Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (the false prince series txt) 📗

screwed a bore brush into the rod and dipped it in a bottle of cleaning solvent. His fingers warmed to the smell and feel of solvent on machined steel as he ran the brush down the barrel.

Then he tipped the rifle up and squinted down the muzzle, inspecting the rifling against the firelight.

“Listen, Mr. Griffin, I’m sorry about walking in on you in the bathroom,” said Chris.

“Harry.”

Chris nodded and slowly extended his hand and touched Harry on the forearm above his left wrist. “Harry, could I see that tattoo you have on your arm?”

Harry tensed at the gentleness of Chris’s touch. He started to reach over with his right hand to roll up his sleeve.

“I’ll do it,” said Chris. He turned the sleeve away and for a brief second held Harry’s left forearm in his hands. The tattoo was losing its edge, blending into the pigment; a winged Griffin below a word like a fading shout: AIRBORNE.

Chris pulled his hands back and folded them in his lap. “You ever have any other tattoos?” he asked.

Harry shook his head. When enough time had passed, he asked Chris, “How’d that happen? Your leg?”

Chris grinned. “Becky’s got nice legs, don’t she? She’s got HUNTER’S MOON / 45

nice everything. That’s because she took my leg before we were born. When we were tangled up in Mom’s belly like two little red-skinned rabbits.”

“So you were born with it?”

“Uh-huh. Bud says he’s gonna take me to a specialist to get an operation. Some kind of muscle graft deal. We just haven’t got around to it yet…”

“You like Bud?” Harry asked offhand as he replaced the brush with a slotted tip and ran a patch down the rifle barrel. The patch came out pure. Randall had cleaned the gun before giving it to him.

Harry was just going through the ritual. Getting acquainted.

“Mom likes him right now.” Chris said. “She married Bachelor Number Three. They should all go on the fucking Dating Game.” A drip of poison.

Harry felt eyes on his back and glanced up. Bud stood in the kitchen wearing a baggy brown terrycloth robe. He smiled, seeing Harry and the boy sitting in front of the fire. Becky came down the hall. Harry heard Becky open the refrigerator. Close it.

“So what are you going to do if you see a deer tomorrow?” Harry asked.

Chris fidgeted. “Shoot the sucker.”

“Where you going to shoot him?”

Chris’s eyes glittered at the fire. “Larry says an animal’s life is between its shoulders. So aim there.”

Harry squinted at Chris. He wasn’t used to being around kids.

Maybe he was reading it wrong. “First time hunting, huh?” he asked in a fraternal voice.

Chris bit his lip. “Yeah,” he smiled sheepishly.

“Tell you what you do: you count to three,” said Harry. “One, make sure it has horns. Two, while you’re aiming, make sure you have the safety off. Then put the sight right on the front edge of his chest and move smooth with the shot. Make sure the crosshairs stay in the same spot. That way you’re moving with the target. Three, squeeze. Don’t jerk it.”

“What if it’s standing still?”

46 / CHUCK LOGAN

“Then it’s easier. But you’ll be real excited if you see a deer. That’s why you should count, to control yourself.”

Chris chewed on his lip and glanced around. “One—two—three.”

“Good,” said Harry. He slid the bolt into the rifle, pointed it at the fireplace, and pulled the trigger with a hollow click.

Abruptly Chris got up, went into the den, and turned on the television. A stereo came on in Becky’s room at the end of the hall.

The quiet interval had ended.

Jesse, barefoot in a purple silk robe, came out of the hall and glided down the steps and firelight licked her carved ankles and calves and the glowing moisturizing cream on her face. With a lan-guid, utterly female gesture she raised her arm and placed her hand behind her head. Harry caught every rustle of the silk sleeve and saw and smelled the dusky roundness under her arm as she slowly pulled a binder from her hair. The braids loosened and breathed.

“We’re hitting the sack,” she said. “You know where everything is?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’ll be crazy in the morning. Bud wants to get up at four.” She paused, almost shy. Jesus. She had more forward gears than a Mack truck. “Well, goodnight,” she said. Just being polite, seeing to a guest.

Alone in front of the fire, Harry snapped the Remington 271 to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, getting its feel. He set the rifle aside, lit a cigarette, and savored Jesse Deucette, the manager.

For a married woman, she sure had a bold way of showing her ass.

The kind of female who trips a man up in his balls. Same principle that had the red-eyed bucks rampaging out there in the dark, lips curled back, noses tilted to the estrus in the wind as they thrashed their horns against the trees in the grip of the rut and were led around by their dicks right under the hunters’ guns.

Too much woman. Like…he shut his eyes…being inside Grace Slick’s voice with the volume turned all the way up.

Eyes again. Chris stood in front of the TV, looking down into the main room, watching him. A hulking brown shape HUNTER’S MOON / 47

moved past the kitchen. Bud in his bathrobe, going down the hall.

Harry flipped his smoke into the fireplace.

“Guess I’ll turn in,” Harry said as he walked into the den. He stopped in front of the racket of some rock group video on the TV

and tapped down the volume key. “That’d wake the dead,” he said.

“That’s the idea,” Chris shrugged.

“’Night,” said Harry, moving toward the hall.

“Hey,” said Chris. Harry turned. Chris pointed his finger and cocked his thumb. “One, two, three.” The boy’s grin was too bright.

His eyes too hot. He was high.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Chris said in an even voice.

Harry smiled grimly and turned his back on Chris. The minute he closed the bedroom door behind him, the TV