The Best Shot

Tree-covered foothills tunneled into the ravine. It had changed since the drought had begun months earlier. Leaves crumbled in Terwilliger’s hand, like timeworn paper. On both sides of the gorge, hills sloped at impassable high angles. Mirror images of the other inclines reflected at the end of the gully. A blind alley, he thought. It was a box, like an aged coffin.
Bundles of trees lined the bottom of the canyon. They ‘d been cut for timber, lying on their sides, bent, twisted in a grip like gnarled fingers of ancient men. There was no space between the severed, twisted mountain ash, mixed with hundreds of birch trees. A skilled tight rope artist may pass through the gully in expedient time, but not him. He preferred his urban bungalow and gingham shirts. The air smelled like apples, and when Terwilliger roved, plumes of leaf dust swirled into miniscule tornadoes by his feet. “There’s no place like home,” he said aloud.
He gripped the protruded lens of his Canon 35mm camera as if holding his lover’s hand. A strap hung over his neck, embracing the viewfinder close to his chest. Heaps of timber lay in front of him as if masses of corpses contorted, bronzed with time. He tried to form a mental route he’d take into the abyss of trees. He plucked a leaf off a honey locust, noticing how it looked like spearmint. He smelled it. Small coffee colored pods budded on the tree where the flowers blossomed four months previous. He lowered his head, stepping onto a bundle of paperback maple branches. No ground was visible when he fumbled on top of the group like an old Greyhound stepping on a wet blanketed shroud.
He imagined the infinitesimal times he reputed the location of the rare animal only to find out he’d been mistaken. It had to be in the ravine he wished. Over the past month, many tracks had been discovered by lifer townies. All the local papers printed articles of a blue dog roaming the streets at night. Terwilliger’s footing was unstable; he slid onto his back, holding his camera high into the air as if offering it to Demeter.
He clambered over fallen nut tail oak branches. His feet touched the ground through a small aperture of branches, then noticing a familiar scent, reminding him of his fireplace in his Manhattan apartment. Terwilliger stared at the entrance to the ravine only to see a gigantic woman, who stood like a thick sequoia. She studied him. Could it be a woman? She adjusted her Remington rifle strap over her large breasts, clarifying his perception. She pointed at him. Should he run away? he thought. He dove over a large section of shagbark hickory branches. It was like diving into a frozen lake. Skidding on his back, his body contorted like a confused snow angel. The woman’s laughter bounced off the steep walls of the ravine. Tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose; his fists clenched.
Who does she think she’s howling at? He panned the vast area of dead trees. He imagined somewhere in the ravine, the blue wolf hid. He was going to find it without any trouble from a local. His far-flung reaches of the globe in search of rare photos had made his discoveries a pop-culture obsession.
“Hello fucknugget! Backdoor Charlie! You’re up to you’re assess and elbows in branches,” she screamed.
What? Is she talking to me? he thought.
“Enough of your finger-blasting. You emo kissing boy. You looking for blue wolf?” she hissed. “YES…YOU ARE. I see we’re both here to shoot her.” Her vowels dragged on too long. She pointed to his camera.
He tried to hide it with his twisted apricot jacket, then stepped onto a bent hemlock. Its branches ascended as arms. They reached for him. Below, the tree seemed trapped and for a moment, he tried to release the crushed conifer.
“I’m a pho-ta-gra-pher,” Terwilliger said.
Stopping, the arm of the hemlock slapped him in the face, then he hopped onto coiled red dogwood branches. A powerful scent of pine burned his nose. Their branches snapped like broken fingers. As he tiptoed, a limb cracked under his 140 pounds, sending an echoed wail to the Amazon hunter. He desired his 400-thread-count sheets or TiVo. He’d settle for a Grande latte.
Behind him, the woman crashed into the gully, forcing her way through the briar bushes and the fallen helixed horse chestnut logs. It sounded like a train of demon draft horses.
“I am Yofa. I’ve been tracking blue wolf six years through boondocks and back. I haven’t seen blue wolf in a coon’s age,” she said. She spat massive gobs of mucus from her jaws of granite.
Her bulky form moved in large strides, stamping over numerous white oak, mountain laurels, eastern red bud branches, like a bear scrounging for food. He flashed to a Godzilla movie, imagining buildings destroyed by the fierce monster’s footfalls. A Remington rifle clinked off her metallic belt.
