Tracker by Gary Paulsen Page A

the wild eyes, and he reached out and he touched her.
    He was there and his hand went out and he touched her and then he fell, down and down in the snow and when he opened his eyes in a minute, an hour, a lifetime, she was gone.
    He got up and stood, weaving, looking back on his trail. The sun was afternoon hot and he had touched her and she was gone, gone, but he had done it.
    He knew because the yellow was still on thesnow and there were flecks of blood from her nostrils and the imprint of her muzzle in the white.
    He had touched her.
    And now he had to get home and tell his grandfather that he had done it, he had won and there would be life now—life taken from death. Life taken back.

TWELVE

    It was dark again when John reached the farm, dark and cold. He stopped in the woods on a small rise and looked at the house.
    He couldn’t tell his grandfather what had happened—at least not all of it. He had been chewing on it since he’d left the doe, walking all day in a thought haze. She had run in great loops and circles of fear but not a terrible distance fromthe farm. When he’d regained some of his thoughts he knew where he was and took a straight line back to the rifle and from there home—a seven-hour walk.
    Seven hours of wondering what he would say to his grandfather and now the time had come. He would have to say something but he couldn’t tell him of cheating death—that wouldn’t work either.
    The doe had taught him much, not about death but about life. And yet it was not something he could share with anybody—it was not something he was sure he really understood himself. It was just a thing that was —a way for something to be. She made him see a new way, but he could not make others do the same. They had to have their own deer.
    His legs were on fire and the pain seemed worse now that he was close to home. He staggered down to the porch and leaned the rifle in the corner and stomped clear of snow and went in.
    They were sitting at the kitchen table, just as they always sat. Relief flooded his grandfather’s face, a clearing away of wrinkles, but he said nothing.
    His grandmother coughed and cleared her throat, and he could see mist in the corners of her eyes, small tears.
    â€œWe were worried,” she said, controlling her voice. “It came on to being long—longer than you’ve ever been at hunting.”
    John shook his coat off and hung it up and sat at the table, still silent.
    â€œFor all that you didn’t make meat?” His grandfather lit his pipe, making clouds of smoke. He only smoked when he wanted to think before talking, he’d once told John. “Two days and some and no meat?”
    John studied him. “It’s not like it was before …” He trailed off, said nothing more for a long minute.
    â€œWhat isn’t? What’s changed?”
    And that’s it, John thought, the idea searing across the front of his mind— what has changed? Had touching the deer altered anything? Was there not still death—still death coming to his grandfather?
    â€œI … I found a doe and I followed her,” he started, but it wasn’t coming out right.
    â€œFor two days you followed a doe? And you didn’t get a shot?”
    John looked out the window yet could see nothing but the reflected room. The tablecloth with the pattern, the glow of the lamp—it was like another world facing the world he was in. Aworld that was the same and yet the opposite and he wished he were in the mirror world.
    â€œA thing changed,” John said. “A thing changed in hunting, in everything, and I walked after her but didn’t shoot her.”
    His grandparents said nothing, waited.
    â€œAnd I walked for two days and then I touched her. Actually two days, and a night. And when I touched her everything changed—everything about the way we are and what’s happening.”
    He finished lamely, letting it