The Hunter's Crow

By Brian Otto

     In a world where the government has taken control, we meet Barron. Our young man battles a reoccurring memory from his past. We visit a time when Barron was on a traditional hunt with his father. It was during this time that an unexpected hunting accident occurs.

     The world seems bleak and unnerving until the same hunt returns to him. A special drink is given to Barron that helps him come to terms with his past. Barron's friend Hoagie will help him when Barron's world seems to be crumbling down around him. During this hunt the world that Barron has become accustom to will begin to change in ways unexpected to him. How will this affect Barron and his best friend, Hoagie? After this hunt, nothing will be the same in this town.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Otto
• Release date: Feb 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497742260

Book preview

Ch. 1: Like a Dream

It was a cold morning as I awoke to my hand frozen in place. I arose from the comfort of my bed, out from under my bearskin blanket still in my long johns. I could see my breath escaping from my mouth as I yawned. As I shook off the warmth due to the cold infiltrating my clothes, I used my breath to unfreeze my hand. I carried on by getting dressed in my patch jeans and long sleeve shirt, while still wearing my long johns. Then I headed out of my room and descended down the staircase, to the living room down below.

The Living room had some light, but not much. The eerie glow of the fireplace filled the room, as if a welcoming beacon to my chilled body. I walked over to the brick fireplace singed by fire’s past to warm my frozen hands. As the heat connected with my frozen hands, I quickly withdrew them from the warmth that seemed so welcoming. The fire seemed to no longer just in the fireplace, it drew into my skin and found its path down to the bone in my right hand. I slid my hand into my pocket and the warmth of my own pocket began to melt the icy grasp the cold had on it.

Barron, my mother called to me, breakfast is ready hun. My mother was in the kitchen making hot tea and warm bread. Now I am no one special, I am not large or even muscular, but I am larger than a beanpole. I am of average height and weight. I could not be more than 5’5" and maybe 140 pounds. We don’t see the doctor that often so this is my best guess. I am healthy though, well I think I am.

Barron, Are you coming to breakfast soon? Your tea and bread are going to get cold. You do remember today is a special day for you. My mother said from the kitchen as she set the breakfast table. My mother is a very loving woman. Her dark hair reminded me of a wolf’s mane. She wasn’t very tall, about five nothing, but her figure suggested that she ate well. Time was fair to her, the only tall tail signs of her age was the crow’s feet from her smiling so much and of course her dimples and smile lines.

The kitchen was warm and inviting, the candles were so warm with their lite hue lighting up my mother’s warm smile. Slowly I edged my way to the kitchen with my eyes still sewn together with the remnants of the sand man’s gift of slumber.  The smell of the tea and warm fresh bread filled the kitchen with the aroma of sweet honey, it was so warm and inviting that the cold seemed to run away from the room. Even this warmth wasn’t enough to keep out the darkness that was soon to loom over me.

As I sat down a shadow slowly crept over me, incasing me with its darkness. A low bellow came from the darkness, Dawn, where is my breakfast? Soon the darkness came into the light and my father stood, towering behind me. My mother said, It’s in your spot at the head of the table! My father use to tell me that mom was named Dawn because her beauty woke up the day, and the sunshine was her smiling face. As time went by, as it usually does, my father became more stoic, less soft because I was no longer his baby boy.  It seems any sign of emotion had run dry from him over the years.

My father was a very strong man and a very good provider for our family. My father had to of been 45 years old, I don’t really know that much about him seeing that he had become very quiet around the time of the starvation. I do remember that we had times where providing became hard and there were times when we came close to starvation. This is probably why time was written all over my father’s face with the mangled hairs of his beard, his eyes pitch black and yellowed teeth. His hands were so strong and large that he would palm my head and move me out of his way with little to no effort at all. His shoulders were broad, like the great buffalo, and he walked with his right shoulder hunched forward. My father had long jet-black hair that went past his shoulders. I think that’s where he got the name Crow.

