Hunter and the Hunted: Part II

Hunter and the Hunted: Part II

I rip my mask off as I walk down the steps to the Den, my base of operations located in the basement of my home.  “What this about, babe?  It’s after five, I just now get home after being out there kicking butt and building up an appetite like you wouldn’t believe, and you haven’t even started dinner yet?”  I say, in what I hope she will identify as my joking voice.

She pivots in her chair, her lips were in a straight line and she gives me a dry look.

“It…it was a joke.”  I say quickly.

“Mmm, hmm.”  She groans before spinning her chair back towards her screen.  “To answer your earlier question, I’ve spent the entire afternoon combing Jim East’s record.”

“And.”

“And I’m still not done.  This so called ‘conservationist’ has more strikes than a bowling alley.  I just can’t figure out why Non-Human-Network would still keep someone like this on the air.  He’s done everything from poaching animals out of season to guiding hunting trips inside nature preserves.”

“Well he’s obviously got the right people in his pocket.  The law has had plenty of opportunity to get him out of the woods and behind bars, now it’s up to me.”

My wife sighs.

Deeply.

Angrily.  The way she used to when we were newlyweds and she was tired and I wanted the thing that newlywed husbands want. 

“What is it?”  I ask her, already knowing the answer.

“I understand your wanting to help, I do.  My passion for animals is what first drew me to joining the D.N.R. and it’s what drew you to me.  You know my commitment—it’s what’s allowed me to sit home while you play dress up and risk your life out in the woods every night.  But you have to understand where I’m coming from.  You’ve gone from kicking hunters off our own land to shutting down Madison College’s animal testing facility to taking a leisurely submarine ride to Canada to stop the seal hunt.”

“Well I’d hardly say that was a “leisurely’ ride, Dear.”  I interject, trying to lighten the mood.  “that whale I nearly ran into tossed the sub around pretty good.”

“Not the time!”  She responds to my remark before moving on.  “Every mission you send yourself on gets more and more dangerous. Every crisis you stick your nose into increases my chance of becoming a widow.  I’ve been understanding—but I will never understand why you think it has to be you out there.”

Despite her claim to have always been understanding, we’d had this discussion before.

Frequently.

And recently, I might add.

I do what I always do and wrap my arm around her, an arm littered with scars and bruises—evidence supporting the very type of danger my wife is talking about.  I press her close against me and tell her the same thing I always do.  “…because, I’m the only one who can—I’m the only one willing to do something.  Maybe someday I won’t have to—Lawson Hunter is rising through the ranks fast at our office.  His beliefs mirror my own and leadership suits him—maybe someday it’ll be him and his values running things, but for now…”  I pause for a moment while she cries.  Then I say the next thing that comes to mind, “…and you know this guy will just keep killing and getting away with it if I don’t put myself in danger to stop him.”

“I know.”  She whispers softly, I’m just tired of always wondering if I’m going to get that call—the one that tells me I now longer have a husband and ‘oh by the way, you’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a vigilante.’  Or worse—see it on the evening news…the whole world watching while you lay dead on some mercy mission in some other part of the world.”

I hold her for another moment, pressing her hard against me until the pressure pushes on the memory card in my utility belt and something she said hits me.

“That’s it!”  I wail, moving her back and sitting down in her chair.  I started typing in the website address from memory.

“What’s it?”  She asks, startled.

“I know how to get his attention and I don’t even have to leave the state.  The scum I took out in the woods were recording their kills—it’s for a contest sponsored by Mr. East.”

“So what are you doing?”

The website loads and I reach into my utility belt and take out the confiscated memory card and show her.  “I’m submitting my contest entry.”  I say as I plug the memory card into the computer.

“Oh Fritz…”  My wife sighs disapprovingly as she figures out what I’m about to do.  She folds her arms, turns, and soundlessly makes her way up the stairs as a silent replay of my fight with the poachers flashes across the screen as it uploads to the website. 

I type a single-line message in the comments section of the entry form:

COME AND GET ME.

And then I enter for my chance to win.    

The Hunter and the Hunted

Hunter and the Hunted: Part 1

Sunlight glares off the lens of a video camera that’s propped on a tripod recording the scene unfolding before it.

They actually want to relive this.

