Roger heard the bush crackle behind him. The first thing he did was run through the plethora of safety protocol Edilio had given him about being alone in the woods. Assessment before action. Quickly try to figure out what the problem is before doing anything, or you could make it worse. Key word quickly.
But there's an exception, Edilio had said. There always is, Roger had mused. Roger remembered Edilio had been telling him this after they had put Justin to bed and Roger had been laying his head on Edilio's shoulder while they lounged on the couch together.
If you think you hear Drake Merwin, babe, just run. Don't think. Run as fast as you can go.
But this sounded slow and human. Like footsteps. Almost cautious footsteps. And besides, Roger was busy blending the lime green crayon color with the pine green one. The metallic box the crayons came in said 'Justin Fergusson' in smeared Sharpie, but the surface was shiny and intact. He could actually see his reflection. He couldn't help noticing the ombré brown of his roots creeping into his yellow hair. Roger recalled the days of bleaching it every few months with drugstore dyeand then globbing brightly colored goo from containers of Manic Panic onto the end. His favorites had been the cotton candy pink and the angry red. Roger missed warm colors.
The bush cracked again. Could it be a coyote? Coyotes: Stupid and easily spooked but dangerous. Make a loud noise and run. Ignore it if it talks. Roger rubbed a yellow crayon on the paper and began shading the ends of it with the magenta crayon. He had never been a terribly precise portrait or landscape painter, but he picked up colors everywhere.
The bush rattled loudly and that got Roger to stand up from the log he'd been sitting on. His backside felt sore from having sat there so long. He got the impression that he was being watched.
The face in the bracken had dark, curious eyes and a gentle face framed by shaggy, matted hair. The stranger stared at Roger. Roger wracked his memory for this face, but came up with nothing.
"Who are you?" Roger asked, using the quiet tone that he told Justin it was time for bed with.
"Hunter," he said, pointing at himself.
"I'm Roger. Some people call me The Artful Roger."
"Roger," Hunter repeated. He crept into the light of the clearing. Hunter carried a variety of weapons but his hand didn't rest on any of them. He looked afraid that Roger might strike him. That look broke Roger's heart.
"Do you know Edilio Escobar?" Roger asked, trying to reassure him.
Hunter brightened. "Edilio is good."
"Edilio and I are...friends." It wasn't technically a lie. He just didn't feel like going through the awkwardness of saying the word 'boyfriend.' He didn't think a boy who hunted by himself in the woods all day would be very prejudiced, it just was so hard to say sometimes. "You're right. He's very good."
Roger sat back down on his log and beckoned for Hunter to sit beside him. "I'm Hunter the hunter," Hunter said. "Food. For Albert. For everybody. But mostly Albert. Zil and Lance and Turk made me..." He struggled for a word, looking pained.
"I understand," Roger said.
"Why are you out here?"
"I like to draw in the woods." Roger moved his sketchbook to where Hunter could see it. Hunter looked at it with awe. "There aren't a lot of things to draw in Perdido Beach, I get nice ideas up here."
"Yeah," Hunter said. He sounded a little dreamy. "I like your colors."
"Thank you."
"What are they?"
"Well," Roger said, pointing at the mix of dark and light green. "This is the leaves with light coming through them. This here is my hair when I used to color it. This one is dirt and leaves. This is sand on the desert-I had to do that one from memory since I've never been there."
Hunter searched for a word. "Beautiful," he said. He then asked nervously, "Can I try?"
"Sure." Roger flipped over to a new page and handed Hunter the box of crayons. Hunter fumbled for a crayon, his hands shaking. He picked up the purple and then dropped it just as soon as he'd closed his fingers around it.
"Here, let me," Roger said. He leaned down and picked the crayon off the ground and directed Hunter's fingers around it. "I'll help you. Which colors do you want?" Hunter pointed at purple, black, blue, and red. Roger laid those crayons in his lap and gently held onto Hunter's wrist as he began scribbling on the paper with one hand. He hoped Hunter didn't feel like he was being patronizing. He was, after all, a teenager and not a child like the ones Roger was used to taking care of.
"We're a team," Hunter said, the joy in his voice resolving any of his doubts. "Can I have the black?" Roger handed it to him with his other hand. He then asked for the red and the blue too. Roger held his hand steady the whole time, trying to look away from Hunter's art because he knew that he himself always hated it when people watched if he didn't want them to.
"Finished," Hunter said. He was grinning. Roger looked down at what he had drawn. It was a mass of black about the size of Hunter's fist, accentuated with reds and blues and purples. "It's my heart."
"It's gorgeous," Roger said, meaning it. But it was also painful to look at, because there was a sadness that hung about it. The sadness of a boy whose heart was blackened but whose soul was still clinging to its humanity. "I'll rip it out for you if you'd like."
"No. For you." Hunter looked up at the sky and stood up. "It's after noon. I better go hunt."
"Me too. I don't like to stay out so long. I get a little scared, to tell you the truth." Roger got up behind him.
"I'll walk you back!" Hunter said immediately. "To the...edge."
"If you have to get back to work..."
"No! Come with me. Nothing scary here with me."
Hunter looked a tad embarrassed, so Roger took his arm. "Lead on, Hunter." Hunter beamed.
"I like you, Artful Roger." He struggled with the consonants on 'Artful.'
"I like you too, Hunter."
"Could you come back tomorrow?"
"I can't promise, but I can try."
"Good enough for me," Hunter said. He had been right. There was nothing scary about being in the woods when he was walking with Hunter.
If there's one person in the FAYZ I would spare from everything that happened, it'd be Hunter.