Urban Waite: Far Cry: Absolution

He had the pack now and he brought it up, slipped one arm after the other through the straps. He bent and lifted the rifle. The bear still had not moved, except to raise its nose some more, tasting the air. Even the sight of the rifle did not seem to deter it. It growled again and showed its yellow teeth, strings of saliva now seen suspended from its upper jaw as it held open a mouth that could easily swallow Will’s head whole.

Will bent again, never taking his eyes from the bear, and gathered the rabbits to him. He cleaned the blade of the knife on their fur and then replaced it in the scabbard he kept on his belt. When he was done he came forward to the edge of the water and, still wary of the bear, he separated one of the jackrabbit carcasses and tossed it, spinning end over end, across the pool where it landed in the brush just a few feet from the grizzly.

By the time the bear found the rabbit, Will was already backing up the rock and into the underbrush that lined the stream on all sides. Only when the branches closed around him did he turn and begin to walk up and away from the stream. No sound except that of the water rolling farther down, and even when he had gone another hundred yards or so and turned back, focusing again on the stream and the woods surrounding him, he could hear nothing but the water farther on. For a minute, he kept his eyes fixed on the path he had taken. The far cry of a loggerhead shrike sounded to his right, the bird launched from its perch and dipped through the trees until it broke into open grasslands beyond.

Will followed the bird out, soon moving fast through the grass, pausing to glance back at the belt of wood that followed the stream before he went on again. Not until he had arrived at the small cabin, set the rabbits down, taken the pack from his back and then gone back out to the overlook that faced to the north and the mountains there, did he give himself a little time to pause.

He carried with him the Remington, and looking over the country now, he gathered the strap in his hands, flipped up the scope cover, and brought the rifle to his shoulder, the lens to his eye. He ran the scope along the far edge of the forest to where he knew the stream ran another half mile on. The wind was in the tops of the trees and it worked through the field of Junegrass below, appearing to Will like waves on a great golden lake.

He dropped the rifle from his shoulder and stood looking over the forest and hills, the mountain farther on. He said to himself, “Just ’cause you don’t see him don’t mean he’s not out there.”

Will thought of the big buck he had seen in the lightning storm, he thought of the beaver lodge and the hole dug in the side. He knew what the bear was doing down here. He knew why the bear had come.

THREE HOURS LATER, AFTER HE HAD FINISHED SKINNING THErabbits and packing the meat in salt, he came up out of the root cellar and looked toward the distant beating stars above, the waning moon behind the trees. He had eaten and then gone about his work. He would give the rabbits, along with several other critters he had snared or shot in the weeks past, to the people they were owed to, the people he worked for and who in some way had set him up in this life when he’d thought his life had been over.

The skins they would sell, too. Most of the money went to the church, but some of it came back to Will. Money for supplies like snare wire, .308 rifle cartridges, butter, flour, and other supplies Will could not readily take from the woods. He was careful with everything, knowing each and every item, and their exact measure, within his cabin and down in the root cellar, as if each were recorded on a piece of paper and not just stored away in his head.

He looked now around the small camp he kept and the house he had been made ward of in those first years of Eden’s Gate. The fire he had made earlier to cook his meal of biscuits still showed the small red glow of coals at its center. The night now fully upon him as he walked the short distance to the fire, blew the gray ash from atop the beating coals and then piled fresh kindling atop.

For an hour, he sat by the fire and thought about the bear. He thought about how easily the bear could have killed him that day.

TWO DAYS LATER HE FOUND THE WHITE CHURCH TRUCK WAITINGfor him when he came up the hill. Will carried behind him a field-dressed buck on a travois he had constructed himself. He stood sweating in place under the gambrel he used for skinning deer and elk. The travois he’d made from two long poles he’d cut from within an aspen growth, lashed crossways with smaller branches and then tied all together with paracord. It had made it easier to bring his kill the two miles from where he’d shot the buck, but it had not made it easy.

He stood watching the truck and looking around at the little clearing his cabin sat within, but he saw nothing other than the truck to suggest anyone else was here. Tired from his efforts he coughed and set down the buck, then he walked to the cold ash of the firepit and spit down among the dead coals. Looking now on the buck behind him, the antlers like a crown of thorns and those black, mirrorlike eyes looking back at him, he was unsure whether he should begin his skinning or go out in search of the owner of the truck.

By the time Will had taken the rifle from his shoulder and placed the pack on the ground, Lonny had come up out of the root cellar with the rabbits. He was beside the truck, lifting the lid on a cooler and then dropping the rabbits inside with the rest of the meat when he saw Will standing there.

“I see you’ve kept busy the last three weeks,” Lonny said, looking down at the coolers and then back up at Will. Lonny wore a trucker’s cap on his head. He was bearded like all members of the church were and his two snake tattoos emerged from the sleeves of his T-shirt and coiled down his forearms to the backs of each hand.

“I thought you’d be here tomorrow,” Will said, glancing around the clearing, wondering if Lonny was alone.

“Something came up.”

“What kind of something?”

“The kind that made me think of you.” Lonny smiled and then walked the ten or so paces from where the truck sat to where Will was standing. “I got you a little job you can do for us.”

“I like the job I got now.”

Lonny circled and looked at the buck. He made a low whistling sound and then clucked his tongue. “He’s a beaut.”

“Should be about seventy-five pounds of usable meat once I get him skinned and bone him out.”

“You going to keep the head?”

“I was thinking about putting it up inside.”

Lonny stared at him. He ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip and then inside over his gums. He picked something from his teeth and flicked it away. “That rack would make a nice present for John or The Father.”

“I shot him through the heart. Meat should be good still. Just have to get him up on the hook and get to work.”

Lonny smiled. “You have a pretty nice thing going on out here. Don’t go thinking we haven’t forgotten that.”

Will looked Lonny over. The man was six foot, nearly as tall as Will, but skinny and lean. Those two forearms with the snake tattoos were all muscle and sinew and not much else. Will had heard Lonny could use them, too. Though he’d never seen the man hurt anyone, he had heard stories. A few saying how Lonny could strike out with each fist fast as any rattlesnake might bite.

“It’ll take me about twenty minutes to skin and bone out the deer. Then another hour to clean up the sinew and separate the muscle groups. You got that time?”

“Just skin it and throw it in the back of the truck. There’s plenty at Eden’s Gate who can help with the meat. And keep the head on.”