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.