The Hunting Trip

The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 24]

Thanksgiving went how Thanksgiving usually went. My dad and my uncle— they are brothers— watch football in the living room. Todd and Seth, my cousins, tried to play a board game with me and my sister. Monopoly goes really slowly when two people playing want to watch football instead. We decided to give up before dinner time came around.

My mom was in the kitchen the whole time working on dinner. She had help from my aunt. Well, she wasn’t really my aunt. She wasn’t my cousin’s mom either. She was just the lady who my Uncle married after his first wife wasn’t happy with him. But this new fake aunt was nice, especially for helping out my mom.

We used to live closer to my uncle and his family back when we lived in the big city. This was the first year they had come to visit us since we had moved. It was nice that I got to stay home for Thanksgiving, but I also felt like I wasn’t allowed to do what I usually did.

It was dinner time and we all went to the table. My dad and my uncle either talked about the football game or hunting the next day.

“Well, Mike, you excited?” My uncle asked. “About going out on your first hunting trip, tomorrow?”

I shrugged. “I guess,” I said. I was thinking the opposite.

“We went out and got everything we needed last Friday,” my dad said proudly. He was talking about the weird camouflaged clothing and survival gear we had bought.

“What are we going after, Dad?” my cousin Seth, asked.

“Folk’s are getting boar in these parts,” my uncle said. “Wild pig. Big boys. But if we happen to see a big old elk, we are free to bag one of those too.”

I didn’t like the thought of killing a real animal. I tried to think of it like the jobs in Rune Quest, where you had to hunt things for food and materials. It was maybe a little better to think of it like that. But I didn’t really care to know what happened after you ‘bagged’ one of those animals.

Up and At ‘Em

You have to get up really early to go hunting. I guess the animals are the easiest to find in the morning. Maybe they’re still sleepy? Well, all that means is you have to go to bed really early the day before. It was even worse than having to get up early for school.

The worst of it all? My cousins were sleeping in the bed in my room. I was sleeping in the den because I was nice and the others were guests (my mom’s words). It wasn’t like a sleepover, either. I had many thoughts about jumping on the computer and being able to finally play while everybody else slept. If my mom or someone ended up coming down to the kitchen during the night, I would have been caught though. Then I would have more than just my parents mad at me.

I slept for a little bit. Then the den light was suddenly turned on. Daylight hadn’t even started coming through the window at that time, either.

“Up and at ‘em,” my dad called to me from the door. I didn’t really know what that meant. Coming from my dad, at least, it signified that I would have no choice but to start getting ready.

My uncle was cooking breakfast that morning in our kitchen. It was all my favorite greasy things that I never usually ate for breakfast. I thought for a moment that I might go on more hunting trips if they started that way. I even dared to drink down some coffee that morning. And before you ask, no. It wasn’t the nice, flavored and blended-up coffee with whipped cream you get from those fancy places. It came right out of my dad’s coffee pot that gurgled and dripped like a broken bathtub. I didn’t like it any more than the last time I had tried it.

Even after breakfast, it was still dark outside. We all piled into my uncle’s pickup truck. My dad and uncle were in the front seats, and me and my cousins were shoved into the back. They were all talking about the football game the night before, or about what they were hoping to hunt down that day.

I fell asleep for a little bit against the cold, foggy back window. I only woke back up when it was a little bit lighter outside and the road was a whole lot bumpier. There were no more buildings outside the windows, only tall trees with naked branches and mossy rocks and humps of bushes that could swallow a person whole. It was nature.

We continued further into nature. My uncle finally stopped the car. I didn’t know where we were, but it was definitely not a parking lot. Most of all, it was really quiet.

Me and my cousins and my dad and uncle all matched that day. They were clothes that had pictures of leaves and bark and rocks and bushes on them. Basically, they looked like if you had rolled in a pile of fall leaves with a furry sweater on.

My uncle opened the tailgate of his truck and began pulling out the rest of the gear. The first thing I got my hands on from my dad was a bright orange vest. It was exactly the opposite of the camouflage that we had dressed ourselves in.

“Put this on to start, Mike,” my dad told me.

“But then the animals will be able to see us,” I said back.

“Well, sort of,” he said and shrugged.

“It’s so other hunters will know you’re a person and not an animal,” Seth, my first cousin, spoke up.

“Yeah,” Todd added. “If someone sees something big moving out in the woods, they’re gonna shoot at it!”

“True, but it will also help us spot you if one of us gets separated,” my dad said finally.

