Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

“Okay, let’s go,” he said.

“You found her?”

“Well, I found out where the University of Arizona kids are camping. That’s where she’d be, right?”

“Right,” said Donny.

“Okay, I’ll run you over.”

Donny paused. Was he supposed to be looking after Crowe? But now he’d set this thing up, and if he hung with Crowe it would look very strange. And he was supposed to watch Crowe with Trig, right? And if he was with Trig, then Crowe couldn’t be giving up any secrets, could he?

“Great,” said Donny.

“Just let me get my book,” said Trig. He disappeared for a second, then came back with a large, really filthy-looking sketchbook. It had the sense of a treasured relic. “Never go anyplace without this. I might see an eastern swallowtail mudlark!” He laughed at himself, showing white teeth.

Outside, Trig gestured to the inevitable Trigmobile, a TR-6, bright red, its canvas roof down.

“Cool wheels,” said Donny, hopping in.

“I picked it up a little while ago in England,” he said. “I got burned out on peace shit. I took a little sabbatical, went to London, spent some time in Oxford. The Ruskin School of Drawing. Bought this baby.”

“You must be loaded.”

“Oh, I think there’s money in the family. Not my father; he doesn’t make a penny. He’s in State, planning some tiny part of the war, the economic infrastructure of the province of Quang Tri. What does your dad do?” Trig asked.

“My dad was a rancher. He worked like hell and never made a penny. He died poor.”

“But he died clean. In our family, we don’t work. The money works. We play. Working for something you believe in, that’s the best. That’s the maximum charge. And if you can have a good time at it, man, that’s really cool.”

Donny said nothing. But a darkness settled on him: he was here as a Judas, wasn’t he? He’d sell Trig out for thirty pieces of silver, or rather three stripes and no trip back to the Land of Bad Things. He looked over at Trig. The wind was blowing the slightly older man’s hair back lushly, like a cape streaming behind a horseman. Trig wore Ray-Ban sunglasses and had one of those high, beautiful foreheads. He looked like a young god on a good day.

This guy was Weather Underground? This guy would bomb things, blow up people, that sort of stuff? It didn’t seem possible. By no reach of his imagination could he see Trig as conspiratorial. He was too much at the center of things; the world had given itself to him too easily and too eagerly.

“Could you kill anyone?” Donny asked.

Trig laughed, showing white teeth.

“What a question! Wow, I’ve never been asked that one!”

“I killed seven men,” Donny said.

“Well, if you hadn’t have killed them, would they have killed you?”

“They were trying to!”

“So, there you have it. You made your decision. But no, no, I couldn’t. I just can’t see it. For me, too much would die. I’d be better off dead myself than having killed anything. That’s just what I believe. I’ve believed it ever since I looked in a house in Stanleyville and saw twenty-five kids cut to pieces. I can’t even remember if it’s because they were rebels or government. They probably didn’t know. Right then: no more killing. Stop the killing. Just like the man says, all we are saying is give peace a chance.”

“Well, it’s hard to give it a chance when a guy is whacking away at you with an AK-47.”

Trig laughed.

“You have me there, partner,” he said merrily.

But then he said, “Sure, anybody gets that kind of slack. But you wouldn’t have shot into that ditch in My Lai like those other guys did. You would have walked away. Hot blood, cold blood. Hell, you’re a cowboy. You were trained to shoot in self-defense. You shot morally.”

Donny didn’t know what to say. He just stared ahead glumly until in the falling light they sped through downtown, past the big government buildings still shiny in the fading sun, along the park-lined river and at last reached West Potomac Park, just beyond Jefferson’s classy monument.

Welcome to the May Tribe.

On one side of the street, eight or nine cop cars were parked, and DC cops in riot gear watched in sullen knots. Across the street, equally sullen, knots of hippie kids in jeans and oversized fatigue coats and long flowing hair watched back. It was a stare-down; nobody was winning.

Trig’s presence registered immediately and the kids parted, suddenly grinning, and Trig drove the Triumph through them and down an asphalt road that led toward the river, some playing fields, some trees. But it was more like Sherwood Forest than any college campus. The meadows streamed with kids in tents, kids at campfires, kids stoned, playing Frisbee, singing, smoking, eating, necking, bathing topless in the river. Port-a-pots had been put up everywhere, bright blue and smelly.

“It’s the gathering of the tribes,” said Donny.

“It’s the gathering of our generation,” said Trig.

Being with Trig was like being with Mick Jagger. He knew everybody, and at least three or four times he had to stop the Triumph and clamber out as protégés came upon him for hugs or advice, for gossip or news, or just to be with him. Astonishing thing: he remembered everybody’s name. Everybody’s . He never fumbled, he never forgot, he never made a mistake. He seemed to inflate in the love that was thrust upon him, by boy and girl, man and woman, even some old bearded, be-sandaled radicals who looked as if they’d probably protested World War I, too.

“Boy, they love you,” Donny said.

“I’ve just been riding this circuit for seven long years. You get to know folks. I am tired, though. After this weekend, I’m going to crash at a friend’s farm out in Germantown. Paint some birds, blow some grass, just chill. You ought to bring Julie, if she’s still here, and come out. Route thirty-five, north of Germantown. Wilson, the mailbox says. Here, here, I think this is it.”

Donny saw her almost immediately. She had camouflaged herself in some kind of Indian full-length dress and wore her hair up, pinned with a Navajo silver brooch. He had given it to her. It cost him $75.

The asshole kid Farris was near her, though he wasn’t talking to her. He was just watching her from a ways away, utterly mesmerized.

“Hi,” Donny called.

“I brought Young Lochinvar from out of the West,” Trig said.

“Oh, Donny.”

“Enjoy,” said Trig. “Let me know when you want to get out of here. I’ll go listen to Peter Farris whine for a while.”

But Donny wasn’t listening. He looked full into the person that was Julie, and his heart broke all over again. Every time he saw her was like a first time. His breath came in little spurts. He felt himself lighting up inside. He gave her a hug.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t making much sense last night. I couldn’t put it together fast enough. You know how slow I am.”

“Donny. I called the barracks.”

“Sometimes those messages get through, sometimes they don’t. I was just all out of joint yesterday.”

“What’s going on?”

“Ah, it’s too complicated to explain. It’s nothing I can’t handle. How are you? God, sweetie, it’s so good to see you.”

“Oh, I’m fine. This camping stuff I could do without. I need a shower. Where’s the nearest Holiday Inn?”

“When this is all over, don’t go back,” he suddenly blurted, as if finally seeing a path that made some sense. “Stay here with me. We’ll get married!”

“Donny! What about the big church wedding? What about all my mother’s friends? What about the country club?”

“I—” and then he saw she was joking, and she saw he was not.