A tiny face peered from behind a broken tree stump. Jim noticed it and chuckled. When it disappeared behind the stump, he pointed. "Your turn" he said.
Ed was seated next to him in the grass atop the ridge overlooking the area. He shouldered his rifle. "Where?" he asked. Jim pointed out the stump a few yards above and just downstream of the hole. The creature reappeared briefly. "Damn, how'd he get there already? I didn't even see him."
Ed spread his feet and dug his elbows firmly into his knees. He pressed the butt of his rifle to his cheek and peered through the iron sights to the side of the stump. At 100 yards, the target was right where he wanted it. The wind was still. "Poke your head out one more time, you little bastard." he muttered, and exhaled.
The creature did not peek again. Instead it made a break for a fallen tree trunk nearby. Caught by surprise, Ed grunted and traced the target across the grass. It reached the shelter of the tree before he could draw a bead on it. "Fast one!" Jim laughed.
A minute passed. Growing uncomfortable, Ed relaxed his aim and scowled.
Finally, the creature reappeared. It climbed atop the trunk and stood erect facing him. Ed expressed bewilderment and took aim. The target remained standing. Ed paused.
"It's a diversion" he said, "Get your gun."
Jim shouldered his weapon and began scanning the side of the hill above the stream. He sensed motion in a tangle of bushes upstream of the hole. Multiple creatures were moving swiftly through the conceilment. He began firing blindly through the leaves. Ed opened up on the same target.
Jim's clip expended after eight shots. It popped out of the receiver with a ping. Ed had fired seven. The motion in the bushes had ceased. Ed aimed his last round at the first creature, still standing in plain view atop the tree trunk.
Taking careful aim, Ed prepared calmly and squeezed the trigger. The shot hit the creature squarely in the chest and exploded through its back. Death came for it quickly. Jim congratulated him on a nice shot.
Ed considered the creature's actions. "It didn't move" he noted, "Even after we took out the runners. I think we missed something else. I think the runners were a second diversion. We just got fooled."
Jim shrugged. "I claim two kills. Two for you too?"
"Okay. What are you up to now?" Ed asked.
"Sixty three and five-sixths" Jim replied proudly. Months earlier, what should have been Jim's twenty-first kill was the subject of dispute. Jim and his older brother had fired together, and both laid claim to the same kill. After arguing for days, their mother settled the issue. She ordered them each to accept half a kill. In so doing, she set a precedent. The counting of fractional kills became common among the shooters on the ridge overlooking the hole.
"I'm at fifty-five and a third" Ed responded. He and Jim were among a trio of shooters one day. He had deprived Jim of a third of what could have been his twenty-seventh-and-a-half kill.
"I'm going to go take a look in those bushes" Ed said. "I'll make sure there are three carcasses."
Jim remained. Both knew if they ever left the ridge unmanned their fathers would kick their asses.
He stood, slung his rifle, and started down the ridge toward the stream. He thought about that last kill. He didn't understand it. He resigned himself to not understanding. He understood why two young men must always keep watch from the ridge: to keep the leprechauns from escaping the hole. That was easy enough to conceive. But it didn't answer any of the broader questions.
Ed and Jim had grown up living near each other. They both started shooting young. All boys did. Hunting was a way of life in the community. They both received pellet guns at the age of ten, and had fun plinking pop cans and taking pot-shots at birds. When they received 22 caliber rifles at the age of thirteen they were charged with keeping the lawns free of ground squirrels. Every "squeenie" they eliminated meant one less burrow in the grass to twist your ankle.
At the age of sixteen Ed's father presented him with the leprechaun rifle. Firing 30-06 cartridges, it was far more gun than anything he'd used before. It was 50 years old, the surplus of a previous generation. Ed loved it. His father had taught him to love it. He lovingly oiled its stock, greased its mechanism, and swabbed its bore.
Around the time he turned eighteen, Ed's father revealed to him the "greatest hunting ground in the world." This was his first visit to the ridge overlooking the hole. Soon he was inducted into a fraternity of young men in the area charged with keeping watch there. He was given two standing orders. First, kill any leprechauns you see. Second, don't get curious about the hole.
Of course, Ed was baffled. He asked questions, but no one ever gave him satisfactory answers. "What's in the hole?" he asked. "Leprechauns, son" his father replied patiently.
"Why do we need to kill them?" he asked. "Because they try to get out."
"Why do they try to get out?" he asked. "Because they're in a hole." It was this type of response that allowed him to realize that no one knew the answers. They all had the same questions, they had just stopped asking them. They were in a cycle. They stopped leprechauns from escaping a hole. It was necessary.
"Why don't we just plug the hole? Or blast it?" Ed asked. This answer came from his grandfather: "It will reopen."
Ed reached bottom of the ridge. The stream was only a few yards wide and at most a foot deep. Clear water flowed over a bed of pebbles and sand. It babbled over rocks and past fallen branches.
The stream joined with the river only a quarter mile down. The river had selected this area to double back upon itself, and double back again. It flooded every spring, making the area useless for crops or livestock. So, the few surrounding square miles of land were left to trees.
