Chapter 1

Anybody who's been alive for a couple dozen years or so has learned that life is variable. It was even expressed in the title for a movie that became iconic. Sometimes life is good, and we get to enjoy it. And then there's the bad and the ugly, which we have to endure.

Americans don't seem to reflect on that all that much. Typically, Americans try to ignore the problems in their lives and just move on. That attitude is expressed in the phrase, "Shit happens."

The Chinese, on the other hand, mold these issues into their philosophy of how to live life. They don't call it the good, bad and ugly. It is what they refer to as the yin and yang of life. It's a pretty big deal in Chinese culture. We should pay more attention to Chinese culture by the way, and the philosophy by which many of those people live. Very soon they could own most of America. And if they decide to evict us ... where we gonna go?

Anyway, this story is about some people who went on a deer hunt, to put meat in the freezer. But it's also a story about yin and yang. It is promised not to bore you with a lot of philosophy, but you can't be told the tale without invoking some of the philosophy of yin and yang, and a dose of the Daoist perspective on life.

Don't go look it up. Wikipedia will provide what's needed to explain it and then we'll get on with things. In Daoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu (2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang.

To oversimplify it, for the Daoist, good and bad is what you define them to be. For Confucius, good and bad are defined for you.

We, in America, generally approach things from the perspective of Confucius.

You are told all this because this story is about looking at things from the Daoist way of thinking.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Robert Jenkins, and a girl named Lucy Abernathy. They were born in different towns in different states and, at that time, had no idea the other existed. They were just two among hundreds of millions of Americans. They got served up equal measures of good, bad and ugly. Their childhood was normal in the Daoist sense. What that means is that they perceived it to be normal. There was a lot of good, though like many kids, they didn't know how good they had it. That mostly good - the yang, if you will - continued as both went to college, where they met who they perceived to be the loves of their lives. Both got married to those loves. As it turned out, Lucy married Bob's brother, Brad, which is how fate brought her into contact with Bob. Lucy, now also with the last name of Jenkins, had two children, a boy and a girl. Bob's wife gave him one daughter. It would extend the tale to explain how they ended up living next door to each other, and that isn't really important, except that it meant the kids all grew up together, particularly because their parents shared the responsibility of home schooling them all. The term "home" was very fluid with this bunch.

Perhaps too fluid, in fact.

That's when the yin slammed down on them. Brad and Bob's wife, Valerie, decided that each of them was the love of their lives, rather than Bob and Lucy. This was announced by the simple expedient of Brad and Valerie leaving for a tour of the planet on Brad's yacht.

That's a pretty good example of "ugly" ... when your brother runs off with your wife. And vice versa, of course.

The divorces were relatively equitable. Lucy got everything but the yacht, (which was the only thing that was actually paid off). Valerie didn't want anything, except out of the marriage so she could "go off and discover who she really was." Well ... she also wanted to give Bob the honor of continued full-time parenthood.

In such breakups, the children are traditionally viewed as innocent victims. Their reaction can run the gamut of good, bad or ugly. In this case, the kids banded together and, more or less, adopted aunt and uncle as absent mom and dad, respectively. It was just natural that Bob and Lucy leaned on each other too, pretty heavily in the beginning, and less so as the kids got older. They maintained separate households, but saw each other "all the time". It was unquestioned they'd see each other at least twice a week as a "family", because every Friday night they got together for supper at Bob's house, and every Sunday, they went out together to eat after church.

The home schooling part of things was much more difficult with two of the "teachers" now gone, but it was decided to keep educating the children in that manner. Bob and Lucy shared that duty, depending on who had the time to do so. That was more often Bob, who was self-employed, and had more freedom during the day to work with the kids. Those kids, having some friends who went to public school, had heard enough stories about that to try very hard not to end up there, so they applied themselves to their school work. When they were ready for what amounted to the 7th grade, the adults decided to try one of the online schools, and that worked out well for all of them.

Bob and Lucy carried on bringing home the bacon and trying to save up for the kids' college funds, which took the majority of their time. There wasn't much time for recreation, as far as the adults were concerned.

Which was why the one thing Bob did every year for fun was very important to him. And that was hunting - and hopefully bagging - a deer. It was equal measures fun and practicality, actually. It was enjoyable to be out in nature, where the noise was of a completely different variety than usual, and practical because it put meat in the freezer.

Lucy quilted. Again, it was equal parts fun and practicality.

