🔹 Part 10 – The Last Hunt That Wasn’t
The air was colder the next morning. Not the kind that bit, but the kind that held a promise: winter was near.
Tom Merrick woke before sunrise, the cabin still dark and breathing quietly. Josh lay above him on the top bunk, one arm dangling off the side. Matt, sleeping on the floorroll by the stove, murmured something in a dream but didn’t stir.
Tom eased up slowly.
His joints had grown used to the aches. What hurt more was how full his heart felt now. Not heavy. Full.
He pulled on his boots, wrapped Lillian’s flannel around his shoulders, and stepped out into the pre-dawn chill.
The sky was ink-black turning gray.
He walked slowly through the trees, just past the cabin, following no path in particular. His breath curled in the air like smoke. The woods were still. Alive. Listening.
This was supposed to be a hunting trip.
He’d told himself that, months ago. One last hunt.
A quiet goodbye. A way to go out with purpose, maybe with dignity. He hadn’t brought bullets. Only memory.
But the woods had offered him something else.
A second chance.
And maybe that was the real hunt.
The pursuit of what matters—not what was lost, but what could still be found.
He reached the small rise that overlooked Goosefoot Creek and sat down on a moss-covered rock. The water trickled below, soft and slow.
From his pocket, he pulled the old green tin box.
Inside was the clay deer.
He turned it in his hands.
The broken ear. The faint fingerprint from Josh’s second-grade thumb still visible in the glaze.
It had once been a gift from a boy who didn’t understand distance yet.
Now it was a reminder of what the woods had given back.
Tom set it gently on the rock beside him.
“I don’t need to carry this anymore,” he whispered. “I got what I came for.”
And then, as if on cue, a light crunch came from behind him.
Footsteps.
He turned, expecting Matt or Josh.
But it was neither.
The deer.
The same one. Or maybe not. Maybe just what it meant.
It stood ten feet away, framed by birch trees bathed in morning light.
No fear.
No rush.
Tom didn’t move.
The deer lowered its head for a moment, then lifted it again—like a nod. Then it turned, walking back into the woods.
This time, Tom didn’t follow.
He didn’t need to.
Later that morning, the camp came alive with the smell of coffee and frypan eggs. Josh sat cross-legged on the porch, scribbling into a weather-worn notebook Tom had given him the night before.
Matt leaned against the doorway, watching his son.
“He’s different up here,” Matt said.
“So were you,” Tom replied, sipping his tin mug.
Matt looked over. “You ever think about moving back up here full-time?”
Tom smirked. “Old bones don’t like cabins much anymore. But maybe… a few weekends a month.”
“Think the house would get jealous?”
Tom chuckled. “House is just wood and nails. This”—he swept his arm across the trees—“this is where memory lives.”
Matt went quiet.
Then asked, “Was it really supposed to be your last hunt?”
Tom didn’t flinch. “Yeah. I thought I’d walk out here and not come back.”
Matt’s voice went low. “Why didn’t you?”
Tom looked at him.
“I found something better worth chasing.”
They packed up after lunch.
Josh took one last photo of the cabin. “So I remember it exactly how it is,” he said.
Matt and Tom loaded the gear in silence, but the air between them had changed. Nothing needed explaining anymore. Not every wound leaves a scar when tended in time.
Before they left, Tom placed the green tin box on the porch rail.
“What’s that?” Josh asked.
“A gift,” Tom said. “For whoever finds this place next.”
Josh raised an eyebrow. “But it’s your deer.”
Tom smiled. “And it brought me home. Maybe it’ll bring someone else where they’re meant to be.”
Josh didn’t say anything more.
But when he climbed into the truck, he turned once to look back at the cabin, like he was saying goodbye to someone.
Maybe he was.
Back in Lewisburg, the world hadn’t changed. But Tom had.
He filled his days with small things—sharpening knives, walking to the post office, writing short notes to Josh about birds he spotted on the fence line. Every Sunday, Matt and Josh came for breakfast. No longer out of obligation, but out of rhythm. Habit. Want.
And every now and then, Tom would find a little surprise tucked somewhere—a drawing of a deer, a feather on the porch rail, a note in blocky print that read: “You’re the best grampa I know.”
By December, the first snow fell.
Not heavy, just enough to blanket the backyard in quiet white.
Tom stood by the window, a mug warming his hand.
In the side yard, a new marker had been placed. Just a small wooden post with a carved name:
“Sparky – The One Who Came Back.”
Josh had carved it himself.
That night, Tom lit the candle on the mantle again.
Not out of grief.
But gratitude.
And beside it, he placed a new photo: the three of them standing at Goosefoot Creek, all smiling—Sparky’s empty collar looped gently around Tom’s wrist.
He stared at the flame for a long while.
Then whispered to the quiet room, “Not my last hunt after all, Lil.”
And maybe, somewhere deep in the woods, beneath frost-laced branches and bare-limbed trees, a deer paused—
Still.
Watching.
As if to say:
You found your way home.
