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Show 8 his right. And the blood was a trail now. It was in the snow, dropping almost regularly. Hunt could feel his own blood beating against the sides of his head as he ran. The doe lay shadowy in the lake-edge path. Somebody had shot her in the side. She was .dying but not yet dead. She lay there, as Hunt came upon her, bleeding into the snow. He slowed, then stopped. He stood and looked at her. He saw her fallen there in the white, legs drawn up. He fet that she watched him . . . with something; Hunt thought, with something, because her eyes were unseeing. Still she watched. She hoped, it seemed. Hoped? For what? Hunt imagined it was to trust him. Hunt imagined it was hope that he would not draw a gun and put another hole in her side. . Hunt imagined that it was that he would not take a knife and move to her and open her belly up and remove her heart. So that he could suck on it. So that he could hurl it off into the branch tops for the dark birds. Hunt drew a breath. Hoped. Then he drew several more. He and the deer held each other briefly with a mutual sight. Then Hunt moved to her. He knelt down. Hunt laid his head on her wound and tried to hear the tide of it - in and out. Or perhaps he was listening only to the lake. She seemed still warm. The skin was stiff but still living. She didn't move. She lay quiet. She made no attmept to escape him or to retreat. Maybe it was only that even that was gone - that will, that initiative. And Hunt wept. Goddamn Brueghel, he thought; goddamn his truth. Then suddenly her side seemed to explode. She convulsed. Her breath sparked from her nose. Her ribs, her entire rib cage |