When a gun goes off on a cold winters day, the retort echoes through the forest for miles around and every living creature stops to look and listen. The first gunshot of hunting season startled and put the faeries o. Scouts fanned out along the ridge, searg fe or camouflage vests or hats, listening for the trudge of men seeking out deer, pheasant, turkey, grouse, rabbit, fox, or black bear. Sometimes the hunters brought their dogs, dumb aiful— mottled pointers, feathery setters, blueticks, blad-tans, retrievers. The dogs could be more dangerous than their owners. Unless we masked our st along every path, the dogs could smell us out.
My great fear iing out alone is the eeting up with a stray or worse. Years later, when we were fewer in number, a pack of hunting dogs picked up our trail and surprised us at rest in a shady grove. They raced our way, a stream of flashing sharp teeth and howling menace, and we moved as one by instinct, scrambling toward the safety of a bramble thicket. With each stride we took ireat, the dogs gaiwo in pursuit. They were an army with knives drawn, h a primal battle cry, and we escaped only by sacrifig our bare skin to the tangle of thorns. We were lucky wheopped at the edge of the thicket, fused and whimpering.
But on this winter day, the dogs were far away. All we heard was the yelp, the random shot, the muttered curse, or the kill. I once saw a duck fall out of the sky, instantly ging from a stretched-forward silhouette to a pinwheel of feathers that landed with a clap oer. Poag had disappeared from these hills and valleys by the middle of the decade, so we had to worry only during the hunting season, which corresponded roughly with the late fall and winter holidays. The brightness of trees gave way to bareness, then to bitter cold, and we began to listen for humans in the glens and the crack of the gun. Two or three of us went out while the other faeries hunkered down, buried beh blas under a coat of fallen leaves, or in holes, or hid in hollow trees. We did our best to bee unseeable, as if we did . The early arrival of night or drippi days were our only respite from the tense boredom of hiding. The odor of our stant fear mingled with the rot of November.
Back to back to ba a triangle, Igel, Smaolach, and I sat watch upon the ridge, the m sun buffered by low dense clouds, the air pregnant with snow. Ordinarily, Igel wanted nothing to do with me, not sihat day years before when I nearly betrayed the by trying to speak with the man. Two sets of footsteps approached from the south; one heavy, crashing through the brush, the other soft. The humans stepped into a meadow. An air of impatience hung about the man, and the boy, about seven ht years old, looked anxious to please. The father carried his shotgun, ready to fire. The sons gun was broken apart and awkward to carry as he struggled out of the brush. They wore matg plaid jackets and billed caps with the earflaps down against the chill. We leaned forward to listen to their versation iillness. With practid tratiohe years, I was now able to decipher their speech.
"Im cold," said the boy.
"Itll toughen you up. Besides, we havent found what we came for."
"We havent even seen one all day."
"Theyre out here, Osk."
"Ive only seen them in pictures."
"When you see the real thing," said the man, "aim for the little buggers heart." He motioned for the boy to follow, and they headed east into the shadows.