Page 7 of Enkindling

If all my years of life had taught me anything, it was that Mother Nature had a strange and altogether unmatched way of helping you put things into perspective – sometimes even putting those things into perspectiveforyou. It was a lesson I had learned to appreciate profoundly, and even now, at the ripe old age of forty, I still retreated to the wilderness as often as I could. It just so happened that I always had something or other that required some perspective.

There was something about being out in the wild with nothingto rely upon but the naked environment and one’s wits that brought into sharp focus the incredible frailty and theincalculable value of life. The city tended to cloud that realization beneath the constant fog of feverish activity and the soulless, though vital, a ritual of commerce. There, everything was coated in an ever-growing layer of convolution that served to make life more structured and convenient, as some counted convenience, but also stripped it of its character and meaning. In effect, life had been reduced tonothing more than a number of games. Out here, though, everything was simple. And the simplicity was stark and pure. It made you see, feel, and consider things you were oblivious to otherwise, and those things ended up seeming far more consequential, far morerealthan all the rest.

Mother Nature was also expert at soothing rogue thoughts and salving stubborn wounds, and God knew I needed some soothingand salving right now. Already, it was doing the trick. My troubled musings had receded into the background—not vanquished, but somehow subsumed into a kind of distant harmony that allowed me to have precious moments of peace. It felt like all this chaos already made perfect sense somehow, and it was only a matter of my still clueless self catching up. All I had to do was stay positive, give it time, and keep my eyes open in the meantime, like I was doing at this very moment.

I was hot on the trail, I knew. And they were near. Two days on the hunt was about to come to a head. All I needed now was a bit of patience, and then I would know for sure if it all had been worth it. But I had to be careful. One wrong move was all it would take to render all my work completely vain.

It was still dark; sunrise wouldn’t be for another hour, possibly less. I rechecked the wind, that ficklest of friends on the hunt. The drizzle was far more favorable; it would help mask my scent and my sounds. At any rate, my calculations were right. I was certain. Still clutching my rifle across my body, I made a few careful steps forward and got to my goal, a sturdy-looking tree off to the left.

I hoisted myself up into it without difficulty and chose my vantage point. I looked back into the darkness to the spot where I knew my horse was waiting for me, a safe distance away. He was probably browsing. He would remain silent unless there were danger, so I wasn’t concerned about noise. I returned my attention to the task at hand. My vantage point afforded me a commanding view of my surroundings; all I needed now was a bit of light and luck. There was nothing to do but wait and watch.

Being unable to do anything besides waiting did have the effect of bringing my more troubling thoughts to the fore. However, as I settled myself in my perch, I surrendered to them. I had done it, I thought with a sigh. I had come right back into Kathleen Cruz’s life.

I replayed the meeting from two days ago. Had I wanted to make contact? I had to admit that that was yes, if a very conflicted one. It was my fault, anyway. I could have kept my distance. I could have had her remain none the wiser. I could have opted to go somewhere far away from here, far away from the possibility of ever meeting like this again. Instead, I had decided to track her down weeks ago and further to hover in the background to make sure she was okay – my misguided way of doing penance. Well, maybe not quite so misguided, after all. I had managed to protect her. Had I needed to? Maybe not. But it required no thought on my part to conclude that I would have done it again. Leaving Kathy’s safety to chance while I was around was something I would never do. But a very vocal part of me did wish I had somehow managed to remain out of sight. Thanks to that meddling policeman, however, I failed on that front.

All of that aside, there was one truth that existed entirely free of conflict: I wanted Kathleen Cruz.

I had hoped that the passage of time had snuffed that flame out. On the contrary, one look at her was all it had taken to confirm that it had not. If that had been true from a distance, it became irrevocable the moment I finally came face to face with her again. It was as if someone had taken bellows and stoked what was hidden beneath ash into roaring flame once more. There was no doubt about it, no conflict at all, no internal warring or questions or hesitation. It was simply fact beyond debate—I wanted this woman. The conflict lay in something else entirely.

