CHRISTMAS GOOSE

The two boys drifted toward each other as they hauled their geese to the truck. Their father had said that if they were old enough to shoot them, they were old enough to carry them. They barely noticed that he had all three cased shotguns in one hand and the bag of decoys over his opposite shoulder.

The boy noticed how his younger brother, Jon Jon, held his goose close to his chest. The boy held his by the neck, the way he’d seen his father and uncle do dozens of times before. This was not his first goose.

Their father hefted the decoys into the bed and slid the shotguns onto the floor behind the front seat. The boy was about to drop his goose beside the decoys when his father stopped him.

“You need to take those into the trees and pluck them.”

“Pluck em? Both of them? That’ll take forever.” The boy had helped his father and uncle pluck a goose the each of the previous two years—the Christmas goose—and even the men complained about it.

“You best get busy then.”

“Couldn’t we just skin them?” The boy almost never argued with his father and Jon Jon watched the exchange the same way he watched a spider wrap a new victim.

His father turned and stared, his eyes a mix of incredulity and irritation.

The boy lowered his chin, his defiance drained from that single look. “Yes, sir.”

Jon Jon warmed his fingers under his goose’s feathers as he watched his older brother yank and tear, mumbling about unfairness and making little progress despite the growing air of fine feathers. The goose convulsed with each violent rip and made a strange popping sound. The act of ripping feathers from his goose seemed less pure than the act of shooting the bird—at least the way his brother pulled at them like a starved coyote.

Jon Jon finally went to one knee and began to pull at the feathers. A moment later, his father knelt beside him to help. By the time they finished, the boy had calmed and even felt a sense of accomplishment for having plucked his bird without assistance.

On the way home, their father, turned down Bobby Unger’s driveway. A year ago, the boy’s father and Bobby’s father had argued almost to the point of litigation over fence that went over somebody’s property line. Six months ago, the Army deployed Bobby’s father overseas. While he was away fighting for his country, their stock contracted Johne’s disease. The boy’s dad said it was like chronic wasting. The boy only knew that was bad and that when folks started talking about “missing payments” and “significant losses” it often preceded lost farms and ranches.

“What are we doing here?” Jon Jon asked.

“He wants us to give up our geese,” the boy said.

“You boys worked hard to get them geese. You hunted like I told you. You shot like I taught you. And you froze your fingers getting all those feathers clear. I also believe I taught you boys about what it means to be neighbors.”

“This is my first goose ever,” Jon Jon said. “My only goose.” The last part came out in a whisper.

“I ain’t telling you. This is your choice. But just remember Bobby’s dad ain’t here to take him hunting or help with the cattle. He’s off doing the things nobody wants to talk about but that must be done. He’s fighting for us. What’re we going to do for him and his family? You decide.”

Their father’s implied disappointment left little choice, but they hesitated long enough for his father’s shoulders to slump. Both boys would always remember that.

Later, lying in bed, the boys stared at the darkness and tried to remember that moment between the blast and the folding wings. Jon Jon could still smell the goose’s cold flesh on his fingers. “Hey, Steve?” he said. “What are we going to have for Christmas dinner?”

The image of Bobby’s mother, reaching for the geese, her eyes clouded, held his response. Finally, he said, “We’ll have Dad.”

THE NIGHT BEFORE

Snow gathered at the corners of the windows like piles of swarming ants. The boy leaned close to the fire and stared until his eyes burned. His father said the storm would bring wind in the morning—perfect for the goose hunt.

The boy remembered his first goose. He remembered the crusty snow crunching under his boots, the cold fire in his toes as they sat waiting for the birds to take flight across the river, the dead goose, its vacant eyes staring at—nothing. He remembered his fingers warming under its feathers as he held it in his hands. He remembered the pride and the sadness and the finality of it all.

He had wanted his friend, Adunya, to sit beside him and hear the chatter from the evening roost rise to a fervor that you feel in your gut. He had wanted Adunya’s hands to tremble from the waiting, from the coming explosion of feathers and honks and a sky that seems to beat like a heart -- a mass of black and white and gray moving with focused purpose. He had wanted the boy from Ethiopia, the boy who knew lions and elephants and buffalo, to know geese as well. To fight the urge to jump from the pit as the flock seems poised to land, wondering if the “take em” call would ever come. To shove the lids and hear the pop, pop, pop, of the shotguns. To witness the wings fold, to sprint forward—to feel the warmth beneath the feathers.

The boy had killed other game since that frigid morning, but that first goose promised a memory to last. He could even still smell the grass at the peep holes if he closed his eyes. He had wanted Adunya to share that with him, but Uncle Albin took him back to Ethiopia. Even if they had geese in Africa and even if Adunya hunted them there, the boy knew it would not be the same.

The boy turned away from the fire and glanced at his younger brother, Jon Jon. Their father had promised that they both could shoot this year. Jon Jon sat by the window drawing shapes with his finger on the foggy glass—a couple of them looked like birds—like geese.

For a moment, the boy believed he could see his brother's thoughts. And in the morning, they would make thier tracks in the fresh snow and sit together trembling as the chatter across the river became a roar. Maybe some of the geese would veer to the spread. And if everything went just right, they might cup their wings. Whatever happened after that almost didn't matter.

RUNNING

The boy stumbled, his foot slipping on the gravel road, his palm stinging with small rocks. He continued on, unwilling to quit, unwilling to believe he could not make it. It was only two miles to his Uncle Albin’s cabin. He and Jon Jon walked that far almost every day, hunting, fishing, exploring. But running made his lungs burn, it made his legs feel like jelly, it made him want to walk. His legs and arms began to flail as fatigue and resolve grappled with one another.

He couldn’t let his friend leave. He couldn’t let him leave without saying goodbye, without telling him… Telling him what? The boy slowed for a moment, his forehead itching with sweat. What would he say? Don’t get eaten by lions? He wouldn't say what he felt. Not a chance. But he had realized, after his father had driven down the road, that he had to say something. Adunya might never come back.

