He threw a little tobacco on the fire adding a sweet plume to the wood smoke. He told the kid the injuns used to do that to show respect.
“Which injuns?” the kid asked.
“Red injuns, Merican injuns, them towel head elephant humping injuns smoke wacky tobaccy out of a fancy bong n’ don’t even eat cow.”
“We’re hunting cow?”
“Boy I swear to god . . . if’n I didn’t know better I’d say you weren’t my kid.” He thought about that, swilled the last warm hit of Schlitz and tousled the kid’s hair.
“Don’t think a bull’d much care for the doe stank I sprayed ya with.”
The fire crackled and the kid watched the flames jump. Tomorrow there was no school for the first day of deer season, the teacher had let em out that afternoon with a speech about how small the herd was this year on account of the drought and they best get an early start. His mom already had the cooler packed and when his dad came home he pecked his mom on the cheek had the kid grab the cooler and they took right off for Pettigrew grove.
The kid grew up on a farm, he’d seen the butchering since he could remember and last year he got to help. It was always solemn and celebratory. The kid had heard about injuns, but he always thought the sort of solemn gratitude towards the beasts sacrifice was his own culture. The kid didn’t put it that way; he was seven going on eight. He had a lot on his mind. This wasn’t like cleaning a pig, they were going to kill a free animal; the excitement of camping out with his dad was mitigated by the confusion of killing a free animal, one that couldn’t hurt them if it wanted too. If he knew about the grapevine crown rotting in his daddy’s gall bladder he might have laid down arms and hugged the old man.
Loading comments...