Red - Jack Ketchum [9]
He was down to birdwatching here.
Maybe the stream, he thought. The sun was getting high. A deer might want a drink.
~ * ~
He planted himself in a thicket, behind him a tall stand of white birch. From here he had a clear view of the stream running fast below. He was upwind again and risked a few pulls on the Cutty. Which burned down nicely. With the scope he scanned the stream. He took another pull and then his eye went back to the scope and he damn near fell over on his ass.
The lady was naked to the waist.
~ * ~
She has waded deep into the cool stream. The water is up to her calves and then her thighs. She bends down and cups it in her hands and drinks. The water tastes of stones and fallen leaves.
She peels the brown weeds carefully from her side. They are stained with her blood. They drift on down the stream. She cups more water in her hands and bathes her wounds. This is good. This is soothing. There is only a little blood, a seep of bright red. She splashes water over her face, her arms, her breasts. Kneels and lets the water bathe the wounds in its own way.
She puts her arms out in front of her and feels the slimed stone bottom of the stream and dips her head under. The rocks are smooth as flesh. She is trembling in the water. The water rolls over her and through her like a cold and gentle hand. She lifts her head and gasps for breath and kneels again and that is when she sees it, slowly gliding by.
The stream’s gift to her.
It was so swift that had Cleek blinked he’d have missed it.
But he didn’t blink.
One moment she was kneeling in water up to her waist, hair dripping over her face and neck and shoulders like some risen — if grimy — nymph in a storybook and the next moment her hand rose up out of the stream and in that hand was a knife, a big one, which plunged back into the water with a speed that astounded him, a sideways slash across her body down and under.
A quick flick of the wrist and the knife surfaced again. And skewered neatly just below the gills was one of the biggest Canadian brook trout he’d ever seen.
Twenty inches easy, a two-to-three-pounder.
Another flick of the wrist — harder this time — and she’d thrown the trout clear off the knife to leave it wriggling its death-dance on the shore.
He watched her lay back in the stream, eyes closed, only her breasts and face showing above the water. If her face was not, her breasts were beautiful and lolled gently to either side, the nipples puckered dark and wide.
He held the Remington steady.
A while later she rolled to her knees and stood and waded through the water to the shore. The trout lay still. She stooped, impaled it with the knife again, took two more steps and then stopped.
She appeared to scent the air.
Cleek’s hands trembled as he slowly lowered the rifle against the potential glint of sunlight on the scope.
She looked left and right. Far and near. Her gaze passed him over.
He realized he’d been holding his breath ever since she stopped. His heart pounded. He wondered if he was afraid of her.
It was possible.
In her way she was magnificent. Like some large dangerous animal. The wide powerful shoulders, the long ropy muscles of her arms and thighs. She glistened in the sunlight. At this distance without the scope he couldn’t see the dirt still matted in her hair, though he knew it was there. He couldn’t see the scars.
All he could see was this creature standing there.
After a time she seemed satisfied she was alone and turned away from him then and stepped out on the path that led around the stream.
Cleek knew what he had to do. There was only one thing he could do.
He waited awhile. Then made his way down through the scrub and pitch pine and followed.
~ * ~
She led him along on narrow deer paths, some of which even he didn’t know were there though he’d hunted this stretch of land for years. He kept his distance and would have lost her several times were it not for the scope. He was lucky. He was upwind of her all the time. The wind was blowing from the sea and that was where they seemed to be headed.
On a