Stories

By Andrew Jantz

A collection of thirteen short stories about Matthew St. Clare, a Boston publishing executive who has a penchant for the outdoors. The variety of stories range from hunting and crabbing, sailing and sky diving, and life in the navy. They are written with an avid immediacy that draws the reader in to share in his experiences. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors should find these tales entertaining.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503566606

Andrew Jantz

Andrew Jantz has published a novel and three collections of poetry. His work has appeared in Sail Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Wallace Stevens Journal, among others, and has won the prize for Best Translation from the New England Poetry Club. He has also served as a journalist in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He resides in suburban Boston.

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Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Jantz.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/05/2015

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Contents

Another Day At The Office

Crabbing

Encounter

Skiing

Free As A Bird

Man-Eater Of Kumaon

Basic

Sailing

The Lion

High Dive

After The Fall

Helm

Father And Son

For Joan, John, Tom and Dad

With Love

ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

M ATTHEW ST. CLARE saw an opening in the woods to his right that led down to a small glade perhaps twenty feet wide, next to a cascading brook. It was an excellent spot for a camp. He pushed through the low branches of the pine saplings to the site, propped his shotgun against a tree, and lowered his backpack to the ground. The spot was carpeted with pine needles, and deciding on a place to set his tent, he began to gather them and pile them to create a cushion beneath the tent. He unrolled the vinyl tent and spread it out on the soft bed of needles. After setting it up, he unstrapped the sleeping bag from his pack, thrust it through the opening of the tent and unrolled it. His camp was established. The tent was up, the sleeping bag was unfurled, and he had matches to light a fire. He could still feel the stiff collar and knotted tie he’d been wearing that morning in a Boston office tower, but the grip was loosening.

The sun was setting, but there was still plenty of light for him to gather wood for a fire. After accumulating several armloads of wood of varying width, he piled them up, gathered some nearby kindling, and built a pyramid starting with tiny twigs and ending with finger-width sticks. He lit the kindling, and was pleased at how quickly the flames jumped to the sticks. After a few moments he began stacking on larger and larger pieces of wood, and within minutes had a tall, handsome fire crackling in his newly established camp. A fine evening was ahead.

He took a small folding camp stool from his pack, opened it up and sat down before the fire. By now it was dark, and having established his camp, he reached into his pack and pulled out a flask of brandy. The top of the flask was a metal shot-sized cup. He filled the cup, and drank it down. Within minutes he felt a hazy warmth extending throughout his mind and body.

He gazed at the fire and listened to the brook. He thought about taking a big buck the next day. He was happy.

Warming himself before the fire, he heard something behind him. He turned and saw the dark, humped shape of a large raccoon slinking toward a tree about thirty feet away. The shape scuttled up the tree. He saw the reflection of the eyes that were staring back at him.

Matthew had always hated raccoons since he was a kid when one had clawed him from beneath a stand of garbage cans. Since then they had broken into his basement and ravaged food; knocked over trash cans, spread garbage all over the yard, and screamed at night. He welcomed the idea of killing one.

Matthew’s code of hunting, as with many hunters, was that you don’t kill anything you don’t eat. But Matthew’s disgust with carrion-eating, rabies-bearing raccoons was such that the thought of eating raccoon made him sick. So he made an exception. He stood up and reached for his shotgun. He chambered a shell and drew a bead on the glowing eyes in the tree. He gently squeezed the trigger, felt the bang, and saw a dark shape fall from the tree.

Fuck you, he said as he lowered his gun.

Walking toward the base of the tree he shined his flashlight and saw the raccoon, busted in the head, lying dead in the leaves. He picked up the coon by the tail, carried him up to the trail and threw him into the ravine on the other side. Food for your friends, he thought.

He returned to his camp, sat down on the canvas stool, and took a swig from the flask. He was satisfied. He threw another log on the fire.

Matthew was an executive at a large publishing firm, yet none of that mattered to him