Are you ready to become a man today? My father hoarsely asked. Still not fully with it, I looked at him puzzled with that, what are you talking about, kind of look. I know I had to have looked funny, with my head cocked to the side, a bread crumb hanging from the corner of my lip, and my eyes still half way open with the hardened crust of morning still in my eyes. My father asked half puzzled, Do you remember what today is? My mother piping in with, I already told him today was a special day!  I should have known what day it was. Just last month I had been reminding them of today, for some reason the fog of a restless night clouded my mind more than anything. As I swallowed my still partially warm moist bread, I washed the dryness out of my mouth with the delicious taste of the warm honey suckle tea, I asked Is it my Birthday? My mother and father laughed at my obliviousness. Then my mother smiled and said, Yes Barron today is your birthday. Not just any birthday though, today is a special birthday. Still puzzled and in a half stupor, I carried on with eating my breakfast in peace.

I thought to myself, Give me a break, the sun hasn’t even come up yet. So I sat there thinking about the day; well it’s December fifteenth, and that is of course my birthday. Now why did my father ask if I was ready to become a man? I mean I am only eighteen years old. Then I began wondering why mother said today is a special birthday. This was a lot to think about before the sun came up. I was even giving myself a head ack. I mean this was a special breakfast, but what would make this even more special would be if I was getting a second breakfast, these consisted of my mother’s famous pancakes.

We sat there quietly for about an hour, sipping on the tea and eating our bread. After breakfast, we all went to our respected areas. My mother cleans the dishes, while humming some long forgotten song that her grandmother must have sung to her mother and seemed to have been passed down through the generations. My father went to the den to prepare for his hunt. Maybe that was it, I thought to myself but I passed it off as wishful thinking. I went to the coat rack and pulled off my wolf-skin coat that was given to me by my father yesterday. The tattered fur still hung on to the skin showing its time and wear, but I was proud that my father gave me it. Well, maybe he gave it to me as an early birthday present. Anyways, I took the coat and went to gather the wood, the eggs from the chickens that I also had to feed, and then I finished with getting the milk from our goat.

We lived a simple life up here in the mountains. We fend for ourselves, we hunt, cook, clean and gather. Luckily for us, these mountains are very bountiful and kind as of recent years. The winters are a little harsh but we manage with our livestock and the wild winterberries. Of course, this stuff, managing the livestock, is my job. The good thing is we have a well so I don’t have to go fetch the water; mother normally manages the indoor well in the basement of the house. My mother would clean any food father or I brought in. She would also clean the clothes, and the house and then she would do the cooking. My father would deal with the town folk, as he referred to them, bargaining with them for MX or supplies. He also would do the hunting but only when the government agents relinquished our allotted ammo to us.

As dawn breaks, lighting up the sky I realize that if I were to pick any chawberries, now would be the time. My mother asked me to go gather chawberries for my special brunch. These berries are a specialty; you can’t gather them to early or they are super sweet and if you gather them to late, they are so bitter that even the mice and birds stay clear. Picked at the right time though, the chawberries are the perfect contrast of sweet and bitter. My mother says that they taste like strawberries dipped in chocolate. The berries grow deep in the woods on the bushes filled with thorns. This is the only way to tell if the berries are ready for their signature taste. The thorns begin growing as the berries reach their supper sweet mark. At the point of perfection, the thorns cover the bush and one must be careful in order to pick the berries without being struck with the thorns or scratched in the attempt to withdrawal ones hands. As one would assume, when the berries are at the point of bitterness, the thorns fall from the bush, inviting any to pick it bitter berries. These chawberry bushes only grow in the wintertime, a very unusual characteristic of such a plant.

I headed out the door and started on my way to the deep woods where the chawberry bush grows. It was about this time that I ran into my best friend Hoagie. He was the same build as me, and the same age as me. The people of the town tell his story in many ways. The story stays around the same though; his parents were merchants, form the pyrite community, but they could not support him so they left him. He was left with the herbologist of our town or better known as the witch doctor family.

