Last Hunt

For Three Word Wednesday, prompt words brisk, detached, miserable.

Last Hunt

We tugged and pushed Mr. Floyd,

sweating at our work

in the brisk January air.

Finally lifted fifteen feet

into a longleaf pine,

he sat on an old upturned bucket

atop an assortment

of splintered planks.

We left him leaning there

against the weathered trunk.

Seventy seasons

he’d hunted here, as his father

and grandfather before.

Many deer had passed

beneath the pine—

some too quick,

some too young,

some missed chances

lamented at evening camp.

Still he came every year,

and waited at winter’s pace.

We returned to the stand

when sunlight slanted

through the trees

in promise of the night.

He nodded, grinning

as he detached himself

from his bucket. “Boys,

I reckon I got her broke in.

Someone else can ride her now.”

The end of spring, twenty-six years

after, I wind my way

through tangled palmettos

and vines in the thick

Osceola woods, braving

miserable mosquitoes to find

the deep-lined pine and climb,

fifteen feet up. The bucket is gone.

A few rotten boards,

the only thing to show

that anyone was ever here.