The Hunt is On (part III)

Following the guy back to his camp Curtis found that he wasn’t alone, but somehow he wasn’t worried about it. There were six other guys there, but he wasn’t scared. Instead, he’d felt a vague thrill come over him once he’d counted the three rigs and the seven men in total, not a one of them over the age of thirty he was guessing. The grizzly-looking bastard that had shot his grandfather had revealed himself to be a younger man who had an older look to him thanks to his facial hair. Sending an arrow into his eye from a distance had been tempting, but getting away might have been harder at that point. Instead he’d kept his distance from the camp, keeping to the woods that surrounded the area where the seven men had gathered.

Anger fueled his movements as he stalked the hunters, noting that a couple of them kept a pistol at their side, and all of them had at least one knife on their person. It was easy to believe that a few of them were real hunters, but the rest, including the killer he was after, appeared to be more interested in drinking, playing cards, and talking about which woman they’d been with in the past. Mother jokes were thrown about like dice to see which turned up to be the best, and personal insults were hurled at each other in an easy manner as the day slowly wore on towards dusk, at which point two of the men started a campfire within a ring of stones they’d erected.

Curtis had been taught patience. He’d been taught to sit still, to seek concealment, and to make certain that his prey didn’t notice him. Those lessons were still present, and it took very little effort as the light quickly faded from the surrounding forest, especially since the men had decided to camp in one of the smallest clearings within miles as far as he knew. Gathering limbs and a bit of cover wasn’t that hard, and after a short while he was concealed, watching his prey from afar as they prepared their dinner, a store-bought meal that they cooked over the fire. Curtis ate the dried and packaged foods he’d brought with him. He ate sparingly, as he didn’t need to be weighed down by a full meal when he was ready to strike.

That turned out to be a great decision as the first of the men wandered out into woods after dinner, stating that he needed to ‘drain the lizard’. Curtis decided he’d waited long enough.

(to be continued)