Far On The Ringing Plains

2. The Hunter

2

The Hunter

Billy Martens

The little church was crammed with less than three weeks left until Christmas. Since it was the first Sunday in December, they had begun to sing the carols. Billy Martens liked the carols more than anything else they sang at the Mennonite church his father pastored, so he put a lot of strength into O Come All Ye Faithful and Joy to the World. He was restless to be on his way by the time his father had finished his sermon though, most of which Billy hadn’t really heard. When he was impatient, he would run his hand through his sandy brown hair repeatedly, and that’s what he was doing during the final prayer which, to the eighteen-year-old, seemed to drone on forever. His mother, eyes still closed for the amen, smiled and grasped his hand to keep it still. Finally, they were dismissed, and she said softly, still smiling, “All the elk in Montana will not have fled to Idaho or North Dakota while we sat in church, dear.”

He grinned. “I know, mom. I’m just eager to get out into the mountains and the woods.”

“I see that. Remember. No hunting till Monday morning. Just set up your camp this afternoon.”

“I will not dishonor the Lord’s Day, mom.”

“Good.”

His father approached and shook his son’s hand. “Are you heading out right after lunch, Billy?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, I hope I gave you something to think about. The mountains shall bring peace to the people. Hold on to that when you look up at the stars tonight. Peace in our world, peace in our hearts, eternal peace—it’s all so very important.”

“Yes, Sir, it is.”

His two younger brothers, one a redhead, thanks to a relative who had died during the Civil War eighty years before, both pulled long faces.

“We should be able to go with you,” complained Jake, the redhead. “I’m sixteen in January.”

“And I’m fifteen in March,” argued Mike. “I’ll be taller than you, Billy.”

“You think so?” laughed Billy, messing Mike’s hair.

“I know so.” Mike jerked his head away. “And don’t do that. I’m not a kid.”

Two girls crowded around Billy.

“Why do boys get to do everything?” whined a tall, skinny blonde with her hair in one long braid down her back. “I’m bigger than other twelve-year-old girls. I’m bigger than all the boys my age, too.”

“I want to learn to hunt,” argued the girl at her side. “I should be able to do anything I want now that I’m ten. That’s what Aunt Mercy said.”

“Hmm,” responded her mother, looking down at the nut-brown girl. “Aunt Mercy would say that, wouldn’t she?”

“When she visits at Christmas, she’ll say it again, you’ll see.”

Her mother laughed. “I am sure she will. But ten-year-old girls do not prance about in the Rocky Mountains in winter, Bekka. And they certainly don’t prance about with guns.”

Bekka frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Who says so?”

“I do, for one. Now, let’s get over to the house and have some stew. It will have simmered to perfection. Just like you and Nancy.”

The house was only about one hundred feet from the log church, and it also was made of peeled logs. Rock solid, thought Billy, as he placed his hand on the doorframe, though he would need to repair some c******g in the spring. He glanced up at the moose antlers over the door as he went into their two-story home—what he really wanted to see nailed there were huge elk antlers. Maybe tomorrow he’d be lucky. Or blessed.

It was easy to find a good campsite on the western slopes of the Montana Rockies. He and his father had used at least a dozen different sites since Billy had turned sixteen. The one he liked best was a cave with a stream nearby. The stream was frozen, but he intended to chop through to the water. That afternoon he made his way up a steep slope far from the house, found the cave, and checked it carefully, trudging through the snow to its entrance. Thank goodness, no bear had discovered it or made use of it. Billy had been unpleasantly surprised before.

He took the wooden-framed pack off his back, cut some poles from the trees with a large Bowie knife, and set up a small canvas tent. No stove for this one; he’d use a sleeping bag that weighed a ton but never failed to keep him warm. Soon he had a fire going. He was wearing two woolen shirts and a thick woolen jacket of red and black checks, buffalo plaid, but the early winter chill still bit into his bones. His mother had packed some bratwurst. He roasted three of the sausages on a branch he sharpened with his pocket knife, washing the bratwurst down with hot chocolate he brought to a boil. Before he turned in, he read some of Robert Service’s poetry by the firelight. Then he put out the flames and sat in complete darkness. The Milky Way was as white as a waterfall. He thought about what his father had said about peace.

