By Scott Steensma

From the ridge rippling green mountains stretch to the horizon. The wind is soft and cool, the sun not yet high enough to dry the dew speckled rocks.

Randall slowly rakes the valley before him with his rifle, the scope at maximum. Seeing nothing, he leans the weapon against a mossy boulder and sits. His sweat from the climb is cooling quickly. He stretches his legs out in the cloud-dappled morning sun and watches birds soar high above the valleys.

He loved this place, loved being a Warden. The job felt made for him, and in truth, it was. Too many returned soldiers, too much social unrest, too many feral deer in the national parks. Three birds, one stone. When he had shaken the plump hand of his interviewer a year prior, the man's flesh bunched around his wedding band like a hamburger filled with gold, Randall hadn't asked about pay. He had asked when he could start, when he could head away. Away from crowded streets, away from narrow alleyways and more parked cars than he could ever check for IEDs.

Four weeks later he was airlifted in. He watched as a gate in the tall concrete park barrier closed, cutting him off from the teeming cities, from roaring traffic and squalid resiblocks. Six days into the wilderness he found Geoff. He has seen him nearly every fortnight since. 

Randall stands and hauls his pack up. Usually he can spend weeks alone in the mountains. Not this time. Sometimes seven days is enough for the old memories to crowd in. It’s time to find Geoff, to sit with someone else who knows fear, and the self recrimination that comes with it.

***

Geoff stands on a rock overlooking a river. The crash of water on stone carries from nearby rapids and rainbows shimmer in the misty spray. He knows that deer come here to drink in the early morning.

He hops from the boulder, stashes his pack behind a tree and unslings his rifle, carefully adjusting the output dial to the upper middle of the range. Too much power and he drains the battery. Too little and a larger animal may not be stunned.

He pulls the hood of his jacket up, lifts his weapon and stalks silently into the forest.

***

Randall walks down the mountainside weaving through the light scrub. He keeps off the nearby gravel-specked rut — the long-defunct remnants of a government hiking trail. While his boots crunch against stones his mind wanders ahead. As a Warden he checks in on other hunters every few days, but most of his meetings are businesslike. It is only Geoff that he feels a connection with, despite their professional distance.  His spirits buoyed, he begins to hum.

***

Geoff crouches on a rise above the river. Below him the ground slopes to a ford, the muddy ground by the water’s edge churned with hoof marks.  A young stag crosses the open ground, its stubby antlers carrying only two points.

Through the rifle scope the deer is shockingly close. A small scar runs down its neck, the calling card of a larger, more impressively crowned male. As Geoff breathes the stag rises and lowers in his crosshairs. Holding his breath he gently depresses the trigger. In one hundredth of a second a conducting ion stream traces through the air. The moment the stream reaches its target the rifle roars, and the beast crashes to the ground.

Geoff draws his knife and rushes at the convulsing animal. Stepping over its jerking legs he straddles it, grabs an antler and pulls its limp head back. With one smooth stroke his blade flashes and the creature’s blood pulses onto damp leaves. 

***

Heading along the trail towards the river Randall hears a faint crack. He smiles and quickens his pace.

***

Geoff wipes his knife clean on the grass, sheathes it and slings his rifle strap over his arm. Kneeling, his back to the kill, he grabs the stag’s legs and hoists the animal onto his shoulders. 

***

Randall sits on a rotting log near Geoff’s pack with his rifle across his lap. Ahead, the trail meanders for twenty metres before it disappears over the top of a small knoll.

On the other side Geoff lumbers up the trail, his step slow and heavy, the bloodied stag across his shoulders. He crests the rise, a stocky, tousled-blonde man in dirty green trou and jacket. He stops to run his sleeve across his brow, then carefully starts down the slope.

When Geoff is fifteen paces away from Randall he looks up. His eyes scan the trees ahead, and with a jerk he stops. In a flash of movement he shrugs the stag off his shoulders.

Before the animal has landed Randall fires. A shattering crack echoes through the valley again as the blast catches Geoff full in the chest. Geoff falls hard, his boots kicking up leaves as his legs scythe on the forest floor. The front of his trousers darken. 

Randall rises from his log and walks over. Taking care to step over the fallen man’s spasming legs he bends down and gently pulls Geoff’s head back. He takes a sedative patch from a belt pouch and places it against the stricken hunter’s neck. Geoff stops shaking and his breathing slows. The charge status on his dropped weapon slowly pulses red.

Randall shakes his head and speaks, his voice croaky with disuse. "I thought by now you'd keep off the trails".  

He wanders back to the log and sits. A few minutes later Geoff groans and tries to raise himself with his shaking arms.

Randall clears his throat. “Let’s sort the formalities. Can you hear me?”

Geoff meets Randall’s gaze then closes his eyes, his head wobbling down then up.

“Geoffrey Duffell. You have served twelve months and three weeks. You have a further eleven months and one week of time to serve. The corporal element of your sentence has just been applied, and will be regularly dispensed.”

Geoff slumps forward into the dirt, his face sinking into thick, wet leaves. The distant rush of the river almost drowns out his short, muffled cries.

Randall rises from and crosses the distance to where Geoff lies. He steps over him, crouches down and draws his blade. Carefully, he runs it around the fallen stag's rear thigh, red welling sluggishly around the edges of his work.

While he cuts, he talks aloud, working over his recent dreams of the Ankara retreat, of his year guarding a POW camp in Karachi. He has just finished detailing the out-of-character loneliness he has been feeling when he finally saws through the last tendons and the leg drops to the dirt. He lifts the haunch and rises, brushing stones and leaves from the bloody stump. With practised ease he hefts his meat onto his shoulder and turns to go.

He glances at Geoff lying in the leaves and mud, twin trails of dirt down his cheeks marking the passage of his tears. 

“Great chat, Geoff. See you in a couple of weeks.”

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