When the flood waters rose, the stream backed up and overflowed its banks, even filling the hole. The high water undermined the root systems of nearby trees, leaving tangled masses of branches and roots when it receded. Broken trunks and stumps littered the area. Deep in the channel, the water had washed away the topsoil to reveal bedrock. A cleft in this rock formed the opening of the hole.
Each spring the hole filled and, when the water receded, it emptied. Common sense dictated that the water must go somewhere. To inquire as to where a second opening to the hole might be would be to violate standing order number two.
Ed pondered this as he stood across the stream from it. The interior of the hole was twisted by the turbulent flow of the water, and he could not see far down into it. He had seen a documentary on spelunking on PBS. He was aware than in most parts of the world people give in to the thrill of exploration, and actually venture into caves, rather than stationing armed guards at their entrances.
He put this thought aside and moved upstream before wading across. He climbed the opposite bank and rounded the clump of bushes where he found the bodies of three freshly-killed leprechauns. Their indiscriminate fire had torn the creatures up badly. They had not been killed cleanly. Blood pooled in the dirt. He looked up to see Jim watching him from the ridge. He signaled three kills.
Ed thought about his circumstances. It was late summer, turning toward fall. He had been working the ridge regularly since the water receded the previous spring. At that time he had just finished high school. In fall he would normally be gearing up for the next school year to begin, but now his education was complete and he didn't have school to occupy him.
In time he would take a job in town, find a girl, find a home, and settle down to live the life his father and grandfather had lived. He would work most days, taking others off to fill his assigned time on the ridge. He would probably have some kids. He wouldn't fully tell them what he did with his time until they grew old enough to take his place.
Each day between now and then would be similar to today. He and Jim and the others would sit in the grass with their rifles and kill leprechauns. He wondered how many kills he would have by then. He wondered how many kills his father had. He wondered if they could ever kill all of the leprechauns. He wondered if anyone would ever get curious about the hole.
Ed stopped wondering. He made his way down the bank and followed the stream to the opening in the rock.
He stood before the hole and peered inside. Jim was yelling from atop the ridge, but Ed ignored him. He unslung his rifle and retracted the bolt. He pressed a clip into the receiver and slammed the bolt home, chambering a round. He crouched and shuffled through the opening.
Rounding the first bend, Ed paused, realizing he had come unprepared. He had no light. Already there was no direct sunlight to illuminate his surroundings. He decided to go as far as the remaining reflected light would let him.
He moved forward a few yards and stopped to let his eyes adjust. After a few moments, he became aware of another bend ahead. There were gradations of darkness. There were shapes. As his night vision improved, the shapes became structures of rock. He moved forward to the next bend, turned, and stared into absolute blackness. Nearby, more shapes slowly resolved into more rocks.
Ed fully expected to find a leprechaun somewhere, so he should not have been surprised when one of the rock shapes stood up and ran into the dark. It moved so smoothly and swiftly that he wasn't certain whether or not he had imagined it. His eyes and his imagination seemed to hold equal sway over what he perceived there with him in the hole. Tiny footsteps echoed. Ed did not imagine these. Panic began to set in. His finger pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flash was blinding. It illuminated the hole for a millisecond. Ed's mind was imprinted with a vivid snapshot of rock, rifle, and running leprechaun. Staring into the darkness, this image was all he could see. He froze.
Ed felt fear. The only thing he knew about leprechauns was that they needed to be killed. He did not know why they needed to be killed. He did not know what they were capable of. If they attacked him in the dark, what would they do?
Ed stared at the image in his mind while his imagination began filling in the uncertainties. The echoing of tiny footsteps rushed back into his ears, multiplied a hundred-fold. He felt hundreds of tiny hands tearing at his flesh. He felt hundreds of tiny teeth piercing his skin. He felt hundreds of tiny feet trampling him to death. He began firing his rifle madly.
In the flashes of the muzzle Ed's eyes were allowed to trump his imagination. There were not hundreds of leprechauns, but there were nearly a dozen. They were not tearing at him or biting him, they were doing exactly what leprechauns always do. They were running.
They passed over him and herded toward the mouth of the hole and out into the daylight. Ed could hear the sound from outside. He heard eight pops and a pause, eight pops and a pause, eight pops and a pause. Jim was burning through ammo as fast as he could.
Ed picked himself up and crawled quickly out of the hole. He stood, surrounded by dying leprechauns. Jim's rifle flashed high up on the ridge. A shot whizzed past Ed's knees and ricocheted off the rock. He threw up his hands and dove behind a nearby tree.
This cover was already occupied by two cowering leprechauns. Surprised by Ed's arrival, they jumped up and ran in opposite directions. Ed fumbled for his weapon and struggled to level it at one of the fleeing creatures. Eight more pops rang out and the earth around the creature exploded with puffs of flying dirt and wood. Finally a shot found its target and the creature fell. Ed wheeled round to take aim at the remaining leprechaun and shot it cleanly in the back. The clip ejected with a ping.
Ed rejoined Jim atop the ridge. "Seventy-four and five sixths" Jim said. They sat in silence until the day ended and their relief arrived.