"Chief", as his friends called him, was out in the woods early with his gun that morning. His name was Boone, and everybody knew him to be Indian and a member of the local tribe. He was as native as it gets, Boone liked to joke when he was drinking, which was quite a bit of the time.

Chief didn't necessarily go out in the woods to hunt as much as to get away from everybody and drink. Especially that nagging daughter of his who was always on him about cutting back. And she was supposed to stop by at the house that day, so he got out of there early.

Of course, he brought along some firewater with him too because chances were that he wouldn't shoot anything, or even see anything worth shooting for that matter. At least he could sit somewhere in peace and get drunk. It was better than sitting in that trailer, pretending to watch TV while his daughter lectured him. She had a sharp tongue like her mother, and she usually brought along a couple of her brats with her. They were always hungry and looking for something to eat. Sometimes Dawn, his daughter, cooked something, supposedly for him, but it was her and the kids that ate most of it. He didn't have much of an appetite these days. But he sure did have a thirst, his daughter liked to remind him.

She liked to remind him of a lot of things: repairs he was supposed to make around the place and to his old truck; doctor's appointments he was supposed to set up; tribal meetings he was supposed to attend; the list went on and on. Was it any wonder that he liked to escape to the woods?

Leave an old man be, he said to himself. At least his boy did that. He hardly ever saw his son, although the kid sent word through Dawn on a regular basis. The last Boone had heard the kid was holding down a job at least, and he hadn't been written up in the newspaper lately. And he'd been out of jail for almost two years now. Probably had his fill of that.

Chief remembered taking his son out hunting in these very woods years before, when he and the kid were fairly close. At least when it came to some things. The boy had liked the woods too, and the family had forty acres at the time. Hunting was just something to do with his son, although they did shoot their share of deer meat. That was when his wife was alive and she'd prepare her good venison stew for the family.

Sometimes, memories of those times seemed to come from too far back, and other times they could have been from a year or two before. That was the tricky thing with memories, he thought. But almost always sad these days, that he could be sure of.

Chief moved down the familiar path into a depression in the land, "the bowl" he called it. Very seldom did he see deer this close to his home - only in the coldest weather when food was scarce.

He sat on a fat log and had a drink of whisky. What the hell, he had put some in his coffee earlier. And it was his day off from work. He wasn't on anybody's clock today.

Many times, Chief wondered how it must have been to truly live on this land, when a man didn't have to put in an eight-hour shift at the local mill. When a man had more time to himself, and the only schedule he went by was the seasons', the only clock the suns. He knew his long ago ancestors lived like that on this very land, but Chief often wondered how many generations he had to go back to get to Indians who had lived their own way without any influence from white people. Probably quite a few, he always concluded. After all, this was the east coast, where the white man first settled.

He still had a few acres left in his name (half of the land had been sold while his wife was still alive), but the family territory had dwindled, sadly. If the spirits of the dead were around they were probably pissed off about that, Chief thought, with a laugh.

Fuck 'em. He had done the best he could in the time he came around. By then what did it mean to be Indian anyway? Other than discriminated against maybe. You heard stories about that, but he had never had any problems with it. He had always been able to get work around there, and he'd had friends white, black and Indian. He had never lived on a reservation.

Still, sometimes, like this, when by himself and feeling good, he did wonder about those old times and the stories he'd heard from old people in his life, times when being Indian still meant something; and times even before that when this land belonged solely to the Indian.

Now, there was still tribal land in the area (a mere fraction of what it had once been), and there was talk now (there was always talk) of the tribe building a casino on it, to benefit the tribe, which had little collective money.

