Momma walks with a limp now, but she hobbles around something quick and ain’t complain nor talk lies no more. Sometimes she takes too long with her tasks though. She done left a streak of water on one of the dishes after washing, but Daddy gave her a snap on the cheek and had her do the whole thing over and she ain’t leave no more streaks.

She done moved the dog all the way outside and covered it with a sheet of sagging moldy wood leaning on some boards. That keeps the rain off it, and pretty soon, the sleet and snow. It ain’t even got no proper fur to cover it. It looks like a pile of rubber, laying on the muddy frosty ground. Sometimes I catch her trying to get it to stand up or take some food, but it still ain’t move, and me and Daddy just look at each other. Momma should be dusting or sweeping instead of messin’ with that dog. Momma limps out there from time to time, making slide marks. Slide, footprint, slide, footprint. Dragging that leg all around.

Daddy sits at the table most days, pondering on something or other. Maybe thinkin’ about how we’re going to steal our next meal from one of the neighbors. Daddy told me to visit Uncle’s house to see what all they have over there, but when I got close, I seen the chimney was dead of smoke. I took a big chance in peeking through their windows, but it was empty of furniture and there weren’t no new tracks on the driveway and the porch was sagging. The house stared at me with dead eyes and I left in a hurry. Them other neighbors ain’t never took no shine to us. They left us on our own. Never lendin’ no hand. That chicken man was the worst of them. He wanted a big prize for even leaving his land. He was so caught up in being a hero for someone else that he ain’t had time to be a hero for himself.

I checked on that slash pile. I did. I checked it long and hard, for I was curious. It was sagging with the wet, and the rain, and the cold, and the frost. I peeked in between the crisscross of bony sharp fractured sticks. Sharp like spears. He was still in there. Right where I left him. Only he ain’t alive no more. His face was all droopy like melted wet wax, and there was a smell coming from him, like a swamp, and old chicken feathers, and mildew. I poked at him with a long stick and the end plunged into his stomach like it was a wet paper bag filled with slimy beans. I pulled the stick back and smelled the end of it and it weren’t too bad. Not as bad as I thought it would smell. I brought the stick back home with me and propped it against the house so I could look at it and remember whenever I wanted. Him reaching for me while rubbing himself with his other hand, a big sloppy grin on his face.

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Momma won’t look me in the eyes no more and I guess that’s for the best. I ain’t have no more use for her. Me and Daddy is too busy plannin’ out how the property is going to look. Him hunched over a big roll of butcher block paper and me scribbling pictures of what all we’re going to put on our property. Momma brings us the food what all we bring back from the woods, cooked up. I ain’t seen her eat and I guess she eats it when Daddy and me ain’t around.

She cleans up them dishes real fast right when we is done. Limping around and taking up space the whole time, but at least she can cook a chicken or two, or even a baby deer when we can lead one away from its Momma without us getting run off by it. I done lost the gun them neighbors gave us a while back, although I have a suspicion that Momma hid it away from me. Now we have to kill things with our hands or with a knife, or a sharp stick, or a hammer. We ain’t know how to fix the hides of our kills into clothing like what Daddy wanted, so we pile them near the edge of the woods where they fill with water and smell like rotten fur and blood until the rain washes them, or the creatures of the night fight over them to the death before dragging them away.

I sometimes wonder if the thing at the edge of the trees Momma and Daddy used to talk about waited until it was full dark to drag the carcasses back into the woods. Sometimes there weren’t nothing left to look at in the morning. Not even torn up hides like when the wild things were at them before running away in the exposing morning light.