Hens and Chickens (15 page)

“It’s a genetic quirk,” explained Hobart. “There’s a long history in Sovereign of a herd containing white deer. Hunters used to come from all over the United States to try and bag one. I heard of the white deer long before I went to Unity College, but I never got to see one until last year, when Tinkerbell surfaced.”

“But don’t you people hunt deer up here, Mike?” asked Lila, worriedly.

A look of discomfort crossed Hobart’s face. “Well, I don’t hunt anymore, but …”

“I do!” interrupted Gray. “My Dad bought me a 12-gauge shotgun for Christmas and Grandpa said I could hunt this year.” He turned to his grandfather for confirmation. “Right, Grandpa?”

“After ya take – and pass – that hunter’s safety course,” Ralph reminded him.

“Don’t you worry, Sweetie,” Maude said to Lila; “nobody in Sovereign would shoot Tinkerbell. Everyone knows how fond Miss Hastings is of that white deer! And if
you
post
your
land to hunting, just like all your neighbors, the white deer will be protected from hunters from Away.”

“Well, there’s no guarantee of that, unfortunately,” Hobart said, uneasily. “Hunters don’t have the
esprit de corps
they used to. Plus there’s so much posted land nowadays that many hunters can’t find a place to hunt, so they just ignore the signs and hunt where the deer are.”

“I’ll definitely post my land AND keep my eyes peeled,” said Lila, firmly. “No one’s going to shoot Tinkerbell on MY land!” Lila unconsciously pushed her empty dinner plate away from her. Maude was quick to catch the signal, and she rose to clear the table.

“I just hope I get a chance to see Tinkerbell!” Lila added, excitedly.

“I’ll help ya keep an eye out when I’m over there,” offered Gray. “I’m pretty good at spottin’ deer.”

“If yer wanting to help someone, why don’t ya help yer grandmother clear the table,” Ralph directed his grandson.

“Let me help,” said Lila, half rising from her chair.

“No, no; you and Mike just sit right there, Sweetie, and make yourselves comfortable,” urged Maude. “My two boys can help me.” She winked obviously at Ralph and indicated with a little nod of her fat head that her husband, as well as Gray, should follow her through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “We won’t be but a few minutes and we’ll be back with the dessert.”

A pleasurable, companionable silence ensued after the three Gilpins departed from the candlelit dining room, leaving Lila and Hobart alone together. Lila sat staring at the crystal glasses, mesmerized by the flickering lights.

Hobart spoke first. “Having a good time?” he asked.

Lila nodded, eyes glowing. “What an amazing family! I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity to meet them,” she said. “Too bad Gray isn’t a little older; he’d be perfect for Rebecca’s daughter, Amber.”

“I’m glad the kid’s not any older or he might give
me
a run for my money,” said Hobart, emphatically. He placed his linen napkin on the table not far from Lila’s hand. “You seem to like him pretty well!”

“He’s totally cute,” said Lila. Of its own volition her fingers crept toward his hand like a sand crab seeking shelter. Within moments, they were holding hands.

Hobart toyed with her feminine palm, leisurely rolling and unrolling her delicate fingers. “I could sit like this forever,” he said, lazily.

An absurd contentment pervaded Lila’s being. “You wouldn’t get much work done that way,” she said, lightly.

“All work and no play might make Lila go away,” he said, leaning closer to her.

“I’d like to learn how to play,” she said. “I never played much as a kid – the Only Child thing, you know.”

“I can teach you,” he murmured into her ear. His lips brushed her hair.

“I bet you can!” she giggled.

Gray peeked out through the swinging doors. “Geez, Grandma, they’re holdin’ hands!” he whispered loudly.

Hobart sat bolt upright in his chair. “Not anymore, though,” he called. “You can come back in, now!”

Chapter 14

“Something New … in Those Eyes”

Maude’s little “suppah” party broke up about 9:30 p.m. On the drive home, Hobart pulled the truck into the same turn-out where they had spotted the beaver earlier in the evening. He switched off the headlights, turned up the truck’s heater and rolled down his window. His handsome face was barely visible in the celestial rays of the moon. “Close your eyes and listen,” he directed Lila.  “Tell me what you hear.”