You need one other bit of information before the story continues. Both Bob and Lucy had more than one discussion about what to do about the kids' sexual education. The online school didn't have that in the curriculum, but that didn't matter because both felt like the majority of such education should involve the parent(s). That said, neither of them felt either qualified or prepared to "have the talk." that's fairly normal. Most parents don't feel qualified to talk to their children about the complicated processes involved in relationships that include a sexual dimension. And that's sad and illogical, because parents have been through it all, and have experienced the good, bad and ugly that inevitably comes into those relationships. But, rather than using that experience to pass along lessons learned, most parents in Western cultures just handle the situation by making rules they expect their children to blindly accept.

One example is: "Don't have sex until you're married!"

At least, in the case of Bob and Lucy, they agreed that, regardless of what they did or taught the kids, they would all eventually experiment with sex, probably sooner than later. Neither was happy about that, primarily because both remembered their own first, fumbling attempts to figure out what sex was all about.

So, basically, they did what most parents do. While they knew it was coming ... they kept putting off actually dealing with it.

That, of course, has consequences. Imagine a speeding car that has no driver. You never know where it will end up, but you assume it will involve a crash of some kind.

On the particular Friday night where this story actually begins, it was special, at least in Bob's mind, because Randy had passed into his seventeenth year of life, and deer season had just opened for centerfire rifle. Having no son of his own, Bob hoped that Randy would want to do a little male bonding in deer camp, which Bob usually inhabited alone.

When he broached the subject at supper that night, things didn't go quite like he'd envisioned. They were just chatting as usual, talking about this and that, when he announced his plan.

"So, Randy," said Bob, suspending a fork full of green beans between his plate and mouth. "Deer season started yesterday. I'm going hunting next week. How'd you like to go with me this year? You're the man of your family. You're old enough now to start bringing home some bacon."

Bob was looking at Randy, interested about seeing the boy's reaction, which is why he didn't notice that all three women had gone still.

"That would be awesome!" said Randy, excited.

This is when things went off the rails a bit, at least in terms of Bob's expectations.

"What about me?" asked Randy's sister, her voice almost a whine. "Why didn't you invite me too? I want to make some bacon too!"

Roughly three ounces of iced tea spewed from her mother's mouth and nose, forming a heavy mist that enveloped a quarter of Lucy's prized, antique, oak dining table. As she coughed and hacked, trying to clear her lungs, she looked at her brother-in-law in an irritated manner. Bob was laughing out loud. Rather than center on the phrase that had caused her this distress, which she knew Bob would milk for as long as he could, she decided to let it drop. Her daughter was simply very innocent. She decided to talk with her later and educate her in terms of what "makin' bacon" meant. Finally she could speak without coughing, and she tried to move the conversation forward.

"Your uncle wants to do a little male bonding with your brother," she said.

Mallory was obviously irritated.

"So? Does that mean I can't do some male bonding with Uncle Bob too?"

Lucy put down the tea she'd been about to sip from again. A deep flush moved visibly from the skin on her upper chest, exposed by the blouse she was wearing, up onto her cheeks.

Bob laughed even harder, while three teenagers looked from one adult to the other in confusion.

Bob was able to get in a sentence.

"Honey, you're a female," he said, grinning.

"Okay," said his niece. "Then I'll do some female bonding with you!"

Bob put his head down and his shoulders shook.

Randy got it first, as evidenced by a grin that he tried to hide, and furtive looks between his sister and cousin.

That cousin, Bob's daughter, Samantha, got it next, but rather than explain it to Mallory, she scolded both males at the table.

"That's not what she meant, you perverts!"

"Well, it's what she said," laughed Bob.

"What?!" complained Mallory.

"The perverts at the table thought you meant sexual bonding," said Sam, patiently. She loved her cousin, but Mallory sometimes seemed very dense.

Mallory's eyes went round. A blush very like that on her mother's cheeks appeared on her face. Her mother, busy mopping up the tea she'd spewed earlier, missed the decidedly guilty look that came over her daughter's face.

Bob did not. He stopped laughing as the completely insane fantasy that his lovely, luscious niece, in the bloom of becoming a woman, might actually be interested in doing some ... bonding. Actual bonding! Quite suddenly, he felt a little like a pervert.

"That's not what I thought," he said, defensively, trying to stop imagining his niece naked, on her back, holding out her arms to him. He'd noticed her physical development on a number of occasions in recent years. She might only be sixteen, but she had an eighteen or twenty year old body.

"Yes you did," muttered Sam. "You're horny all the time. You might not be if you'd go on dates, like I keep trying to get you to do."

Complete, stunned silence settled on the others, as shocked looks were in abundance.

"How did we manage to get on the subject of Bob's dating life?" asked Lucy, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"He brought up male bonding?" Sam arched an eyebrow as she looked at her aunt. She briefly contemplated on the possibility that Mallory's mental density was genetic.

