TO ALL CREATURES KIN

—What was it like?

—What was what like?

—First time you kilt a deer.

—Aint never forget it Dub. Seem like it a hunnert years gone by. Elijay. Me an diddy an Uncle Jake drove up to Gilmer County. Half the day crept by. Aint nothin to see. Woods. Mountains. Hills. Folks sames here in Huber. Aint nothin different. Jake said he hunt that land since a young buck and he and his diddy and Rowan Peets and Sut Cook built the cabin over a weekend there and it been deer camp ever since. Rowan shot a messa deer up there. County record one year. Fourteen points. Drop tines size of Bowie knives. Rack about yay wide.

—Aw you shittin.

—I aint.

—Never heard such.

—Aint know how. Rowan run his mouth bout it for years.

—Caint see Rowan buildin no cabin neither. He aint done nothin for nobody but hisself.

Cordele lit a cigarette and took a drag and then lit another off its tip and handed it to Will.

—Cabin was smack dab in middle of an apple orchard. Bugs somethin fierce. Aint lyin. Hot or cold them bugs were out. Sound like the cabin abuzz with flies and bees and the crows took after the apples come fall so much that trees limbs look like they draped in black silk. Feathers so black they blue and shinin in the sun. Tried to bust em but they hear you poppin rounds in a rifle they in the wind. Got to where I load in the truck on the way in and reckon they heard the bolt cause they gone when we come round the bend.

Will lay back and smoked and stared overhead and the stars set upon the sky as nail heads heated white hot and glowing in the ashen night sky.

—I aint asleep. Listenin to ever word you say.

—Aint seem like it.

—Member yall comin back that Sunday for church, Will said. You swallered up in grandiddy Fluker’s mackinaw. Truck bed fulla damn deer.

—Godamighty I love that coat. Damn near drag the ground then. Member feelin in them pockets and findin grandiddy’s flint and pipe an penknife he used to clean his nails with. Member the smell the wool held after that first night in the cabin. We stopped and bought steaks and bacon and eggs in town. First night we just eat some eggs and bacon and turn in. Diddy and Jake stay up all hours drinkin whiskey an talkin bout what they were gonna do come mornin and I member fallin asleep and them two flippin a half dollar to see who set up in the stand overlookin Coosa Creek.

Jake called it and damn if it werent but light for an hour before he shot him a buck. Big buck. Ten pointer. Jake an diddy strung him up on a limb and knocked his guts out and dress em out and that night we stand round the fire and Jake cut up that buck’s heart and wrap it in bacon and fried it in the grease and we ate that deer heart an it was the richest damn thing I ever et. Taste like blood and metal and meat, like what you think meat should taste like. It taste alive. Taste like somethin that’d been nosin round for food and runnin and leapin and stompin round the wood. Not somethin you measure out an wrap up and take home to stew and whatnot. Aint tasted nothin like it since. Jake fried them steaks in the grease and he wrap potatoes and apples in foil and bury em in the coals and they bake up near perfect and we sat around the fire and had us a feast an aint no one said word one. All you hear was us smackin our gums. Moon so full it almost like a lantern on us.

From where we was we see a deer camp yonder hill an they had themselves a fire goin too and it shone a faded light and then bright and flashing and white an it look no more than just a ways away and diddy said he reckon that camp some forty miles off and it seem like it was right there. Right up that hill. Come light next mornin I got me a buck too.

—You aint gone stop there Cord.

Cordele lit a cigarette and smoked.

—You know Cheeley Wood? Cordele said.

—Pecker Wood, Will laughed. Tight end on state team?

—Yeah Pecker Wood, Cordele said. He had himself a bullroarer. Ever seen one of them?

—Uh uh.

—Piece of wood about yay long. Kinda shape as a boomerang an it got a rope on it. You sling the sum buck arounder head like a lasso. It make a buzzin noise like nothin you done ever heard. Like a hunnert hive of bees teed off. I feel this sound comin up on me. It sound like nothin. Like somethin. But nothin. An I aint tell if it on me or in me—it that heavy and full soundin. An then there this spike buck. Outta no place. No where. Come with the wind. Silent as you magine. Hear a twig snap or some leaves and thas all you got to go on and then there he is jus standin there an it seem he look right at me an I stay still as I ever stayed. Aint even think my heart beat once. An I look down from that tree at this buck and his eyes just gobs of oil an I aint see nothin in them eyes. I look on em again an I aint seen jus this spike. Just this buck. I seen em all. I seen what that buck done givem self to be. What he is and what he aint. Not somethin I seen. Somethin he give me. He show me. An I know him to be. He aint somethin I figger in my mind. Somethin here in my head. He jus is. An his head move and he tell somethin there but he aint sure and here I am, I got him open sights and I caint do nothin. Caint see. Caint hear. Sound like that damn bullroarer in my ears. An then I know it. It my own damn blood roarin through me. My own blood. Rifle shakin. Arms shakin. Aint nothin calmin me down. Feel the sweat creep right off my shouldersn down my back an we all blowin smoke out—aint moren twenty degrees. An then I pull that trigger an that buck leap and drop and he kick and then bled out dead. Swear I never explain it but I aint ever felt closer to no animal than after I kilt that buck. Felt kin to all creatures. Everythin. Big an small. Insects. Birds. Cattle. Weren’t nothin I aint known. We’d shown ourselves to each other. It aint felt real. Aint felt like this world. Felt like a world within the world where he aint no different than me and I him.