Daddy looks excited “that there is something what we probably want. Something exactly what we want!” he's looking at me, jazzed and looking for my approval. I give him a thumbs up. Cole looks sideways at Daddy but gets up and walks out of the room. Daddy whispers to me, “hotdog! We’s about to be the masters of this wood! We can probably shoot a deer or something right through a tree! Turn the deer inside out and knock down a tree at the same time! I ain’t know there was anything like that in the world! Wonders don’t never cease!”
Cole comes back out holding something that looks like it's from the future and sets it on the table. “This here is plenty big enough for pretty much anything.” He takes a shell out of his pocket the size of a bottle of hot sauce and sets it next to the gun. Daddy is hefting the gun up and waving it around and making POW! POW! POW! Sounds. Cole looks at me askance and I shrug. “Well” Cole says “let's get on outside and see what you can hit.” Daddy is buzzing and heads right for the door, but Cole says “wait. You forgot this” and tosses the shell to Daddy.
He fumbles it and drops it to the floor and he cringes like it’s going to go off, and when it doesn’t, he picks it up and heads on out the door. Cole and I follow and Daddy is on the porch, holding the huge shell in his fist against the gun and aiming at a tree. He pulls the trigger and nothing happens. Cole says “you have to put that in the gun for it to shoot.” Daddy goes, “oh! I thought it was like for balance or something” and he sticks out his tongue and starts poking the shell at the gun and tries to put it in the end of the barrel but it ain’t fit so Cole comes up to him and takes the gun and the shell and demonstrates.
“Pull this back” he click clacks the gun, “and put this in” and he shoves the shell in the gun and click clacks it closed again. “Now it’ll shoot some things.” Daddy nods like he knew it all along. He hefts it up and it sure does look heavy. He says “I wonder what all I can shoot” and he aims down the gun and swivels about, pointing at trees and a small doghouse and at the chimney. Cole says “take aim at that there truck” and gestures at a rusted out rounded truck without tires nor an inside and it’s pocked with holes already like that's the thing they like to shoot at the most out here.
Daddy gives a big wink at me and takes aim. Me and Cole cover our ears. He pulls the trigger and the sound is so loud, there is no sound. I feel the shock in my chest from ten feet away and Daddy is sitting on the ground now and the gun is in the dirt where he dropped it and there ain’t no new hole in the rusted-out truck. Cole walks over and picks up the gun, wiping dirt off of it with his sleeve. “This here I expect might be too big for what you have in mind as it’s for shooting things about a mile away.”
Daddy is rubbing his shoulder that the gun had been on and says “that there ain’t no gun, that’s a Martian blaster and I ain’t trying to get involved in no secret government alien technology.” He stands up and takes a breath. “What all else you got?" Cole gestures back inside. We follow and take our seats at the table while Cole goes into the back. He comes out with a little rifle what looks like the BB gun Joe shot me with, only it looks a little different. “This here ain’t got much kick, but it’ll take down about a coyote and some squirrels and I guess a deer too if you get close enough and hit it right in the heart.” Daddy scoffs, “how we supposed to hunt us a bear for all that big meat?”
Cole says “ain’t no need to take down no bear to get meat. I see you got a good aim so it’ll be easy for you to hit pretty much whatever you’re aiming at. Tell you true, I bet you could even hit a can straight out of the air what’s been thrown up for you” and he looks at me and winks. “These here are what goes inside to make it shoot” and he plunks down a handful of what look like elongated pencil erasers. Daddy picks up the gun, only more gingerly this time and hefts it around and says “I do believe this here is the perfect weight. Just you watch as I hit that truck this time.”
He grabs up the shells and puts them in his pocket and once more heads outside. While Daddy is out there Cole says to me “I’m only doing you this favor since Uncle calls you true and true, and even if he do get his spells, Uncle can spot the truth. You shown yourself in the woods and you is respected in this place for being the only person who ever shot Uncle. It mayn’t seem like it, but Uncle thinks highly of you and ain’t stopped talking about what you done since you left yesterday. I said maybe we’d meet again and I’m glad you done comed back over. You got something different than your brother or your Daddy and you ought to be the one to use that gun when you get back home and not no one else.”
