DAWN STREAMS IN RIVULETS through the forest’s canopy. A slight chill tinges the air, the first signs of Fall. Near a patch of late-season honeysuckle, highlighted by the early light, a perfect shot awaits.

My grip tightens on the camera’s body. I nimbly roll my fingers around the focus rings. I inhale a shallow breath from my hiding spot and slightly depress the shutter release. Leftover mist beads on each of the ten points crowning the buck’s head. He samples the honeysuckle slowly, not a care in the world. All my nerve endings fire, as I fully depress the release. He stills, head popping up ever so slightly. Light breaths become visible in the cold. Another shot.

Chaos erupts. I barely see the arrow enter the frame, but I’m subconsciously and literally capturing it all—the breathy whir of the held shutter click-clicking faster than heartbeats. The shaft wobbles and jerks almost as if thumped by an unseen hand. But it still strikes. My rushing pulse silences the forest, as I watch brush sway away with the buck’s flight. An insane protective urge takes over me, and I fly after him.

Three hundred yards of chase later, I stop to allow the return of sound. Through nature’s white noise of chattering squirrels and angry mockingbirds, branches snap unnaturally. I catch his trail again.

Faint scents of musk and iron linger above the wet, packed leaves. Throughout the wee hours, a steady sprinkle darkened the undergrowth. This marks the deer’s faint trail for me now. Though the crimson peters out by the top of the next gully, the signs point to him being very close. Yet, kudzu blankets half the landscape in front of me, creating thickly vined hidey holes. The buck is not making himself easy to track. I wouldn’t either.

But I have to find him. The compelling thought surges me again. And on its heels, the reasonable: Why though?

My current path along the top of a well-known ridge between gullies has been converted into a makeshift construction road. One of Dad’s biggest construction projects lies a quarter mile north. I now realize the irony in its name. So, keeping north, the cover thins out to a couple square miles-wide area of dirt. Deer know that, and hurt ones find cover. Meaning the deer went the way of the ravine.

I readjust my camera and scan deeper into the sandy runoff and creeping vines.

Crap.

I spot him coming to a halt at the base of an old maple jutting up in an area sparse on kudzu. Zooming reveals the arrow lodged in his upper flank. Doesn’t look deep enough to hit anything vital. But an infection setting up is very likely. Again, I wonder what I’m doing. Not like I’m some redneck Snow White, or maybe I am? But what if whoever shot this thing shows up?

The camera drops away from my face, and I spin around to observe the trees behind me. No sounds of running or calling out. I try recalling hearing anyone else from the moment I first started the chase. But I’m not sure. I refocus on the buck below.

Something tugs at my foot, as I readjust myself. There’s just enough time to think, Damn vines before my ankle twists in the loose sand. The buck’s head snaps in my direction. I’ve held on to now, but my vision goes blurry through the lens. Readjusting the focus is futile.

“THE FU—” I’m tumbling.

Shouts rip out of me, as I attempt to save my camera from a brutal impact. I manage to keep it tucked close. After another roll and a wild forward pitch, I crash land in the muck not far from the maple.

∞ ∞ ∞

I slowly haul myself up to my knees. Nothing feels broken. I won’t know for sure until the adrenaline wears off. Bits of mud fleck the camera, but that’s not where my mind is right now. I fish the lens cap out of my pocket, pop it on, and swing the camera to my side.

I’m stiff but manage to stand. If anyone was looking for a deer, they heard all that. Probably not happy about it either. I have to see.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I approach the maple with quiet steps. The fletching, three, orange, carbon-fiber vanes send up a small flare, poking around the trunk.

No way.

I hurry around the other side.

“What the hell!” The sight sends me to my ass, again, trying to push away but failing due to the mud.

Two yards away, a completely naked guy—no, Wes… WES ANSLEY, curls against the tree in a half fetal position. The shaft of an arrow juts from his shoulder at an odd angle. The point of its head pierces slightly through his back.

He’s glaring at me like I’m a serial killer.

“I… I’ll. I won’t hurt you.” I manage and try to move closer. My brain whirls to process what I’m seeing. All the stories from Gran and Dad spiraling to the fore.

He grimaces. Looking as if he wants to crawl into the tree.

