Biological science has made such startling breakthroughs in recent years that government legislators are now trying to impose brakes on research until questions of morality and individual rights can be thoroughly debated. But research can’t be halted forever, and if some discoveries alter the basic patterns of society then we’ll simply have to learn to live differently. For instance, if a means is found to confer near-immortality on people who are treated at a young age, that will change the way tomorrow’s youths regard life.

But perhaps it will force even greater changes in those people who are too old for the treatments.

“Hunting,” a quietly told story that brings large questions into focus in the life of one man, was Michael Cassutt’s first sale. He’s sold several stories since, and once you’ve read this one you’ll look forward to the others to come.

HUNTING

Michael Cassutt

He left California on a suborbital flight before dawn. Tom had made the reservation for him—Sara was too busy, for once—otherwise he might have been traveling at a saner time of day. At his age he had no liking for early hours, and no need of haste. But once airborne he began to enjoy the feeling of isolation, floating alone and untouched above the white world. It was an excellent place in which to brood. Fifty minutes later he was in Minneapolis, almost regretting the quickness of the flight. A robot shuttle waited to fly him to the lodge.

Now, three hours later, he had his fill of silent, frozen desolation. He no longer felt forced into the vacation; he decided he would enjoy it. He wanted to get out in the cold snow and walk. He wanted to hunt.

The shuttle’s control panel beeped and a recorded voice said, “Please secure for landing, Mr. Seabury. We are approaching the lodge.” Somewhere up front, Seabury knew, the computer’s transponder had locked onto the lodge signal. He looked out but saw only the rough carpet of pines flowing past beneath him. Occasionally he glimpsed the ribbon of the lodge road—except for that, this might have been an ancient wilderness, as untouched as it had been four centuries ago.

He leaned back in his seat, the middle of three forward ones. His bags rested in the rear three instead of in the luggage compartment. It had seemed silly to bother with it when he had all this room inside. A couple of months ago, in mid-October, the shuttle would have been carrying five more passengers, five other rich, jaded businessmen out for a week of roughing it in the woods. But this was the off-season.

The shuttle dropped lower and began to hover. Seabury could see the lodge. It sat in a cluster of trees that hugged a low hill. It was a misshapen thing, what had probably once been a single large rectangular building with additions built on over many years by different people. The roof of the largest addition was flattened into a helipad, and the shuttle dropped toward it. For a brief moment Seabury thought the shuttle was going to overshoot, but he laughed: a man spends thirty-five years in a business and still doesn’t trust what he makes. The shuttle bumped lightly and settled. “Welcome to the lodge, Mr. Seabury,” the taped voice said.

A bearded young man ran up to the vehicle as Seabury opened the door. A light breeze sifted the loose snow that lay on the helipad. The air was warmer than Seabury had expected it to be. “Mr. Seabury?” the boy asked.

“Yes.”

The boy extended his hand. “Hi; I’m Kevin Russell. Let’s get this stuff inside.” He reached into the back seats and pulled out the bags.

The interior of the lodge was modern rustic. It had no elevator. Seabury and Kevin walked down wide wooden stairs. Logs were used as railings, and the walls were rough boards—yet the place was warm and brightly lit.

A stout, balding man a few years younger than Seabury stood sorting file cards at the front desk. “David Seabury? I’m Ted Russell,” he said. “Welcome to the lodge. We’re very happy to have you here, sir. It’s our slow season.”

“My pleasure,” Seabury said. “I hope it’ll be a nice change of pace for me.”

“I think it will be. Let’s see… .” Russell punched keys on a tiny cathoderay terminal behind the desk. “Your reservation is confirmed. We’re giving you our best room—with a view to the west. It’s very nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I guess that’s it for the moment. If you need anything, I’ll be around. Or ask Kevin. We’re a little shorthanded this time of year.”

“I understand. I doubt I’ll need much. When can I get outside? It’s still early—”

Russell smiled. “Kevin will help you pick out your gear. Through that door, once you’re settled upstairs.”

They walked along the top of a ridge, and below them lay a sea of trees with a few small islands of white. The trees were a dead brown, except for the pines, and the snow was packed and wet—stale. It hadn’t seemed like that from the air. Seabury slapped his hands together. He had been out all afternoon. He was cold, and his breathing was starting to quicken. “Kevin!” he called.

The young man ahead of him stopped and shifted the pack he carried. “Yes, Mr. Seabury?”