I didn’t want to get lost (or worse) so I put on the vest. Lined up in the back of my uncle’s truck were also these long, boxy plastic cases. I knew what they were. There was a pair of them. My uncle laid them out on the tailgate and unclipped their latches.

They were guns. They were long and metal. Just like the ones you see in video games. Not the video games I played, of course. My mom had made my dad promise that only he and my uncle use the guns. The rifles, she called them.

Well, the first person to hold one properly, with a strap over his shoulder and his finger down where you squeeze the trigger was Seth, the older of my two cousins. Out came the second one. This one had a wood part you put up against your shoulder. My uncle handed it to my second cousin.

My cousins acted like the guns weren’t anything special. They had probably held, even shot them before. I kept looking at the ends to watch where they were pointed. My uncle brought out one last thing. It was a camera bag. He had one of those new digital cameras, one where you had to hold it with two hands and twist the big lens to focus the picture.

“Let’s get a before shot. While we’re all still in one piece,” my uncle said with a chuckle.

“Hey now, don’t joke like that,” My dad spoke up. “But we might as well get some pictures. I’m okay taking it for you. Mike can get a picture with the boys, too.”

I found myself between my two cousins, each holding one of the rifles. While my uncle was showing my dad how to operate the camera, Seth shoved his gun in my hands. “Here, smile big like you’re ready to shoot!”

It was heavy. A lot heavier than I expected. I didn’t want my finger anywhere near the trigger. I held the weight of it across my chest. I felt like it could have exploded in my face at any moment. My uncle jumped back and joined us in the spot for the picture. I definitely didn’t want to smile for the picture.

I could almost see myself in the reflection of the camera lens. The day was just bright enough. I held perfectly still. That pose went on even after my dad took the picture. I was waiting for someone to take the deadly weapon from me. My uncle finally grabbed it away and laid it back on the tailgate. “We’ll load up a few rounds and then head up the trail some. Best use the bathroom if you need to before we get started.”

I looked around. There was no bathroom. There was nothing, really, besides my uncle’s truck.

“Go to the bathroom, where?” I asked.

My uncle laughed. “Pick a tree, any tree,” he said, waiving his hands out to the forest. “It’s all natural. Dave, you need to take your boy on a proper camping trip for once.”

My dad laughed one of his fake laughs. “I guess I ought to. Like dad used to do. I guess I’ve been working too much. Next summer, you and me, Mike.”

I nodded just a little bit. I was still thinking about going to the bathroom out there in the middle of nowhere. Going number one… it would be manageable. Anything else… I would hold it, no matter what. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

We began our trek away from that spot at the side of the road. The sun was kind of coming up. There were mountains all around us. They kind of blocked out the sun. The woods were thick, too, which made it darker. There was a path that was probably made by humans. Most of it was covered by the dead fall leaves. They were all soggy and dirty and didn’t crunch nicely.

I was still tired from waking up early. My legs were getting tired, too, especially from being weighed down by the supplies I was made to bring. I didn’t want to complain, though, since I would probably end up slowing everyone down.

The morning was cold, of course. I made clouds with every one of my breaths. And then I started to sweat. The thick layers of camouflaged clothing were definitely warm, too warm. So my face and hands were freezing, and everything else was boiling. Can you tell I was enjoying it?

I watched as the gun jiggled around on its strap wrapped around my uncle’s back. I didn’t know anything about a ‘safety’ at the time. It was the thing that kept the gun from shooting when you didn’t want it to. A gun was never safe, I thought to myself. My dad had told me that; if I ever saw something that looked like a gun, don’t touch it and tell an adult. Some real guns look like toys, and some toys look like real guns, so you can’t be too safe.

My dad and my uncle were chatting at the front of our pack. They slowed down and stopped, right there in the woods. The sun had really come out then. It was shining down through the half-naked trees. It was almost neat, but I was too tired, cold, and sweaty to care.

“This is a good a spot as any,” my uncle said suddenly. “Let’s get off the path a ways and set up.

My cousin Seth patted me on the back. “We’ve got to be really quiet now, Mike. So we don’t scare off the animals.”

“Yeah,” Todd added, “so don’t let out any big farts.”

They both laughed. I laughed a little bit with them.

Even with all our camouflage, that wasn’t enough. My uncle and dad set a collection of poles into the ground. As a group, we draped a big camouflage tarp over the top. It was like when you build a fort in your living room with pillows and blankets. But this was an actual fort.

It didn’t seem that big or cool when were were all sat down inside. Under my bottom were old, soggy leaves and lumpy rocks. There was a big slit in the tarp across the front where we could look out into the forest.

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