“Answer me!” She shook his arm. He winced.
“Yes, ma’am, this is my stag.”
“This was a living, breathing animal. Tell me, will you use the meat?” The old woman placed herself directly in front of Joe. She searched his eyes.
Joe shifted uncomfortably. Then he sighed in relief. He saw the question as his out- he didn’t need an expensive trespassing ticket to take home to his wife. It was obvious the old woman was going to make him give up his kill. He hoped she wouldn’t be a bitch about it but thought she probably would. His male pride rose in his throat, and he knew she wouldn’t agree. He tried anyway.
“You’re welcome to the meat, ma’am. I’m really just interested in the rack.” With that, the old woman reached out with a look of malice and anger in her strange blue eyes and placed the first three fingers of her right hand gently on the center of Joe's furrowed brow. The world went blankMurphy rolled from his sleeping bag at eleven thirty. He’d fallen back asleep after Joe’s little escapade at quarter to six. Murphy dressed, tied his boots tightly, searched for a cigarette and lighter. He inhaled. Exhaled. Laughed out loud as he adjusted his balls.
What a sight it had been to see Old Joe, always so staid and serious, running off into the woods in the half darkness of dawn, in his underwear, boots clomping, laces whipping his legs. Murphy set off with the fullest intentions of finding Joe and sharing his delight at this mornings’ antics. When he found Joe’s tent unmanned and learned from the others in camp that Joe had yet to return, Murphy took the opportunity to entertain the men with tales of Joe’s adventure into the woods, alone in his underwear with a gun and an injured deer.
When Joe wandered into camp at four o’clock that afternoon, mumbling and incoherent, long johns covered with filth, bleeding patches of skin showing through large gaps ripped in the material, Murphy was speechless for the first time in his outspoken life.
Joe was physically unhurt aside from the scratches. His mind was worse for the wear, Murphy noted. Murphy took special notice of the way Joe kept touching the middle of his forehead, just above and between his thick brows. Joe gingerly explored the same spot as if there were a sore or burn. No mark could be seen, but Joe’s fingers returned to the exact same spot nervously, time and again.
“Jesus Christ, Joe, what the hell happened to you?” Murphy sat him down on a milk crate that served as a chair and draped a sleeping bag around the man’s slumped shoulders.
“I need to go home. My family.” Joe looked up at Murphy with a wild, frantic look in his eyes. “I’m going home right now.”
“Joe, you can’t go home, it’s am eight hour drive. It’ll be one in the morning before you get there.”
Joe twitched violently.
“What the fuck is going on, Joe. You’re not right, that’s for sure.” Murphy licked his lips nervously. The others looked on, interested but keeping their distance. Joe looked none too stable at the moment.
Joe rose up and jerked the sleeping bag away. He crossed camp at a dead run and entered his tent. Murphy followed closely at his heels. Murphy was worried about his business partner and long time friend. An awful thought dawned on him. He swept the tent door open. Joe was dressing hurriedly.
“Joe, look at me. Look at me for Christ’s sake!” Murphy ordered, his voice low but hoarse. “Joe, Joe, did you shoot someone? Did you hit a hunter on accident when you were out there? Oh shit, did you kill somebody?”
“No.” Joe looked up at Murphy. “No, I shot a deer.”
Murphy relaxed visibly. “So you didn’t kill anybody.”
Joe’s eyes glazed over with a look sheer terror, as if he’d just thought of something horrific. He grabbed his truck keys and his rifle and rushed past Murphy. “I shot the deer… and then the old lady came...” He mumbled incoherently. He looked confused and very frightened. Joe’s hand crept up to search the spot in the center of his forehead unconsciously.
“Something bad is going to happen.” Joe said forcefully. With that, Joe ran to his truck and sped off, throwing turf clods as he raced down the wagon track that led back to the main road, throwing his rifle onto the seat next to him.
Murphy saw the frightened faces of the other men. He glanced back at Joe’s tent, left behind with all his belongings. Murphy broke camp within twenty minutes, throwing all of his and Joe’s camping gear into his own truck bed. His own four by four made better time on the rough road back to the highway, but he never caught up to Old Joe on the road.
There was a thick gray fog in his head, strangling Joe’s mind, blurring his memories of what events had taken place, slowing his thoughts. The old lady was in his head, and there was a unrelenting feeling of terror and horror seated deeply in his heart. The compulsion to return home to his family was uncontrollable, a physical pain that presented its self by constricting his airways, making it so very hard to breathe.
Joe wept openly as the speedometer crept up past a hundred. Tears of confusion poured down his anguished face. The truck left the road several times as he passed on the left of the fast lane. His driving was as erratic as his thoughts but there were no police, no vehicle challenged him as he hurtled down the highway, barely seeing the road as terror claimed his every thought and action.
Joe did not register the transition from day to night on that long manic drive.