She was very different than I remembered her, and yet she was the same in other ways. For one, she was still a beauty. She possessed delicate features, which gave her a charm that I found enchanting. Her pretty face was framed by that raven hair I remembered so well, and she had a small, firm mouth that hinted at her stubbornness – another feature of hers that I was so familiar with. That bottom lip in particular had the curious effect of giving her a look that said she would brook no nonsense even while making her appear to be on the brink of mischief. When those lips parted into a smile, the effect was breathtaking.

It was the eyes, though, that was most striking to me. They were bright and expressive eyes, blue in color, and they haunted me now as they had all those years ago. They could also be piercing. I had gotten to look at them up close again just two days ago, and I had come quite rapidly to the decision not to make a habit of that during the encounter. I snorted in derision at myself as I remembered it. I had made a career of looking people in the eyes and reading what I saw there. Now I was shying away from those of a woman I had known when she was nothing but a filly. Those eyes told me that she had done quite a bit of growing up since. However, there was steel behind them.

What was more, she had blossomed. Kathy had always been slender and shapely. While she still had a dainty figure now, she wasn’t the same petite little thing I remembered. She had transformed with the years and had truly come into her own. And she had been taking care of herself. I found myself dwelling on her voluptuous frame, another consequence of having been that close to her last time. I was dwelling on it so much that it had sent me out into the woods, I conceded with grim humor. The old desires and longings had come back in full force, and I had to get away. The sight of her full breasts stirred up fiery memories of nights long gone to the point where I was now actively imagining the weight of them in my hands. Her slender waist and plump posterior reminded me of the sweetness of her core that I had once known as thoroughly as a man could know anything. In short, there was no safe angle from which to look at Kathleen Cruz, and so I had decided not to.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of her – not in the least. If anything, I was going mad with the desire to claim her for my own again, and this time for good. That was partly why I was out here – to put some distance between myself and that raging inferno. But there were a few hiccups to consider, too. First, I had no real idea if there was someone else. So far as I could tell there wasn’t, but I hadn’t exactly been watching her every move since I got here a few weeks ago, so there was no way of knowing for sure without asking her. Second, there was the issue of our past. I’d hurt Kathy badly and had regretted it since, so I would understand if shewanted nothing to do with me. Fortunately, things seemed hopeful on that front. I was certainly glad to hear her say she wanted to see me again at the end of our last meeting.

The third reason was the most important of all. However, I hadn’t hurt Kathy out of spite. I did it because I had to. To say that the issue was complex was to grossly understate it. The past is every man’s unseen companion, and when you had one like mine, its consequences were more real than most. In the end, it came down to necessity. I didn’t deserve anything approximating peace or happiness. Not after everything I had done. No matter your reasons, once you’d walked the path of blood, there was no going back. Not even if you wanted to.

I certainly didn’t deserve Kathy. One look at those eyes was enough to tell me she was as innocent as she had been the day I met her, no matter how much growing up she had done since. I would never forgive myself if she got hurt because of me, and there was no shortage of people who were looking to find a chink in my armor and who would exploit it, no matter what – or who – it happened to be.

The minutes marched by quickly, occupied as I was with my thoughts. It fascinated me to no end that thoughts like these, which were so daunting at the moment, now seemed altogether tolerable. The longing was still fiery and the worries painful, but here I could contemplate them with a significant calm that dulled their edge while I lost myself in the wild land. Maybe it was the solitude, or it was the land itself. Perhaps it was the challenge and the adrenaline involved in tracking my skittish quarry. Whateverit was, I was feeling particularly alive out here, and that heightened sense of connectedness to the natural world had undoubtedly madesomethinghappen. Anxiety and anguish faded into something higher and more primal that seemed to make even them begin to make sense. Granted, it was a sense I couldn’t quite grasp, but it felt more real for its impenetrability. For the time being, I was strangely content.

Give it time. It will work itself out. Keep your eyes open. You only have to be ready.

