Free Hunter’s Dance by Kathleen Hills Page A

jerked up, but Mrs. Morlen didn’t look surprised at the question. “Maybe a little. Nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose some disagreement between young men and their fathers is to be expected.”
    â€œWas it over anything in particular?”
    Feldman coughed. Bonnie hesitated and then answered, “No…. No, as I said, only the usual struggle for independence.”
    The sheriff once again prepared to hoist himself to his feet. McIntire kept going. “Is that why Bambi left?”
    â€œMy son didn’t
leave
. He was only off working. He came home on weekends quite often. What has this got to do with anything? Are you trying to accuse Wendell of driving my son to his death?”
    McIntire didn’t really know what his questions had to do with anything. “Certainly not, Mrs. Morlen,” he said. “It’s only that the more we know about Bambi and the people around him, the easier it will be to find out what happened.”
    Bonnie Morlen turned to the sheriff. “I’ll show you his room.” She struggled to her feet and, still rolled in her chrysalis, led them down a short hallway to the stairs. With her foot on the first step, she hesitated, then retreated. “Forgive me if I don’t take you up. It’s the first one on the left.”
    Bambi’s room had the air of having been readied for a guest who hadn’t showed up. It was neat, dust free, and arranged with every comfort a young man could desire, but unused.
    A braided rug covered the grey-painted planks of the floor. On pine-paneled walls, a rack of fishing tackle vied for space with a bookcase stacked with boy-oriented classics, Mark Twain and Jack London. In contrast to the unscratched rods, the books were obviously used and, besides the fiction, included a variety of wilderness survival–type manuals.
    The closet revealed rows of lovingly pressed chinos and polo shirts. McIntire would bet even the kid’s undershorts were ironed. He pulled open a bureau drawer. They were, and each pair was folded in tandem with a dazzlingly white T-shirt. Two framed photographs stood on the chest’s top. One was a studio portrait showing a young Bambi, stiff between beaming parents. Next to it was a shot of Bambi, squinting in the sunshine, extending at arm’s length a sacrificial offering to the camera god, a shimmering lake trout.
    A cursory search of the remaining drawers turned up only a few articles of heavier clothing and a couple of rolls of unexposed film. McIntire turned to the rest of the room. A pair of prints showing Labradors transporting dead ducks hung on either side of the single window. Over the bed’s solid headboard was a shelf massed with highly polished trophies accrued in various athletic activities.
    â€œHoly shit! Would you get a load of this?” Koski stood nose to nose with the disembodied head of a sixteen-point buck. McIntire guessed it was love at first sight. Siobhan move over!
    Bambi Morlen had apparently not been without a sense of humor. A gilded medal on a blue and white ribbon hung around the severed neck—first place in high hurdles.
    Koski removed the sacrilegious object and placed it on the shelf with the rest of the booty. If there had ever been anything of a personal nature in the room, it had fallen prey to Mama’s relentless pursuit of domestic perfection. The real Bambi was more likely to be found in that prospector’s cabin.

IX
    Deep in the wood lay the cottage where the boy lived. A hilly path led to it; mountains closed it in and shut out the sun; a bottomless swamp lay nearby and gave out the whole year round an icy mist.
    The camp wasn’t hard to find. McIntire should have realized that Koski would have made it his business to know which of the abandoned cabins in his province were occupied, and by whom.
    It wasn’t hard to find, but that didn’t make it simple to get to. The gauntlet of reporters had grown, and Koski