Hunter's Moon
by Doi
Copyright © 2010 Doi
Smashwords
Edition
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Hunter's Moon is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and incidents appearing in this work are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Hunter's Moon- the full moon after the Harvest Moon.
Harvest Moon- the full moon that occurs near the Autumnal equinox.
Hunting- a sport, a pastime, so foreign an affair as to elicit disapproval from some wives-is a secretive art. From handbooks to hearsay, techniques will vary, but the feeling of freedom remains. Couple hunting with the mysticism of the moon and the product can be more powerful than sex.
The Hunter's Moon rises around 7:00pm. If the night is clear and warm, there will be a halo, an extra ring of reflection surrounding the moon, that casts such light that adults, gathering outside and talking away their worries, will not want to go indoors until the chill sends them in for a coat, and the children, always oblivious to climate, will insist upon caring ears that the shadows contain monsters that need to be driven away.
If comfortable under the Hunter's Moon we will talk about past loves, life's accidents and hopes. We will complain about our jobs and get even with our boss. We will search for life rhythms and delighted by the rhyme will explore the possibilities of change. Then we will lounge, drunk upon our words and tired, fall asleep for a second's satisfaction always knowing that when we awake something will change.
And within all of the chatter, if clouds should drift by and block out the moon, and one is to look or listen closely within the sudden instance of dark, the shadows and sounds of wildlife will be there.
"Once upon a time," a favorite uncle once told his favorite nephew, after both had praised the beauty of a recent Hunter's Moon, "the forests are so restless on such a bewitching balmy night that they're the best for hunting on just that following day."
The nephew, a seasoned hunter, nodded. The uncle, the man who taught the nephew how to hunt, sighed. And the lore continues to spread.
It is October 2010. October, the month of summer gifts and winter threats, kindles many passions. For some, there is only a frugality fed, by school taxes, heating costs and holidays' expense, which later fosters familiar fears, that always disappear by Spring.
For others, October is simply the time of change, where solace reigns, and Spring doesn't seem so far.
In the Valley, where life clings to simplicity, the Hunter's Moon signals the Final Harvest. You, dear reader, may not understand the urgency of the words. Harvest here means chopping corn bleached by frost, at six in the morning before the sun rises, with your fingers' warmth sticking to the tractor's steering wheel. Harvest means resealing the house with plastic, while thirty bales of rotted hay rest against the house’s crumbling frame in an attempt to keep the pipes from freezing.
Yes the Hunter's Moon stirs more than the wildlife, it stirs our worries. While the wildlife wander, driven by instinctual fear, we fret over how we will survive.
There is a certain couple - just married, the boy 19, the girl 18 with a year old child by another boy. The husband still thrilling in the moment of a once-in-a-lifetime-backstage-brush with an international rock star legend, keeps a spool of thread and a needle with him at all times. At the Country store, where many of us meet, the husband pulls out the thread and needle and waves it at whoever will listen. Then he dowses the sex of his unborn child so that he can have some control over his life. The needle hanging from the thread spins clockwise, every time.
“It's a boy!”he says. And we nod; we have heard it all before.
While the boy grins, a man, a Vietnam Vet turned gray, crosses his legs and grabs for a cigarette he has vowed not to smoke. He laughs at a conversation centered around deer. He offers, as he always does, his opinion, “Just imagine if the deer could shoot back!”
The others bristle.
The Vet waves his hands in apology and replies, “Hey I've shot a lot of deer in my time! It's just that, you know, after sitting in the bushes for awhile a guy's mind begins to wander!”
In the Valley, no matter how hard the winter may appear, humor and hope will prevail.