Merle and Daisy sniff the ground and then take off running through the woods. The four hunters follow. When the dogs split off in two directions, Daryl and Henry follow Merle, while the other two hunters, John and his son Jacob, follow Daisy.
"Where's Daisy going, you think?" Henry asks as they jog. "Deer tracks go this way."
"After somethin' ain't as good, probably. Merle's nose knows."
In the end, they get a buck. Daryl has two arrows in it before Henry gets a shot off from his rifle, but it's the gunshot that finally falls it. They rush forward to the fallen creature, which Merle circles in a proud display of triumphant barking.
"Shhh!" Daryl orders, and the dog yips once and then falls silent. It's too late. A couple of walkers have been drawn and now lurch toward the scene.
"Put the deer out its misery," Daryl says as he shoulders his bow, draws his knife, and prowls toward the emerging walkers. He doesn't need to say it, though, because Henry already has his hunting knife drawn and is on his knees before the deer.
When Daryl returns with walker blood staining his lower sleeves, Henry is field dressing the deer. Daryl lets the young man do the work and leans back against the rough bark of a tree to observe. "Cut all the way to the jawbone," he says. Henry has stopped at the breastbone.
"I didn't because I'm mounting the head. In my new room." Henry turns his knife blade upward and, starting at the pelvic cut, cuts through the muscle layer.
"A'ight then."
Carol's never let them keep an entire head, though there is a pair of antlers hung over the fireplace. Daryl insisted on that. It was Henry's first solo kill. Since then, they've just cut off the antlers for practical use – the butcher grinds them, boils the grounds, and then strains them to make gelatin. They in turn use the gelatin in baking. Enid says she read it's good for improving the immune system.
Henry fishes a string out of his jacket pocket, cuts a hole around the anus, pulls it to the inside, and ties it off to prevent spillage.
"Be quick on the windpipe," Daryl says.
"I know."
"If ya know, why'd the meat get tainted last time?"
"Because I fucked up last time. But I know I fucked up." Henry never says fuck in front of Carol. He cuts the windpipe and esophagus in two, stabs his knife into the ground, and grabs the windpipe with both hands before yanking. The entrails don't pull fee. "Shit," he mutters.
"Cut the connective tissue holdin' 'em to –"
"- The backbone. Yeah. I know."
Daryl wants to tell him not to be a little shit about taking correction, but he doesn't, because his own father called him a little shit all the time. It burned the most when Daryl was just trying to please the old man, just trying to show him he could do something, anything, right.
So Daryl bites his tongue and doesn't give Henry anymore advice. He's itching to, because it looks like the bullet has ruptured an organ, and he wants to warn – keep the juices away from the meat. But he doesn't warn and Henry does keep the juices away from the meat.
When Henry's done, Daryl pours water from the canteen on his hands and the young man wipes them with a rag he yanks from his back pocket to get off the excess blood.
"I'm going back now," Henry says. "I'll bring the deer. I know you'll want to stay to hunt some more, but I need to clean up and then pack."
"Ain't easy for Carol, ya know. You movin.'"
Henry looks up from the cloth that has grown reddish-brown. "I know, but she's just going to have to deal."
"Nah," Daryl says sternly. "She ain't just gonna have to deal. Yer gonna have to help 'er deal."
Henry stiffens and drops his eyes, the way he always does when Daryl grows stern, as if he feels guilty and defensive all at once. "Okay," he says. "How?"
[*]
Carol sets the cardboard box full of fresh bedding on the bare mattress in the plain metal frame of the bottom bunk. The top bunk - which belongs to Henry's friend and fellow hunter Jacob - is already sloppily made up, and a Playboy magazine peeks out from underneath the pillow, though Carol pretends not to notice.
Henry came home early from the hunt today to pack. He had fewer belongings to move than she expected. He's not as spartan as Daryl, but there still wasn't much to cart over, and he left all his comic books and fantasy novels behind for Hershey. For reading material, he's brought only a single hunting manual and the Bible she gave him for his confirmation when he was fourteen. The Bible sits atop the folded quilt. She picks it up from the box and feels the thin pages with her thumb. The cover is more cracked and worn than she would have guessed, and some of the pages are dog eared. "Do you still read this?" After all, he hasn't been to church for a year, except for Christmas and Easter.
"Sometimes. The Psalms mostly."
She sets the Bible back down in the box and looks around at the cell-like room with its tiny closet, crude dresser, and the two small, corner desks, one of which is covered with Jacob's hunting and firearms books, old beer bottles he's apparently saving for ornamentation, and a pair of dirty socks. "You're old room was bigger and you didn't have to share it."
"This is fine. Jacob and I get along great."
She sighs. "Now you're completely on the other side of town."
"It's only a mile," Henry insists as he throws his bulging backpack onto the mattress. The metal box springs creak.
"Hershey doesn't really understand why you're moving out," she says. "You need to - "
"- Don't worry. I'm still going to hang out with him. I'm teaching a hunter's safety unit at his school tomorrow, and I'm taking half of Saturday off to come watch his soccer game. You know…" He smirks. "When he plays quarterback."
Carol smiles. Since he seems to be in a pleasant enough mood, she decides to broach a topic he's refused to talk about since she first brought it up a few months ago. "So…did you get to visit with Jessica when you went to the Kingdom?"
Henry sighs, opens the tiny closet, and pushes all of Jacob's dangling coats and hunting gear to one side on the wooden rod. "Please don't start with me about her again." He pulls out the remaining empty wooden hangers and sorts them to the other side.
"Ten years, Henry."
"Daryl is five years younger than you." He shrugs out of his coat.
"That doesn't mean much when you're in your fifties, Henry, but you're nineteen. I just don't know what you have in common with that age difference. Besides the obvious."
"It isn't just about sex."
"No?"
"I like her," Henry replies as he hangs his coat up. "I enjoy her company. She's sweet. She's fun."
She's unskilled, Carol thinks, but she doesn't say so. Jessica can't shoot well – with either gun or bow. She doesn't have any medical talents. She can't build things from scratch. She works as one of the Kingdom's maids – not that there's anything wrong with that. There's dignity in all work, and the maids give those with other skills more time to serve the community. It's just that Carol expected Henry to want someone extraordinary. Someone well equipped to survive the world beyond the gates. Someone with ambition. Someone more like Enid.
"And I'm being respectful of her," Henry continues. "If that's what you're worried about."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
"You're worried about me knocking her up."
Carol's face confirms her concern even though she doesn't say a word.
"If you must know…we haven't…" Henry flushes and closes the closet door. "You know. We haven't gone all the way. I'm being careful." His hands on his hips, he studies the rough, unfinished clay floor of the dormitory. "Technically, I'm still a virgin. And I'm not going to have sex sex with any woman until I'm married, when I know for sure we're in it together for life, because I realize we don't have any reliable birth control. And if I end up a dad, you know…I want to make sure my kid has a stable family. I want to be invested."
"Oh." Carol's surprised first of all that he's not having sex with Jessica, and second of all that he's being open about it. "Well, I think that's smart."
"So do I. Because you raised me right. You're a good mother, Carol."
Carol's chest tightens.
"I've been lucky to have you to look after me," Henry continues softly. "To teach me. And I know I've been kind of an ass lately. I don't mean to be, I just…I've felt…hemmed in."
"You need your space," Carol admits. "To strike out on your own."
"Yeah. I do. It's time. But I'm not that far away." He slings and arm around her shoulder, hugs her, and kisses the top of her head. He has to bend down to do it. "I'll be around, Mom." He lets go and unzips his backpack.
That single word - Mom - sings in Carol's heart as Henry unloads his clothes into the dresser drawers.