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

round into the chamber, locked down the bolt, and set the safety.

Jesse and Becky stood in the doorway, watching them hunker back and forth, testing the snowshoe straps. Bud bent to help Chris with the buckles. Chris took a step back. Rods of tension transfixed all the people standing in the cold. Could be just me, thought Harry.

Then Bud came next to Harry and said in a low voice. “I’ll HUNTER’S MOON / 57

lead, then Chris. Keep your eye on the kid, he’s not used to handling guns.” Then he swung his hand and grinned. “Follow me.”

“I’ll keep the coffee hot,” said Jesse. She stood hunched, hugging herself. Becky raised her hand once to Chris, then turned and dashed inside. When Bud and Chris had their backs turned, Jesse inclined her head at Harry and winked with her hot whore’s eye.

They set off across the powder, fine as flour, that had sifted off the trees onto the plowed drive, passed between two of the roughed-in log cabins, and followed a clear-cut trail.

It was sharp out, but not that cold. Mist pooled in low places.

Just like Becky had said, a snowmobile trail was carved into the drifts. They followed it for a few minutes, then Bud turned off at another clear-cut and they began to climb.

Over the scrunch of the snowshoes, Bud’s labored breath wheezed white gusts in the menthol air and a broth of sweat pasted Harry’s underwear against his ribs. Not used to this snowshoe routine in the dark, he settled into a web-footed lumbering gait.

Bud, who wore the biggest snowshoes, took care to beat a track for Chris, who dragged his left foot. Slow going in the black pines and then, fifty yards away, something big started and bounded away with muffled urgency. They poised alert, handling their guns, peering into the dissolving darkness. A minute later, Bud pointed to fresh tracks. Harry nodded. Deer.

More serious now, they plodded up the trail.

There was enough light now to pick out the faint contour of the ridge rising through the pines. They continued to climb, soundless except for the squeak of the laminated catgut on their wickered feet.

Harry brought up the rear. Reliable Harry. Everybody agreed, when the chips were down, depend on Harry to do the right thing.

Words: Temper. Temperance. Tempt. Tempest. Most of life was just so much goddamn talk.

58 / CHUCK LOGAN

“Wait,” Harry called out.

“What?” Bud turned.

“I don’t have my compass. Left it back in the lodge.”

“Can’t get lost in this snow. Just stay on the tracks,” said Bud.

“Should have a compass,” said Harry. His eyes were fixed in the gloom an inch to the left of Bud’s frosted beard. “You guys go ahead.

I’ll catch up to you on the ridge.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bud said nervously, “but we have to hurry. We should set in before light.”

“I’ll make better time on my own.” Harry started to unsling his rifle and pack. Bud seized the leather sling in a gloved hand, holding it to Harry’s shoulder.

“Hang on to your rifle,” said Bud.

“Okay, but you might as well wait here…”

“I’ll go part way with you, so you don’t get lost,” said Bud lamely.

“Can’t get lost in this snow,” said Harry foolishly and was embarrassed by the absurdity of their words. He knows too. And I’m going to do it anyway.

Chris listened passively to their silly conversation and they left him standing silently in the middle of the trail. Bud kept up for a hundred yards, then bent over, wheezing, he waved Harry on. Harry looked once over his shoulder and saw Bud slip off the trail into the cover of the trees.

Harry’s snowshoes flew over the moon-dappled snow.

10

The clean slice of skis cut through the trample of snowshoe tracks on the snowmobile trail. So Becky had gone skiing after all.

So he’d be alone with her.

For years, he’d treaded cautiously between anger and fear and his blood had thinned running in strict sober lines. Now it was up, hammering in his throat.

HUNTER’S MOON / 59

Be straight Harry or be crooked—either way, be real.

He stacked his rifle and pack next to the trail, kicked off the snowshoes, and broke into a run.

And he saw the pale lunar figure in faded denim come up from a dip in the trail and stride out of the low hanging mist with the plaid lining of her jean jacket rosy against her bare neck.

She held the compass at arm’s length on its cord, and then she cast her hand and threw the compass away and, not missing a step, she removed her wedding ring and stuck it in her pocket and raised both arms and put her hands back and tossed her head—another step, another toss—step and toss and the long black hair swung free.

She moved to the left, off the trail, into a grove of long-needled pine and Harry paced her, step for step. Sideways at first, they stole silently through smaller pines that were bowed with snow, prostrated in the wake of the north wind and then the thick branches closed in and dissembled the moonlight.

They approached each other by feel, by smell, in the still green maze of pine needles that vibrated in the misty air, erect as slender tuning forks.

Soundlessly they closed the distance until he threw his hands wide and pushed the pine boughs aside and uncovered her trembling on tiptoe with her eyes shut and her lips parted. Moonlight etched her teeth and hung a tinsel of silver and shadow on her upturned face and the bristling pine folded around them.

They crushed together and buttons, zippers, and belt buckles made welts in their flesh and their hips grated and her hair hummed through his fingers, inky as a sweaty June night.

Their hands explored and it was impossible this way, hobbled in clothes and boots, so she turned around and they fumbled in the moon-splashed dark and a button popped off his wool pants in his haste as she kicked one tennis shoe free of