Old hunters never die they just fade away 

 An old man stood at an old stove and looked out the window at the big woods that were old long before he was even young. 

The camp near Kaladar was empty and he could see the November dawn approaching over the trees. The other men had left in the dark by flashlight. They were waiting quietly now for the hunt to begin near granite ridges, green swamps and game trails. 

He had shown most of them how to find these places, where to stand, which way to look and when to shoot. Then he set the dogs and ran deer to them and many others before their time. 

Now he was too old to go to the woods and hunt. His legs got weak first. Then his eyes went. He tried to keep hunting but felt tired all the time. That’s when he knew something was eating away at him. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that. 

So he stayed behind at camp. It was his job to keep the fire going and clean up and cook lunch before the men returned from hunting.  

He emptied the warm bacon grease from the cast iron fry pan into a jar. Then he lifted the metal coffee pot with his name scratched on the side to see if there was one more cup left. He sat down at the big wooden table in the middle of the room and stared at the crumbs and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts while he drank his coffee.  

He thought about how his name would be scratched on the back page of a newspaper one day and then on a piece of stone. He didn’t care about that. He just hoped someone remembered him when they looked at the scratches on the coffee pot.  

He knew it was a long time to wait for the hunt to come around each year. In the past he had began to miss it only weeks after it ended. So he learned to use his memories to help time pass until November came again.  

Eventually he could return to the woods whenever he wanted. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing. He only had to release his imagination to be there. It was easy because he had paid attention to all the details and rituals in the woods and at the camp. He always thought he could go back to the woods each November and look and listen again to keep the memories alive and make new ones. Now he had to work hard to rely on the same old memories. 

He knew that visitors and hunters looking for lost dogs would be dropping by soon. He used to like talking to visitors and other hunters. But now he hoped they didn’t come. They would see him alone in the camp and ask him why he wasn’t hunting. 

He looked around at the empty gun racks and unmade beds and blood stained boots placed near the wood stove to dry. There were deer antlers mounted on the walls and plenty of pictures framed and taped and pinned there. He stood in front of a Polaroid photo of himself as a young man in an orange coat kneeling in the woods behind a deer holding up its head by the antlers. 

He stepped forward and looked closely at the face in the photo. He was tired that day too but it felt good then. His smile was as big as his shoulders. He sat back down at the table and thought about how that was the face he still saw sometimes when he looked in the mirror.  

Then he heard the fly. 

It was at the window by the stove. Numerous other flies were piled dead in heaps along the window sill. That one fly kept buzzing as it flew up from the pile and into the closed window before falling down over and over. Just one wing seemed to be working.  

“You won’t last long but you’re not going out with a whimper,” he said out loud.  He looked at the fly swatter hanging by a nail on the cupboard but decided it wouldn’t be right to use it.  

Early that morning when the hunters left he went outside to watch. As they walked over the first ridge someone looked back and returned his wave. Now he was looking out the window waiting for their return.  

He saw them coming back over the same ridge. Two men were dragging a deer. He knew the other hunters would be walking in front if the deer was a doe. But they were walking behind the men dragging the deer. 

The old hunter took out his knife and stepped into the sunshine. He was going to help the boys skin the buck