Elby stood on the overlook and peered through binoculars at a horse pack train of hunters. She swung around and spotted another pack train father down, and yet another up toward Cherry Cairn.
She ripped the binoculars from her eyes and rounded on Uncle Marshall Garvin and Baxter.
“Why is it that men feel the urge to go out and kill things? Is it the blood? You like to see blood? Maybe smell it? Get it on your clothes? Maybe even taste it?” She flung the last words.
Baxter started to speak but Garvin slapped him with a hand towel and gave his head a sharp “No!” shake.
“And these bow hunters are the worst! They have to get close enough to see every detail of the carnage they cause. Have you seen the tips on those arrows they use? It looks like something the religious zealots used against witches back in Salem. Have you seen those torture tools from The Inquisition? Obviously made by hunters. Bow hunters. Because they already knew the ways of torture and murder. Have either of you stared into the eyes of a mother elk and shredded her heart out with one of those wicked arrows? Tell me. I need to know.”
“Uh,” said Baxter.
“Nope,” said Garvin.
“But I bet you’d like to, wouldn’t you?” She stepped forward like an actor on stage and the men cowered obediently. “Just like every man secretly wishes they’d been with the Vikings when they raped and pillaged. Or Genghis Khan. He raped so many women, his genes are dominant throughout Asia and Eastern Europe. Did that make him successful? Is that why you men do that? And rape is no different than bow hunting — creeping forward with your hard, erect weapon ready to pierce your prey, then jumping out and stabbing them with it, over and over, while they flail and scream and blood soaks everything, and you men like it so much you keep doing it in every, every generation.” She sobbed. “Every time you hunt, you re-enact the rape and pillage of entire continents by sneaking through the woods and flinging your weapons at the innocent creatures of the forest.”
She stopped. Garvin kept his eyes on the ground. Baxter glanced at her, then away.
“You know what those horses are loaded down with?” Elby asked, raising up again in renewed anger. “Beer! As much as they can carry. More than they can possibly drink. They’ll kill and maim innocent animals all day and drink all night, just like un-evolved mankind ten thousand years ago. Their lizard brains taking over. They’ll probably hump each other in the night for lack of virgins or young boys to destroy.”
She turned slowly away from the men and her shoulders relaxed. She mumbled something almost too quietly to hear. “If I was worth anything at all, I’d sneak down there with a big hunting knife and when they’re passed-out drunk I’d cut their dicks off.”
Garvin forced himself not to imagine what she described and instead wanted to comfort the girl, put his arm around her, pull her forehead into his throat as he used to do after her parents died. But this outburst seemed different. More deeply angry. He wondered, as he had many times before, what his sister’s husband had done to this girl. He should’ve seen it. Should’ve done something about it. If the man were living now, Garvin imagined caving the man’s face in with his fists.
Elby started crying and ran into the forest.
Baxter stepped to go after her.
“I wouldn’t,” said Garvin. “She’s too prickly to comfort right now. She’ll smooth out on her own.”
“What happened to her?” Baxter asked.
“I’m afraid only she knows, the poor girl,” said Garvin.
