BONUS:
SHORT STORIES
HOW TO KILL A BEAR WITH A BOW AND ARROW
Milo Medlock sat in a tree, the tallest oak in Red River, and waited for the bear.
He’d seen the report on TV last night; a black bear had been spotted sometime between six and nine, going through garbage cans on Southland Drive, near the bay. Three people reported the bear’s presence, and one of them had stood on their porch and shouted at the beast, hoping the loud noises would spook off the bear. But it hadn’t. According to the report, the bear had ignored all human requests and continued sifting through the garbage for edibles. Once it had finished, it hustled into the nearby woods, and no one had ever seen or heard from the beast since, though, the newscasters hadn’t been shy about pointing out that the bear could reemerge any time it pleased.
Milo aimed his bow and arrow down at the ground. It’d been years since he’d shot the thing, and only dug it out for occasions like this. He wasn’t ordinarily a hunter—he’d never killed an animal in his entire life, unless you counted flies and the occasional hornet. Never killed anything bigger than his thumb. But, when times called for it, when the neighborhood was under attack by bears or by criminals posing as post office workers, Milo Medlock grabbed his bow and arrow.
True story: About two years ago, Milo and his wife, Tilda, were watching the news one afternoon when a report came across the screen, informing the good people of Red River to be on the lookout for a dangerous criminal posing as a mailman. Apparently the scumbag was knocking on doors, pretending to deliver the mail, and then breaking into houses. Milo, not having a gun in the house to protect his family from the outside threat, had gone straight for the bow and arrow, the one his father had made him when he was just a small boy, almost forty years ago. Tilda thought the idea was ridiculous—she thought most of his ideas were—but she couldn’t convince him to keep the doors locked and the windows shut instead of sitting on the roof and scoping out potential burglars dressed like mailmen.
“Just let the authorities handle it, you schmuck,” she had told him. “Who do you think you are? Robin Hood?”
He’d told her that he obviously wasn’t Robin Hood, but he was a pretty good shot. He’d practiced regularly in the garage with targets, beer cans and such. He’d never entered any archery competitions, but Roman—a friend from the office—always encouraged him to do so. But Milo wasn’t the confident type and he never could bring himself to complete the online form for Red River’s annual archery contest. He’d known how well he could shoot, but what if there was someone better? Someone more accurate? Someone who could split his own bullseye right down the center of his arrow, just like in the movies. He didn’t think he could handle that kind of defeat. Even though he’d hit that mailman when he’d come strolling up the driveway with no car behind him, no sack of mail on his back, hit him right where he’d intended. Luckily, it had been the burglar, otherwise there might have been legal repercussions of his sure shot. He’d hit the thug right in the leg, through the calf, and made sure not to inflict a mortal wound. He could have if he’d wanted to.
If he’d wanted to.
If I’d wanted to, he thought, as he shifted in his makeshift tree stand. He was by no means a hunter, had never even given the sport any thought; something about killing innocent animals made him uneasy.
But what about the bear? Wasn’t he innocent? After all, the bear hadn’t done anything. Not really. It had invaded a suburban street and raided some garbage cans for food. It’d probably been hungry. It’d just needed some snacks. Something to get by on until something better came along. No harm in that. It wasn’t a man-eater for Christ’s sakes. It hadn’t left the street a bloody mess of haphazardly strewn people parts. It had done nothing except to attempt to satisfy its most basic need—to eat. And it hadn’t shed a drop of human blood to do so.
Not yet.
And that was where Milo Medlock drew the line. He wanted to remain proactive. Like the situation with the mailman imposter, he wanted to down the beast before it could inflict damage on the community. Sure, it’d started with a few overturned trash cans, but what came next? A few butchered people? Kids shredded like rag dolls on their way home from school? What if the animal wandered into that sixty-five and older community down the block? Granny might be watering her front lawn one minute, getting her fucking arm ripped off the next. Milo didn’t need that. Not in his neighborhood. Not when he had the means to do something about it.
“You’ll never kill that bear,” Tilda had told him. “You don’t have the sack.” She’d continued to smoke her Marlboro Reds and watch Drew Carey on the television. She was only forty but she acted almost twice her age. Constantly nagging and crotchety. She’d been the reason Milo collected so much overtime, why he’d spent so much time in the garage with his bow and arrow and his almost-endless supply of Miller High Life.
“You said the same thing about the mailman who wasn’t a mailman,” Milo had told her. “Said I wouldn’t get him.”
“Not what I said, numb nuts.” She’d scoffed then, between drags of her smoke. “Said you’d get yourself killed and unfortunately I was goddamn wrong about that.”
“You know, you’re a miserable wench, you know that?”
She’d ignored his comment, acted as if he hadn’t said anything at all.
He’d leaned his head against the wall, and breathed in a cloud of second-hand smoke. He’d coughed something fierce and his asthma instantly flared. “Would it kill you not to smoke in the house? You know I have trouble breathing.”
She’d flipped him the bird.
Sitting in the tree was peaceful. Milo breathed in the fresh atmosphere, his lungs full of healthy, clean air. It made him happy being alone. Happy to breathe. Happy to be amongst the silence of nature, those intermittent sounds of birds twittering and branches swaying, the swoosh of the wind passing through the trees. He closed his eyes and thought he was in heaven. He had no desire to head back, back home where hell waited.
Milo hadn’t any idea where to start. He’d watched a few Youtube videos on bear hunting but it hadn’t seemed like a big enough sport. All the hunting videos featured deer or duck, and even less of them featured the bow and arrow. Everything was shotguns or rifles (mostly rifles) and those videos bored him. How hard was it to put down an animal using a gun? Seriously. At close enough range, a kill was almost automatic with a gun. Pull the trigger and the gun delivers instant death. No skill there. Now, to kill with a bow and arrow, one needed to be close. Real close. But not too close. Especially to a bear. Too close meant your head was coming off. Too close meant instant death, for you.
Milo had found one bear hunting video he liked and had watched it several times. One of the things the video preached was making sure to procure the proper license. Bear licenses were issued at certain times of the year depending on your State, and the instructor of the video told him not all states allowed bear hunting and to check the local gun shops for more details. Milo had done his research; New Jersey allowed black bear hunting and, sure enough, black bears were in season. He’d gone down to the local Waldo-Mart and gotten himself good and registered.
He was now licensed to kill… bears.
“Bet you’re after that black bear everyone keeps talking about,” the guy behind the gun counter had said to him.
Milo had nodded.