The Monarch of the Forest Read online

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  The next day, Jason hiked through the thinning forest, muttering angrily to himself.

  How many times had his grandfather walked these woods? Soon the land he walked will be smoothed out and developed. It was as if they were erasing his grandfather from the world.

  Gnarled trees blocked his path. Jason stood there, staring at them, tears stinging his eyes. He remembered part of his grandfather's story.

  “The forests in Pennsylvania are old, as old as the world. Long before people came to destroy this land, they stood here. That's when the Monarch came. He rules these woods like a lion rules the jungle. If you listen to the trees when they dance in the wind, they tell a story so old that there's no human language to translate it. But you can feel it. The story's always growing.”

  The empty branches raked against each other, telling a story. This was a story about death.

  “If he doesn't die first, he'll kill himself,” Jason said as ducked under the trees and kept walking. “He's able to take care of himself. His mind is intact. His body is fine. Four children and he produces that lot. What happened to the nobility in his blood? How did they thin it out so much in one generation?”

  The trees around him didn't have Xs anymore. Something had rubbed the bark away from the trees, taking the paint. The Monarch had been here. He had erased this blasphemy from his realm.

  Jason followed a deer trail, thinking about growing up with his grandfather always there to tell a story or a joke. Jason knew he was lucky, but all good things must come to an end. No amount of technology, no amount of energy, could keep a man – even a great man – from dying.

  Maybe that was the lesson of the woods here. Not even ancient trees can hold back progress.

  Grandpa, what's the moral of the story? You and the deer?

  Maybe that was the point. All titanic struggles had to come to an end. One day, the lesser gods would overthrow the titans.

  “A thing of the past,” his grandfather's voice said. “Like me. Me and the Monarch, two peas in a pod. Old men who have outlived our usefulness.”

  Jason's tears obscured his vision. He didn't see the incline or the wet stick until he slipped on the stick and slid down the hill.

  Dazed and on his back, Jason wondered if he had managed to keep the gun off the ground. It hadn't gone off.

  As the world spun above his dizzy heard, the Monarch stepped into his field of vision.

  The ancient eyes blazed with a kind of old wisdom. Jason cried, “Don't look at me!”

  The deer stared at him and Jason felt his whole life getting laid out like a book. He felt the gaze cutting through clothes, skin, muscle, bone. He felt it looking into his soul.

  Jason sobbed as the Monarch slowly crossed a small stream at the bottom of the hill and turned. It waited for him.

  Jason got to his feet and unloaded the gun to check the barrel. The Monarch went to the top of the next hill. As Jason reloaded, it took off into the forest.

  Jason began to run. He followed fleeting glimpses of gray, the sound of beating hooves. As he came around a bend, he recognized the forest.

  It was leading him back to his grandfather's house.

  The Monarch stood at the top of a hill. Jason pulled the weapon up and put the sights on the animal's chest. He pulled the trigger and fired. When he looked at the deer, it didn't flinch. It simply stood there and snorted.

  Jason wondered how he could have missed.

  The Monarch turned and pranced through the forest.

  Jason followed the Monarch. They passed through the woods at the edge of the worksite. The man in the hard hat and the other workers stared as the gigantic, gray dear trotted past them and Jason doggedly followed. Jason didn't need to see the men's faces to know the shock that must be there. Every one of them bowed their head and looked at their hands. The dirt caked there looked like blood. Jason ignored them as he followed the Monarch.

  Finally, they came to a grouping of evergreens. The Monarch stopped and turned around. Its ancient eyes found Jason's, and Jason felt compelled to raise the weapon.

  “What are you?” Jason shouted at the deer. “You and the forest...you're one. You're dying already, aren't you?”

  The deer snorted.

  Jason heard his grandfather's voice on the wind. “We're connected, like the old gunsmith said.”

  Jason's hands trembled and the gun shook in his hands.

  “No,” Jason said. He pleaded. He begged.

  The gun roared in his hands and the deer buckled. It turned and darted through the evergreens. Jason stared at the smoking weapon in his hands like it had betrayed him. The blue steel didn't seem to care.

  Jason ran to the spot where he had seen the deer. Blood was spattered on the ground. Jason wept as he followed the blood through the evergreens, across a field, onto the road, and down the lane toward his grandfather's house.

  Jason felt like he had just killed a god. Somehow, though, he didn't think that the Greek gods felt the weight of what they did when they wiped out their fathers. Shouldn't the killing of gods hurt? Shouldn't the void they leave suck the air out of your lungs? When one god falls, another takes its place, and Jason knew that he was no god. He was no Grandpa Oscar.

  Jason saw his car in his grandfather's driveway. When he stepped around the car, he saw the deer lying on the front steps.

  The door to Grandpa's house was open, but Jason's grandfather didn't stand there to greet him.

  The house was as still and silent as the deer on the porch.