Tempered Magazine December 2013 // January 2014 // Issue 01 | Page 8

Maurice was the first to go hunting

From the top he looked down, hair

with Daddy, and he came back

poking out the sides of the baseball

saying only, “It was cool.” The

cap our daddy used to wear.

next year Sandry went too, and

“Come on,” he said.

the next year Kayle, my daddy
saying, “Those deer better cross
the county line while they can,
before you three get ahold of that
gun.” And my brothers laughed like
they understood something private
and special, and I built a ramp for

When I reached the top he told me
to sit, and we stared into the white
air. Our jackets soaked through
and our cheeks got damp and I
said, “We forgot the bullets.”
Maurice said, “The bullets stay in

my bike and skidded off the top and the truck.”
fell to the ground over and over,
groaning, until they came home.
The next year my daddy had a
heart attack that kept him in bed
until New Year’s, and the year after
that he wasn’t there at all. So it
was Maurice who took me hunting.
Him nineteen, me thirteen, fog

I waited. “But if the bullets stay in
the truck – ”
“We don’t shoot.”
“We don’t?”
He shook his head. “We never
have.”

hanging like ghosts between the

I watched the ghosts of my daddy

trees. He climbed up the stand

and all the deer we never ate, their

first, gun over his shoulder, tugging

children together in the fog.

each wet board before continuing.

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