“Let’s rest a bit.”

“Fine with me.” The boy unshouldered the pack, set it down, and leaned it against a tree. Seabury merely stood, one hand hiding in a pocket, the other hooking a thumb in the sling of the rifle on his back.

“You think we’re going to find anything today?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “With the early snow this year, the herd may have headed for different territory—or it may be hungry and careless. If they’re hungry, well find something. Can’t say more than that. See, if you’d chosen to do this the modern way we’d have had the herd spotted and tagged for you. All you’d have to do is walk out here to the right spot and pick your shot. You’d have a decent weapon instead of that old clunker.” He looked out toward a small field nearby below them. “Well, the snow should help tracking.”

Seabury nodded and fumbled in his pocket for the heater. He could afford to be patient, for a while. “It’s not much of a challenge, is it? Hunting the new way?”

Kevin spat. “I have no idea.” He got up and moved out to the edge of the ridge. “You ever been up this way before, Mr. Seabury?” he asked, hands on hips and back facing the older man.

“I grew up in this part of the country. I was born across the river a ways, in Minnesota, but my folks moved here when I was just a baby.”

“Then this is nothing new for you.”

“On the contrary: I don’t think I ever went hunting in all the years I lived here. My father was no hunter—he hated guns. I just never got the … habit, I’m afraid. I did do a little shooting now and then—and, of course, later, in the Army.” He had come out to where Kevin was standing. “But I never went hunting.”

“That’s funny—” Kevin said. He looked at Seabury and laughed. He wasn’t much more than nineteen, Seabury guessed, in spite of the full beard and the long hair. He looked much younger when he laughed, but with the beard—who could tell? Tom had a beard like that, and Tom was older than nineteen. “I can’t see how a person could live around here and not go out at least once.”

“There were more people around here then; lots of people I knew didn’t hunt. There was no pressure to—in fact, it had fallen a bit into disfavor when I was about your age. The deer population was in trouble then. Most animal populations were, in the last century.”

“Back in the good old days?” Kevin asked, with a bare touch of sarcasm.

“Yes, the good old days,” Seabury replied quickly. “But then, I’m prejudiced.” He clapped Kevin on the shoulder and turned away from the ridge.

Kevin hunched forward, down on his knees, watching silently. “Want to see something?” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“Sssh. Come here.”

Seabury crawled back. Kevin pointed. “Out there, in the clearing.” He followed the boy’s hand where it pointed across the clearing below. Three deer stood cautiously at the edge of the snow-covered meadow. Two females and one buck—handsome, lean, proud-looking animals. They sniffed and looked, then one by one flew across the clearing and were gone.

“Beautiful,” Seabury said.

“Part of our indigenous deer population, Mr. Seabury. That’s what you’re hunting.”

“Are we going after them?”

“No,” Kevin said. “They’ll be too far away by the time we can work our way down there, and it’s too late to start a long chase. Tomorrow. We better be getting back.”

Ted Russell was working behind the front desk when Seabury came down from upstairs. “Evening, Mr. Seabury.”

“Good evening, Mr. Russell.”

Russell looked up from the paper he was writing on. It was covered with names and numbers in neat rows, all of them inscribed in a fine hand that could have passed for printing. “My boy tells me you managed to spot three beauties this afternoon.”

“Yes. I guess we were pretty lucky.”

Russell grunted. “I’ll say. You get anything this time of year, you’re lucky. Of course, Kevin’s my best guide— been at it since he could walk—but even so: three of them. Stars must be in your favor. This really isn’t the season.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Dinner’ll be ready pretty quick. It’s programmed and just waiting for someone to punch buttons. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go do just that.” He stood up.

“Certainly.” Russell went out and Seabury was left standing alone at the desk. A fire cracked and popped in the stone fireplace across the room. He moved over to it, thinking of Sara and Tom out in California. They would probably be enjoying an early dinner. The sun would just be going down, casting a red glow over the sea and the hills below the house. Sara would be as she had been for years, as she always would be: the impeccably dressed red-haired beauty, quiet and laughing gently now and then at something Tom had said. And then there was Tom: with his young good looks and his leering and his … concern. Seabury wondered if they would be talking about him. Were they worried? Of course, Sara was. That was one thing he had always loved her for: she did not forget. There was always a reminder from her—a letter or a call when he was away, a gift or a hello at just the right time. Of all her virtues, that was the one that caused him to continue to forgive.