He was up before dawn and had a cold breakfast of deer jerky he had smoked himself, black bread Bekka and Nancy had baked for him that was like stone, and hot chocolate from the night before that was partially frozen and cold as snow. There had been a light dusting overnight for which he was grateful as it would make tracking much easier. His Model 1903 bolt-action Springfield was in his hands, its stock and barrel smooth and well-oiled, passed down to him from his grandfather in Missoula. He checked the iron sights as a silver line of light rimmed the mountain peaks at his back—it fired a clip of five cartridges in thirty caliber which could handle anything in the mountains, even grizzlies, elk, and moose. He set off downslope and soon cut the hoof prints of a large elk. Perfect.

But the elk led him on a merry chase. Billy kept expecting to catch sight of it over another rise or on a nearby slope. He never did, and he tracked it all day. Refusing to return to camp, he ate raisins and peanuts he’d stuffed in his pants pockets, and filled his mouth with snow when he was thirsty. Nevertheless, as the sun began to set far off over Idaho and Washington and the Pacific, in a color like wet blood and shining brass, he cursed a bit and admitted defeat. It took him an hour to reach his camp, and by then the sky was part black and part scarlet. Then he saw the bull.

It had emerged just ahead of him. He was downwind of the large elk and it had not scented him or seen his slow movement. Its rack was enormous, its head proud and beautifully chiseled, and it was standing as still as a statue. He put the Springfield to his shoulder. There was already a round in the chamber. The distance was about 200 yards, an easy shot for him, especially with sunset setting the bull and his coat on fire. Every hair glistened. No detail was lost. Billy slowly exhaled and began to squeeze the trigger.

The bull threw back his head and trumpeted.

Billy froze at the sound.

Then aimed again.

But the bull trumpeted a second time, that wild grunting and screeching wail that sent electricity through Billy and made him think of peaks and fast rivers and cliffs and tall pines. And freedom. Always of freedom. He aimed a third time. Saw the scars of battle on the bull’s antlers and flanks. And lowered his rifle.

“You had something worth fighting for,” he whispered. “I’ll let you enjoy that. I’ll let you have your lifetime.”

Billy stood and watched the bull another half hour. The fire in the sky dimmed and became coals. Then the coals were gone too, and it was just him, a white moon dropping back from being full four days before, the Milky Way and the elk. The bull finally moved on just as the moon slipped from east to west, disappearing behind the mountain peaks. Billy walked to his campsite and sat by the ashes of his fire. He could not explain why he had not fired. He did not care to explain. He had simply felt what he felt. Finally, he coaxed flames to life with twigs and matches and cooked a small steak along with potatoes and onions. He decided to stay up, so he made the blackest coffee he had ever brewed.

He could not explain why he stayed up till dawn any more than he could explain why he had not shot the trophy elk. It was Tuesday, December 9th, about eight-thirty, when he dozed in the bright winter light, hunched up by the fire. Cold, he woke at noon and broke camp under a sky as blue and shimmering as the sea. It took him three hours to reach the house. It surprised him to see cars and wagons parked at the church. The windows were gold with lamplight and he could see people standing, hear hymn singing, and make out Deacon Reimer praying loudly in a voice that never softened.

“What is going on, father?” he murmured to himself, leaning his rifle and pack against the wall outside. “What?”

The church was warm from the number of bodies. The cold immediately fled from Billy’s arms and legs. There were no women or children in the church, only the men of the Mennonite congregation. They were all standing for prayer. So Billy remained standing just inside the door. Deacon Reimer went on and on—“We ask for peace, Lord; deliver us from war, Lord; deliver us from evil; spare America; spare the world; let hostilities end as swiftly as they have begun; let us eat the bread of reconciliation and forgiveness; let America turn the other cheek; let all world leaders lay down their swords; let there be no further shedding of blood; we are mindful of your eternal words, oh Lord, that we must not kill; we are mindful of your eternal words, oh Lord, that blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God; we are mindful of your eternal words, oh Lord, that we ought to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks—”

Deacon Reimer paused, as if uncertain what to pray next.

Billy’s father suddenly quoted Scripture: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. The Word of God. Amen and amen.”

“Amen,” came the rumbled response from dozens of male throats.

Eyes opened.

And Billy’s father gazed straight at his bewildered son in his woolen hunting jacket.

“What is going on?” Billy demanded. “Why are you all gathered here on a Tuesday night praying about war and peace?”

