Dead Zone

He listened to her quiet report, nodding. “If we wait and watch patiently, there might be a pair of bucks who get locked together by the antlers and can’t get free. Those’ll make for easier kills, and we’d have two to store up…” His eyes scanned the surroundings, then dropped to the deer path.

“There should also be a few injured bucks, or older ones that won’t be as swift to escape. And older does…” He slipped forward to breathe in the scent of a pile of droppings, analyzing the scent of the creature that had left it. A healthy buck, ripe with testosterone. “If it really comes down to it, and they’re too troublesome, we can wait until they drop the antlers, and hold a hunt then. It’ll be winter, but they’ll be less dangerous without their antlers.”

He flicked his eyes to hers and grinned lightly. “Let’s do some more tracking, see what the herds look like up close. Maybe we can find a few injured ones. Or even get lucky.”