BE A SIN

Watched the deputy's mouth move as the train went by. He pointed at the train and smiled and stopped talking and when it had passed he shook his head. So her husband says he shouldered the gun but didn't pull the trigger. Next thing he knows she's on the ground and he's trying to figure out what the hell happened. Said the deer run off before the gun even fired. Said he looked down and there she was just laying there and he didn't think anything was wrong until he opened her coat up and saw all the blood. Spree's restaurant door clattered with cowbells as people walked in slowly, looking over at us across the railroad track and staring until the deputy finally tipped his hat and they looked away and went inside. Deputy pointed at Spree's. Ever eat there? They got the best fried chicken I ever had. God toe mighty. If it were any better be a sin.

Blue lights swung quickly around the tracks and across the street and flashed in Spree's windows. People sat there and stared and ate. The woman's husband sat on the ambulance's bumper. He wore full camo and a blaze orange vest. I looked at him. You say he and his wife were hunting? Deputy nodded. Back in those woods? Nodded again. No Hunting signs posted every fifty feet? Nodded again. I didn't say they were geniuses, the deputy said. I said they were hunting. A coon skittered out the woodline and loped across the tracks, looking back at us with anxious eyes. Shoo, the deputy said. There's trouble on four little feet. Rabid as a preacher in a pussy farm. I laughed, but I didn't get it.

The woman's husband was big. Maybe three hundred pounds. He was crying. Sobbing. He heaved when he sobbed and the ambulance heaved along with him. Crows cawed. Smelled Spree's chicken in the wind. Salty, fatty, fried. Deputy went over to his car and turned the lights off. Came back and smiled. Looked over at the husband. Makin a hell of a racket aint he? I shrugged. Well his wife is dead and he's responsible it seems like. Wouldn't you be cryin too? Deputy shook his head. No that aint it, he said. She's gone make it. He aint start blubberin till he found that out.