Blood Trail - C. J. Box [49]
No one raised a hand.
“The definition I like is thus: lacking refinement, learning, or artistic culture. That pretty much describes a hunter, I’d say. Think of him out there,” he said, gesturing out the windows toward the Bighorns, “swilling beer, farting, trying to keep his pants up because he’s so fat, using high-tech weapons to kill Bambi and Thumper so he can cut their heads off and stick them on his wall. Do you know how the word barbarian came to be?”
Again, no hands.
“The ancient Romans came up with it to describe the hordes of slimeballs who were trying to take them down. They spoke a different language which, to the Roman ear, sounded like ‘Bar-bar-bar-bar.’” He said it in a stupid, drooling way that made several kids laugh. “That’s what I hear when so-called hunters tell me why they do it. They get all high and mighty and say they’re honoring the animal they killed, or they’re getting right with nature, or some other kind of nonsense. But when they go on and on all I can hear is—” He stopped, made his face slack and his eyes vacant, opened his mouth to appear like an idiot, and said, “Bar-bar-bar-bar-bar.”
Sheridan noticed how his wife did a well-practiced smile, and how several kids laughed, getting into it. Mrs. Whaling seemed a little uncomfortable with the way things were going, Sheridan thought. Her teacher’s eyes darted around the room more than usual.
“Do you know what hunters actually do?” he asked. “Do you know what takes place? I’ve got no doubt some of your relatives probably hunt, this being the Barbaric States. But how many of you have actually been there?”
He paused. The silence started to roar.
Finally, Jason Kiner raised his hand. Moore nodded at him, as if approving. “Any more?” he asked.
Two boys in the back cautiously raised their hands as well. One was Trent Millions, a Native who split his time between his father’s house on the reservation and his mother’s house in town. Trent appeared puzzled by the question, since hunting on the reservation was done without controversy and was a matter of course.
Taking a deep breath, Sheridan raised her hand.
“Four of you?” Moore said. “Just four? I would have thought more. I guess hunting is dying out even in the bloody heart of the Barbaric States.”
Then he looked at the kids one by one with their hands up and said, “You’re all murderers.”
Which startled Mrs. Whaling and made her turn white. “Mr. Moore, maybe—”
He ignored her.
“If you kill an animal for the joy of killing, you’re a murderer,” he said. Sheridan felt the eyes of most of the room on her now, but she kept her hand up. She felt her face begin to burn with anger and, surprisingly, a little shame. “Okay,” he said, “you can put your hands down now if you want.”
He shook his head sadly, said, “Blessed are the young for they know not what they do.”
Sheridan kept her hand up.
“Right now as I speak to you,” Moore said, pointing out the window, “there is a man up there in those mountains who is killing hunters. Unlike the innocent animals hunters kill, this man seeks and destroys other men who are armed and capable of fighting back. But this man who does to hunters what hunters do to innocent wild animals is considered a sicko, a mad dog, and that’s why I’m here. I’m here to support him in his noble quest to raise awareness of what is happening over two hundred million times a year in this country. If we condemn him and say his methods are brutal and deviant, how can we turn around and say what hunters do is not? This man, whoever he is, should be celebrated as a hero! He’s fighting for the animals who can’t fight back themselves, and I, for one, hope he’s just getting started.”
Sheridan shot a look at Mrs. Whaling, who was now as white as a porcelain bowl.
“Not that I condone murder, of course,” Moore said, quickly backtracking. “I condemn it when it’s done to animals, and I condemn it when it happens to human beings, who are just animals themselves—but animals who should know better.
“For those of you who haven’t murdered an animal, let me tell you how it’s done,” Moore