Barron, wait up bother. Said Hoagie and I knew I couldn’t help but smile. We got to our small talk of our morning chores and our curiosity of when we wouldn’t have to do them anymore. Thinking to ourselves, about how wonderful it would be to be adults. Hoagie asked where I was off to in such a hurry, so I told him I was going to the chawberry bush. He then invited himself to go with me on my little adventure. He told me about all the different plants that we saw on the way. He was more worried about the females of the town.

Wait, he explained, you see those plants growing on the yew tree? Those are mushroom’s they have been sworn to give you visions that make you see naked pixies! I was puzzled, what the hell were pixies? And why would I want to see them naked? and why did he know this? I thought to myself as I looked at him as if it was the coolest thing and I wanted to try it. All in all, though, he was the son of the herbologist, so he might as well know this. He told me all the plants that would make you ill and which ones you can eat.

Hoagie was the trouble of the town and of course. I mean why not, you could spot him a mile away. He was the only one in the town with red hair. Even near the deep red leaves of the chawberry bush, you could still see his red hair shimmering in the early morning light. His red hair was really one of a kind, I think only a few people had that color hair. Only the merchants of pyrite were the only people I have seen with that color hair. I think it had to deal with the fact that the pyrite mines were cleared out with some sort of mercury that messed with their genetics.

We were at the chawberry bush. I had begun to weave my hand carefully though the maze of thorns and leaves to get to the delectable berries they protected. I slid my hands ever so carefully through the bush gathering one by one of the berries until I was almost done. That was when Hoagie took a stick and poked the bare flesh between my shirt and pants yelling SNAKE, I jumped so quickly that my hand tore a thorn from the bush. The embedded thorn began to work its poison into my hand, making it numb at the point of insertion and sending pain through my whole arm. The thorn was embedded between my thumb and pointer finger, in that little flap area.

Hoagie laughed so hysterically that it became hard for him to breath. He stumbled backwards laughing at me. Tripping over a root, he landed on his funny bone. That’s when I began to laugh at his discomfort. After our laughing spell, I took the thorn out of my hand, and rolled it in a chawberry leaf. To stop the bleeding and the pain, funny how the same plant that poisoned me also held the cure to it. Hoagie told me one time that the leaf of the chawberry stopped the bleeding and withdrew its own poison from its victim. Too bad the animals couldn’t learn that, they normally would flee from the plant and eventually die.

It’s sad that I learned the fact that these beautiful plants that inflict so much pain could cure its own wrath. I found this out because one day Hoagie and I were playing a game of tag and I fell backwards into the chawberry bush. That is when Hoagie taught me about the curing properties of the leaves; it was also the first time we came out there together. When we got back to town, everyone seen the blood dried stains on my back and immediately believed that Hoagie inflicted the injuries. Therefore, the red hair and the red bloodstains were instantly linked to Hoagie being trouble.

On our way back through the town today, it reminded me of times we got into trouble. Like the time Hoagie and I placed a tadpole in June’s water; June was the female snob in our age group. She freaked, the water landed on her clothes and we could make out her outlines. June threatened us by yelling, I hope you get attacked by the snow lion while you sleep! We laughed so hard until her father came out, that’s when we ran like dragonflies across the morning pond.

Then there was the Old Man Russell, I think he was the funniest. We would sneak to his window where his oil lamp was sitting. The cool air around us didn’t still our rapid heartbeats. Then we would blow out the lamp. Quickly and swiftly we would duck down behind the elder bush near his window. Old Man Russell would hoot and holler out the window which was empty to his eyes. After a while he would abandon his search and return back into the safety of his house. Waiting a little while, Hoagie and I would return home and laugh until we relinquished ourselves to the sandman. We continued our prank for the following two weeks. It was at this time he believed that his deceased wife was haunting him, and he still believes it to this day.

As we reminisced about our antics we realized we were back to the town square. The sun began to peek over the tree tops. The sun light hit our eyes just right, causing us to squeeze our eyes tight. We could barely see anything. Hoagie nearly ran over June. Inadvertently causing her to drop the winter flowers she was carrying. Hoagie bent over to help pick up her flowers, and as they stood