They leave the dead pig beside the tree. When Steve tells JP about another good hunting spot, only a couple of hours’ hike away, JP tells Steve, “I just want to go back to the lodge.”
They walk away from the Guadalupe Mountains just as the sun is setting behind them, casting long, end-of-day shadows. Then their shadows disappear. It is dark, no moon. JP can’t see anything as he walks, so he follows the scraping noise of Steve’s feet.
It is late when they arrive at the lodge. Steve drops his backpack at the door and fills the stove with quartered logs and lights a fire. Their bodies are warm from hiking, but soon they’ll feel the cold. JP drops his rucksack and unstraps the heavy Remington from its top. He pulls his shoulders forward and works the tender muscles with the blade of his hand. He lays out his sleeping bag and climbs into it with his clothes on. Sleep takes no effort and he comes to its edge. Then he hears the noise of bowling pins, crashing. Steve has put a fresh battery in his phone and the images of another frame flash against his face, mixing with the firelight.
“It’s late. Do you need to do that?” asks JP.
Steve doesn’t answer, just keeps on playing, flicking his index finger against the screen.
“C’mon!” says JP.
Steve sets down the phone and spits a stream of brackish tobacco into an empty Mountain Dew bottle. He screws on the lid and holds JP in his stare for a moment. “Why don’t you shut your suck up? I ain’t making money off this hunt and you just made me throw my last spare.”
JP rolls to his side. Steve continues to play, getting strike after strike. The noise from the game is deafening. JP looks over at Steve and sees his whole face lifting—he must be set to break his record. But before he does, JP falls asleep.
*
Elliot Ackerman, author of the novel Green on Blue, served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. A former White House Fellow, his essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and Ecotone. He lives in Istanbul, where he writes on the Syrian Civil War.