*Warning: This story contains violence and some graphic scenes. If you do not like to read things of that nature, please refain from reading this story. Please don't mail the Shrub with complaints. You were warned.*

Drake lay still, and closed one eye to line up the sights on his rifle. The buck, nearly twenty-five feet away, silently munched on the tall weeds that seemed to grow around him. Drake stopped breathing. He fired a shot that landed deep inside the buck's shoulder and sent him sloping to the ground. A flock of crows resting in a nearby tree exploded like fireworks and flew away. He cocked and fired again, this time sending a bullet right through the animal's still-pulsing belly.
Drake waited.
When he has sure that the buck was not going to move again, he slid out from under the bushes in which he hid. Rifle at his side, Drake strode up to the buck. The animal was clearly dead, not a muscle twitched, but its left eye was open still, staring at Drake as he lay his rifle on the ground. He reached into his boot and unsheathed a glimmering blade that was his hunting knife. He knelt at the belly of the beast, touching it ever so slightly with his kneecaps. Drake noticed the buck's open eye, and reached over to close it, gently.
The knife rose high above Drake's head. He stopped breathing. The knife came slamming down hard into the beast, cutting through fur and flesh with a "rip" and then a "thud." The knife came back out. It went back in again, to the hindquarters. Next, to the neck. Hot blood spurted into Drake's face, and he closed his eyes. His hands were covered in bits of fur and fleshy blood. The knife went in and out again and again. Seventeen times Drake stabbed that deer carcass. The head, the spine, the powerful thigh muscles. Blood flew into his mouth and nose; it covered the whole front of his camouflage jumpsuit…
And then it stopped.
Drake withdrew the knife from the deer, and wiped the blade with a rag he pulled from his back pocket, and returned it to the sheath inside his boot. He wiped his hands free of any blood left sticky on them. He sat back on his heels and looked up at the sky. Two hawks glided overhead, and he knew that the crows he had scared off would return soon as the rising sun began to rot the deer's steamy flesh.
"For you," he raised his hands towards the sky and smiled.
Drake stuffed the bloody rag back into his pocket, collected his rifle, and headed back to his camp. It was a little dirt clearing next to the stream, complete with a fire pit and a crude bench made out of a plank. Of course, Drake's truck was parked next to it and he wouldn't be staying another night. He removed his jumpsuit and placed it in the fire pit. He stood there naked as he lit a match and set the blood-soaked jumpsuit ablaze. Drake threw some branches in the fire as well, then walked into the stream, gingerly wading in up to his chest. The water was nearly fifty degrees, but he dunked his head in anyway, washing his hair and face and hands of all the blood. Drake gritted his teeth as he scrubbed his hands through his hair. When he felt he was clean, he skipped out of the water and shivered next to the fire. After defrosting his icy body, Drake went to his truck and put on his clothes, then sat near the fire to clean his rifle.

Mr. Owen,
	We regret to inform you that your father, Justin Owen, has passed away
after suffering a heart attack while serving time in the Montana State
Penitentiary.  
	Please contact us if you wish to claim his belongings, which include:  One
pair denim blue jeans, one pair black leather boots, one navy shirt, one
pair socks, one gold watch, two cigarettes, one comb, one Holy Bible.
	Your father's lawyers will be contacting you shortly about any legal matters.

Regretfully, 
Warden John Thomas
Montana State Penitentiary

Continued next month in The Shrubbery