The boy’s feet slipped trying to gain traction on the gravel road as he began a sprint. He could see Uncle Albin’s roof now and he thought he heard an engine.

He wiped his eyes one more time before turning at the gate. His father and Uncle Albin stood shaking hands beside Uncle Albin’s truck. Adunya and Jon Jon crouched beside a hole under the shed that cats liked to crawl into.

Walking now, the boy’s eyes shifted from Adunya to his father. He stopped when he noticed the old man and Uncle Albin looking his way. The boy expected a scolding look or an “I told you so” stare. Instead, his father tilted his head toward Adunya and Jon Jon—that was it.

When Adunya saw the boy, he stood and smiled, the machete hanging over his shoulder like an extension of his hand. That curved blade had made him nervous when he’d first met the boy from Ethiopia. He came to see it as no different from the pocket knife he carried and even envied it, especially when Adunya took the lead as they explored the brush, swinging it back and forth cutting and slicing a path. He always made it look so easy, but whenever the boy tried, he fumbled with it and had to chop over and over at the thinnest of branches. Adunya’s smooth, precise swipes always slashed right through.

Jon Jon ran to greet the boy. “Steve, look what Adunya made me. Look.” He held the smoothed and sharpened spear in the palms of his hands.

The boy recognized it. The same spear Adunya had thrust into the jack rabbit the boy had chased across the prarie until it made the mistake of darting left to where Adunya hid in the brush. The same spear Adunya had used to carry a line of catfish they had caught at the pond. It was a good spear. The best the boy had ever seen.

Adunya approached the boy. He held out his fist and then opened his hand. “This foot from rabbit. It has great power?”

The boy nodded.

“I become envy of my tribe with this magic foot from American beast.”

The boy wanted to tell him to be the envy of his tribe here, where he had people who cared about him, where he could sleep in a real house, where a neighbor wouldn’t murder Uncle Albin over nothing. To tell him that the thunderstorms would quiet during the winter, that he didn't have to run from them. Instead, he nodded and said, “Do you think you’ll come back?”

Adunya lowered his gaze and rubbed the rabbit’s foot with his thumb.

“Maybe someday, I can come to Africa.”

“Yeah, me too.” Jon Jon almost bounced on his toes before charging toward his father. “Dad, can we go to Africa some day? Can we?”

Adunya lifted his shoulders and raised his head. With all the pride of Ethiopia, he handed the boy his machete.

The boy had secretly yearned for that tool so many times over the last few months. Now he felt unworthy to hold it. But he knew if he refused it would be an insult.

Before Adunya closed the door to Uncle Albin’s truck, before he began his return trip to Ethiopia, the boy said, “Watch out for lions.” He had no idea what else to say.

Adunya smiled. “Step carefully if grass begin to rattle.”

The boy’s father gripped his son’s shoulder as dust from behind Uncle Albin’s truck rose to the east. And though the boy said nothing, his father's heavy hand helped.

REGRET

The boy’s father gripped his son’s shoulder. “They can’t wait much longer. They may already be gone.”

The boy wanted to ask his father to stop them. To tell Uncle Albin that Adunya would not be better off in Ethiopia. He wanted to tell his father that Adunya was the best friend he ever had. And that if he went back to Africa, they may never see him again. He wanted kick the wall. He wanted to cry. Instead, without looking up, he handed his father the rabbit’s foot he had cut and dried.

“You should be the one to give him this.”
The boy did not answer. He stared down at his fingers.

“You'll regret it. Maybe for the rest of your life.”

The boy finally looked up, his eyes glossy with the tears he fought. “Can you give it to him, Dad? I want you to give it to him.”

His father knelt to one knee to look his son in the eye. “If you want Adunya to have this. If you want him to know how you feel. To know that you value his friendship, then it has to come from you.”

“I can’t.” The boy did not remember ever saying that before and it burned his belly. He turned away, no longer able to look at his father, knowing the old man's eyes would be filled with disappointment.

The boy stared at the floor, his fingers, the wall, anything but his father. He only looked up after his father had left the room. He heard the front door close. He heard Jon Jon ask why he wasn't coming, he heard the truck doors slam. When the engine turned over, he hurried to his window. He saw his father stare at the front door before shifting into drive and pulling away.

He closed his eyes and saw an image of Adunya's face.

“No,” he said and sprinted out his room, for the front door. He jumped off the porch waving his hands, yelling. “Wait! Wait!”

He stared at the settling dust cloud and he wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. Then he ran.

FOR LUCK

The boy dropped to one knee and lifted the limp cottontail from the gray, thirsty earth. Its soft body hung over either side of his palm as if it had no bones. It was better when they died before he walked up to them, but it did not always happen that way. Sometimes their eyes glazed over and filled with something he pretended not to see. It burned his soul. Sometimes, when he had to finish it, he looked away. And that churned his belly with a shame he did not understand.

This rabbit, shot with his father's .22, served a purpose beyond sustenance or sport. His newest friend, his best friend, was leaving. Uncle Albin had decided to take Adunya back to Ethiopia. He may never come back. He may choose Ethiopia. The boy wanted Adunya to remember the deer they had stalked, the frogs they had caught, the rabbits they had hunted. The boy wanted Adunya to remember him.

He field dressed the rabbit, but before skinning it, he cut off the back right foot. He would soak it in the borax, let it dry, and then he would give it to his friend. Adunya had many strange beliefs--most of which the boy did not understand. There was much they failed to comprehend about one another, the two hunters from different sides of the world. But Adunya would appreciate the rabbit's foot. He knew hunting and he knew tradition.

As the boy wrapped the rabbit in a dry cloth and packed it in his knapsack, he glanced up. A single turkey vulture soared above him. Those birds could smell death from a hundred miles away, he thought. A shudder slithered down his back.

