“I’m going out in the morning,” Amy Raye said. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Yesterday I found a tree stand up on the mesa. It’s a good spot. There’s fresh sign.”
“Do you want me to go with you? I want to go with you.”
“No.”
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“Kenny.” She said his name like she used to say that of her dog back home when Saddle was about to do something wrong. And then, “Don’t tell Aaron,” she said.
—
There were three of them—Kenny and Aaron and Amy Raye. Kenny and Aaron hunted with rifles. Aaron had filled his tag on the first day, taking down a four-point bull elk they’d come upon at a watering hole. Kenny had filled his tag for a cow elk the next, from a small herd grazing in a meadow, making a clean shot at about two hundred yards. They’d quartered the carcasses and hung the quarters from a two-by-four that they’d nailed between two trees alongside the camp. But Amy Raye didn’t hunt with a rifle. She hunted with a compound bow, which meant getting within twenty to thirty yards of an elk. Harvesting an elk with a bow during rifle season was legal but hardly heard of. Amy Raye knew if she was to have any chance, she’d have to head out by herself and find where the elk had scattered. Just the day before she’d broken off on her own, had hiked miles into the area, where she’d discovered excellent sign—elk urine, rubbings in the nearby trees, trails that crisscrossed, and fresh tracks. And in the grasses nearby she’d glassed smooth indentions of elk bedding. She’d come upon a tree stand tucked about fifteen feet high in a pinyon, with tree steps still in place. Hunters were supposed to remove their stands at the end of a season. The screw-in tree steps looked like they had been set for a while, a residue of dust and rain deposits coating the brown-tempered steel. Amy Raye had navigated a trail for herself away from the stand, and set several reflector tags on trees on her way out.
—
That evening before dinner, before she and Kenny had sat by the fire and Aaron had turned in, she’d walked through the woods to a shallow stream, barely three feet wide and six inches deep. She’d removed her clothes and squatted, her buttocks resting against her ankles, the water so cold it was painful. She’d rushed through the ritual, running a nylon brush over her skin. But she hadn’t washed her hair. And now, lying in her tent, she wished she had, hoping her scent wouldn’t keep the elk away.
She turned on her flashlight and reached for her phone to check the time. Three thirty. There was a text from her husband. Hey, are you having a good night? I’m getting stuff done. It’s good. Miss you like skin. She wrote back, I am blessed to have you, but I am seriously going to try harder.
Still bundled in her sleeping bag, she shed her long underwear, then crawled out of the bag and unzipped the opening flap of the tent, the air not more than twenty degrees, she was sure. Snow was now falling in sporadic flakes, melting almost as soon as it hit the ground. Next to her tent was a plastic container where she’d packed a set of clothes for each day, each item having been washed clean of grocery store detergents and perfumes and her own perspiration. Moving quietly so as not to wake Kenny or Aaron, she pulled on a fresh layer of thermals, wool socks, camouflage pants, a camouflage fleece jacket, her green hiking boots, and her brown fleece hat. She switched out her flashlight for her headlamp, which she secured over her hat. Carrying a roll of toilet paper, she walked toward the woods behind the tent.
Less than five feet from the back wall of the tent was a divot in the ground carved out by the fresh claw marks of a bear, a mother, most likely, digging for bugs for her young. Amy Raye calculated the distance again. Less than two of her own strides. Tired, cold, and fully aware of just how close the bear had been to her while she’d slept, something like déjà vu grazed her heart, as if she had already stood here a half-dozen times, and if she had, some other living being had stood here within breathing room of her a half-dozen times, too.
Aaron’s tent was across from hers, about fifty feet. If she stood still, she could hear his snores muffled beneath the covers. Kenny’s tent was farther away, south of the fire pit and cookstove.