Boom.
He looked through the rifle scope with quiet calm as he watched the deer plummet to the ground.
“Now that’s how you do it, son,” his father cheered.
“He’s so calm,” his uncle said. “Like he’s been doing it all his life.”
They climbed down from the deer stand, and he walked toward his kill. Calm. Collected.
His father began showing him how to field-dress the deer to bring back to camp. The sounds were surprisingly calming. The sudden rip of flesh as the knife dug into the hide.
“Son. Why don’t you try?”
He took the knife from his father’s outstretched hand and continued the cut where his father had left off. He noted the arrangement of the animal’s organs and wondered what it looked like when the heart was still beating. He liked the way the blood felt coating his hands.
He pulled the hide off as his father instructed and began to remove the organs the way he’d been shown.
“Like a true natural, son. Great job.”
This was the most attention he’d gotten from his father in a long time. So this is how I make them love me, he thought.
He wiped his hands on his pants. The blood was already drying. He thought about next season for a long time. Then he smiled at the two men, because that was what they were waiting for.
Leigh Ann LeBoeuf writes Southern Gothic fiction from the bayou country of South Louisiana, where her Acadian roots run deep. She lives in Houma with her family and two blue heelers.
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