At first, the church was silent. The men remained on their feet. It was Deacon Reimer who spoke up. “So, we found out on Sunday night that the Empire of Japan had attacked our naval base in Hawaii. Thousands of sailors were killed. President Roosevelt has declared war. Of course, this is not something we want. We are a people of peace.”

Billy stared at their backs. “You mean the Empire of Japan that has been devastating China and murdering her women and children for years while we did nothing? That Empire of Japan?”

His father looked away but replied, “Yes.”

“So now they have come after us?”

No one in the church responded.

Billy sat in a pew. “The Nazis attacked Poland, and we said it wasn’t our fight.”

“And so it wasn’t,” his father said.

“They invaded Holland and Belgium and France, and we said it wasn’t our fight. They have been bombing Britain for over a year, and we said that wasn’t our fight either. Greece, Crete, Russia... it was never our fight. And now they’re at the door. And it’s still not our fight.”

“We do not fight as others fight,” his father argued. “We do not use guns and bombs. We fight our battles with prayer and worship and the Word of God.”

“That did not save the missionaries in Nanking. It did not save the people they ministered to.”

“There are different ways of being saved. The body is nothing. The soul is everything.”

Billy ran a hand through his brown hair. “The body is the house of the soul. If the body is gone, the soul is gone too.”

“If the body is destroyed, the soul is set free.”

Billy thought of the bull elk and its battle scars.

He remembered how the sun had set over its beauty and power in a kind of divine magnificence.

“Murder and slaughter are not freedom.” Billy’s eyes locked with his father’s. “Freedom is the freedom to live. Not having no other choice but to die.”

His father shook his head, clutching his black leather Bible more tightly in his hands. “Fighting is not love, my son.”

“It is if you are defending those you care about. Even a whole country you care about. Greater love hath no man than this but that he lays down his life for his friends.” Billy stood up, walked to the front of the church and looked around at the faces. “It’s not as if I haven’t thought about these things or prayed about these things. War and peace have been tangled up in my mind since Japan invaded China in 1937 when I was fourteen. Then Germany attacked Poland two years later and I thought even harder and prayed even harder. I even fasted for three days, I wanted so badly to hear from God about all this. Listen. Here is where I am now—I am fond of you all. Very fond. If you will not protect yourselves, then I must protect you. I’m sure it’s God’s will that you men and your families and your way of life are delivered from harm.”

His father shook his head. “The Japanese will never come to Montana, my son.”

“No? And what if the Nazis come?”

“The Nazis will not come. We are not at war with Germany.”

“Neither was Poland. Neither was Russia.”

Two days later, Germany declared war on the United States and, in response, the United States declared war on Germany. News articles appeared about German submarines off the coasts of New York and Massachusetts and Florida. Billy had packed a suitcase the night he returned from hunting. He brought the case downstairs on Friday the 12th, had a final breakfast with his family, cried a bit when his mother and siblings cried, and then shook his father’s hand, explaining he was driving down to Missoula to enlist.

“I cannot spare our truck for this foolishness,” his father told him. “I cannot spare our precious gasoline to aid and abet the sin of warfare and killing.”

“I respect that, father.” Billy nodded. “And I cannot sit by and sin by watching people lose their lives and their freedoms and tell God the lie that I cannot do anything about it. I want you to respect that. I’ve made arrangements to go down to Missoula with our neighbor Hank Finch. His son Thomas is enlisting too.”

“And what about our ranch here, Billy? What about our 200 head? Have you given a thought to that?”

“I haven’t forgotten, father. You have your hired hands, Zeke and Clay. I was always just an extra, the rancher’s son, not a necessity. Nevertheless, I’ve spoken with Dutch Van Brewer. I’ve helped him out at the Bar Six more than once. If the war lasts, he will be there for you at the spring and fall roundups. Him and his four boys.” Billy smiled at his brothers and sisters, but they were too upset to smile back. “And here you have another four sturdy cowpokes who will be ready to go by May.”

“May?” His mother looked as if Billy had stabbed her. “How long do you think this war will go on?”

Looking at her, Billy saw how frail she was, and how small. Against his will, his eyes filled. “We are fighting two great nations, mother. Two great powerful nations that are armed to the teeth. It will take years to set things right.”

His mother’s eyes were streaming, and Billy could not fight his pain back any longer either.

“God has given us a great ocean to protect us, William,” she groaned, hugging him. “A great and large ocean.”

Billy gently folded his strong arms around her. “No ocean is so large it cannot be crossed, mother. By friend or foe.”