The Never Game

The teenager guesses that this man, with his ignorance and the little-worn outfit, had been asked to go hunting with friends and, never having been, wanted to practice so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

“I’ll help you,” Colter offers. “But we can’t let it go.”

“Why?”

“A wounded animal, you track it down. You don’t let it suffer.”

“Suffer,” the man whispers. “It’s a deer. Who cares?”

Never kill an animal but for three reasons: for food or hide, for defense, for mercy.

Colter’s father has given the children a lengthy list of rules, most of them commencing with the negative. Colter and his older brother, Russell, who call their father the King of Never, once asked why he didn’t express his philosophy of life with “always.” Ashton answered, “Gets your attention better.”

“Come on,” Colter says. “I’ll help. I can cut sign pretty well.”

“Don’t push me, kid.”

At that point the muzzle of the Bushmaster strays very slightly toward Colter.

The young man’s belly tightens. Colter and his siblings practice self-defense frequently: grappling, wrestling, knives, firearms. But he’s never been in a real fight. Homeschooling effectively eliminates the possibility of bullies.

He thinks, Stupid gesture by a stupid man.

And stupid, Colter knows, can be a lot more dangerous than smart.

“So what kind of father you have that lets his son mouth off like you do?”

The muzzle swings a few degrees closer. The man certainly doesn’t want to kill, but his pride has been thumped like a melon and that means he may shoot off a round in Shaw’s direction to send him rabbit-scurrying. Bullets, though, have a habit of ending up in places where you don’t intend them to go.

In one second, possibly less, Colter draws the old Colt Python revolver from a holster in his back waistband and points it downward, to the side.

Never aim at your target until you’re prepared to pull the trigger or release the arrow.

The man’s eyes grow wide. He freezes.

At this moment Colter Shaw is struck with a realization that should be shocking yet is more like flicking on a lamp, casting light on a previously dark place. He is looking at a human being in the same way he looks at an elk that will be that night’s dinner or at a wolf pack leader who wishes to make Colter the main course.

He is considering the threat, assigning percentages and considering how to kill if the unfortunate ten percent option comes to pass. He is as calm and cold as the pseudo-hunter’s dark brown eyes.

The man remains absolutely still. He’ll know that the teenager is a fine shot — from the way he handles the .357 Magnum pistol — and that the boy can get a shot off first.

“Sir, could you please drop that magazine and unchamber the round inside.” His eyes never leave the intruder’s because eyes signal next moves.

“Are you threatening me? I can call the police.”

“Roy Blanche up in White Sulphur Springs’d be happy to talk to you, sir. Both of us in fact.”

The man turns slightly, profile, a shooter’s stance. The ten percent becomes twenty percent. Colter cocks the Python, muzzle still down. This changes the gun to single-action, which means that when he aims and fires, the trigger pull will be lighter and the shot more accurate. The man is thirty feet away. Colter has hit pie tins, center, at this distance.

A pause, then the man drops the magazine — with the push of a button, which means it is definitely an illegal weapon in California, where the law requires the use of a tool to change mags on semiauto rifles. He pulls the slide and a long, shiny bullet flies out. He scoops up the magazine but leaves the single.

“I’ll take care of that deer,” Colter says, heart slamming hard now. “If you could leave our property, sir.”

“Oh, you bet I’ll leave, asshole. You can figure on me being back.”

“Yessir. We will figure on that.”

The man turns and stalks off.

Colter follows him — silently, the man never knows he’s being tailed — for a mile and a half, until he gets to a parking lot beside a river popular with white-water rafters. He tosses his weapon into the back of a big black SUV and speeds away.

Then, intruder gone, Colter Shaw gets down to work.

You’re the best tracker of the family, Colter. You can find where a sparrow breathed on a blade of grass...

He starts off in search of the wounded animal.

For mercy...

There isn’t much blood trail and the ground on this part of the property is mostly pine-needle-covered, where it isn’t rock; hoof tracks are nearly impossible to see. The classic tried-and-true techniques for sign cutting won’t work. But the boy doesn’t need them. You can also track with your mind, anticipating where your prey will go.

A wounded animal will seek one of two things: a place to die or a place to heal.

The latter means water.