"I'm not into that kind of male bonding," said Randy, proving that his genes also ran true.

"That's not what I meant!" groaned Bob. "I simply invited you to go hunting with me!"

"And you did not invite me to go," complained Mallory, who now remembered why she was so unhappy.

"Or me," said Sam, adding her own complaint to the issue. "Or Aunt Lucy!"

"Don't drag me into this," said Lucy, holding out both hands, as if warding away bad luck. "I want nothing to do with bugs and having to pee in the woods."

"There aren't really many bugs left this time of year," said Bob, helpfully.

"And you're going to build me a bathroom?" asked Lucy, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"Don't you have a camper?" asked Randy. "It has a bathroom in it, right?"

"He never takes the camper anywhere," said Sam. "It reminds him of Mom."

"Oh," said Randy. Then he looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Because that's why Mom left him," said Sam, somewhat callously. "He used to make her go camping with him all the time."

"I didn't make her," said Bob, injured. "I thought she liked it."

"I did," said Sam. "But Mom? Not so much. She used to complain about it all the time while you were fishing. All we ever did was stay in camp."

"I invited her to go fishing," said Bob.

"She hated fishing. Even I knew that and I was only six." Sam rolled her eyes. "I think the reason we never go camping any more is because that's the last place you ever got laid."

"Samantha Bethany Jenkins!" barked Lucy. "You will not talk like that in my house. Certainly not at the supper table! Is that clear?"

The teenager's face clouded up, but her voice was meek when she bowed her head.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Lucy looked at her own children, obviously not at all contrite about exerting parental disciplinary force toward someone who wasn't actually her daughter.

"That kind of comment is not acceptable," she said. Apparently she'd seen that look on Sam's face and was pounding the point home. "Remember that when you're away from home."

"I said I was sorry," moaned Sam.

"No you did not. You merely agreed to my terms," said Lucy. "If you're sorry, then you should act like it," groused Lucy.

Sam stood. She looked tense, at first, but then relaxed. She moved to her father and leaned down to hug him.

"I'm sorry Daddy," she said. "That was cruel of me."

"It's okay," said Bob.

"No it's not," said Lucy.

"You've made your point," said her brother-in-law, looking at her with hard eyes. "She's actually right. Every time I look at that damn camper I think of the last time we took it out."

"I know," said Lucy, her voice softening. "How about we talk about something a little more pleasant?"

"Like all of us going with you," said Mallory. "I think it would be fun. And I really do want to learn how to shoot a rifle."

"Count me out," said Lucy. "I can see the future, and my future, should I agree to go, would involve cooking and washing pots and pans and cleaning dead animals. I think I'll stay here and get a couple of projects finished in my sewing room."

"So we can go?" asked Mallory, excitedly. "Me and Sam?"

Bob, looking a bit like a deer in the headlights himself, made what he thought was a perfectly reasonable comment.

"I didn't think you'd want to go kill Bambi."

Mallory, proving she wasn't a little girl any more, simply smiled.

"Why? I like to eat, too."

"You can take your lessons with you," said Lucy. She smiled brightly. "So you don't get behind."

There were three groans, but they were more theatrical than genuine. By this point in their lives, keeping up with school work seemed easy, especially since they were all taking the same lessons and could help each other as often as needed.

And that's how Bob's deer hunt, that year, got turned into something completely different than a little fraternal bonding behind a scope and around a campfire.

Had Bob thought about it, Randy's complete acceptance of the girls inviting themselves along might have made him stop and ponder that. But he didn't. Truth be told, that's probably because he had his own thoughts about the girls coming along. He was used to seeing his daughter running around the house in a bra and panties, or maybe a T shirt or tank top and panties. It wasn't unheard of for her to leave her wet towel in the bathroom after her shower and go back to her bedroom stark naked.

But a man and his teenage daughter are often at odds with each other. They even argue sometimes! I know that's hard for some folks to believe, but the fact is that at this stage of their lives, Bob and Sam lived more as equals in the house than father and daughter. Sam had, of her own volition, slowly taken over the role and duties traditionally thought of as being those of "the woman of the house." That wasn't so much because she wanted to be in that role, but she loved her clothes, and her father had no concept of how to do laundry properly, so she did that herself. It was easier to do it for him too, than have him muddling around in the utility room. It was much the same in the kitchen. He could cook certain things well, but if their diet was to be varied more than the four or five dishes he could produce, then she needed to be the one doing most of the cooking. And, while Bob wasn't a slob, he never seemed to remember where the vacuum cleaner was, or how to operate it. In many ways, she was the one doing the supervising of routine household maintenance.