That made him feel guilty. Forgive what? Forgive her for being a child of her times? He had no right to complain. Tom was more than he had a right to get in a co-husband. It was supposed to be reassuring to know that his business and his marriage could go on without him, momentarily or permanently. They told him, someone somewhere had told him, that the most basic stable form is the triangle. He tried to believe that, but he viewed love as a sort of mutual possession. And to know that the one person he wanted did not want only him—

“Mr. Seabury?” Kevin was in the doorway to the dining room. “Dinner’s ready.”

“I’ll be in in a moment.” He put his hands out to the fire. He felt very tired.

“Kevin, your father tells me you’re taking up, what is it, history?”

The boy nodded. “Yeah, I used to read so much of it when I was younger that I just got hooked. I took some TV courses last year. Maybe next year I’ll go down to Madison and see what I can pick up there. I don’t know. I’m in no hurry.”

“No need to be, at your age.” They ate dinner in the lodge dining room, a large place that with all its empty tables should have seemed barnlike, the warmth and the quiet made it seem almost cozy. The room had a large window that looked out from a balcony toward the road which wound away into the trees. Dinner was brought in discreetly by an old-fashioned cart—semiconscious, Seabury thought, and having to be carefully programmed down to the last action/decision. It was a reliable old piece of machinery, though.

“See, Mr. Seabury,” Russell said, “this time of year none of the help is around. I’ve got three more full-time guides, and a few part-time ones. During the season all of us eat here together. The hunters sort of like that—it’s old-fashioned, frontier-style “

“Do you still get many hunters here?”

Russell stared at his plate. “That’s a tricky question. Up until the last year, why, I would have said yes without a doubt. But with this new Methuselah treatment, I can’t say. Most of my hunters are in the young set, a little older than Kevin. Now most of them won’t want to take time off from their series—more of them won’t want to risk a gun accident when they can look forward to, well, a couple of hundred years. The older ones’ll come back, I hope. I’ll have to see.”

Seabury noticed for the first time that Kevin wasn’t eating what he and Russell were. “Kevin? You’re taking the treatments;”

“Yeah,” the boy said, “I’m taking them.”

“How far along are you?”

“A little over halfway.”

“Another year to go?”

The boy nodded. “Once a week. The day after tomorrow I go into town.”

Seabury laughed. “Excuse me if I show my ignorance. The process never really interested me—since I was unable to take part in it myself.” Tom had been interested, though. He was able.

“Well, I don’t know much about it,” Kevin said. “I just go down there, get some injections once a week, and watch what I eat. It’s not so much—”

“—for the promise of ‘eternal life’?”

“They don’t promise that,” the older Russell said.

“No, of course not.”

They finished eating. The cart rolled in, asked in a halting, high-pitched voice if anyone wished anything else, then rolled out again with the dishes. Seabury stood up. “Well, I must be getting to bed. The fresh air tired me. Kevin? Early tomorrow.”

“Fine, Mr. Seabury.”

“I’ll see you then. Good night.” He went out and upstairs to his bedroom, wondering when Sara would call.

“Here we go,” Kevin said, kneeling in the snow. “Tracks.”

“Do you think they’re from the ones we saw yesterday?” Seabury asked.

Kevin stood up and followed the tracks for a few meters to where they began to head up into the trees. “I think so. There are three sets, and they’re well spaced. Those beauties must have been in a hurry. Let’s see where they’re hurrying to.”

Seabury didn’t reply, but fell in behind the boy. It was late morning. They had been outside since before sunrise—hours ago, but with the day warming nicely Seabury felt as if he could go all day. He hefted the rifle and hurried to catch up with Kevin.

They followed the tracks through a mixture of brush and trees, working their way slowly up into the hills. Kevin moved quickly, stepping lightly over fallen branches. He would stop occasionally, to kneel and check the tracks—and to wait for Seabury. Seabury found himself hurrying. Once he misstepped and went sprawling on his face in the snow. He picked himself up, panting, and brushed snow off the rifle. Kevin was waiting not far ahead.

“Like to rest a little?” the boy asked.

“No, no. Let’s keep going.”

“Well, I’d like to stop for a minute, okay?”

“If you want to.”

“I want to. I don’t think we’re going to have too much luck today anyway.”