Adunya had spoken about the vultures of his home, how they swarmed to death like ants on a grasshopper, snapping and hissing for a taste of blood. Adunya told the boy of the time they found the remains of a village child who had died from a snakebite. They had to chase the vultures away with sticks and rocks.

Adunya was returning to that place.

The boy hiked home holding tight to the rabbit's foot, holding tight to the hope that some superstitions were based on truth.

To Hear The Lion

The door hissed when Uncle Albin pushed it with his fingertips. A flash of lightning lit the room and he noticed the empty bed. Though the vacant mattress was not unusual, the missing blanket was. Adunya often slept on the floor, his head propped on a shoe box or shoe for a pillow. But Adunya never covered himself with the wool blanket. Even on the rare occasion when he used the bed, he slept on top of it.

A roar of thunder, long and close, shook the cabin. Uncle Albin thought he heard a whine. He wrapped his free hand around the front of the flashlight he carried. Just as his thumb touched the switch, an extended flow of lightning filled the shadows with a metallic blue haze. A lump in one corner trembled.

"Adunya," he called out softly. "It's Uncle."

No answer.

Uncle Albin's palm blocked most of the flashlight's brightness. He followed the subdued light toward the boy he had adopted from Ethiopia.

"Adunya, he said again. "It's Uncle." He sat on the bed and eased the blanket away.

Adunya's eyes, wide and glossy with tears, glistened with fear. The fingers of his right hand trembled as they tightened around the wooden handle of his real father's machete.

Uncle Albin did not reach for the blade. "The storm will end soon, my boy."

Adunya stared out the window. Neither of them spoke or moved for a moment. The boy seemed to be bracing himself for the next strike. He jumped when it came.

"I miss Father," he said after the thunder echoed away.

"I miss him too."

"Father hunt the lion with you."

Uncle Albin nodded, remembering the unsurpassed skills of his head tracker--his friend. "Your father was a great lion hunter."

"He tell me the lion voice at night could chase the thunder away."

"Your father was a wise man."

Another bolt of lightning. Another rumble of thunder. Adunya cowered in the corner, unable to look at Uncle. Unable to accept his shame.

He waited for the quiet, keeping his eyes to the floor. "I miss the lion," he said.

Through the window, the dark outline of a leafless tree looked like the claw of a banished demon reaching for its next victim.

Adunya's father had a brother who lived half the year in Addis Ababa. Uncle Albin and Adunya would travel back together and he would allow the boy to choose.

Uncle Albin turned away. He did not want the boy to see his glossy eyes glistening with fear.

PRIDE

"Look, Steve. Look." Jon Jon poked his finger forward like he was ringing an invisible doorbell. "They're making rings out in the middle. Ain't no fish on this side--nothing big anyhow. They're over along the brush or in the deep. We need a boat."

"Where we gonna get a boat?"

Jon Jon shrugged, the tip of his fishing pole bouncing. "How else we gonna get over there?"

"We can't," the boy said. The brush is too thick. We can't get through. You know that."

"Maybe we could cut a path with Adunya's machete."

Adunya slowly worked away from them, searching the ground as if tracking a deer.

"What do you think he's doing anyhow?" Jon Jon said.

This time the boy shrugged. Adunya sometimes chanted. He sometimes bounced around. He often tracked game. He always ran screaming during a storm. The boy had come to expect odd behavior from his adopted Ethiopian cousin. He had just recently come to accept him as a cousin--Jon Jon had not.

"What're you doing," Jon Jon yelled.

The boy leaned away from his younger brother as if the volume hurt his ears.

Without acknowledging them, Adunya began hacking at a tree's low branch. It came down after two swings. Cutting at an angle he severed the bushy end of the branch, leaving him a four-foot stick.

The brothers pressed in close.

"You making another spear?" Jon Jon asked.

Adunya looked up and pointed at his ear, signaling them to listen.

The boy closed his eyes. Birds--at least three different calls. The wind...

"I don't hear anything," Jon Jon said.

Neither the boy nor Adunya answered him.

Leaves scratching in the trees. A splash. Frogs croaking. Lots of them.

"You gonna try to get some frogs?"

Adunya looked at the boy and smiled.

"I thought we was fishing." Jon Jon lifted his pole.

"Can you help me make a spear?" the boy knelt beside Adunya.

"What about cutting the brush?" Jon Jon looked back toward the water. He saw a rare raven glide over the pond and perch on a fallen cottonwood as if settling to watch a show. The water rolled as a bass or catfish or carp rose to surface feed.

"I bet we can get a hundred frogs. Listen to that," Steve said.

"What you gonna do with all them frogs?"

"The frog is very good. My father, he bring home many before rainy season."

"Eew. I ain't eating no frog."

"Just go fishing if you don't want to catch frogs." The boy shook his head.

Jon Jon stared at their backs for a moment. Spearing frogs might be fun. But he promised Mom he'd bring her a big fat catfish to fry. Steve had hooked into a monster once--before Adunya came. They had seen its wide, powerful mouth just as the line snapped. Jon Jon would go catch that fish. He'd find a way to the other side and he'd tell Dad how he caught it all by himself and Mom would fry it and everyone would say how delicious it was. And they would all know he caught it because his Dad would tell them he had.

They had searched for a way to the other side before, but impatience or trepidation always hindered their progress. On this day, Steve and Adunya were too busy to discourage or distract him and their voices, close and confident, would fuel his courage.

He ducked into the brush, his pole in one hand, a small box of worms in the other. After ten yards he had to crawl to fit through. A branch caught his collar and tightened it around his neck. He yanked it away. Through a small opening, he could see the raven. It seemed to stare at him, to consider him--as if waiting for him.

Pushing forward, Jon Jon scratched the corner of his eye on a twig. He rubbed it with dusty fingers. It stung. Like fire. He couldn't open it. He rubbed harder. More fire. Forcing his good eye open, he searched for the raven. Had it moved closer? Didn't Steve once say that if you saw a raven someone was going to die?

