A/N (My first fanfiction! *squeals* Im thinking about making this one a novel type format with several chapters subsiding into it... but i wont worry about that just yet. so enjoy, and feel free to check! :3 )
Chapter 1
They had climbed for two hours. Then they had come into the low-hanging curtains of cloud. It had started to drizzle.
He opened his mouth to make some sour remark about the promise of a fine day, but at the same moment, Jake turned his head a fraction to the left. Motioned with his forefinger. Jake knew the hills and the weather of the hills, the subtle shifts of wind direction. Knew them better than anyone.
They stood, still, not speaking. There was a tension now. It hadn't been there minutes before.
Something.
The sun broke apart the cloud curtain, leaving it in tatters. The sun shone first with a watery cast, but then, like a man leaping out into view, full and strong. The corners of Jake's mouth twitched into a smile.
But still they stood. Motionless and silent. Waiting.
Jake lifted his binoculars to his eyes and looked from left to right, slowly, slowly.
And he waited, watching the set of Jake's head, waiting for the moment.
Their clothes began to steam in the sun.
Jake lowered the glasses and nodded.
They were above the deer, and for another half-mile he saw nothing. But they were there of course. Jake knew. They went carefully, keeping up wind. The ground was stony here, easy to slip. He felt the old excitement. These were the best moments. When you knew. You were this close to it, this close to having it in your sights, this close to the whole point and purpose and culmination of it all.
This close.
There was the faintest outbreath from Jake's pursed lips.
He followed the line of sight.
The stag was alone, halfway up the lower slope immediately west of where they were standing. It had sensed nothing-that much was clear for the moment. Keep it that way.
They dropped down and began to crawl, the soaking ground against their bellies, the sun on their backs. The midges came on with a vengeance, to find their way unerringly through chinks in clothing, brushing aside the barrier of citronella, but he was so keyed up now he barely noticed them. Later he would be driven mad.
They crawled for another ten minutes, dropping down slightly until they were level with the stag and a couple of hundred yards away.
Jake stopped. Lifted the glasses. They waited. Watched. Still as the stones.
The sun was hot now. The wind had dropped altogether.
The stag lifted its head.
"The Old man" Jake whispered, so softly even he could barely hear.
The oldest stag. Not as huge as those living on the lower ground, and without the vast antlers. But mighty enough. Old. Too old for another winter. He had too much respect for the beast to let that happen.
They were downwind and perhaps a hundred and fifty yards off. But then the stag shook its head, turned sideways, ambled a little way, though never turning its back. They waited.
Waited. The sun blazed. He boiled inside his wax jacket.
Then, casually, it turned and, in a breathtaking second, lifted its head and faced him full on. As if it knew. As if it had expected him. It positioned itself perfectly.
He unslipped his rifle. Loaded. Jake was watching intently through the glasses.
He balanced himself with care and then looked down the sights.
The old stag had not moved. Its head was raised higher now and it was looking straight at him.
It knew.
Jake waited, frozen to the glasses.
The world stopped turning.
He aimed for the heart.
