Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

The two men stood straight, exchanging a glance. They readied their rifles, cocking a bullet into the chamber of each one.

“The first shot’s mine,” the host reminded his partner. “If I miss, or just wound him, then you take him down.”

The second man nodded his understanding and agreement. That had been their plan, from the time they had first discussed this trip.

The sounds were coming closer. Their prey hadn’t cottoned to their presence. As it ambled around the last bend in the trail before the clearing, about a hundred yards down-trail below them, the lead hunter raised his rifle and squinted into his high-powered sight.

The second man squinted into his sight as well, to see how big it was, if their hard work and long patience had been worth it. “Shit!” he exclaimed softly, his breath a small cloudpuff. “There he is, just like you said he’d be. How could you know he would come this way?”

“I followed him, before the season started.” He could feel the hairs tingling on the back of his neck, on his arms under the layers of clothing. “We’re all creatures of habit, man and beast.”

The animal stopped for a moment, looking around, seeming to sniff the air. Through the scope, the hunter could see what appeared to be a quizzical expression drift across the eyes. Had he heard something? He couldn’t see the hunters, they were covered. And the wind was in the wrong direction for smell.

After a moment, satisfied there was no harm impending, he continued up the trail in their direction.

The hunter had his target in his sights. It was a big head, a beautiful head. Proud, noble, imperious. It would be the best trophy he had ever bagged, or ever would. The hard work getting up here, the planning for it, it had all been worth it.

Rifle fire exploded the silence. Through his sight, the hunter saw his bullet explode in his target’s neck, right behind the head.

The target went down where he stood, dead instantaneously, frozen forever in the moment of its dying. A pure and beautiful kill.

They scurried down the embankment. The lead hunter calmly walked over to the dead thing at his feet. The body was warm, exuding heat-aura.

“Good shot. Good, clean kill.”

“Thanks.”

They slit the animal’s neck with one clean cut, holding the body up so the blood didn’t drip onto it, the dark blood running out onto the hard ground. After the blood had all run out, they gutted the body, keeping the head and a small, prime section of pelt.

He had come for a trophy, and now he had it. The rest — bones, innards, flesh, organs — they would leave for the buzzards and the wild dogs and coyotes that roamed these hills, that were especially voracious in winter, when food was scarce. In less than a week, there would be nothing left but a clean-picked pile of bones.

The trophy, head and rolled-up pelt, went into a large Ziploc freezer bag they’d brought for such a purpose. The hunter cinched the bag up tight.

They made their way down the trail, passing no other hunters on their way. It was late; anyone who had been out hunting in this area would have gone in by now. The shooter didn’t expect that anyone else had been here. There had been no other shots, and theirs had been the only vehicle in the out-of-the-way parking lot.

The dying sun, a reddish-purple mirror image of the one that had risen with them in the morning, was spreading its last spiderlike tentacles across the far western hills as they reached their car. The hunter opened the trunk and placed the freezer bag into a large Igloo cooler he’d brought for this purpose. The ice inside the cooler was still frozen; the temperature had never gotten above freezing all day. They packed the ice around the head, to keep it fresh.

There were a couple of swallows of whiskey left in the flask. They shared it as they drove back to the house. The hunter’s brother, who had flown a thousand miles to be here for this, looked over and smiled, his teeth bright in the reflection of the oncoming headlights.

“A good day’s work,” he commented.

The driver’s look was fixed out the windshield, down the road. “We got what we came for.”

2

They drove the truck up the driveway, parked in the garage, and went into the house through the hallway that connected the house to the garage and served as a laundry/mud room. The door leading into the house proper was open a crack. Dinner was cooking; they could smell it. Some kind of chicken stew.

“Is that you, Jeff?” A woman’s voice called out from the kitchen.

The one who had the kill called back from the mud room where they were still stripping off their muddy boots and peeling off the layers of sweaters, shirts, and long underwear. “Yeah, it’s us.” He wiped his face down with a towel. Driving home in the car with the heater on had raised a sweat. “Were you expecting someone?”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know.”

“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the bogyman.”

“I’m not the bogyman.”

“Dinner’ll be about half an hour.”

“We’ll shower up first.”