Jon Jon's breath felt like his eye. The raven, the water, the bushes all blurred together under the tears in his open eye. Had to get out. Had to get back to Steve and Adunya. He lost the worms and turned, reaching ahead for a passage with his free hand. Branches and thorns and grass grabbed at his legs and shoulders. The raven called.

Jon Jon heard himself whimpering and hoped Steve and Adunya could not hear it. He almost called out for their help. He almost stopped himself from crying. The line at the tip of his pole tangled in a bush. He jerked at it. The tangle worsened. Wiping tears off his cheek, he bit at the line near the reel and felt it give. He saw the edge of the brush and scurried out.

He scanned for Steve and Adunya, his face tingling with shame and wet with tears. They had not moved. They had not seen. He snapped his eye toward the raven. Gone.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist as he eased toward Steve and Adunya. The raven called again. He quickened his step and did not look back until beside his older brother. The brush looked like the barbed wire above a prison fence. The raven swooped down and landed on a log beside the bushes. It cocked its head and stared.

Jon Jon moved around his brother and set his pole against a tree. He wiped his cheek one last time. "Ain't no big fish on this side anyhow."


Painting: Eye of the Raven by John Banovich
http://www.johnbanovich.com/

FRIENDS

"How come I don't get to carry the gun?"

"Cause it's my gun and you're not old enough."

"You going to let me shoot it?"

"We'll see." The boy had heard his father say that so many times that it seemed the only natural response to Jon Jon's pleas. "What's wrong with the bow? You're a great shot with it. Even better than me."

"That was before you got the twenty-two. You'll be able to kill every rabbit before I can even get close enough to shoot."

"I ain't gonna kill every rabbit. We might not even see any."

"We could go over by Old Man Hill's brush pile."

"We got to go get Adunya. And Old Man Hill's brush pile's on the other side of the canyon."

"Steve?" Jon Jon slowed a step.

"Yeah?"

"Why'd Uncle Albin adopt Adunya?"

The boy stopped, buffalo grass tickling his ankle up his pant leg. "You know what happened to his dad. He didn't have no mom. Uncle Albin said he didn't have any other place to go. He had family, but none he ever met before."

"At least he would have fit in with them. He don't belong here."

"Just cause he ain't from here don't mean he don't belong." The boy reached down and scratched his ankle. "You ever seen anyone hunt like him? I know I ain't. Someone like that don't belong here, I don't know who does."

"You're the one who said they should ship him back to Ethiopia."

The boy started walking again, looking away from his younger brother's eyes. "That was before I got to know him. Before I thought about it. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I don't believe it now anyhow.

"I think maybe you were right. Maybe we'd all be better off if he went back to Africa."

The boy turned, an incredulous look on his face.

Jon Jon's tone almost equaled a whisper. "I'm afraid of him."

"Afraid? Why?"

"He sometimes looks at me like I'm the one who chopped his dad."

"Why would he look at you like that? You're just seeing things." The boy tried to sound convincing, but he'd seen that same look.

"Remember when he killed one of them guinea's Uncle Albin keeps for bugs? That was spooky. And he looked at me like I was next."

The boy did remember. He remembered Adunya hitting that tamed guinea with a rock and then pouncing on it. While twisting its neck, he sat on it to keep it from scratching at him. It's wings slapped the ground, it shuddered, it's beak opened, and then it died. Adunya showed no reaction. He merely lifted the limp bird by the neck, carried it behind the cabin, and began plucking its feathers while the cats waited for a scrap.

"How's that different from shooting a cottontail? Sometimes they don't die right away and we got to finish them."

"We don't strangle them," Jon Jon said.

"Dead is dead."

The boy kicked a rock and watched it roll. Uncle Albin's cabin was just on the other side of the rise. Adunya would be waiting by now. He'd be waiting for his friends.

Just Dreams

The boy leaned in, his forehead touching the crack in the door.

"What are you going to do?"

"How do you stop nightmares?"

The boy's father did not answer for so long that the boy wondered if they knew about his eavesdropping. He almost slipped back to bed.

"When do you go back to Ethiopia?"

"You know I can't just take him back. I owe his father more than that. I owe him more than that."

"You sure this is what's right for him? You sure he's not better off with his own people?"

"You worried about your boys? He ain't dangerous, Hagan."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure."

The boy knew they were talking about Adunya. When Uncle Albin brought that boy home, everything changed.

Forced friendships begin with reluctance--the boy protective of his turf, Adunya eager to claim his new home. But over the past few months, the boy and Adunya had eased past any differences and disdain. Though it remained unspoken, a friendship had evolved to the point that they shared an easy understanding--if one boy needed help up the last five feet of the canyon, the other reached back without question, without the judgement the boy often glared back at Jon Jon when he asked for his hand. Adunya had seen real lions, he had killed game with a spear. What could be cooler than that?

The boy showed Adunya mule deer and pronghorn and coyotes and grouse and bull snakes and listened as Adunya compared them to kudu and gazelles and jackals and franklin and pythons. But what most fascinated the boy about Adunya was the way he walked, without shoes, without sound. The boy tried, but it hurt his feet and with shoes on, he had no chance to mimic the Ethiopian's silence.

Adunya sometimes stared blankly at the sky, he carried that big machete, he ate little, and any chance of a storm terrified him, but dangerous? Maybe. The boy knew Adunya's father had been hacked to death by a neighbor. He knew Adunya saw it and he knew how angry he'd be if it had been his own father. Strange as he might be, Adunya had never given the boy any reason to fear him. No, the boy agreed with Uncle Albin. Adunya was not dangerous. And he did not need to go back to Ethiopia.

"That boy's seen things I wouldn't wish on no man," the boy's father said. "Maybe you should have him see a shrink."

"Ain't no shrinks around here, Hagan. Have to take him to Cheyenne or Denver. How's some city fellow supposed to help a boy who grew up in a dirt-floor hut?"