That said, for the most part, Bob treated her like a roommate, rather than a supervisor. Most of that was because she was a good kid. She was smart, and knew the value of a good education. She also knew money didn't grow on trees. She didn't beg for luxuries often. She wanted to go to college, and she intended to get scholarships to help with that. Neither did she flirt with her father like some girls do, to cajole him into buying her things she knew they couldn't really afford.

It should be noted, however, that Sam didn't need to flirt with her father. That appeared to be Mallory's job, who flirted with him shamelessly. Even at this stage of her life, when "childhood" was obviously long past, she sat on his lap, and rained kisses on his cheeks, and hugged him as if he was a life preserver and she just off a sinking ship. She even did some of that in front of her mother, who thought it was funny.

Had Lucy given some thought to that, she might have pondered Mallory's sudden eagerness to learn to shoot a rifle and go hunting, something she'd never showed a single shred of interest in before this.

But a whole week of peace and quiet, in a house that normally had two teenagers in it, was too luscious a gift to be looking in the horse's mouth about.

And neither parent had ever noticed the occasional interested looks, shared between Samantha and Randy. Remember, they didn't want to see sexual interest in their children ... so they didn't look for it.

Another component of this whole thing was that both Bob and Lucy firmly believed that dating should be rare, and a privilege, shared with different people, rather than the same one over and over.

They'd been young once. They'd lost their virginities once. They'd suffered raging hormones as teenagers. And they'd both fallen madly in love with more than one member of the opposite sex during high school. They'd had their heartbreaks back then as well. And more recently, of course.

Both, not surprisingly, were a tad gun-shy about relationships. And so, they didn't encourage their kids to be involved in them. There wasn't a lot of dating going on in either household.

And so the day arrived when the camper, newly cleaned and spruced up by Sam and Mallory, and driven by Bob, made the completely unnecessary fifty yard trip over to Lucy's driveway to pick up two excited teens. There were hugs between all the kids and Lucy, and then Bob and Lucy, who wished them a safe trip and then waved as her babies were driven away to become adult hunters.

She giggled, as they drove out of sight, remembering Mallory's comment about wanting to make bacon.

She shouldn't, as it all turned out, have giggled.

The camper was a motorized vehicle. Having said that, do not be tempted to think of it as one of those behemoths you see towing an SUV down the interstate, looking like a tour bus, wherein its passengers live a life of relaxed luxury quite similar to what they left behind at home. Rather, this one was a good fifteen years old, of the sixteen foot variety, on a Ford Econoline chassis. When new it was described as sleeping six, but those six people would have to have been very good friends indeed. In practice, it had two double beds, one of which was over the cab and the other, which was made up by removing the table and pedestal from the floor and rearranging the cushions of the seats there. A "couch" that spanned the width of the very back was the other bed, but it was a only a couple of inches wider than a single bed. A small kitchen, bathroom and some storage made up the rest of the interior. About the only modern amenity was a microwave and the air conditioner mounted on the top, which had worked well the last time the camper had been taken out, but hadn't been tested since then. Of course at this time of year, the propane heater was more likely to be needed than the AC.

On this trip, two of the hunters would sit in the front bucket seats and the other two would ride in the back. If someone wanted to nap, that could be done in the bed over the cab, while the vehicle was moving, or in the rear of the vehicle, on the couch. There were games and decks of cards in the storage area, but the teens had moved beyond Chutes and Ladders, and Candyland, and nobody thought to update them before the trip got started. The cards got some use, and Bob had thought to bring a bag of used, paperback books.

It was anticipated, at least by Bob, that most of their "free" time would be spent first, preparing to hunt, and then actually hunting. That included preliminary firearms instruction for the kids, setting up tree stands and that sort of thing.

Bob had hunting rights on five hundred acres of land about two hundred miles from where he lived. It belonged to a friend of his he'd gone through college with, who was a physician and only owned the land as an investment, rather than to be lived on. It was all wilderness, though there were a few logging roads that went through it.

His plan was to teach the kids to shoot on one side of it, and hunt the other. To that end, their first stop, in terms of "camping" was not far inside the gates, secured with a padlock that Bob had a key to. His plan was to walk off fifty or sixty yards on the "road" as a firing range. He knew that, when it came time to hunt, the actual distance anyone would need to shoot would be no more than that, because the density of the forest would prevent anyone from seeing farther than that. And, he intended to have them hunt from tree stands. If he set them up right, with any luck, a shot from one, successful or not, might scare a deer into the path of another.