Seabury unslung his rifle. “Why not? The tracks seem fresh to me.” They were standing on the crest of a small hill, and the tracks—three pairs of them—wound clearly down the far slope.

Kevin pointed down the hill. “Sure they’re fresh and clear now—and they may be for quite a ways yet. But it’s warming up; the snow’s melting. Besides, down in that valley—well, we just won’t be able to follow these tracks much farther. I’ve been through here enough times to know that.”

“If the snow’s melting we should hurry.”

Kevin took off a glove and brushed at his beard. “What is your goddamned hurry? You want a nice fourteen-point buck to take home, you should have come up earlier, in the fall. If you’re out for the exercise, that’s one thing. Relax and enjoy it. I’ve never seen anyone so itchy to kill a stupid animal. Going to mount the rack in your beach house or something?”

“I don’t really care if it’s a buck or not. I’ll settle for any deer.”

“Well, they’ll still be here next year. I told you, it’s just too late.”

“I know,” Seabury said. “When I was your age, this would have been out of season. It’s just—I’ve never killed anything larger than an insect. An animal. I’ve always wondered … how it felt.”

Kevin stared at him, then began laughing. “I thought I’d heard most of the justifications for hunting, but that’s a new one. Just want to see a little blood and twitching, eh? I’ll let you gut it, if you want. I’ve got a knife.”

Seabury picked up the rifle. “Let’s get one first, then we’ll see.” He started to follow the tracks down the hill toward the valley. He stopped and called back. “Are you coming along?”

Kevin waved. “I’ll catch up.”

Seabury was slow and clumsy on the trail. He did not have a trained eye and a rocky break would throw him off momentarily. He was in rougher country as well, and had to watch his footing.

He reached level ground and made better time. The tracks were easier to follow here. Kevin was still not in sight, but Seabury really didn’t care. He could do this by himself—he would show Kevin, and Tom. He hurried on, almost running, until he came to the bank of a wide, shallow stream. Melting ice crawled out from the bank for a few meters, then gave way to open water. The tracks ended here; one print could be seen on the mushy ice, and that was all. Seabury searched the far bank, but saw only bushes and snow. There was no reason for the deer to have gone straight across anyway.

Something snapped behind him. Kevin stood in the path, laughing. “I guess that’s it for today. Mr. Seabury.” he said. He turned to go, and Seabury, after a moment, followed him.

They said nothing to each other all the way back.

A wind had come up on the wav back to the lodge. It was a cold wind, whipping rain that promised snow. Inside his room Seabury shed his clothes, glad to be in out of it. He went downstairs to ask Russell if there had been any calls. “Nothing.” Russell said. He had a small TV set up behind the desk and was watching a weather report. “Looks like we’re in for a good snow “

“Yes, it got cold and wet pretty quickly.”

Kevin came through the hallway and passed in silence. Russell looked after him, then said to Seabury, “You and Kevin getting alone all right?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“Well, I get worried. I haven’t had much trouble with him; he’s a good boy. Missed his mother when she moved out a few years ago, but that’s natural. With this Methuselah business—I don’t know, he seems different. Older, maybe. Doesn’t really kid around any more. He’s nineteen and he seems to be watching what he does like he was, oh hell, my age.”

“Or mine.”

Russell laughed. “Yeah, the two of us. I wonder what’s ahead for him, though. He might live forever, but what kind of life’s it gonna be? Population changes and all— this other stuff, how things change. Hell, I know I couldn’t adapt to most of it. That’s why I’m out here in the sticks.”

“I don’t think any of us can really adjust. We have to … deal with the situations we find ourselves in, the best we can.” He excused himself and went into the living room, by the fireplace. A low fire burned. Seabury eased himself onto the couch. He hadn’t noticed earlier how tired and sore he was. He thought about Sara and Tom—still no word from either of them. Perhaps they were only doing what he had asked them to do: Let me get away for a while. I just want to get away. As he said it he hadn’t completely believed it—and he grew to disbelieve it. But he had come to this place. He sighed. His back hurt so much.

The wind shook the window. Seabury woke from sleep with a start. There was a blanket over him, and a huge fire roaring in the room. Russell was piling some logs in the woodbox. “You’re awake.”

“What time is it?”

“Around nine. I threw a blanket over you. You could catch a hell of a cold sleeping down here without a blanket.”

Seabury laughed. “So my mother always said.”