"What you going to do?"

"I guess I'll raise him the way Pop raised us."

"What about schooling?"

"What's he going to do with schooling?"

"He's gonna need an education."

"He'll get an education. Better than he would from some public school system."

"You think it's easy to be a teacher?"

"He'll learn what he needs."

"You just going to hope them nightmares take care of themselves?"

"I don't know, Hagan. They're just dreams."

"You know they're more than that."

"I know."

The boy crawled back into his bed. As he stared at the darkness, he thought about lions. He thought about dirt-floor huts. He thought about machetes.

New Book

FENCE POSTS

The prairie's edge softened in the gray half-light of dusk. Without hurry, the boy dug at the base of an old branch whose time as a fence post had run its course. He wiped his brow with his forearm and felt the dust and sweat, grit and slime. He stared past Jon Jon working on the next post, past a string of early geese pumping the air above fields loose with amber grass, past a row of fence posts that had stood since Old Man Hill's grandfather rooted them there as much to keep strays out as to keep his own stock in. Though the boy knew where Old Man Hill's property ended, he could not see it. He saw the horizon, daunting and unreachable. It would take them the rest of the summer, or longer, to finish the job.

They had been at it for two hours and Jon Jon had not said a word. He dug, he jostled, he pulled, he grunted. He did not talk. They had removed twelve posts, Jon Jon responsible for seven. The boy paused his own digging to consider the geese and his father and the goose pit--the coming Autumn. Jon Jon kept working, without complaint, without a break.

The boy almost opened his mouth. He almost told his younger brother that he would finish the day, maybe even the summer--alone. He almost apologized, like his father always said he should when he made a mistake--even if he hadn't meant any harm.

Instead, he hacked at the base of the severed limb that had once been a fence post, that had once been young, and muttered under his breath about the unfairness of it all.

Old Man Hill

The boy grabbed his younger brother's arm just above the elbow. "Get down," he whispered.

"I want to see him."

"You'll scare him away." The boy pulled Jon Jon down to his level. "He might come closer."

"You think so? That would be cool. Maybe we should have a look."

"Not yet." The boy stretched his neck, straining to see through prairie grass thicker than a wheat field. Another few inches and he could peek over the top. But then Jon Jon would think it was okay to jump up. He slid back into the draw and stared at Jon Jon. Even if the deer did move closer, what would they do then? The had no bow. They had no rifle. They didn't even have a slingshot. Were deer even in season?

"Okay, we'll look together." The boy put his hand on Jon Jon's shoulder. "Real slow."

The boy's grip tightened around his brother's shoulder. Their toes slipped on the sandpaper slope. They pushed over the edge and stopped. Shouldn't the deer be running?

Jon Jon pointed. "There."

"Where?"

"Right there. He's staring right at us."

"I don't see anything."

"Right in front of us. It's a good buck."

The deer flinched to a freeze before bounding to the top of the next ridge. It stopped there, glanced over it's shoulder, then, as if swallowed by the sunset, disappeared.

Jon Jon started to run. "C'mon, Steve. Let's go."

"We ain't never going to catch him before dark. We best be getting home now. You know what happened last time we missed curfew."

Jon Jon's smiled faded as he rubbed his backside.

The boys ran, neither of them sure who started first, neither of them questioning the older boy's two-step lead. They leaped over small washouts, climbed a six-foot rock outcropping, and pushed through a field of short grass prairie. The sun's descent now cast a pinkish glow over the treeless hills and the deep blue before darkness crept toward the horizon. Their father would be home soon.

The boy stopped at the barbed wire fence Jon Jon ran past him a few steps before turning back. "Why you stopping? We're going to be late."

"We have to cross through Old Man Hill's place."

"No. We have to go around. We can make it if we hurry."

"It's the only way. It'll cut our time in half."

"We'll get shot."

"He ain't going to shoot us. He ain't even going to know we were there."

"I don't know, Steve. You know he ran over Josh Weemer's dog after it chased one of his cows."

"You don't know it was Mr. Hill."

"Who else is mean enough to do that?"

"Come on. We need to get home. Nobody's going to know."

When the boy slipped between two lines of barbed wire, Jon Jon hesitated, but his older brother traipsing away from him trumped trepidation. Every shadow was one of Old Man Hill's aggressive bulls--or worse. A distant coyote howl spread across the darkening sky like a forgotten cry of the dead.

Their strides lengthened. Old Man Hill's roof peeked over the next rise. Almost there. Almost home.

The sound of a truck engine burst form the twilight behind them. The boy glanced back. Headlights bouncing over the plains--gaining. The boy twisted Jon Jon's sleeve and pulled him into a narrow draw. They ducked into the grass, a prickly pear cactus attacking the boy's knee. He winced and scratched at unseen needles that would haunt him for days.

The truck stopped. The engine cut. Jon Jon's breath sputtered. They listened. A small click. Footsteps--maybe. A shuffling. A full minute of only Jon Jon's breathing. Then, like a hungry demon rising from the pit of hell, a high-pitched screaming like nothing either of them had ever heard. Jon Jon covered his ears and rolled to face his older brother, his eyes bright orbs of fear.

The scream died to a mournful, almost pleading wail as if all hope had abandoned the world. The boy and Jon Jon stared at each other, horror mirrored in eyes of innocence. Even after it ended, the memory of that whining voice hung in the silence like a recurring nightmare.

A blast shocked them flat. It felt as if their ears might bleed and the boy swore he saw a burst of fire from above them.

"He's shooting at us. Run."

They sprinted to the fence where the boy tore his shirt crossing through. They raced across Old Man Hill's yard, ignoring the deep bay of the black lab from inside. They ran home, their father only glancing up as they scurried to their room. They sat and avoided eye contact, their breath and trembles tapering. After a few minutes, the boy forced a chuckle.

Just as Jon Jon began to smile, they heard a truck pulling down the driveway.

