, over what seems to be a crew-cut scalp. The outfit seems new and the boots are not scuffed. The man is not protected with an orange vest, which is a hugely bad idea in thick woods, where hunters themselves can be mistaken for game or, more likely, bush. The vests don’t alert deer to your presence; the animals are sensitive to the color blue, not orange.

      The man wears a small backpack and, on his canvas belt, a water bottle and extra magazines for his rifle. The gun is a curious choice for hunting: one of those black, stubby weapons considered assault rifles. They’re illegal in California, with a few exceptions. His is a Bushmaster, chambered for a .223 bullet—a smaller round than is usually chosen for deer hunting and never used for bigger game. The shorter barrel also means it is less accurate at a distance. These guns are semiautomatics, firing each time the trigger is pulled; that aspect is perfectly legal for hunting, but Colter’s mother, the marksman in the family, has taught the children to hunt only with bolt-action rifles. Mary Dove’s thinking is that if you can’t drop your target fast with a single shot you (a) haven’t worked hard enough to get closer or (b) have no business hunting in the first place.

      And, also odd, the Bushmaster isn’t equipped with a scope. Using iron sights to hunt? Either he’s an amateur’s amateur or one hell of a shot. Then Colter reflects: he only wounded the deer. There’s the answer.

      “Sir, excuse me.” Colter’s voice—even then, a smooth baritone—startles the man.

      He turns, his clean-shaven face contracting with suspicion. He scans the teenager. Colter is the same height then as now, though slimmer; he won’t put on bulking muscle until college and the wrestling team. The jeans, sweatshirt, serious boots and gloves—the September day is cool—suggest the boy is just a hiker. Despite the vest, he can’t be a hunter, as he has no weapon.

      Colter is teased frequently by his sister for never smiling, yet his expression is usually affable, as it is now.

      Still, the man keeps his hand on the pistol grip of the .223. His finger is extended, parallel to the barrel and not on the trigger. This tells Colter there is a bullet in the chamber and that the hunter is familiar with weapons, if not the fine art of hunting. Maybe he was a soldier at one time.

      “How you doing?” Colter asks, looking the man straight in the eye.

      “Okay.” A high voice. Crackly.

      “This is our property, sir. There’s no hunting. It’s posted.” Always polite. Ashton has taught the children all aspects of survival, from how to tell poisoned berries from safe, to how to stymie bears, to how to defuse potential conflicts.

       Never antagonize beast or man …

      “Didn’t see any signs.” Cold, cold dark eyes.

      Colter says, “Understood. It’s a lot of land. But it is ours and there’s no hunting.”

      “Your dad around?”

      “Not nearby.”

      “What’s your name?”

      Ashton taught the children that adults have to earn your respect. Colter says nothing.

      The man tilts his head. He’s pissed off. He asks, “Well, where can I hunt?”

      “You’re a mile onto our land. You would’ve parked off Wickham Road. Take it east five miles. That’s all public forest.”

      “You own all this?”

      “We do.”

      “You’re kind of like a Deliverance family, aren’t you? You play banjo?”

      Colter doesn’t understand; he would later.

      “I’ll head off then.”

      “Wait.”

      The man stops, turning back.

      Colter’s confused. “You’re going after that buck, aren’t you?”

      The man gives a look of surprise. “What?”

      “That buck. He’s wounded.” Even if the man is inexperienced, everyone knows this.

      The hunter says, “Oh, I hit something? There was just a noise in the bushes. I thought it was a wolf.”

      Colter doesn’t know how to respond to this bizarre comment.

      “Wolves hunt at dusk and night,” he says.

      “Yeah? I didn’t know that.”

      And pulling a trigger without a sure target?

      “Anyway, sir. There’s a wounded buck. You’ve got to find him. Put him down.”

      He laughs. “What is this? I mean, who’re you to lecture me?”

      The teenager guesses that this man, with his ignorance and the little-worn outfit, had been asked to go hunting with friends and, never having been, wanted to practice so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

      “I’ll help you,” Colter offers. “But we can’t let it go.”

      “Why?”

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