“Yeah, mine, too. If you want dinner, or a drink—”

“No, no thank you. I think I’ll just … lie here, for a while.”

Russell nodded silently and left.

He could remember how it started. He had seen it coming and that, perhaps most of all, was what tore at a small, fragile thing inside him. Perhaps he could have prevented it. You take a busy man and a younger wife, the wife works as a low-echelon executive for a textile company, the husband is in electronics and robotics. The wife meets a younger man and is attracted to him, and the brief affair that follows is nothing new, for either the husband or the wife. This is liberation, after all—but this time it isn’t quite the same. This young man is special, someone different. But she still loves you: so she suggests, why not all three of us? It’s a common thing, she says, knowing you’ve always prided yourself on your openness. The younger man seems nice, if unassuming and unambitious, and you’ve heard that such a relationship might be more stable, more mature. Casually (all the major events in your life happen casually), you agree. But there is something growing inside you, and something dying.

Snow still fell the next morning, but the wind had died. The lodge road could be seen only as an opening in the trees. Seabury ate breakfast alone. It was still early. He hadn’t shaved or changed clothes since the day before. It was the breaking of two lifelong habits, and breaking them gave him an oddly thrilled feeling.

Kevin came into the kitchen and began to program breakfast. He didn’t see Seabury. “Good morning,” Seabury said.

The boy almost jumped. “What are you doing up?”

“Thought we’d get an early start.”

Kevin shook his head. “Not today. I have to go into town. Besides, look out there! You know how much fun it would be to slog around in that. I’m going to have a tough enough time making it to the clinic as it is.”

“Your treatments.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“No hunting today, then.”

“No, I told you. It wouldn’t be any good.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“If it stops snowing by afternoon, yes. We might have some tracks by tomorrow morning. If they’re out there at all. If they didn’t just take off.”

“I think we’ll find them. I feel it.”

The boy stopped eating. “You feel it. Good.” He stood up and took his plate to the disposal. “Well, then, practice your shooting today. Tomorrow you’ll really be ready.”

“I’ll do that,” Seabury said, returning the boy’s mocking tone.

Kevin blushed. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. It’s just—I don’t know, maybe the treatments are affecting me. I get rude.”

Seabury smiled. “It’s okay. Let’s say I’m used to it. See you later.”

The boy left, and from the window Seabury watched him go. The shuttle flew off toward the gap in the trees where the now invisible trail lay. Seabury followed it with his eyes until it disappeared, and thought about the deer, out there in the cold.

The snow stopped just after noon.

They started north from the lodge early the next morning. “The tracks were headed that way a couple of days ago,” Kevin said. “There’s also a lot better protection against a storm up that way—trees, ravines and things.”

“Sounds good,” Seabury said. He felt rested and ready. The rifle was light on his back and there was extra spring in his legs. He felt as if he could run, really run, for hours. He looked forward to the hills and the hunt.

The snowfall had not been as heavy as it had seemed to Seabury. Looking out the window at the whirling, wind-blown mess, he had expected snow up to his knees and heavy going. But he found that he sank only to his ankles until he hit tougher base snow.

They headed out between two hills, up a winding valley that took the lodge out of their sight. The trail sloped gently upward, and they followed it for what seemed to Seabury to be an hour, until it finally began to slope down, out of the trees, and widened. Kevin said nothing the entire time; he was only a hypnotic robot drone slogging steadily along in front of Seabury. They saw no tracks.

“Stop here for a while,” Kevin said. “I’m going on ahead to see if I can pick something up. If they’re in this area, they had to come through here at least once. I’m going to check back that way a bit. I can do it fastest alone. I’ll only be gone about ten minutes. Wait.” He handed Seabury his rifle and sprinted off.

Seabury stood alone in the clearing. He felt good—a little more tired than he had been, maybe, but a brief rest would take care of that. His feet and hands were cold, though. He jumped up and down a couple of times and clapped his hands. He wished Kevin would hurry up. He was anxious; the day was bright, yet he felt he had to do something quickly. In his mind he rehearsed what he would do. The rifle was an old one with a bolt action. It would need to be loaded. He did that now. Pull back, slap the shell into the chamber, close it. Set yourself. Safety off. Sight, the aim. Squeeze. Crack! The deer jerked violently to its side and lay bleeding in the snow. That was all there was to it.