The tribe would have to get permission from the state to build the casino of course; and if they received permission, then big loans had to be secured from somewhere to actually build the thing. Financial backing they called it. Chief's daughter had filled him in on some of the details, and she was always giving him updates on how things were progressing - if indeed they were - on that issue. The casino proposal was the hot topic these days at the meetings, and Dawn couldn't understand why her father didn't attend them. There was a time, when his wife was still alive, that Chief had attended some of the meetings and taken an interest, if mild, in the Indian affairs. But now the only news he received of tribal business came through his daughter, or sometimes through some other drunk at one of the bars he drank at - and that was two places only. Most of the time he drank at home, except when he went for a few with people he worked with, after a particularly busy shift.

There was old Charlie who had been at the plant longer than Chief had - going on twenty years. And young Danny who liked as many hours as he could get because of his fast-growing family. And once in a while old Doris and Jean, or a couple of the other girls would meet them at the bar. Sometimes it would get good with a group of them getting sloshed together - a rare occasion.

Still, they were the only people he could call friends these days, the only people, other than his daughter and her kids, who he saw on a regular basis. Dawn sometimes suggested that he patch things up with an old drinking buddy of his, Sam Jenkins, whom Chief used to run around with. Swinging Sammy, who was called that for his penchant for getting in fights after a night of drinking (and too often getting his buddies involved too). After a while, Sammy only had one drinking partner and that was Chief Boone, as Sammy used to call him.

But it wasn't because of Sammy's habit of fighting that Chief stopped hanging around him. It was a woman. Laura Lynn Davis. She was the first and only woman Chief had been interested in after his wife died. They had been seeing each other in a steady way for half a year or so, which pleased his kids and friends, and he had actually thought about marrying again. It was the youngest he had felt in years seeing Laura Lynn at that time.

And then that fucker Sammy had to get involved with her and ruin everything. And what had he ever done to the guy other than be his friend when no one else would? Even Sammy would say that. But Sammy was too much of a user and a loudmouth when he drank and that's why he went through "friends" like toilet paper. But Chief never thought Sammy would stoop to that. Not only had it surprised Chief, but it hurt him too.

He took another nip of the whisky just thinking about it. Sammy the shithead. He had found out about it first through someone else. As that one old song said, he was the last one to know. After all, he saw them together all the time because the three of them drank together. It had just never occurred to him that they had taken it a step further.

The most cowardly thing Sammy ever did was in insisting that he didn't know the extent of Chief's feelings for Laura Lynn. A man who sat next to him at the bar almost every night, and went riding around in Chief's truck with him, a buddy. Or so Chief thought.

People had got between them the night it all came out. Laura Lynn herself was one of them trying to calm him down. That bitch had some nerve after she had made a fool out of him.

He'd say one thing, even on this morning years later: that would have been one Swinging Sammy would have lost. He had seen all of Sammy's moves.

But instead he just left the bar, figuring he'd get his chance at Sammy another time. He had told the bitch off too.

After that, he stopped going to that bar for a while. In fact, he stopped going to bars, period, for a while. He put in hours at work, took long drives alone in his truck, or stayed home. Sometimes he came out here.

He saw both of them after that (not together), but by then he didn't give too much of a damn. Not enough to start a fight anyway. Still, he always thought he would have gotten some satisfaction in meeting up with Sammy alone sometime, just to take a poke at him. The fucker had gotten off easy.

Since then, he had heard Jenkins had asked about him now and then (which is why Dawn mentioned it once in a while), but he had never had the balls to stop at the house. The thing of it was, Chief probably would have accepted an apology after a while - but not at a bar, with an audience. He knew how Sammy could play to a crowd. No, he wanted the Jenkins he knew from their drives around in his truck to be a man about it and face him alone. But Chief knew that would never happen because by now Sammy had probably convinced himself that he hadn't done anything wrong. That shithead probably wanted an apology from him.

Chief laughed and got up from his seat. He walked further along the familiar trail, out of the bowl and in the direction of one side of his land, where a small creek ran. He hadn't been to the creek in some time.

When he got there, he saw that the creek was full from the recent rains. He decided to follow it for a distance.

