Characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros., & NBC. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback. Hunters Luna
Sleep was right there, a soft fluffy darkness that piled on the floor, wrapped the baby in his crib on the other side of the room. It was right there, but Toby couldn't fall in.
He kicked his feet under the thin covers, kicked the wall next to his bed. There was no answering knock, so his sisters were probably asleep, too. Toby closed his eyes and put his arm over his face. He felt heavy, like he was sinking into the mattress, but it was no use. Little specks of color flashed inside his eyelids. He heard the cars making noise on the street downstairs, and rolled over onto his back.
Underneath his pillow was a hard, flat lump. It was his library book, My Side of the Mountain. He dug it out and held it open on his chest. But the heavy shade covered the whole window--light bothered the baby--and the glow around its edges wasn't enough for reading. Toby felt around inside his pillowcase. The flashlight was missing again. His mother always took it away when she found it, saying, "You're going to strain your eyes." Toby thought he'd strain his eyes worse trying to read in the dark, and he had to find out what happened next or he'd be awake forever.
The bed squeaked when Toby sat up. He pushed the blankets down slowly, and swung his feet down to the rug. It tickled his bare toes. He had to be as quiet as the boy in the woods in the story, nudging the door open like a tree branch that might crack and give him away.
Toby padded into the hallway, knelt down on the linoleum and opened the book again. Light reached back from the living room, along with the funny hot smell of smoke and the big voices.
"Hit me," his father said. Then the swish-and-slap noise of the cards going around.
"Did you hear me, Burt?" another man boomed, "you oughta been there. You don't know this man."
"Don't listen to him," Toby's father said, and laughed his quiet laugh.
Toby bent his head down to his book. The boy was all alone in the woods, breaking an uphill trail, and Toby started to follow him. In one ear he could actually hear the wind, but the other ear kept listening to the men in the living room.
"Six girls," said the booming man. "Two of 'em in Brooklyn. The wife in White Plains, a girl in Manhattan, one way out in--where were we?"
The boy lives in a hollow tree, alone except for the weasel that burrows in beside him. He eats whatever he can find in the forest. Berries, nuts. He digs roots with his penknife. Before the winter blizzards come, he must learn to light a fire. Toby found himself shivering.
Poker chips clattered on the card table. "I'll see that," said the man called Burt. "So you were in Hoboken--"
"Fort Lee," Toby's father said. "I'll see it. And I'll raise it."
Lots of laughter and thick gray smoke. "We drive all over New Jersey," the man boomed, "Hoboken, Fort Lee, all over Jersey, you know where we find the guy--what? Oh, I fold."
Toby felt a little dizzy. He held in a deep breath and squinted at the book. At first the boy is always cold, always hungry. Later he learns to hunt. He makes hooks and goes fishing in the streams. He trains a baby falcon to catch small game. He sets traps. He skins a deer.
"His mother's place. Two fucking blocks from here. The girlfriends sent us on a, what do you say, a goose hunt?"
"Goose chase. You killed him at his mother's house?"
"Had to be done. Didn't you say, Julie? It had to be done."
"Enough storytelling." Toby's father used his stop-sucking-your-thumb voice. "Deal the cards."
He loves the mountain. He loves the forest even when it's buried in snow. He only takes what he has to take.
But suddenly the print was too blurry to read. Toby put his forehead down against the page, his hands on his ears so he could concentrate. Underneath him the floor melted into water. Toby floated. Then arms came down like wings and lifted him into the air.
"Tobias." His father's big hands were holding him up, his father's shoulder under his chin. Up close he smelled very strong, of whiskey and playing card plastic and the spicy smoke. "What are you doing out of bed?"
Toby sneezed. "Reading my library book," he tried to say, but it came out all in a mumble.
"Your mother puts you to bed, you stay there. Do you hear me?" The voice next to his ear. "Toby?"
"Don't be mad," he whispered. He wanted to run away like the boy in the book did, to be all alone on the mountain. But his father carried him back into the bedroom, walking on careful feet that wouldn't make a floorboard groan or a twig snap.
"Goodnight, son," his father said, and disappeared back into the hallway. He'd come and gone with barely a sound. Toby held onto his blanket, held it tight, although he knew he wasn't in trouble.
Bad hunters hunt for pleasure. A good hunter only kills what he has to kill.
Sleep was right there, and he let go of the blanket, toppling into another dream.