“Seabury!” Kevin called, and Seabury turned to see him waving from a hundred meters away. He shouldered the two rifles and hurried over to him.

“Look here,” Kevin said. He knelt and took off his glove. Seabury shaded his eyes against the glare: he saw one set of deer tracks. “I’ll bet it’s one of your does. You may be in luck. She’s headed toward the turnaround.”

“Turnaround?”

“Valley with only one way out. It’s a long way off, but if we get going we might catch her before she figures it out.”

“Let’s go then,” Seabury said.

“Yes, sir!”

They walked for minutes, then for an hour, then for nearly two. The trail was easy to follow, but it suddenly began to get rugged. Trees had fallen across it in many places, some recently and some not so recently. Seabury had to climb, and he was getting tired. He stopped halfway over one, and leaned against the bank. Kevin stopped, too. “Let’s go, Pops. You were the one who wanted to haul ass after this animal, so let’s haul it.” And Seabury climbed the rest of the way over.

The deer had apparently had troubles in one place: the tracks doubled back over each other many times, then went up and across a fallen tree on the side of the valley. Kevin began crawling up the same way, but he slipped and slid down in a heap. He rolled over. “Christ!” he said, brushing snow away from his neck.

He looked so comical sitting there in the snow that Seabury began to laugh. Kevin looked up. “What’s so goddamn funny, you old wreck?” he snapped.

Seabury stopped laughing. “That’s no way to talk, Kevin. So I’m old. It happens to everyone—” He paused. “It used to, anyway.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve seen this coming. I’ve almost been able to feel your goddamn eyes on my back. Look, sir, I’m sorry I was born when I was. I’m sorry you were born when you were. What the hell can I do about it?”

“You can stop acting like a spoiled child. I don’t resent your … good fortune to have been born at a time when you have a chance at immortality.”

“The hell you don’t resent it.” Kevin stood up. “You resent it because there’s nothing you can do about it. So you come out here to kill dumb animals, for fun!”

Tom could have said that. Seabury was silent for a moment, then he spat and snapped his rifle around and pointed it at Kevin’s stomach. “Can’t I do something about it? You young son of a bitch, you may not think I can use this thing, but at this distance even an old wreck like me could blow you and your immortality all over the hillside. Think about that!”

Kevin stared at the rifle. “I guess,” he said, “you could.”

“You’re damned right I could.” He lowered the rifle. “Now—let’s forget it and go.” He was trembling.

Kevin moved slowly, picking up his cap and rifle. “If it means anything, I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“You said that once already.”

He looked at the ground. “I mean it this time.”

“I said forget it.” He was still shaking. He had almost pulled the trigger—how did it feel to kill?

The boy made the climb and held out his hand for Seabury. Seabury slung the rifle on his back and pulled himself over. They started walking again, Kevin keeping a good distance ahead.

It was all Sara’s fault, Seabury thought. If she hadn’t wanted the situation to develop, it never would have. He had only let it happen; she had made it happen. Maybe she was making something else happen. Maybe she and Tom were making plans that didn’t include him. Maybe they had moved while he was gone—no, that was silly. The business. He was getting tired.

He fell into the rhythm of the tracking. Walk a bit, climb or go around, walk again. Kevin was silent ahead of him, and he went only as fast as he seemed to think Seabury wanted to go, no faster. It was early afternoon now. They had a quick lunch, then continued on. “It isn’t far,” Kevin said at last, “and these tracks look fresh.”

Seabury only nodded.

The trail began to drop ever so slightly. Ahead lay a ring of hills. This was the turnaround. “Here,” Kevin said. “She’s down here. I know it.”

“You feel it,” Seabury said.

A brief laugh. “Yeah, I feel it. I’m going to go back up around and try to flush her. She’ll have to come back this way. If you plant yourself down here somewhere, you’ll get one shot. Don’t bet on getting two. She’ll probably be running like hell.”

“Okay, where do you want me?”

Kevin led him down the trail a little further. Three logs lay across the trail here. Two of them had been there for a while; they were half-buried by the snow. The third sat higher, at waist height. “Get behind these,” Kevin said. “You’ll have a good field. She might not stand out against the trees, and the sun isn’t too good here, but you’ll see her because you’re looking for her.”

“She can’t get out anywhere else?”

“I’d be very surprised. The place has steep sides. With the snow, I think a mountain cat might have trouble. No, she’ll be through. Watch.” He went back up the trail and disappeared, leaving Seabury alone.

