The better to hold you by Alisa Sheckley

Author:Alisa Sheckley [Alisa Sheckley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF
ISBN: 9780345505873
Published: 2009-02-23T09:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

It was getting embarrassing. Every two minutes, it seemed, Hunter stopped, stepped behind a tree, and relieved himself.

“And so you're saying that just beyond the tree line there is one boundary? Hold on a moment.” Hunter's hand was already at his fly.

“Hunter,” I hissed. “This is the third time. Can't it wait?”

But his back was to me. “Must be all that coffee I had while I was writing,” he said, up against a fir tree. “Sorry.” Beyond him the woods dipped into a valley, spread out into cornfields, climbed into the soft lavender blur of the Catskill Mountains.

“Hunter,” I said, sounding like somebody's maiden aunt, but by then he'd come back.

Hunter paused. “You're not offended, are you, Jackie?”

“Long as it's not on my rosebushes, you can do whatever you like, wherever you like.”

Hunter beamed at her, full-frontal charming.

“Actually,” Red said, “maybe I'll take a moment, too.” He walked a little ways off from all of us, right about where Hunter had been, and I found myself thinking about what he was doing. I felt Jackie watching me.

“Men,” she said.

“Marking their territory.”

“Hey,” said Hunter, “it's not like I'm peeing on somebody else's lawn. A man has a right to pee on his own land, doesn't he?”

Jackie and I laughed at that.

Red came out from behind the trees. “What's so funny?”

Jackie lit a cigarette. “You guys acting like a couple of dogs.”

“Well, hell, I won, then. Last dog to pee on the tree owns it.”

Hunter came up to clap Red on the shoulder. He was a good head taller. “Try to tell that to the tax man.”

Red cocked his head back to meet the younger man's eye. “Maybe I'll just bite him.”

“That sounds like tempting fate.”

“Well, fate's a bitch, and you can't let her run you.”

“Oh, look, Abra,” said Jackie, flicking her ash, “another pissing contest.”

“Come on, you guys, before it gets dark.”

We walked. The air began to buzz with insects and the sun gentled and dipped. As we got deeper into the woods, nearer Red's house, the shadows darkened and multiplied, and the mosquitoes hummed their approval.

“I'm getting eaten up,” I complained.

“You should try smoking,” said Jackie.

“Mosquitoes don't like cigarettes?”

“They like pot, though.” Red smiled, his teeth a flash of white.

“I used to walk here when I was ten or so,” Hunter said. “I'm sure this is Barrow land.”

“Sh.” Red froze. “Deer.”

I couldn't see anything in the dappled twilight. “Where did you see—”

There was a thrashing in the underbrush somewhere above us.

“Wow,” I said. “How many was that?”

“Three.”

I turned to Hunter, his eyes still focused on something I could not see. “That's incredible. How could you see that?”

“That's what Magdalena was teaching me. Tracking.”

“What were they? Could you tell?”

I watched as Hunter looked past Red, considering. “Two does? A fawn?”

“Very good.” Red's voice held a note of respect. “Somebody taught you well.”

We walked in silence for another two minutes, until I stumbled over a rock. The sun was sinking behind us, and I realized how dark it was getting. “You know, it's getting a little hard to see.

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