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.