BEAR HUNTING

"How long until our dad gets home?" Jon Jon lifted the top lip of his uncle's sleeping black lab.

"About a week or so," Uncle Albin said.

The boy, sitting under the dull light from the window trying, in vain, to explain to Adunya why the stacked checkers piece is called a king, peered out toward the setting sun. "Are bears dangerous?" he asked.

"Can be," Uncle Albin said. "But if you shoot straight, you got nothing to worry about. And your pa, he's steady as a post. he could shoot the whiskers off a cat."

I do not know this bear," Adunya said. "It is like a hippo?"

Jon Jon laughed. "Na, it's much worse than a hippo. It's huge, bigger than old man Hill's German shepherd. It's got long, sharp teeth like a shark and razor claws that could spill your guts on the floor with one swipe."

Adunya thought on that for a moment. "No, it does not sound like hippo. It is more like lion, I think. But hippo much more dangerous than lion."

"They are?" Jon Jon looked at his uncle. "Is that true?"

"Hippos kill far more people than lions do." Uncle Albin did not even try to hide his smirk.

"Wow. I can hardly believe that." Jon Jon shifted in his seat and straightened his back. "You think pa will get a bear? I'd sure like to see those claws."

"He's way up north, where there's more bears than people. I'd say he's got a fair chance."

"My father's brother, he was killed by a lion. It took him during the night. When they find him the next morning, vultures pick at what is left of him. He was a strong warrior--he had killed many animals, even lions. But the lion took him so easy." Adunya had this glazed over look as if he were staring past the others, staring past the cabin even, to a time, a place, a life beyond recovery.

"Hey Uncle Albin?" The boy said without pulling his gaze from the graying day outside the window.

"Yeah, Steven."

"Are bears like lions?"

Painting: North Country by John Banovich http://johnbanovich.com/

WHEN THE RAIN COMES

A turkey vulture rode the air current leading the storm. Dark clouds crept toward them like a slow warning.

The boy had seen storms like this. They came in fast and heavy and blew by as if they had never existed. He paid it little attention. It was too far to run to the cabin anyhow. The boy and Adunya walked to the pond in relative silence. Neither asked any of the the questions picking at their thoughts.

Finally, the boy repeated something he had heard his father and uncle say on numerous occasions. "Storm's coming."

Adunya stopped. He did not utter a word.

The boy turned back. For the first time since he met Adunya, the boy saw something other than indifference. He saw fear.

"Ain't nothing but a storm. A little rain, maybe some wind and thunder."

"Where I come from, the storm bring bad things."

"Bad things?"

"The storm bring death."

Until that moment, the boy thought of Adunya as a strange kid from a strange land--he thought of him as an intruder. Under a sudden rush of pity came a dose of curiosity. He had to know more. He started to ask, but noticed Adunya's wide eyes fixed on the churning clouds, his feet like stones, his forehead shining with perspiration.

"Come on. There's a cut in the embankment where we can stay dry." The boy reached for Adunya's arm.

Adunya sprung back and raised his fishing spear as if the boy were a rattlesnake trying to strike.

The boy eased away, wondering if this was the point Adunya, the boy from Ethiopia, turned savage. But it was almost as if Adunya did not even see the boy, as if he saw through him, to a place nobody could know or understand.

"It's okay," the boy said. "If you want to get outta the storm, you need to come with me." The boy started to run, not knowing for sure if Adunya even understood him. When he glanced back, his companion was following close behind, that basket of razor points at the end of his spear pumping toward the boy's back with each stride.

The boys ran like pronghorn chased by wolves. And the storm, like a barbarian horde, rumbled forward--unstoppable, unmerciful. The rain began just before they ducked under a seven-foot-high embankment with a grass-covered, drooping overhang. The boy had used it many times. From underneath, they could see roots dangling from its ceiling. It always looked to the boy as if the dry earth would break loose and crush him. He only hesitated to use it when his younger brother, Jon Jon, was along.

Both boys pulled their knees to their chests. Thunder and lightning, like war-time explosions, filled the sky and giant raindrops whipped in sideways like waves of kamikazes. The pond almost appeared to boil.

"Look at that." The boy had to yell just to hear himself. "That is so cool." When he turned to Adunya, his smile faded.

Tears stained the young Ethiopian boy's cheeks. His limbs trembled and his eyelids would not close.

When the rain stopped and the silence waited for water to finish dripping from leaves and branches and grass, the boy peeked his head into the open to scan the sky. "It's over now," he said.

"They came for my father during storm."

The boy held his gaze to the sky.

"I did nothing. I am coward."

They hiked back to the cabin while rays of sun began poking holes through what remained of the clouds. Their fishing gear remained unused--their thoughts unspoken.

Perceptions

"Why do I have to take him?"

"He doesn't have anyone else to go with. And because I said so."

"I don't even know if he speaks American. What if he tries to hit me with that machete Uncle Albin lets him carry around?" the boy said.

"You mean English. Yes, he does. And he's not going to hit you with anything. He just wants to go fishing. Your uncle and I think it would be good for both of you. You're the same age, you both like to fish and hunt. You have a lot in common."

Right. That kid, Adunya, had nothing in common with anyone. He didn't even wear shoes. The boy would probably have to teach him how to cast. At least Uncle Albin's pond had bluegill--anyone could catch a bluegill. If nothing else, the boy could tie on a sinker and drop a worm to the bottom. Adunya would only have to sit and wait for a catfish to suck it up.

That's what the boy would do. Throw a line out for him and let him wait. That way he could keep an eye on that machete. Hopefully, Adunya wouldn't bring it. Why would he need a machete for fishing anyway?

When they stopped outside of Uncle Albin's cabin, Adunya was crouched beside the graying shed whittling on a stick using a small folding knife. The boy recognized it as one of Uncle Albin's knives. When Adunya turned and saw the boy step away from the vehicle, he stood, holding a long spear-like stick with five sharp tips on the end. The boy thought they looked like gnarled skeleton fingers. Adunya almost raised the hand holding the knife and his lips turned up into half a smile.

