already got a buck this season. I’m just going to sleep.” He pulled out a tin of Kodiak and offered me some. He fell asleep seconds after curling up beside the log

I propped the gun up on the side of the log and scanned the clearing as it grew lighter. The sun crested the hills in a blaze of orange and the day grew warmer and brighter. The darkness turned to shadows and the shadows shortened. Harston dozed as I listened for the crackling of leaves beneath hooves. I watched for movement on the other edge of the clearing. The coffee trees and tulip poplars swayed in unison to the rhythm of the wind.

After ten o’clock I saw my brother emerge from the woods and cross the clearing towards me. I nudged Harston awake as my brother walked up and laid his gun down on the log.

“No luck today. I froze my ass off in that tree stand.”

“That’s how it goes sometimes,” Harston said, sitting up and pulling the dip from his lower lip.

We walked back to the trucks. I said goodbye to Harston and my brother drove us towards home. I finished the rest of the coffee in the thermos and stared out the window at the passing fields and forests. Cattle dotted the tops of brown hills, broken only by patches of grey trees in the hollers in between. My brother looked at me.

“They don’t do much hunting out in Portland, do they?”

“No. No they don’t.”

The sparsely populated patchwork of woods and farmland rolled on by.