I remained very vigilant indeed, and now my vigilance was paying off. As the extremes of the eastern sky began to glow with the first signs of the morning sun, my quarry came into view. They made no sound as they went into the clearing; I would have completely missed them if I hadn’t been expecting them. The small herd of red deer was just visible enough in the pale light of imminent dawn. They were sleek. They were majestic. They were at ease, totally unaware that they were in the presence of the hunter. I smiled.

My prediction had been accurate, and it was a beautiful thing. I had wrestled with nature and cameout the victor. Early in the hunt, these masters of the bush had spotted me, thanks to a stroke of misfortune that had dashed me to safety, leaving me thwarted in their dust. But I managed to pick up their trail and follow them all the way here, plotting my path with meticulous care and relying on judgment to corner them ultimately. I had stalked and studied their movements for two days. They wouldn’t escape this time.

Gingerly, I lowered myself into position, rifle primed. From this moment on, nothing else existed; there was just them and me. The light spattering of rain was hardly an obstacle, and I didn’t feel the cold. My coat was doing its job anyway. I already knew which one my target would be. He was in my sights now, a proud young buck with impressive horns. He was grazing contentedly towards the rear of the herd. I knew I didn’t have much time. I would have to take the shot while he was still in a favorable position. Every second counted.

I aimed right where I knew his heart was, took a deep breath, then let it out. For a second, time seemed to stop. I placed my finger on the trigger and gently pulled. There was a loud bang and an instant recoil, but I was perfectly secure in my perch. The herd was already on the move, white tails flashing as they vanished into the trees in a panic, but it was already too late. I watched as my target slumped to the ground, having not had the chance to take a single step. The shot had been perfect.

I let myself down and made my way to my quarry. I had given the poor thing a clean death, which was good. The last thing I wanted was to make it suffer a slow and agonizing death due to a bad shot – to hit it without bringing it down, leaving it able to escape into the forest beyond my reach but with no chance of survival.

There was something humbling about hunting. You were intensely aware of the necessity both of food and the sacrifice of the animal. I looked down at the dead creature and contemplated what it meant to live and die. I had never died, but I had come close to it more times than I couldcount, I had beenpresumeddead before, and I had certainly killed. It was always the moments like these when you came face to face with the stark, thin line between the two – alive one second, dead the very next – that forced you to put things into perspective the most.

Nature was both beautiful and terrifying, and there existed inexorable forces greater than man or beast. Sacrifice wasnecessary, but I was fundamentally opposed to pointless or careless ones. I’d had my reasons for the ones I had made, and I was at peace with the consequences. But, as I looked down at my kill, I couldn’t help wondering when the darkness would catch up with me for the last time and how I would face it. It was probably entirely too much to ask to be left alone.

I dragged the carcass to shelter and got to work. I would need to dress this deer and get it out of the woods. Thankfully, I could get that done much quicker than the two days I had spent stalking it. It had taken that long because of the waiting and care required, not the distance traveled, though I’d had quite the adventure moving about in pursuit of the herd and predicting their route. My horse would get me back home in little more than an hour.

***

I hadn’t been home long before I noticed the letter tuckedaway in the corner of the porch. Instantly the heaviness descended upon me once again. Walking inside, I opened it with a growing sense of foreboding; there could be little question about its contents. Unfurling the missive, I read. Then I walked over to the fireplace, shifted the ashes, coaxed the flames into life and threw it in, seething as I watched it burn. Suddenly, my hunting trip faded into insignificance.

This was something I specifically wanted to avoid. The police were already suspicious of me. I thought back to that Captain Smith character and the talk we’d had both before and after I met Kathy again. The absolute last thing I needed was to be associated with anything that would attract attention, and this request was the very definition of that. All I wanted was to be left alone for a little; had I not earned that much? If I weren’t careful, I’d be seeing Captain Smith sooner than I would have liked, and this time he might very well have more than vague misgivings to level at me.

Then again, it was naïve to think I could ever be allowed to melt into the ether and live out a simple, unbothered existence. The past always came calling to collect its due, no matter how far you ran. What choice did I have? They would find me eventually even if I genuinely tried to disappear for good, and if they didn’t, other less savory persons would. Fate was funny that way. Given a choice, I knew which I would rather have searching me out.

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