Chief wasn't quite sure where his land left off and another's began. This all used to be his and his family's land. He had had to sell some of it a few years before (at his wife's urging more than anything) to pay some debts, and he was always sorry that he had relented on that. He should have let the creditors wait. But then there had also been expenses too, with raising the kids and all. The sale had solved their cash problem for a while, for Chief was able to get a decent price for the land. Who knows what he would have gotten on today's market? He didn't know the current value of what property he did have. He didn't care. Although Dawn probably did. Chief wondered if she would sell the place if he died the next day. Probably. Or haul his trailer off and clean the place up, as she was always after him to do. Hell, if they got that casino built, maybe she'd get enough money to build a house.

All of them at those meetings talking of getting rich, he thought. After those other tribes did it a couple states over. Making millions now, they say. Chief had heard stories of people really digging deep to prove they had Indian blood, once the money started rolling in. He laughed and took another swig of booze.

He didn't have to dig deep to prove anything. But he didn't give a damn about a casino either. It would change the whole area: bringing in people from all over, traffic all the time, new businesses springing up.

That idea excited his daughter, and he couldn't blame her. She wanted to change with the times, as did all the young members. It was their world now.

Yet, personally, Chief was used to this area as it was. It hadn't changed all that much since he was a boy, and still maintained its rural quality. There were still woods you could disappear in. And he liked driving along the winding country roads that hadn't been repaved in years (it kept the traffic down). The thought of cars speeding by his place on a redone and widened road didn't appeal to him at all. And you know there would be litter all over the place.

Of course, the casino would provide jobs, as Dawn liked to tell him, and he couldn't argue with that. The work situation wasn't too good in this area, he knew that. It was why he had stayed at the mill so long. Yet the few mills in the area didn't do much hiring - not on a permanent basis anyway. He knew of plenty of people who had been laid off and were collecting. And you couldn't support a family on minimum wage work.

Dawn said that tribal members would have first crack at the jobs. The good jobs. She could do something besides the part time waitress work she did now. And her kids would have something to look forward to. It would be important to be Indian around here again.

Chief was as surprised as the other guy when they first saw each other. When he first heard the noise he thought: deer. It was heavy enough. He had his bottle back in his pocket and his gun lifted as quickly and quietly as he could, wiping the whisky from his chin. Suddenly, he was excited, though he hadn't seen anything yet. Absorbed in his own thoughts, Chief hadn't concerned himself with his own steps.

The man had obviously heard him too, for he was looking Chief's way when Chief saw him. Chief had stepped around some large pine trees and some thick brush into a little clearing, and there the short man was, surprisingly close. The man, wearing a red baseball cap, was of course startled (he had been thinking deer himself) and then frightened when he saw the gun.

When Chief saw the man and the ridiculous, wide-eyed expression on his face, he was angry. The last thing he expected or wanted to see in these woods today was another man. And if it had to be a man, not this kind of one.

The guy had a salt and pepper beard, but it was too neatly trimmed, office style. The clothes, while of subdued tones, looked like they had never touched sweat or dirt yet; in fact, the guy looked like he had stepped out of a catalogue - right down to the new hiking boots.

Chief almost swore at him, but decided to let the man speak first (if he hadn't swallowed his tongue).

"Jesus, you surprised me," the short man said.

"I didn't expect to see anybody myself," Chief said.

"I thought I had signs up around here, but I guess I missed this place," the man said.

"I didn't see any signs," Chief said. "I thought you were a deer." He snickered.

"Where did you come in at?" the man asked, more at ease now.

Come in? The smile was still on Chief's face. This guy must think he was some hunter who had just stepped off the road.

"I live over here," Chief said, pointing in the direction of his home.

"Oh. Well, I don't know where you live, but there's no hunting on this land. We have signs up just about everywhere. For just this kind of reason. Too many people get shot every year like this."

You're right, chief thought. I almost did plug your ass. He hadn't liked the guy's looks right away, and now he didn't care for his tone of voice.