Lila shut her eyes dutifully and concentrated. At first, all she heard was silence billowing in on the damp breeze from Black Brook. But as her hearing became more acute, she picked up a faint intonation from the swamp –
peep, peep, peep!

“A baby chicken!” she cried, opening her eyes in amazement. “What’s it doing here? Where’s its mother?!”

“It’s actually a spring peeper; a tree frog,” Hobart replied, with satisfaction. “What you’re hearing is a mating call from a small brown frog not much bigger than the tip of your thumb. It’s one of the first sounds of spring around here.”

“I’ve heard of peepers,” said Lila, “but I never knew what they were.”

“There’s a vernal pool in the woods above your house,” continued Hobart; “you’ve probably got some peepers of your own up there. In a few days there will be a whole chorus of peepers and they’ll sound like sleigh bells off in the distance.”

“I’m going to sleep with my window open from now on!”

“That will work – until the bull frogs and the wood frogs come on line – then you’ll have to shut your window or the noise will drive you crazy. I’m not kidding.”

Lila laughed. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim moonlight, and she deliberately sought his steady gaze. “Thank you for an amazing evening, Mike,” she said, simply. “I never knew I could be so happy!”

Hobart felt an unusual tightness in his chest as his heart swelled beyond the bounds of normal felicity. He reached over and took her hand. “Let’s see if we can keep it going,” he said, suggestively.

“That shouldn’t be a problem, since both my chickens AND Rebecca arrive next week!”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” he said, drily.  “Score
one
for Sovereign honesty, and
zero
for the male ego!”

“Oops,” said Lila, giggling. “Sorry!”

“Don’t apologize; I wouldn’t want it any other way.” Hobart closed the truck window. “There’s a deer,” he said, quickly. “I can just make it out. It’s drinking on the other side—see it?” He directed her gaze across the moonlit brook, where the mist had now evanished as discreetly as a curtain on a darkened stage.

“I see it!” she said.

“This place is a regular wildlife corridor. You never know what you’re going to see when you stop for a while.”

“Or hear,” Lila said, as the frogs’ volume had increased. “I get what you mean about the noise!”

“Mmmhmm,” he said. “Frog mating calls are one of my favorite sounds.”

Lila giggled again. She started to say something, but hesitated. She gave Hobart a measured look.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Since you seem to be sincere about this honesty stuff,” she said; “there IS something I’m curious about.”

“What? I don’t have many deep, dark secrets.”

“Why were you so uncomfortable talking about deer hunting at dinner?” she asked, frankly. “And what made you decide to stop hunting?”

Hobart was slightly taken aback. “I didn’t realize I was so obvious,” he said.

“Maybe not to everyone; but I noticed that you seemed sort of …” she broke off.

“Tortured?” he finished. “I don’t have many deep, dark secrets, but that’s one of ‘em. I’ve never told anyone why I stopped hunting; not even my Dad, although he stopped hunting years ago himself.”

Lila instantly regretted her forwardness. “Oh, don’t tell me, then!” she cried.

But Hobart was not going to let this opportunity for deeper communion slip away. He wanted an honest, open caring and sharing relationship with Lila, and he was willing to bare his soul to secure it. Whether she was ready or not, well, only time would tell.

“I
want
to tell you, Lila,” he said, meaningfully. “I don’t want to have any secrets from you.”

Lila shivered at the implied intimacy of his remark. She closed her eyes, hiding from him the hunger for love that reciprocated his own.

Taking her silence for assent, he reached out and tenderly drew her into his arms. Lila sighed with pleasure, and nestled against his warm, sturdy chest. He rested his chin on top of her head and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. She felt his heart skip a beat beneath the rough wool of his sweater. They sat blissfully together in the moonlight as time slipped away like a sunset.   

“It’s kind of a long story,” Hobart said, after several minutes of refreshing silence.

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Lila replied, snuggling against his chest. She exhaled contentedly.

Hobart gathered his thoughts. “I grew up hunting and fishing, just like most boys in Maine,” he began. “We lived next door to the largest wilderness east of the Mississippi, after all. My father bought me my first gun – a 20-gauge shotgun – when I was nine. I killed my first deer, an eight-point buck, when I was 10. In fact, I picked Unity College so I could study conservation law. I wanted to be a game warden in Maine when I grew up.”