This is it, he thought. He unslung the rifle and leaned it against one of the logs. He set himself in the snow, comfortably, but in such a way that he could move quickly. He snapped the safety off and pointed the rifle between the top and the bottom logs.

He could hear nothing except for his own sounds of breathing and shifting. There wasn’t even the familiar rustling of branches as the wind brushed through them. The snow was cold against his backside. He heard a far-off yell—Kevin. Then nothing for a longer time, and then yelling again. He peered down the trail, but saw nothing. Where was she? She had to be here. Kevin had said so, unless he was getting some sort of revenge—

Yelling again; this time it was closer.

He heard a snap, and there she was. She stood less than twenty meters away, brown and white against the trees and the snow. She looked at him as she picked her way, twitching her tail once, then twice. Seabury was careful not to move. Slowly, he turned the rifle, sighting down the barrel. Please, he thought, and holding his breath, squeezed the trigger.

The gun kicked into his shoulder and the deer recoiled, then toppled. The echoes of the rifle report sang down the valley. Seabury was frozen: he could see that the deer was only wounded. She twisted and tried to crawl, staining the snow with blood. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t how he had expected it to be at all. You either missed or you killed—nothing halfway. He didn’t know what to do.

He set the rifle aside and pulled himself out of the blind. His muscles ached from sitting so long, and he was out of breath. That surprised him. He hadn’t been doing anything, had he? And the deer was still writhing on the ground near a fallen tree—more slowly now. The bullet had hit her in the flank above her left foreleg, and she kept stretching her neck toward it, as if she could fix whatever was wrong with her if only she could touch where it hurt. Seabury cursed himself for not having used a modern weapon, one that killed at a touch; there was nothing he could do now but watch.

There was thrashing in the distance behind the deer. Seabury picked up his rifle. Another deer? No: it was Kevin, struggling through the heavy brush. He appeared on the edge of the slope and crawled down. “I heard a shot.”

He looked in the direction Seabury was looking. “Jesus,” he said, “you got her.” The deer twitched visibly. “Goddammit, she’s not dead!”

“I know,” Seabury said.

“What’s the matter with you? She’s suffering!” He thrust his rifle at Seabury. “Finish what you started!”

Seabury didn’t move. “I can’t.”

“Can’t? An hour ago you were ready to shoot me in the guts. Well, I’m telling you: finish what you started!”

The wind whipped suddenly, spraying snow over them. The deer was still alive, and the crimson stain was bigger and darker than ever. Seabury took the rifle and walked over to the deer. He cocked the weapon, disengaged the safety, and aimed the muzzle at the deer’s head. Her eyes were open: terrified, Seabury thought. He closed his own eyes and gently squeezed the trigger. He heard the sharp crack and felt the rifle recoil. The deer’s head jerked once, then became still. Seabury could see a tiny hole under her ear. He gripped the rifle with all his strength, as if he could break the weapon in half with his bare hands.

“Well,” Kevin said after a while, “you’ve got your trophy now. I hope you like venison.” He picked up Seabury’s rifle and came over to retrieve his own. “It’s too late to walk back. I’ll call the shuttle. But we’re going to have to drag her to a clearing with us.”

“Drag what?”

“The deer. Your deer.” He broke out a communicator. “You better sit down and rest for a few minutes.”

He didn’t want to rest now. “No. Let’s just”—he gestured with his hands—”move her.”

“As soon as I call.” Kevin started off toward the top of the ridge, pulling out the radio’s antenna as he walked.

The sun was down behind the hills by the time the shuttle arrived. They had dragged the carcass to a clearing and waited as Kevin talked the shuttle to a landing. They lashed the deer to the rear rack, winding it with Kevin’s finger-thick rope. “Hate to lose her, wouldn’t you,” the boy said.

“Yes,” Seabury replied, “I’d definitely hate to lose her.”

They climbed inside the shuttle. Kevin took it into the air on manual control, then set the autopilot to bring them back to the lodge.

They didn’t speak on the trip back, sitting side by side in the shuttle cabin. It was well after sunset when the lodge crept into view. Kevin reacquired control and set the shuttle easily on the roof. Both men sat still inside the craft as the whine of the engines died.