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I look at Cole and says “that there is my Daddy and if you think I’m true, I’m telling you he’s true too.” Cole looks at me seriously then nods his head back and forth. “We’ll see.” He gets up and heads out the door to watch Daddy. I follow and Daddy is pointing the gun at the truck. He has his tongue out, one eye squinted hard, and he fires off and it sounds like someone is clapping loud with wet hands and there's a snap afterward that echoes through the trees and he done hit the truck this time. “That’s the one! Why ain’t you start me with this one! I done shot something like this when I was little and boy, I could plop a bird off a tree at a thousand yards to the point where all the birds in the area would take wing when they saw me coming!”
Daddy takes aim at the truck again and confidently fires it, but it goes wild and we ain’t seen where the bullet goes. Daddy says “I knew the barrel was a little crooked. Look here Scamp, see how curved it is? Like a lop-sided pool cue.” He hands it over, barrel pointed at my chest and I take it from him carefully. I look at Cole and his eyebrows are raised. I look it over and I ain’t seen no crooked barrel, but Daddy probably knows what he’s talking about. “Take a shot ol’ Scamp! See if you can do better than your old man”
He crosses his arms smugly. “That’s ok Daddy” I say “you is probably right, this here gun is no good for it don’t shoot straight at nothin’” but Daddy insists “have to grow up some time and now’s a good a time as any to shoot your first gun.” I shrug and take aim at the truck and fire away and there’s a clonk sound as it’s a hit and Daddy says I was probably aiming off so that’s why I hit it. I pull back on the thing uncle showed us on his other gun and a small empty shell flips out and hits Daddy In the forehead and he flinches back. “watchit! That was hot! Watch trying to get me burned, boy!” I clack another shell in and fire again and it hits right next to the other hole I made. I fire again and again and Daddy is just watching now. The gun stops firing with a click and there’s a good many holes all in one spot and Daddy ain’t commenting now. “Welp” Daddy says to Cole, “what you in the mood for tradin’ on this here crooked gun?”
Cole says “y’all just have it. That there was on the bottom of a pile of blankets and uncle ain’t shot it for so long, he probably ain’t know he even owns it. Plus-wise, I’m the man of the house now and I say y’all can just have it.” Daddy looks surprised “by God but that there is real generous of you. We give our thanks.” Cole waves his hand at that and goes into the house, coming back out shortly, carrying a plastic bag of more shells. “This here is about 300 shells and that ought to get you a few things to eat. Only one thing” Daddy is poised for the part where this is all too good to be true.
He gestures at me, “You let that one shoot at things for you. You look like a busy man and probably shouldn’t be bothered to do that kind of work. Heard tell you got some gardening type things to do around your property so you can keep from starving.” Daddy nods and says that’s just right, he got plenty to do without having to get all the food in the woods. He’s an idea man and needs time to ponder some. Cole says “well then, I guess that’s about all. I’ll let Uncle know you all got some things to trade and maybe he wants to let go of some other things. You all looking for some metal poles? Can come in real handy out here.”
Daddy says that may be and to tell his Uncle that he’s got roughly a shit ton of corn which can be eaten, or fed to animals, or even put in the ground where it’ll come back up with more corn if it takes a good notion to the soil. Cole says he’ll tell him. We all get to leavin’, only before we do I go up to Cole and give him the special wrist shake to check for knives and he does the same. Cole pulls me close then and whispers something in my ear “you watch out for that one. I know he’s your Daddy, but something ain’t right with him. You watch him close; you hear? He got more uncle in him than he lets on.” I draw back, and Cole lets me go.
Daddy and I walk back toward the direction we came, me carrying the gun and Daddy holding the bag of shells. I turn back once and Cole is raising his hand up and I raise the gun then turn back. Daddy calls back to Cole “make sure your uncle gets that can o’ ashes right away when he gets home for it’ll do him right!” and we head out. Along the way, Daddy is chortling about how lucky we was that we ain’t have to give up none of our corn. He tells me now to keep a lookout for anything we can shoot on the way home so we can cook up a good meal right when we get there. I watch Daddy along the way.