Dreamseeker's Road Read Free Page A

should be bright-leaved oaks and maples, now orange-pink and mauve and pastel yellow. The ground was steep: a mountainside.
    McLean—Alec—disappeared entirely, save for the rasp of his breathing. Silence went before—until suddenly a form solidified a yard from David’s nose. He started, jerked his .08 half-around from reflex, then lowered the barrel sheepishly as that shape resolved into a compact, serious-looking youth an inch or so shorter than he. Gold-framed glasses hid hazel eyes, while near-black hair masked the forehead beneath a camouflage cap that was ironic counterpoint to the blaze orange vest Georgia law required of hunters in deer season; wide cheekbones narrowed to a pointed chin below very red lips for a boy. Aikin “Mighty Hunter” Daniels, it was. David’s number three buddy after Alec and Calvin McIntosh, Alec’s oldest friend—and present nemesis.
    Black brows furrowed Aikin’s forehead as he frowned. “Okay, guys: five-minute break, then quiet, okay? Absolute quiet! Watch where you put your feet; ease ’em down softly, and try to remember that we’re supposed to be hunting the wariest thing there is ’round here. Something that can smell the soap you washed with this mornin’, and hear when you fantasize too hard about Winona Ryder.”
    David discovered an oak near enough to flop against—which he did. Alec remanifested and claimed its twin, propping the old Enfield Aikin had loaned him against the trunk. “I don’t need to fantasize about anyone!” David snorted.
    “And I don’t usually have to bitch at you ’bout bein’ quiet!”
    “Old age,” David yawned, as he massaged his thighs through cammo fatigues, surprised his legs were so tight. Alec wasn’t the only one having trouble moving, and three miles uphill at o-bright-thirty didn’t help.
    “Twenty’s, old?”
    “Two years past your sexual peak,” Alec observed.
    “Will you get off it?”
    Aikin rolled his eyes at David. “This is what comes of watchin’ Emmanuel VII last night ’stead of cashin’ in early. Deer can smell testosterone.”
    “So that’s why you were in the john so long this morning,” Alec giggled.
    “Put a sock— Oh shit! Forget I said that!”
    “You wish!”
    Aikin simply glowered. “Why, oh why, did I listen when you asked to come along?”
    “’Cause I begged so prettily,” Alec shot back sweetly. “You and Dave can’t have all the fun.”
    “Yeah, Aik,” David broke in, from where he was scratching his shoulders against the bark of his tree, “I mean, you and me made this a ritual when we were what? Thirteen? Now we’re college men. That’s long enough to hold out on anybody. We—”
    “ We take it seriously,” Aikin interrupted. “I don’t have to stop every five minutes to explain stuff to you!”
    David shrugged. “It’ll make a man out of ’im.”
    “Think of it as advancing my education,” Alec added helpfully. “I learn how to shoot Bambi. I also learn what the big deal is about shooting Bambi, and thereby learn more about my two—present half hour apparently excluded—best buddies.”
    “You’ve been huntin’ before,” David reminded him. “Squirrels.”
    “Killer instinct’s killer instinct.”
    “‘Better A Hunter Than A Gatherer Be,’” Aikin quoted the bumper sticker on his pickup. “And as for the big deal about shootin’ Bambi—yucky phrase—you don’t seem to mind eatin’ Bambi—or his mom, or Thumper, or any of his other furry friends when Dave or me serve ’em up pan-fried! And you were Mr. Brave Guy at the wildlife supper last year!”
    “Yeah,” David agreed with a smirk. “Even I won’t eat mountain oysters.”
    “I didn’t know what they were, okay ?”
    “’Sides,” Aikin went on, “you’ve got a vested interest in this one. Whatever I get today’s the main course for my Thanksgiving bash.”
    “Presuming you get anything .”
    “I may not, if we don’t get on with it!”
    “You said five minutes,” Alec