“I’ve been tracking her for some time as well. I need to photograph her. You’ll scare her the way you’re trudging through the branches! Please be quiet.” Just go away, he thought. What a quintessential know-it-all.
Yofa cackled her roar. “Yofa has a plan that’ll corner blue wolf. The piss-lipped beast will come to me. “Lean with it rock wit it my little prissling,” she growled.
Terwilliger halted halfway through the labyrinth of trees when Yofa’s deadly intentions sparked his fear. Above, the fall sun highlighted the autumn copper of the terrain. Smoke billowed through the patchy canopy of trees, as if umbrellas ripped apart by fierce winds on city streets.
Yofa trekked through the spruce trees. She crushed the rhododendron shrubs. Their necks snapped. She stomped the spruce. She pounced on the chokeberry. Her gaze at the dominant mistletoe colored leaves halted her, then she pounded her chest as the first flames raced toward her. She plodded on white birch saplings. “Hello p-dog. Did you spend your last-dollar today? You must be a spring slut if you want a picture of blue wolf. You’ll never make it. I’m sure as nuts as balls,” she mocked.
Yofa raised her rifle, then shot at Terwilliger. He stood with a bent knee unbalanced on a nest of contorted black walnut branches when the bullet ricocheted near his Vasque Velocity VST Trail Runner shoe. He’d just purchased them before the trip. With the shock of Yofa’s measures, he plummeted into a contorted mass of dogwood and black oak branches, cinching his leg in a woody vice. He smiled at a white starflower, poking out a crevice in the logs. He tried to sniff its aroma, then failing to pluck it. Terwilliger couldn’t move. He expected Yofa to kill him. The moment arrived. His eyes shut. She gazed at him through her scope, then dropped it to her soccer ball sized knee, grunting, nodded with pleasure, then continued to hulk over poplar trees. She stepped in and out of the endless bundles of branches as graceful as a Cyclops would when placed in an environment requiring no poise.
Terwilliger tugged at his leg, glancing over his shoulder. Snaps and crackles of the helpless fallen trees syncopated the destructive sound. Yofa bulled to the far right. She slumped in line with him when the blue wolf howled somewhere near to them. Cacophony wails trumpeted like an unstoppable subway convoy, blending with reverberations of mangled Christmas bells that had been crushed before the holiday season.
“Did you hear that you nickydoodle. The blue wolf’s calling me. I’m coming you shuttle-monkey,” she screamed, stomping faster through heaps of logs.
“You’ll never get her! She’s too smart. Too quick to be trapped,” Terwilliger yelled.
He wiggled. He tugged. His leg began to move. His leg burst from the trapped branches like an unexpected birth, ripping his trousers. He’d just bought them too. The warmth of the conflagration grew, as he glared at the dead-end in front of him. He turned to gaze at the inferno that approached him and the hidden blue wolf. The beast screeched again. Faint sounds of howling gurgles rang out.
Black cherry logs passed him in fallen collections as he charged in and out of the intricate patterns of tightly woven boughs. He imagined his serpentine dance as a practice regimen in the military. His feet poked into the small blank spaces. When he reached to the giant firebug, she sensed his presence the instant he gasped behind her. She pivoted into his stare. Yofa grunted, glaring down at Terwilliger. He cracked a half smile before Yofa battered him with the stock of her rifle. Her breath smelled like sardines, cigars and Asian noodles. Terwilliger clasped his bleeding forehead. He used his only weapon against her, snapping his camera in the giant women’s contorted face. His smile grew. Was he beating her?
For a moment, it blinded her. Then it happened. Bestial blue monsters pounced on the Amazonian woman, covering her in an inhumane blanket of tresses and curls. Lupine silhouettes shot past Terwilliger in midnight shadows. Voracious howls mingled between Yofa’s shrieks and the beasts wounding assaults. The bloody attacks continued, forming puddles that mixed indigo with cherry. Sounds of crushed bones overpowered the sounds of the holocaust. Snapping resounded as if firing artillery. Electric azure fur buzzed by Terwilliger. He dropped his camera behind him. Flames melted the lens. It bubbled like scorched flesh in a cremation. The mazarine wolves disappeared into an aperture in the side of the hill. One by one, the sapphire ghosts vanished into the dead-end.
“A pack of them. Of course,” Terwilliger whispered.
Smoke filled the boxed valley, billowing into immense plumes, covering him in an ochre shroud, as he crawled to the concealed hole, following the wolves and sinking into the violet shadows.