The Killer in the Woods by Rick Van Etten

Author:Rick Van Etten [Etten, Rick Van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734826906
Publisher: Proud Point Press
Published: 2020-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

I carried my cup of coffee into the lounge with me. The Parks brothers and Michael Larson headed over to the pool table and started a game of eight ball. Michael partnered with Steven Parks and I heard Wayne Parks call them “the dog team,” presumably because Michael and Steven owned the dogs their parties were hunting over.

Dave Larson grabbed a beer from the cooler and joined me at the bar. “Never was much of a pool shooter,” he said.

“Me, neither. I can maybe make my shots on a good day, but those aren’t too plentiful,” I said.

He laughed. “That sounds like me in the bird field lately. Anymore it seems like I couldn’t hit water if I capsized a canoe.”

I had to laugh at that one. “You said you and your son had a good day today, though.”

“We did…well, Michael did, anyway. His Lab really performed well and Michael took most of the shots. I’m fine with that.” He hesitated, then continued. “I’ve pretty much reached the age where I don’t need to shoot a lot of birds to call it a good day.”

I knew the feeling. Much as I love hunting—and I do love it and always will—I too had begun to notice a certain winding down feeling in recent years. Taking a limit was no longer the necessity it had seemed to be when I was much younger, and nowadays I often found myself deliberately stopping a bird or two short. Critics might accuse me of selfishness in doing this, saying I just wanted to “save some for tomorrow,” but I knew better. It was simply a matter of knowing that enough was enough.

“I hear that,” I said. “These days I’m more interested in watching my dog work and trying to see that she has a good time rather than concentrating on shooting a bunch of birds. Of course to her way of thinking, shooting a bunch of birds for her to retrieve is a good time.”

“Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it? They live for hunting,” Larson said. “I love watching Jasper work and being out there with Michael…well, for me that’s about as good as it gets. Do you have any kids?”

“No, I don’t,” I replied, and before the conversation went any further, the front door of the lodge opened and Mitch Halvorsen—I recognized him from the photos on the preserve’s website—stepped in. He paused on the mat inside the door and carefully wiped his boots, then looked up and gave us all a smile. “Howdy,” he said.

Dave and I nodded and someone at the pool table said “Howdy!” in return. Halvorsen nodded in their direction but approached Larson and me at the bar. He was dressed in blue jeans and the same type of khaki shirt with the Hidden Hollow logo that Allie Marshall had been wearing. He stuck his hand out and said to me, “We haven’t met yet. You must be Rob Vance.”

“That’s me,” I said, shaking his hand. “Got in this afternoon.”

“Sorry I wasn’t here a little earlier to welcome you,” he said.

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