“I think you’re probably right.”
Fernando hums softly under his breath while the animal thrashes and moans. He moves very slowly as he bends down on both knees and strokes a hand down the side of the deer’s face. “There, there, beautiful girl,” he murmurs. “There, there.” And then, with the speed of someone half his age, he hefts the hammer over his head and brings the weighty metal end down on the side of the deer’s head. Not once. Not twice. Not three times. I lose count of how many times he raises and brings down the hammer. The deer is dead after the first couple of blows. Fernando doesn’t seem to care, though. He doesn’t stop until the animal’s head is caved in, shards of broken bone all over his arms, all over the ground, pulped brains and blood clumped together on the backs of his hands. His shoulders are rapidly hitching up and down, his breath labored when he finally stops.
“Quite a rush,” he says, panting. Using the sleeve of his shirt, he wipes at his forehead, streaking even more blood over his face. “Next time, you should use this,” he tells me, holding out the hammer. I take it, my expression flat and even. If he expects me to react or shy away from his violence, then he has another thing coming. He’s showing his true colors for the first time, though, and they truly are forming a sinister, foreboding palette, all blacks and reds and violent oranges. He’s a soulless man. I can see that now, as I look into his eyes.
He’s on his knees, covered in pieces of the deer, out of breath, and I am holding his hammer; it occurs to me that this could possibly be the perfect moment I’ve been waiting for. How easy would it be to bring this thing down on his head? We’re alone out here, with no witnesses, and no one to stop me. And yet, now doesn’t feel like the right time.
The small walkie-talkie Fernando’s carrying clipped to his belt blasts static at us out of nowhere, splitting apart the silence, and the moment is gone, disappeared in a puff of smoke. Loud voices stream out of the walkie’s speakers, and then Fernando is getting to his feet and responding, speaking into the receiver.
One of his teams has shot and killed a cougar. They’re excited about the kill, and from the looks of things, so is Fernando. “Do not move it,” he orders. “I want to be the one to skin it.”
He doesn’t strike me as the sort of man to ever break a sweat, and yet he takes off running, ducking around trees and jumping fallen logs in his hurry to reach the kill. I run after him, easily keeping up; my fists pump the air, and with every step I take I see the hammer in my hand, and I think about smashing him over the head with it. Before I know it, he’s found his men and the dead cougar, though, and I return his hammer.
Natalia’s leaning against a tree, arms folded across her chest, rifle propped up beside her; when she sees me, she shifts—probably a subconscious action, but it makes her look guilty of something. Fernando doesn’t see, too busy with the impressive looking cougar, but Ocho does. He frowns, shooting a suspicious glance between me and Natalia, then he backs off into the forest, his head bent low, eyes on the ground, as if he’s looking for something. I suspect he’s thinking about Natalia’s strange reaction to me, though. That shit’s probably going to be back to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later.
Fernando poses with the dead cougar for twenty minutes, while men take shots of him with their cell phones. Anyone would think he’d caught the thing himself. Once he’s satisfied that the moment has been documented well enough, he orders his men back out in their teams.
“Where did Ocho go?” he demands, looking around for the man.
I keep my mouth shut tight. Natalia doesn’t say a word either, though she saw him walk off as well. None of his other men witnessed where he went, so no one gives Fernando the answer he’s looking for. Does not go down well.
“You. You,” he says, pointing at two of his men. “Come with me. Natalia, would you prefer to continue hunting, or do you wish to join us in looking for Ocho?”
“I think I’d prefer to carry on with the hunt, if that’s okay with you, Father?” She needs to hide her anxiety a little better. Her voice sounds too high, too airy. It makes her seem afraid. Fernando doesn’t seem to notice, however.
“So be it.” Fernando casts his eye over his remaining men, until his gaze finally rests on me. “Kechu, you will look after my daughter, won’t you? You’re a good shot. Don’t let anything eat her.”