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Norman Heaton

THE SECOND WEEK OF every November, Norman Heaton loaded up his pickup with supplies, and he and Henry Wilburt would four-wheel up to their blind on the far side of Mount Washington. They’d stay up there at least a week or so, until they both bagged at least one buck worth bragging about, then they’d bring them over to North Hollow Meat he hunted for the chase. He rarely shot a buck from the blind. Instead, he’d climb down and get up close—sometimes moving so slow it would take him an hour to move fifty feet—close enough to throw his knife and go for the neck or belly, then follow as the animal stumbled around in the woods and eventually slowed, and he’d finish it off. He’d often lose them in the brush and have to rely on his tracking skills to pick up the trail again—drop of blood here, snapped twig there, rustle of leaves. That was real hunting. A good buck could hide in plain sight if it had to, go so still and quiet you could be ten feet away and not know it was there. Eisa would have done well to ask a buck for a few pointers before running out of that kitchen, because she wasn’t very good at hiding her tracks.

Norman stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room and watched her fall, twice, trying to cross the space. First she tripped on the corner of the hideous burgundy area rug he’d wanted to toss out way back when the first Bush was in the White House, then she caught the coffee table with her toe. That one sent her face-first into the hardwood, and when she managed to get back up on those peg legs of hers, something had opened up in her nose and blood was coming out like a tap. He stopped whistling long enough to point at his own nose and say, “You got a little something …”

At the sound of his voice, she swiveled her head back in his direction with enough force to send a trail of blood across the room. It slapped against the wall and the brick of the fireplace, leaving a thin line like the start of Pollock painting.

“Norman … why are you—”

“Shhhh!” He shot up his finger. “How fucking hard is it for you to keep your damn mouth shut?” He twisted the mallet between his fingers. “Just once, one Sunday, I’d like to read my paper, enjoy a quiet breakfast … Is that so much? Is that so fucking much?!?”

There was a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the end table next to the couch—five thousand pieces making up a bird’s nest filled with baby sparrows. He grabbed the corner of the table and yanked it up, sending it somersaulting across the room. It cracked against the wall; pieces rained over the floor. Man, that felt good! He made a fist, flexed his arm. The muscles tensed and flexed like a freshly primed hydraulic jack. No sign of the arthritis that had been there as recently as this morning when he crawled out of bed. Aside from that, he hated puzzles. If that was the last one in his life, he’d be perfectly okay with that.

Eisa had taken advantage of his momentary reverie to skitter across the floor and get herself upright on the opposite end of the living room. The blood from her nose covered her mouth and chin and had done a number on her favorite muumuu. That stain would not be coming out. She kept looking at the stairs, then the front door, then back again.

Norman took a step closer. “Make up your damn mind, you indecisive bitch. I’ll give you a three-count. Then I’m comin’, ready or not.”

That did the trick.

Her hand slick with blood, Eisa fumbled with the dead bolt and managed to get the door open. She nearly fell again coming off the front stoop, but once she got her feet under her she crossed their lawn and got to Pollard Street quick enough. It wouldn’t be the chase he’d hoped for. Eisa just didn’t have that kind of speed in her anymore, but it would be better than tagging a buck from the blind like that lazy prick, Henry Wilburt.

Unlike his wife, Norman had no trouble with speed, or energy, or frail old bones. With each step he felt younger, more virile. He went after her with the vigor of a twenty-year-old, cocking the arm holding the mallet like a shotgun.