The boy did not smile back.

EXPECTATIONS

The boy walked into the parking lot without a smile. His younger brother, Jon Jon, had a bounce in his step and couldn't stop talking. "Did you see the monkey trying to eat that hot dog through the glass? And that crocodile was kinda weird--almost like a statue."

"It was a caiman," the boy said.

"What's wrong?" his father asked. "You didn't have fun?"

"No, I did."

"Not what you expected?"

"The gorillas were funny. I guess it was cool."

The boy thought his father was going to leave it alone, but when they pulled onto the interstate he said, "You know that's considered one of the best zoos in the country?

"Yeah. They had everything," Jon Jon said. "It was awesome."

"I liked it, Dad. I did," the boy said. "I'm glad you brought us. It's just that it was nothing like Uncle Albin's stories. I guess I thought they'd be more impressive. None of em were scary. Not even the lions. Most of them looked broken. All those people staring at them. No way to escape. In a way, it was kind of sad." The boy wanted to take the last part back. Talking about feelings was something girls did.

"Sad?" Jon Jon raised one eyebrow and looked at his brother as if he said he hated chocolate.

The boy's father smiled at his youngest son's innocence. The older boy had been questioning life, death, and anything he didn't quite understand--like God and faith. Questions his father could not answer for himself. He was proud of the boy, but missed the part of him that was slipping away--the part that once gone, he would never get back.

"You ever see a deer act like that?" The boy asked Jon Jon.

Jon Jon shrugged.

The boy had never seen any animal look that way. Even cattle and pigs seemed to have more life in them. Some of the animals reminded him of old man Hillstone who used to walk down the road with his wife every day. After she died, the old man never left the porch. He just sat there, a blank stare on his face. A stare without care--without hope. Old man Hillstone eventually died. Some people said he died of loneliness. The boy always thought it was from hopelessness.

Uncle Albin kept a photo of a white rhino from Africa on his bookshelf. Even knowing his uncle later shot that rhino, the boy preferred the one in the photo. Its eyes held something the zoo creatures had long forgotten.

During the long drive back to their own state watching miles of wheat fields and pasture and native prairie blur by, Jon Jon perked up and tapped on his window. "There, Steve. Look. Look at the antelope. Dad did you see em?"

The boy scoured the fields for the next hour. He saw antelope. He saw deer. He saw a coyote.

Later that evening, even though he was tired and his arm hurt, he spent a little extra time throwing the ball for his black lab, Skip.

NEW BLOOD

The boy knew he shouldn't stare, but he had never seen someone like the boy staring back at him. The boy tried to smile. He tried to turn away--his eyes kept jumping back. The other boy never smiled and never turned away.

"You ready?" The boy's father stepped off the porch and gripped his son's shoulder.

As they pulled away from the farm, the tires kicking gravel beneath the truck, the boy glanced out the window knowing he'd meet those strange eyes. For a moment, it seemed the other boy might smile back.

"Where did he come from, Dad?"

"Ethiopia."

"What's he doing at Uncle Albin's house?"

"Your uncle adopted him."

"Why?"

The boy's father sighed. It was just like his brother to bring home an adopted boy without warning anyone. He didn't tell the boy about how Albin's wife and only child died during childbirth--the family never talked about that. The boy knew Uncle Albin spent months of every year in Africa. The boy dreamed about the elephants, buffalo, lions, and unimaginable creatures his uncle talked about. He heard tales of primitive tribes and people who had never worn shoes. Until that day, the boy thought his uncle often embellished those stories. Until that day his uncle, though fascinating and fun to listen to, was a little crazy.

"Did you talk to him?"

The boy shook his head.

"His name is Adunya. His father was a tracker at one of your uncle's safari camps. When his father died, I guess he had few people to look after him."

"What about his mom?"

"I don't know, son."

The boy tried not to think about life without his mother or father. He had been enamored with his uncle. In his young naivety, he even wished once that his own father was more like uncle Albin. He thought those mysterious children in Africa, living off the land, hunting for food, sleeping in huts, had it so much better. Some of them didn't even have to go to school. His envy began to melt that dry morning at his uncle's farm.

"How did his dad die?" The boy had this glorified view of trackers with supernatural abilities that followed lions and fought leopards with their bare hands--an idea his uncle often stoked with stories of men he called "legends nobody will ever know."

The boy's father pulled to the side of the road and turned to face the boy. "Might as well hear it from me instead of one of your older brothers. He was killed by one of his neighbors."

"Why would a neighbor do that?"

"It was over a cow. This boy, Adunya, saw it happen."

"A cow?"

"He comes from a different world than you do, son. We all need to remember that."

"Was his dad shot in the back or something?"

The boy's father stared at him, contemplating his answer. "No, he wasn't shot."

"Spear?"

Knowing the boy may never remove the image from his thoughts, he told him anyway. "Machete."

After a few moments of silence, the boy's father shifted the truck into gear, but left his foot on the brake. "Adunya's had a rough go of it. You understand we need to do everything we can to make him feel at home."

The boy wondered how that kid could ever feel at home in Nebraska--he kept that thought to himself.

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Does this make Adunya my cousin?"

BOWS OF SEPTEMBER

"Dad still working on the boat? the boy asked.

His younger brother, Jon Jon, had his head between the musty, yellow curtain and the window "He's got the motor scattered all over the driveway."

"Guess we ain't fishing today."

"Guess not."

"What you want to do?"

"We could have another battle," Jon Jon said, referring to the plastic, green army men, complete with tanks, ships, and airplanes scattered across the floor, the bed, and the dressers.

"I'm tired of being inside," the boy said.

"Think we could get the bows past Mom?" Jon Jon's eyes popped and his neck straightened. Of all the outdoor activities they shared, shooting the old recurves excited him most. "I'll get them out. You watch for Mom."

