Hunt

Today, a dry day, the weather was windy and cloudy to the point where everywhere around was light blue in Alaska. All I could smell was that strong brisk air, warming my nose and caressing the back of my throat. “Hurry up, boy, we're running late for these wolves," said Uncle Rodney, stepping over a pile of bushes and wood. My uncle hunted wolves as he loved them as a kid and made coats out of them, similar to those in Game of Thrones. We also lived with an Alaskan husky that rolled with us every hunting session. A husky named Hector. To this day, I don't know why my uncle named his dog Hector. No one in our family is even Hispanic. I don’t know much about my uncle except the fact that he lives in a remote part of Oregon.

Uncle Rodney stood five foot seven, almost three hundred pounds. He used to be a powerlifter and played football in high school. Caucasian with blue eyes, very short hair almost like a buzz cut, and a ginger-orange goatee stemming from his thick mustache. Uncle Rodney’s body had marks from his face to his feet from the years of hunting and the life he’s been through. A big straight scar ran from his hairline to his left eyebrow, almost to his eye, in a diagonal cut.

My name's not important, but I’m eighteen and go to college nearby. Uncle Rodney never spoke about himself, and we never really spoke besides here and there. I just went to school and came back home, played sports, and that was it. The only time we really spoke and bonded was while we were hunting. This is one of those days. Uncle Rodney rarely spoke about anything else besides telling me what to do, but I never complained or spoke back because I knew he was not the guy to talk back to. I remember when I’d try to speak back after he’d given me a direction. “Bring those back to the car,” he said once. “I have to pick this—” I said, before I could even finish. “What?” he said, taking steps toward me, looking with his eyebrows slightly raised, staring almost through me. I stopped and just took the tools back to the car. That was a long time ago, but the energy he gives is so strong that I could feel what he was gonna do before it happened, no matter how far-fetched that sounds.

After my father passed away and my mother kicked me out of the house, Uncle Rodney—my father’s brother—was the only one I could go to. I’ve been staying with him for only a few months now, still not used to the weather out here in Alaska. Everyone’s so much nicer here than in California. They walk around with so much humility. Who would've thought the mountains would make you a kinder person, I thought, as we continued to traverse the snowy wilderness.

We both wore puffer jackets in camouflage colors, with thick boots. Snow sneaked its way into my foot as I shook it off. Uncle carried the hunting sniper rifle and I carried the same. Uncle was a nature expert, it seemed. He rarely used his phone or watched TV. As we hunted, he used the direction of the wind and sounds to tell how close we were to the wolves. Since I’ve been here, it’s still so cool watching him find where everything is from the methods he uses. “It’s like my uncle is Sylvester Stallone,” I thought as I chuckled.

“Shh,” Uncle Rodney said, turning around, snow mask pulled up to his forehead, putting his finger to his mouth. I jumped slightly because I didn’t see him turn around, still smiling from the thought I just had. Looking over in the distance between all the tall trees ahead and all over, white and grey animals. I tried to make it out, but it just looked like regular animals, very far away. So far we couldn’t make out what they were. Me and Uncle Rodney both crouched down as I started to walk slowly toward him.

Both of us glaring at the animals, Rodney said nothing as he aimed his rifle at them. I put my hand on his rifle, pushing it downward for a second, as he looked back at me in silence. Squinting my eyes to see as far as possible, I saw dog-like animals but still couldn’t make out if they were wolves or not. They weren’t moving anymore, just staring in our direction. My chest started to compress slightly in my jacket, my palms warmed, and I could tell they were sweating. This didn’t feel right. “Are you ok?” Rodney said. “Yea… something doesn’t seem right though, Uncle Rod,” I said. “How so? They look like real wolves, can’t be anything else,” he whispered. “I know, but I just feel in my gut something is off. I don’t know,” I said, looking around, seeing nobody besides the animals far ahead still staring. “I mean, why are they staring at us for so long?” I asked. Then the animals began to look elsewhere. “See? Regular wolves,” he said, and Uncle Rodney began to aim down sight again, moving my hand from his rifle.

“Son! Where are you!” I heard echo throughout the vast forest, far away. Sounded so clear but so far, as though it wasn’t even on this planet. In the exact same voice of my father. My body shivered, my spine tensed, I was completely stuck in the same position. I did not want to look around. Everything seemed to stop in that moment as I heard that sentence loud and clear from my father. Uncle Rodney continued to aim down sight. “Did you hear that?” I said, as my hands began to shake and water began to swell up in my left eye. Uncle Rodney said nothing. “Did you hear that?” I said again, as he ignored me and shot. The crack echoed in the entire world, it sounded like. Rodney got up as I followed. “Fuck yeah, let’s go, Nephew. Shot that son of a bitch from 150 yards, let’s go!” As we dapped up, his big hands flung me in for a hug, feeling as though a bear had just grabbed me. The most emotion I’d ever seen Uncle Rodney show. I started to crack a smile, lopsided, as I was still shaken up by what I heard, but the feeling in my gut started to fade slightly. We continued to walk toward the wolf he shot. He stopped a few minutes later and aimed down sight again. Silence. Not even a pin drop, especially now. He shot again… and again. “Son!” I heard. I began to tug at Uncle Rodney’s broad shoulder. “I don’t feel good, I don’t feel good. Let’s try again tomorrow, Uncle, let’s try again tomorrow, please,” I said.

“What the fuck, I shot directly at—” Uncle Rodney said, putting his gun down and looking around. I aimed down sight myself and saw the same wolf-like animal Rodney shot begin to bleed from the head and still not move, standing upright, unaffected. “What…the…fuck,” I said, adrenaline pumping in my veins, grabbing Rodney by the arm, trying to pull him back home. His eyes were fixated on the animal, eyebrows furrowed and mouth open, as he slowly ushered where I was trying to pull him. “I don’t understand…what,” he said as we walked with some pep in our step back to the house.

Uncle Rodney, who seemed like a master of direction, stumbled hours later as we followed the same footsteps we thought led home. Only to see the same wolves from earlier, the ground vibrating from the growls of all of them as they stepped toward us, the one Rodney shot still bleeding. We stood frozen, puzzled and exhausted, as the bleeding wolves closed in.