"Well, like I said, I didn't see no sign," Chief said. "I was just following the creek along like I always do."

"Well, that creek does run on our land in some places," the man said. "I know right around here it does. I mean I know there are places to hunt around here. There are places the state has for that."

"Yeah, I guess there are," Chief said, stepping a little past the man and looking around. "You haven't seen any deer around here?" He had a little smirk on his face.

"Not today I haven't. But there is no hunting them here anyway. No hunting, period."

"I probably wouldn't have gotten a shot at anything anyway," Chief said. "It's not like it used to be. These woods used to be full of 'em." He took out his whisky bottle and had a drink; then held it out to the man.

"No thank you," the man said, looking at Chief warily.

"I must have stepped over the boundary and not known it," Chief said. "For years I used to walk all over here."

"Yeah, well .." The man took off his cap and wiped his brow.

"I must have sold to your old man," Chief said. Come to think of it, this guy did look like Old Man Whittington.

"Yeah, my father bought this a few years back."

"How is your dad these days?" Chief asked. "He don't do any hunting anymore?"

"He's been dead for a couple years now," the man said.

"Is that right? Sorry to hear that. That's how much I stay up on the news around here."

"Yeah, it'll be two years this spring."

"Shit, he was quite a character, your old man," Chief said, nipping again. "But you're not the hunting type I take it?"

"No." He shook his head, looking off in another direction. "Never did take to it. I'm going to have this land protected by the state."

"Is that right? Well that sure is different with everyone selling off to builders these days. Gotta hand it to you there. Maybe I'll look into doing the same with my place."

"I'm going to do it before every inch of this state is built on," the man said with a little smile. "Especially if they get this casino passed that they're talking about."

"Yeah, I've been hearing about that," Chief said. "That sure will change things around here, won't it?"

"Personally, I hope it doesn't go through. But it probably will, the way things have gone in other places."

"It always comes down to money," Chief said.

"Somebody will make a lot of money."

"Yeah, that's what I say. Somebody will, but you won't know who."

The little man chuckled.

"That's about the size of it," he said.

"Well, I guess I'll go back down the creek a ways," Chief said. "Find something walking on four legs." He laughed.

The man didn't think this was too funny.

"Well, like I said, as long as it's not around here," he said. He wanted to be understood on this point, not liking the way this man drank with that gun in his hand. Hell, this was just the kind of character he wanted to keep out of here, so he could enjoy his walks without concern.

"Just down there a ways I should be all right," Chief said.

"I'm going down that way myself," the man said. "I thought I had a sign up around here."

Chief started back the way he had come. He hoped the man wouldn't come along with him. He was tired of looking at him and listening to him.

After walking alongside the water for a short distance, Chief looked back and, yes, he did see the red cap following. Clearly, the man was watching him.

Chief wasn't sure where exactly the boundary was; it had been years since the deal had been made. If there was anybody he sold the land to, he didn't mind it being Old Man Whittington. That man had family history around here too. Hell, the old man would have had a snort with him. But the kid here, well .. At least he wasn't going to build on it.

Finally, Chief put a little distance between him and the red hat, and as he was walking along, or stumbling here and there (he was a little tipsy now), he suddenly saw one of the orange signs on a tree. Absolutely No Hunting or Trespassing of Any Kind, and then some other stuff in smaller letters. Fuck that little runt, Chief thought. Him and his fucking signs.

He looked back to see if he could still see the hat, but he couldn't. He was probably coming this way though. Gotta check on his signs. The old man had never put those up.

Seeing that orange sign made Chief mad at himself for letting his wife talk him into the sale in the first place. He swore at his dead wife. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. He uncapped his bottle and had another drink.

He'd put a little scare into young Whittington, make him think that Chief was unbalanced - the drunk and crazy redskin. Chief cackled, and after capping the bottle again, he raised the gun, aimed, and fired at the sign on the tree.

