Winter's Bone

15

REE SLAMMED the door behind herself and stomped past the boys, clomping loudly to the closet in her own room. She reached behind the rank of skirts and dresses hanging, into the far hidden corner, and retrieved two long guns. She dropped boxes of shells into a pocket of Mamaw’s coat. She cradled the guns in her arms, jerked her head at the watching boys, and led them to the side porch. She turned on the porch light and rested the weapons upright against the rail, then began to load them.

“I wasn’t sure just when you boys’d need to know about shootin’, but I think maybe now it’s time you do. Now’s when you boys start learnin’ how to shoot guns at what needs shootin’. Throw some cans’n stuff out on that slope there. Set ’em up standin’ so they’ll keel over when you hit ’em.”

Sonny and Harold bounced to it with glee. They rooted eagerly in the trash heap and started arranging targets on the slope of snow. The bright porch light laid long menacing shadows behind the targets.

She said, “No bottles. The glass’ll wash down to the yard in spring’n I’ll be doctorin’ your feet all goddam summer. Just cans or plastic, stuff like that.”

One gun was a double-barreled 20 gauge, a strikingly handsome heirloom shotgun with a creamy blond stock. The other was an old and abused .22 rifle with a busted stock put back together by brass screws, a semi-automatic that held sixteen shorts. Ree’d learned to shoot on these very weapons, trained in the fields by Dad, and had a deep fondness for them because of that. The shotgun was the prettiest thing she owned and she’d used it to take rabbits, dove, and quail. The .22 was for harvesting squirrels from trees or frogs from ponds and plunking armadillos rooting holes in the yard.

She held the shotgun, said, “This trigger shoots this barrel, this one shoots this one. There’s hardly goin’ to be any time ever when you need both barrels at once, but if what you got to shoot is somethin’ big’n mean, pull ’em both and splatter the fuckin’ thing. For these cans’n stuff, though, just shoot one barrel at a time.”

She started them both on the shotgun. She steadied their arms and guided their fingers on the trigger. Snow jumped where they shot and each blast rocked the shooter backwards.

“You think you can’t miss with a shotgun, but you can. You still gotta aim good.”

Harold said, “Holy cow, that’s loud!”

“Uh-huh, it is kind of, ain’t it?”

The boys shot hell out of the snowy slope. They exploded cans, milk cartons, boxes, and each explosion tossed snow and dirt briefly aloft and scattered. They shot boom-boom, plink-plink-plink, and the scent of shooting spread on the wind. Ree made suggestions, patted heads, loaded weapons. She counted shells and kept the boys shooting until but a handful for each gun remained.

“That’s it,” she said. She spread her arms in the night and nodded while inhaling the smell of shooting. “We’ve raised enough ruckus for now.”

Sonny walked to the slope and began to boot the blasted targets. He stomped shot cans flat and kicked shot boxes into the dark, doing a short hop from one victim to the next, humming as his pounding feet finished the wounded.

“Man, that shootin’ is major fun!” Harold said.

“It can be.”

“When do we get to do it more?”

“I’ll try’n get shells at Bawbee pretty soon.”

Sonny paused in the middle of a stomp, looked toward the side of the house and suddenly moved that way.

“Hey, who’s that comin’?”

Ree stepped from the porch with the shotgun at her side and Harold followed, toting the rifle. The crunch of oncoming footsteps carried. A bent-over shape was slowly edging around the house into the side yard, hoisting something bulky.

The shape saw Ree and the boys and the weapons, halted, tried to raise its arms but could not raise the bulky thing overhead, and said, “Goddam, Sweet Pea! It’s just me’n my baby! What in blue blazes is everybody doin’ with a gun out over here?”

On hearing that voice Ree broke her tense stride and ran joyously to Gail’s side. She held the shotgun swaying low and leaned to kiss the crown of Gail’s head. She snorted, laughed, gave a joshing shove, and said, “I knew you wouldn’t eat shit long. I know you good enough to know that. I knew you’d get back to yourself’n show up for me. I just knew.”

Gail touched her free hand to the shotgun and raised the barrel until it pointed at the sky. She said, “What on earth gives?”