Seabury looked out toward the darkening trees, and at the ribbons of powder drifting across the landing pad. Throughout the entire trip back he had been aware that he wanted to say something to Kevin, or that Kevin wanted to say something to him—but what? He was about to speak when the pad was flooded with light. Kevin’s father, well-bundled, appeared at Seabury’s door. “God, you got one.”

Seabury nodded.

“A nice one, too. You can be proud of yourself. This isn’t the season, not at all.” He turned to his son. “Kevin, ain’t this something?”

But Kevin was walking away. “What the hell?” Russell looked pleadingly at Seabury. It only lasted a second; the man began untying the deer, as if nothing had happened, then gave up. “It’s cold,” he said.

Kevin was standing out at the edge of the pad, in darkness. Seabury came up behind him. The boy didn’t turn around, but only stared at the eastern sky, where a bright Venus hung above the hills.

“Kevin.” Seabury cleared his throat. He was just beginning to realize how utterly cold and tired he was. “I just wanted to … thank you. I never did anything quite like this before.”

“You’re very welcome, sir.” Kevin’s voice was overly polite. His back remained toward Seabury.

“Maybe we could go out again sometime. Tomorrow—”

Suddenly Kevin faced him and Seabury saw the boy’s face was wet with tears. “No, I don’t think we’ll go out again, Mr. Seabury. I don’t think I’ll go out there again. This whole thing is wrong for me. It’s immoral, for me. Maybe it’s all right for you—you face the same sentence that deer faced. But I don’t. Lots of us don’t, now, and it isn’t fair.”

He looked at Kevin and had a feeling he’d thought as lost to him as sexual innocence, a feeling of having all time left to him—more years left to go than he had gone. He wanted to start work, to make ridiculously ambitious plans and believe that they might come true.

“Mr. Seabury!” Russell was calling from the door. “There’s a phone call for you. If you—”

The spell was broken. “Excuse me,” he said to Kevin, and went inside.

He reached the front desk and realized that he was actually sick with exhaustion and fear. He didn’t want to talk to Sara now, he didn’t want the reality of that … world back there intruding on this. Besides, he had always distrusted telephones. It seemed they always brought bad news.

“David! Hello, love. How’s the north country?” She wore a white robe and looked sunburned and sleepy.

“Colder than your favorite metaphor. And I’m paying for years of indolence.”

She laughed. “You can afford to. Are you relaxing, though? That’s what you deserted us for—”

“Deserted?” He was too tired to appreciate her bantering. “I don’t recall even wanting to take a vacation alone.”

“David!” She seemed surprised and hurt. “Don’t, please. I just called to see how you were. Don’t you think I care any more?”

He sighed. “How’s Tom?”

“Fine. A little under it today. He’s been so busy.”

“He started taking the treatments.”

She tossed her head, brushing long red hair away from her face. “Bitter, David?”

“Bitter?” Shouldn’t I be, he thought? And what about you, Sara my one true love—just a bit too old for treatments to do you any good, though you’ll take them, God knows it’s the fashionable thing to do. “Sometimes, I guess.” Aren’t you? Or don’t you think about it. “It’s not like I’ve got one foot in the grave, you know. I’ll be around for a few more years.”

“When do you think you’ll be back? Tom does miss you. And it’s been so lovely here.” She tilted the pickup so he could see out toward the patio, toward the ocean.

He didn’t want to go back. He shrugged.

“Having that much fun?” she asked.

“I’ll give you and Tom a little time to yourselves.”

“Oh, David, we’ve been through this—”

“I’m fine, hon. Thanks for calling.”

She hesitated, then flashed a relaxed smile. Poor Sara, he thought, Tom will never get older, but you will. I can afford to wait for you. “Enjoy yourself,” she said. “And stay in touch.”

He hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes. Russell appeared with a drink and handed it to him. “Traditional,” the man said. “After a kill. We can have the head mounted for you in a couple of days, and the meat dressed, if that’s what you want. Were you planning to stick around?”

“No,” he answered, surprising himself. “Ah—I’ll give you my home address; you can ship it.”

“No problem,” Russell said. “You’ll be leaving when?”

“Tomorrow. Could you book me on a flight to, oh, Zurich?” He laughed. “I always wanted to try mountain climbing.”

Russell nodded and walked away.

Seabury paused on his way upstairs. He could see Kevin, in the living room, sitting before a low fire, seeming lost in thought. He started to say something, but didn’t. Time is my ally too, boy.

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