Their mother never stopped them from heading to the large field behind the trailer--she never stopped them from being boys--she just lectured them for fifteen minutes each time about some kid they'd never heard of who had lost a finger or broke an arm or worse. Sometimes, that fifteen minutes drifted into dinner and the adventure had to be postponed.

A thin wall separated each half of the double-wide trailer. Every creak, every whisper of cloth against the doorways echoed throughout the glorified tin can. Their mother divided her time between cooking, cleaning, hanging laundry--and reading the bible. If scouring a pot, they had a chance. Sitting quiet reading God's words, they might as well not even try.

The boy peeked around the corner to check her reading chair--clear. He waved for Jon Jon to hurry.

The door squeaked as Jon Jon began to open it. The boy pushed his brother through and let it slam as they descended the two steps. From inside, muffled by the door, they heard their mother yell something about being careful. They pretended not to hear.

Without breaking stride, Jon Jon handed the boy one of the bows and half the arrows as they raced across the graveled road and into the short grass of the prairie. If they ran far enough, they would reach the hills where they could find the big game--rabbits, grouse, and, if they were lucky, a coyote. They had never actually killed anything with their bows. In fact, they'd only ever shot at one or two cottontails.

They always began with grand aspirations of shooting a mule deer or even a rattlesnake. They always ended up shooting cans or some other piece of trash a careless camper had let blow into the prairie.

They headed for the hay bale first. After sticking a few, they moved on to fence posts and other inanimate objects. The boy had just nailed an old milk jug with his third arrow and began digging in the grass for the second one. The first had overflown by fifteen yards. Jon Jon promised to find it if his brother allowed him to shoot all six arrows.

A glint under the grass four yards to the left caught the boy's attention. He glanced up to see if Jon Jon had found number one. What he saw quickened his heart. He dropped to the ground, raked through the grass with his fingers and yanked the arrow free. He almost dropped it trying to nock it.

Stooped and facing a pile of tumbleweeds, Jon Jon's fingers tightened on the bowstring, his elbow cocked--ready. The boy's younger brother pulled back and released.

The cedar arrow arched through the air almost as if suspended. And then it disappeared into the tumbleweeds. Dust and branches and a ball of fur exploded from under the weeds. A cottontail kicked the arrow five feet into the air and raced right for the boy. He drew back, following the wounded prey. Only a few yards now. He released. The shot, one he could never duplicate, one he would always remember, stopped the rabbit like a stone hitting sand. It shuttered and then lay still.

An image of the first goose the boy killed flashed through his thoughts. His younger brother had not been goose hunting yet.

"You got it, Steve. You got it. Great shot." Jon Jon's eyes flashed back and forth between his brother and the dead rabbit. His breath trembled from the run.

"You got him first," the boy said.

Jon Jon's smile could have turned back a storm. "Let's go show Dad."

Feral Fork

"What is this place?"

"People come here to find unusual foods, amazing tales, and a man called D."

"D?"

"Some say doesn't exist. Some say he's the ghost of an old elk camp cook who was killed trying to defend his stash of jerky from a grizzly."

"What do you think, Pa? You think he's real?"

"I'll tell you a secret. I saw him once. It was a hazy night and the picture isn't real clear in my head, but his floppy hair drooped over one eye, his beard looked like it was built by a dove, and his words sounded like music."

"What did he say?"

"Go ahead and poke around a bit. His words are here. You just have to listen."

http://www.feralfork.com/

Painting: Grizzly Encounter by John Banovich http://www.johnbanovich.com/

CHOICES

The boy sprinted to the fallen goose - the one he had fired at. The one he knew he hit - no matter the other shots fired beside him. This was his goose. This was his moment. Something primal and free and proud quickened his pace.

He slowed at ten yards and stopped when the bird's wings shuddered. It looked at him, a raspy hiss rising from somewhere in its slender neck.

"It's almost over now."

The boy felt his father's hand on his shoulder - firm, not tight like the time he shattered the bathroom window with a baseball.

"You don't have to watch if you don't want to."

But the boy had no choice. A single, dark eye seemed to peer into the boy's heart. When his father knelt to finish it, that eye bored into the boy. The wings slapped against the prairie twice, maybe three times, then they scratched slowly across the dust.

"It is done," his father said without turning away from the goose.

The eye no longer stared at the boy. It just stared.

"You want to carry it back?"

Unable to pull his gaze from the limp body, the boy nodded.

He placed the bird below his feet in the blind. Flocks, massive flocks, hundreds, maybe thousands of Canada geese chattered on the reserve across the river. They would rise soon like the caddis hatch the boy saw on the Eagle one autumn. And some of those geese might give their spread a closer look.

"Hey, Dad?" The boy could smell the goose's flesh beneath its feathers. "Is it always like that?"

"No," his father said. "Not always."

FIRST TIME

The boy looked up only for a moment, then hurried his gaze back down to the prize - as if it might disappear. In that one glance up, the boy's eyes glistened at the edges and his mouth opened slightly as if he might speak. But he had no words, nor did he need them. His father knew.

The boy inhaled deeply, savoring the oily aroma of his new .410 side-by-side. He held it like a hard-won trophy. In many ways it was. He had followed his father and brothers to the river, stepped in their long strides, sat in the cold, rust-scented goose blind for two years without protest - at least little complaint for a ten-year-old. He sat listening while his father and two brothers whispered of approaching flocks he could not see. He marvelled as the three of them opened up with a primal song, natural and undeniable. The honks and clucks and purrs and drawn out, almost desperate, come-back blasts would remain a part of the boy's dreams forever.

With the steel and walnut balanced in his too-tight grip and his jacket pockets, filled with shells, slapping against his hip, he paused. He had been there before. Much of it familiar - the clean breath of morning, the quiet secrets of the river, the unseen chirps of nearby songbirds. He had been there before, but this time was different. This time he held the gun. This time he was part of it. And once he pulled the trigger, he could never turn back.