Chief wasn't really surprised when young Whittington reported him, though he pretended to be. Whittington filed a complaint of trespassing and discharge of a firearm. "I almost got shot walking on my own land," were his words in the local paper that Dawn brought to Chief's trailer one day. "There's plenty of land where these hunters can go."

The law had been to see him. It had also been reported that Chief was highly intoxicated when he met Whittington, but he denied this. He had been friendly with the man, but that was it. He had been on his own land when he fired the gun.   

"And I know where my land is," were his words, in answer to Whittington's. "I ought to know, my family's been hunting on it for hundreds of years."

His daughter laughed when she read that.

"Well, at least you weren't so drunk that you didn't know what to say," she said.

"I knew what to say, just like I knew what I was doing," Chief said. "If I'd wanted to shoot his ass, he wouldn't have been making any report to the paper." He laughed.

"What the hell were you shooting at?" He told her.

"It was just to put a scare into him. He was following me. Just to make sure I wasn't on his land."

"But you were on his land?"

"I was, by mistake. I couldn't remember exactly where the border was. Hell, I've been hunting in those woods for years. The thing of it was I wasn't even going to fire that thing until I saw the sign, and then his red hat coming behind me. There was something about that man, the way he was dressed out of a catalogue. Everything brand new on him like he just took it out of the box. Right down to the boots." He shook his head, with a smile on his face.

"You don't shoot your gun because of the way someone's dressed, dad."

"It was the way he dressed, the way he talked, his signs, everything about him. It seemed like a good idea at the moment. What the hell, I'm sure he's got a new sign up already. Hell, the next time I go down there, he'll probably have a fence up. That's the kind of guy he is, I can tell. He's not a chip off the old block at all." The old man had another drink and laughed. "The only thing he said that made sense was about the casino."

"What about it?"

He knew that would get her attention.

"He wasn't for it." She shrugged.

"Not everyone wants it. Maybe he's got money."

"Well, one thing I can be sure of, he won't be selling out to any developers. He told me that. He's gonna have all that land protected."

"Well, good for him. That makes you happy, doesn't it?"

"Yes. Like I said, that was the one thing he said that made sense. As far as being neighbours goes, I don't think I'd invite him over for a drink."

"I doubt if he'd come. He probably thinks you're crazy now." She smiled at him and shook her head. Always disapproving, he thought, grinning back at her. Just like her mother.

"I'll let him think that. Maybe I'll put some signs of my own up." He laughed.

"I can just see that. Drunk and up on a ladder. You'll end up breaking your neck."

"Maybe I ought to set up a tee pee down there right next to that creek. Really get him thinking."

"Now I know you're drunk."

"Play some drums, shoot some arrows, the whole bit."

Dawn just made a face and shook her head.

"How much have you had already, and it's only early afternoon."

"Just a couple lunchtime cocktails." She nodded her head, but he could tell she didn't believe him. He didn't care.

He did notice she had put on more weight. Dawn was already heavier than her mama ever was, and she wasn't even thirty. She'd had the three kids, but . Lately, it seemed like she was letting herself go. Chief wondered if she would ever get back with Randy, her husband, again. From the last report, it didn't look like it. He was with another woman now, though he did give Dawn money regularly for the kids. Chief didn't like to ask Dawn questions about her private life. Just like he didn't appreciate her poking into his.

"You ought to take a nap," she said, stepping into the house.

"Hell, I ain't tired," he said, to himself. He watched two of his grandkids run from the backyard, laughing about something. He was always finding toys they left behind in the yard.

Once in a while, Chief took the three kids down to the beach, or over to the state park, for a day out with them. He liked to see them enjoying the outdoors rather than sitting inside watching TV or playing computer games. He had seen a news report on TV about how many hours the average kid watched television or sat in front of a computer screen, and the conclusion wasn't a positive one, though it didn't surprise him. He had seen other reports saying that two out of three teenagers were overweight these days, and that didn't surprise him either. All he had to do was look at the chubby bellies and big behinds of his grandkids, who always seemed to have fast food in their hands. Chief remembered a time before these popular fast food places even existed, though his kids didn't. They also didn't remember a time when there weren't any television sets, and this made him laugh.