I stop and hold up my hands. “I don’t have a bow. I have a, uh..” I motion to my side. “Camera. I’ve just… just been taking shots. Pics!”

He’s not buying this. The look in his eyes says it all. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s losing blood. I don’t have any idea how much is enough to be bad for a human. And, I don’t think, it’s a fatal wound. But this is still not good in any way.

Dammit. What is this? They’re really telling the truth! This shit is real!

“Look,” I ease off my jacket. “I know I’m probably the last person you want help from right now. But you’ve got to get covered up.”

I extend the jacket. “I don’t know who,” I point at the arrow, “shot you, but I’m here now. So, you’re safe… At least, I’m not going to let anyone shoot you. I’ll get help.”

He gives me a confused look, but his fingers uncurl from their death grip on the bark. I keep the jacket extended and try to look as non-threatening as possible. Still, he doesn’t move to take it.

“Wes, we can,” I can’t believe I’m about to say this, because Dad is going to kill me no matter what, “go to the cops. But first I need to get you out of the woods.”

He shifts slightly and tries to raise his arm, which ends in a cry of pure agony.

I almost fall but move in just enough to cover him. He goes stone still, unnaturally still, except for his slight tremoring. It takes a second to adjust the slippery, waterproof material around his frame. The tremor gets worse. His eyes are wide, dark pits of fear. Green turning almost black. The total effect reminds me of an animal caught in a trap.

I scoot back a few feet. “Sorry. Sorry. I wouldn’t trust me either. But, you’ll go into shock.”

At least with me out of his general bubble, his hyperventilating stops.

“Um, I hate to ask. But what exactly is going on?” I stare away to his side. Someone else needs to say it. Third-party confirmation.

He studies me like I’ve asked him the question in a foreign language. I’m considering another approach when he speaks.

“Why?” The word comes choked and hoarse.

“Well, uh, I mean wouldn’t it be better if I—” I try to keep my tone as polite as possible, but he’s shaking his head halfway through.

“Not th—.” He struggles with the words over chattering teeth. “Why help me?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I help you?” The words fly out more heated than I intend. I backpedal as quick as possible. “I mean. You’re hurt. I’m not a psychopath. Why wouldn’t I help you?”

For a second, confusion scrambles over his face again, but his eyes drift behind me, then jump in their sockets as he screams, “NO, KAY! NO”

The next few seconds bend reality. Wes flings himself from the tree. His body contorts to bring his good arm around, as he uses the momentum to grapple me sideways. As a pained scream tears out of him, my temple catches fire. My peripheral vision fills with a slash of gray and brown before red pours in with pain from above. My lizard brain must be working overtime. I find enough purchase to clumsily launch Wes and myself back toward the tree and face whatever lies behind me.

Less than a yard away, an incredibly pissed off doe snorts and stamps the churned mud in front of us. Wes rasps out, “For fuck’s sake, Kay, STOP!” The doe doesn’t charge, but she doesn’t stop snorting and stamping either. Very long moments pass, and the doe retreats a dozen feet to frustratedly… pace.

My brain catches up to the situation. This is a friend… or family member. Shit. She thinks I’m trying to hurt him.

“Look, no, no,” I say to the doe, which batters against my internal sense of sanity, “I’m only trying to—”

“Not now,” Wes bites down on the words. His eyes fixed hard on the doe.

I clamp my mouth shut and wait.

If anything were actually being said, I’d swear an argument were taking place. Wes shakes his head. The doe snorts some more. I’m finally aware how much my head is bleeding and silently consider that I’m just unconscious and fever dreaming the whole thing.

“That’s just how it’s going to have to be, Kay.” Wes declares aloud, startling me. “But… yes, I wish you would at least stay close.”

He turns back to me and gives me the short version of what just went down and what needs to happen. Once we get him standing, I strip off my overalls and guide him into them. Trying to dress my wounded, naked crush for a hike through the woods is precisely as awkward as it sounds. Fortunately, the doe, his sister Kay as it turns out, looms close. Combine the threat of mauling with a fresh head wound and only the most deviated masochist would find any of this arousing.

I thread myself under his uninjured shoulder, and Kay starts us in the direction of their home.