HOME

The boy stumbled through a dip in the yard as he sprinted from the mailbox back to the house. He dropped all but one of the envelopes onto his father’s desk. His father peered from beneath bushy eyebrows.

“It’s from Adunya,” the boy said. “See, look here. It says Ethiopia. Do you think he’s coming back? Do you think he’s hunted lions with Uncle Albin?”

His father shrugged. “Open it and see.”

The boy began to rip at the edge, but slowed and pulled at the flap as if the envelope held a baby rattlesnake. Finally, he slipped the yellowed paper into the open and unfolded it. A black feather fluttered to the floor. The boy picked it up and held it behind the letter. The writing appeared as the scribbles of a toddler at first glance, but as the boy studied them, they began to form in to letters and words and even sentences:

Uncle teach me to write at heat of day when hunters sleep. I stay with brother of my father for only week before Uncle bring me back to camp. Here I feel I am home.

The boy stopped reading for a moment and turned toward the window. Out there, beyond the house, he could see forever across a prairie mostly grazed to the ground. But the seemingly endless expanse of grass and rock held secrets only its inhabitants understood. Out there, dens and buck brush and hills and canyons and cliffs held badgers and snakes and deer and coyotes. Out there, hawks fed on rabbits. Grouse scurried from stalking foxes. Out there, life was free. The boy understood what his friend, so many mountains and rivers and oceans away, meant. And he wondered if it was possible to have more than one home.

Uncle say he teach me to shoot. He say I one day I be better hunter than him. He say one day you come to Ethiopia and we hunt buffalo and leopard together like Uncle and your father do. I look with happiness to that day. Please give feather to Jon Jon. Tell him it come from bird like his raven. I will wait for letter from you. It will make me envy of all camp. Your friend, Adunya.

The boy refolded the letter and stared out to the prairie. “Do you think he’ll come back?” he said softly.

His father moved to the window and without looking back said, “I hope so.”

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.