Hunters
The tourists turn him off hunting. Tourists could turn you off milk if they had the chance, I say. Or off sex, he says. He says it to see if I’ll laugh or if I’ll clap my hands and take myself and my dogs inside.
Each winter different men rent the lake house. It is always men who call about the ad in the paper, never women. They’re all the same: bearded men who drive trucks and are of few words. They knock on my door to pay their rent and sometimes one will bring me over some venison stew, unsure what to think of me, a young woman living in the woods with only dogs for company. I would tell them that I am a widow, but none of them ever ask.
The Maine Guide pets my favorite dog in her favorite spot and the dog wags her whole rear end. Her tail smacks against the Maine Guide’s shin again and again and again.
My husband owned one gun: a BB gun he used to shoot snakes in the basement of our house in Pennsylvania. Sometimes at night, when we were reading or sleeping or just being quiet, we could hear the snakes sliding up and down between the walls. Every time we did laundry, my husband would go ahead of me into the basement, armed with the gun, and he would shoot any snakes while I stood on the stairs holding a basket of dirty clothes, useless and scared.
The snakes in Maine are only as thick as my index finger and they don’t come in the house, so when we moved my husband packed the gun away and now he’s gone and I couldn’t find it if I tried.
People are shot every hunting season. Most of them are hunters shot by other hunters, which would be funny if it weren’t true. The woods are full of clumsy hunters, holding their guns backwards and upside down, shooting at anything that moves but only taking down each other.
The hunters from New Jersey have a fire going outside. The smell drifts into my living room, and I walk down to the lake so I can see if they’ve set the woods on fire or if they’re using the fireplace like they’re supposed to. The fire is high but not too high. The Maine Guide told me that the men from New Jersey know how to hunt, even if their boys don’t. They’ve been to Alaska and even Africa. I wonder if the wives go with them, sitting and waiting for them in Africa.
The hunters haven’t gotten their moose yet, but they will. The Maine Guide won’t take them to the best places until the end of the week. If the hunters get the kill too soon, they get bored and leave early and demand their money back. “It’s a business,” he said. “I’m a tour guide and this is Disney World.”
At night the dogs sleep in the bedroom, my favorite on the bed and the rest on the floor. If it’s too cold, then they’re all on the bed with me, pressed close for warmth, their noses tucked into their bellies, tails curled around their paws. I used to feel sorry for myself but now I feel sorry for those poor dogless women who have to sleep alone, even when their hunters are away, even when it’s cold.
The next day the hunters get their first moose. I hear them let out whoops as they get out of the truck. They all do it: the men, the boys, the wives who have come outside to welcome them home. They’ll eat moose meat tonight, they say. Moose burgers! Moose stew! Moose pie! No, it would take too long to make stew. Here, let’s make burgers. We got some ground and everything.
I watch for the Maine Guide’s truck to pull into my driveway, but it never does.
One night I found a bear on my deck. The dogs had all run downstairs and were throwing themselves at the door, their tails straight and unwagging, lips curled up over their teeth. When I turned on the outside light, a black bear stood in front of the window, looking in at me.
I turned off the light and dropped to the floor. I crawled across the living room to the stairs and ran up them with my hands and feet to my bed. I hid under the covers, and eventually the dogs came back up, climbed onto the bed and dug at the blankets until I stuck out my head, so they could lick my face.