Surprised, Lila opened her eyes and looked up at him. “That didn’t happen!”

“No, that didn’t happen.” Hobart paused for reflection.

“Because …” she encouraged.

“Because I had sort of an Aldo Leopold moment my freshman year while I was out deer hunting with a college classmate. I stopped hunting as a result, and changed my major to earth science. I fell in love with trees, and became a carpenter.”

“Who was this Aldo Leopard guy?” Lila asked, jealously. She wanted to know who it was that had so much influence over him.

Hobart groaned in disbelief. “You’ve never heard of Aldo Leopold? Pioneer of the modern environmental movement! Author of
A Sand County Almanac
?”

Lila trailed her fingers lightly across his chest. “Nope.”

“Let me guess—they didn’t teach environmental ethics and wilderness conservation in that marketing Master’s program?”

“If they did, I skipped class that day.”

“That would have been a big mistake,” he assured her. “Someday, I’ll read you some of Leopold’s writings. I think you’d like them.”

“I think I’d like anything YOU like,” she said. “But there’s more to your story, right?”

“There’s more. Sure you want to hear the details? They’re pretty gruesome,” he said, anxiously.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I want to hear everything.”

Hobart took another minute or two to collect his thoughts. “We were hunting on some of the town owned woodlots that day,” he continued, in a more distant tone of voice; “in that wilderness area that butts up against Wendell’s woodlot.”  Lila closed her eyes again as he reminisced, and imagined that she was tramping through the woods with Hobart and his friend. She could almost smell the musty scent of the forest as he spoke.

“We jumped a couple of skippers, yearlings, in the cedar swamp near the Troy town line. My college classmate was a beginning hunter and he got buck fever—kind of a nervous over-excitement at seeing a deer. His hands shook so much he could hardly keep his gun steady. He fired like crazy into the woods, even though we could barely see the flags of the two deer leaping away from us. He kept firing; he missed one, but hit the other one – a button buck – and the bullet broke its back, but didn’t kill it.”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Lila. She looked up and saw a mixture of disgust and distress revealed in his honest blue eyes.

“The deer went down and started to thrash. It
bleated
like a helpless goat; it was awful to hear. And then the poor thing started to whimper, almost like a
baby.
When we reached the downed deer, my classmate took one look at the bloody mess, and then turned and ran.”

Hobart choked up. Lila felt empathetic tears spring into her own eyes. She pressed his hand reassuringly, but said nothing.

He cleared his throat. “The deer was still alive,” he went on. “He was looking at me with the saddest brown eyes I’ve seen. I almost could hear him thinking:
Don’t shoot me!
” Hobart paused. “I’d never had difficulty killing anything until that moment. But the deer was obviously suffering, and I knew I couldn’t leave him like that for the coyotes. I threw my jacket over his legs—I was afraid if I didn’t pin him down he’d slice me with those sharp hooves. I took my hunting knife and slit his throat. I held the deer’s head in my lap while his life just slipped away. One moment he was alive; the next he was gone.” A hot tear fell from his eye and landed on Lila’s hand. The precious fluid rolled down her arm, cooling as it dispersed. “He was such a pretty little thing.”

“Shhhh,” she whispered, reaching up and running her fingers through the stiff curls of his hair. “You don’t need to say anymore!” But Lila knew that he did not hear her nor feel the light touch of her hand—he was not present in the truck with her; he was still in the woods with the dying deer in his lap.

Hobart lifted his head and gazed into the sublime.
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes,
” he quoted.
“I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to
me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain.”
 He drew in a tremulous breath. “Thank God for Aldo Leopold!” he proclaimed. “What he wrote about his experience with the old mother wolf helped me understand my hunting incident in a positive way. There was
something new
revealed to me that day. And I’ve never hunted; never fired a gun—never killed anything since,” he concluded, simply.

Lila could no longer hold back her tears. “Omigod,” she said, weeping openly. She groped with her right hand around the cab of the truck until she located his blue bandana. “I didn’t know I would need this again so soon!” She wiped the tears from her face and blew her nose.