No, it was their world now. He didn't feel like he belonged in it these days, especially those times when he couldn't seem to get drunk enough to laugh. Those were the bad days, when the medication didn't work. Those were the days he felt like walking into those woods, with his old gun, and never coming back.

Fortunately, today wasn't one of those days, Chief thought. He had gotten a kick out of the little newspaper article, just the kind of thing the little town paper would print, giving everybody a chuckle - except New Boots next door. He doubted if that guy had a sense of humour.

Chief didn't know how long his daughter planned on staying around, but he suddenly had the urge to drive somewhere. He knew Dawn would give him some grief, however, if he took off now. Nowadays, everybody talked about drunk driving. Never mind that he drove, with a buzz on, for years and never had a problem with the cops. A few nights he had slept one off in a bar parking lot, or pulled over to the side of the road, but he had never wrecked a vehicle. But that wouldn't matter to Dawn; she would just say he was too old for that kind of thing now. It always came down to his age these days. Always concern for his health or his failing abilities. Sure he had his aches and pains, and he wasn't as active as he used to be, but he still put in a full shift at the mill five days a week. They seemed satisfied with his work there. And as for the drinking, hell, he knew some guys at the mill who drank twice as much as he did, younger men who sometimes had DWI charges on their record. When he thought of things like this, Chief usually worked up a self-justified anger. He wasn't doing too bad at all, thank you kindly. He'd take care of his business as he always had, and let the younger world go on with its hectic activity.

Though Chief had to admit that he sometimes felt he spent too much time alone. On his days off, he sometimes thought of driving to some of his old haunts for a few drinks and some social life, and yet then he would remember that not all of those places were still in business, or if they were, then the crowd had changed. He would be sitting with young bucks his daughter's age or younger, pretending to be interested in their youthful ways, and laughing when they called him pops. If he got drunk, he might flirt with the women, who would only tolerate him as a friendly old nuisance. No, Chief had seen too many sad pictures like that when he was younger, and he'd promised himself that he would never let that happen, wasting his hours away as he drooped over his beer.

Though he had never said anything to Dawn, Chief was glad that she stopped by at least once a week, with the kids, giving him a sense of family. If it was only his son he had to think about, then he would truly be on his own.

When Dawn came out of the house, he asked her when she had last heard from her brother. She shrugged.

"About a month ago, I guess. When he told me he had a job. He said he was gonna pay me back the money I lent him. Said he had a new girlfriend. Told me to say hi to you."

"That's right," Chief said. "You did mention the girlfriend. Maybe she'll keep him on the right track."

"Maybe. But with Gary , I don't hold my breath anymore."

"Next time he calls, tell him I'm the one in the paper now." He chuckled, and she smiled at this.

"Yeah, I'll cut it out and save it for him. Dad must be senile now, he's shooting trees." Chief laughed.

"Is your grandpa crazy, kids?" he asked the two youngsters in the yard. The girls just looked at him and smiled, in a puzzled way.

"Your grandpa's bats, isn't he, girls?" Dawn said.

They looked at each other and shrugged. One was seven, and the other five.

"I'm a good kind of crazy, aren't I girls?" They laughed.

"Take a couple of those sodas for them," he said to Dawn. "And there's some candy in there, too."

"They get enough sweets as it is, dad. Anyway, I'll leave that soda for you when you run out of that stuff." She nodded at the bottle by his chair.

"Now that's an idea," he said, grinning and shaking his head.

As the old car pulled out of the driveway, and Chief gave them a lazy wave, he remembered he'd have to visit the liquor store today and stock up. It was too early in the day to call it quits yet.