Angry, bloody claws swipe at the air—at the poachers.  The trap the bobcat is in wasn’t made for something his size—his strength.  It was designed for something more like a fox, but that doesn’t make the bobcat any less of a prize for the hunters and as such, they don’t want him to further damage his hide.  One of them cocks their rifle—the bobcat is too enraged and the hunter sees no other option than to shoot the big cat.

But that’s not true.  They could’ve just left well-enough alone and not set the trap at all.

But you can’t change the past.

Only the future.

The poacher takes aim.

And so do I.

But I’m faster. 

And before the poacher even has the cat in his sights, my throwing star hits the spring trap’s release trigger and the cat is free.  He wastes no time and pounces on the nearest hunter—the one with the rifle.  He brings him down, the criminal hits his head on a rock and fails to get up as I land beside the cat. 

“You’re injured, get out of here.”  I tell him through the Jargon, the device I invented to open the lines of communication between humans and animals.  All animals have a voice, all animals can talk—in their own way—but we humans have forgotten the language.  The Jargon records and filters human language/animal sounds then plays the translation back into English or that specie’s unique sounds, based on which species you have selected so the two can understand one another.

The bobcat ignores me, lowers his head then pounces on another hunter.

“Or not.”  I say under my breath as I follow the big cat’s lead. 

I rush another poacher, the cat on my heels.  The thug takes a swing at me and I go into a slide like he’s home base, taking him out at the legs.  He falls forward, the cat lunges from behind me and before the dirt-bag can hit the ground, the cat pummels him to the forest floor.

I hear another thug coming at me from behind, I grab the camera-mounted tripod as I side-step out of the way.  As the brute stumbles forward I crack him in the back with it.  He hits the ground, skidding to a stop.  He flips over and points his hand gun at me.

Guns—a coward’s weapon of choice.

He’s shaking and fires off a round with wild aim.  I hear it sink into a tree behind me.  Before he can squeeze the trigger a second time I use the tripod to smack the gun from his quivering hand.  He watches it fly into the bushes and while he’s distracted I give him a concussion with the tripod and he slumps to the moss-covered floor of the forest. 

I bring the tripod up to my face to inspect it.  The lens of the camera is hanging by one screw and a couple of wires dangle from where the moveable screen used to be.  “Hope you got the five-year extended warranty on this.” 

By the time my head comes back up the hunters have all been neutralized and the bobcat is gone. “Well, that’s gratitude.”  I say out loud.  “He didn’t even thank me.”

I shrug it off and search for the power button on the camera.  The main viewing screen is cracked pretty-good but the camera still turns on.  The moment the trap snapped shut on the cat’s back foot replays and I cringe as the feline starts gnawing at his own foot in an attempt to free himself.  The camera fuzzes out and the next time there is a picture, I see myself kicking the poacher’s asses.  The next thing I see is the world spinning as I brought the camera down on the last poacher and then the screen goes blank.  I’m not sure why but I take out the memory chip and slip it into a padded compartment in my utility belt then I let the camera and tripod plop on the unconscious thug’s gut.

I alert the D.N.R. to our position and start the process of dragging the incapacitated idiots over to a large jack pine where I giftwrap them for the guys-in-green.  I’m about to leave when a brochure sticking out of the pocket of one of the hunters catches my attention.  I pull it from the coat, the drooling dreg stirs but does not come-to.  I open it up and can hardly believe my eyes.

They were doing this for some kind of contest—the recording was their entry submission.  The winner gets his video on some hunting show on Non-Human Network called Wild East Alaska and a free Alaskan hunting trip guided by the show’s host.

I wonder how many animals are dying throughout the country just so some beer-drinking, gun-wielding bully can get on a stupid, murder-idolizing show where they’ll be rewarded with taking the life of some other innocent creature.

The brochure crumples in my fist and my finger presses the comm. link in my ear piece.

“Yes, Honey?”  My wife’s sweet voice responds to my call.”

“You busy?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.  I need you to run the name of a hunting show host for me.”

“Okay?”  She said, with annoyance as she grabs a pencil and piece of paper.  “I’m ready.” 

I scan down to the bottom of the brochure until I find what I’m looking for, “the name is East.  Jim East.”