Daniel Woodrell - Winter's Bone

REE SLAMMED the door behind herself and stomped past the boys, clomping loudly to the closet in her own room. She reached behind the rank of skirts and dresses hanging, into the far hidden corner, and retrieved two long guns. She dropped boxes of shells into a pocket of Mamaw’s coat. She cradled the guns in her arms, jerked her head at the watching boys, and led them to the side porch. She turned on the porch light and rested the weapons upright against the rail, then began to load them.

“I wasn’t sure just when you boys’d need to know about shootin’, but I think maybe now it’s time you do. Now’s when you boys start learnin’ how to shoot guns at what needs shootin’. Throw some cans’n stuff out on that slope there. Set ’em up standin’ so they’ll keel over when you hit ’em.”

Sonny and Harold bounced to it with glee. They rooted eagerly in the trash heap and started arranging targets on the slope of snow. The bright porch light laid long menacing shadows behind the targets.

She said, “No bottles. The glass’ll wash down to the yard in spring’n I’ll be doctorin’ your feet all goddam summer. Just cans or plastic, stuff like that.”

One gun was a double-barreled 20 gauge, a strikingly handsome heirloom shotgun with a creamy blond stock. The other was an old and abused .22 rifle with a busted stock put back together by brass screws, a semi-automatic that held sixteen shorts. Ree’d learned to shoot on these very weapons, trained in the fields by Dad, and had a deep fondness for them because of that. The shotgun was the prettiest thing she owned and she’d used it to take rabbits, dove, and quail. The .22 was for harvesting squirrels from trees or frogs from ponds and plunking armadillos rooting holes in the yard.

She held the shotgun, said, “This trigger shoots this barrel, this one shoots this one. There’s hardly goin’ to be any time ever when you need both barrels at once, but if what you got to shoot is somethin’ big’n mean, pull ’em both and splatter the fuckin’ thing. For these cans’n stuff, though, just shoot one barrel at a time.”

She started them both on the shotgun. She steadied their arms and guided their fingers on the trigger. Snow jumped where they shot and each blast rocked the shooter backwards.

“You think you can’t miss with a shotgun, but you can. You still gotta aim good.”

Harold said, “Holy cow, that’s loud!”

“Uh-huh, it is kind of, ain’t it?”

The boys shot hell out of the snowy slope. They exploded cans, milk cartons, boxes, and each explosion tossed snow and dirt briefly aloft and scattered. They shot boom-boom, plink-plink-plink, and the scent of shooting spread on the wind. Ree made suggestions, patted heads, loaded weapons. She counted shells and kept the boys shooting until but a handful for each gun remained.

“That’s it,” she said. She spread her arms in the night and nodded while inhaling the smell of shooting. “We’ve raised enough ruckus for now.”

Sonny walked to the slope and began to boot the blasted targets. He stomped shot cans flat and kicked shot boxes into the dark, doing a short hop from one victim to the next, humming as his pounding feet finished the wounded.

“Man, that shootin’ is major fun!” Harold said.

“It can be.”

“When do we get to do it more?”

“I’ll try’n get shells at Bawbee pretty soon.”

Sonny paused in the middle of a stomp, looked toward the side of the house and suddenly moved that way.

“Hey, who’s that comin’?”

Ree stepped from the porch with the shotgun at her side and Harold followed, toting the rifle. The crunch of oncoming footsteps carried. A bent-over shape was slowly edging around the house into the side yard, hoisting something bulky.

The shape saw Ree and the boys and the weapons, halted, tried to raise its arms but could not raise the bulky thing overhead, and said, “Goddam, Sweet Pea! It’s just me’n my baby! What in blue blazes is everybody doin’ with a gun out over here?”

On hearing that voice Ree broke her tense stride and ran joyously to Gail’s side. She held the shotgun swaying low and leaned to kiss the crown of Gail’s head. She snorted, laughed, gave a joshing shove, and said, “I knew you wouldn’t eat shit long . I know you good enough to know that . I knew you’d get back to yourself’n show up for me. I just knew .”

Gail touched her free hand to the shotgun and raised the barrel until it pointed at the sky. She said, “What on earth gives?”

APICNIC OF words fell from Gail’s mouth to be gathered around and savored slowly. Ree’s feelings could stray from now and drift to so many special spots of time in her senses when listening to that voice, the perfect slight lisp, the wet tone, that soothing hillfolk drawl. She nodded and nodded, drifting while absently forking fried potatoes straight from the black skillet. She paused with the fork stalled midway between her mouth and the frying pan.

Gail went on, “He told me he wanted to go check his deer stand—you believe that baloney? In all this snow’n icy mess he decides along toward dark he’s just gotta drive out to Lilly Ridge right now’n look at his stinkin’ ol’ deer stand. Again .” Gail sat on a kitchen chair and Ned lay on the table, restful inside a plastic baby carrier that had a thin swinging handle. A big soft blue bag with a shoulder strap sat on the floor, full of baby stuff. “I know when he says deer stand it means he’s gone over to fuck Heather. Where else could he be goin’? Ain’t nobody needs to check on their deer stand twice a week. At night . Sayin’ deer stand just means… It’s her who was his girlfriend forever. It’s her who he really loves. It’s her who he wants. I’m just what he’s got.”

The fork reached Ree’s mouth and she swallowed while sighing. She squirted more ketchup on the brown leavings stuck to the skillet bottom, scraped. She said, “I think he got awful lucky to get you, Sweet Pea. I always have thought that.”

“He loves Heather. Me’n Ned’s just the booby prizes he’s stuck with instead of what he wanted.” Gail raised her head, shrugged, then snickered. “But Floyd’s not all that mean, really, he’s just a liar who don’t bother to come up with lies you can swallow.”

“Those kinds of liars are the worst. They’re lyin’ to you’n callin’ you stupid in the same breath, with the same words.”

“I know, I know, but piss on him and his stinkin’ deer stand, anyhow—how goes it with your troubles?”

Ree licked her fork shiny and dropped it into the skillet, wiped her lips with two fingers. She flapped a hand toward the boys, shook her head, said, “I don’t want to say while we’re sittin’ here.”

“Still need to get down to Reid’s Gap?”

“Yup. That might be the one last place worth checkin’.”

Gail raised a key ring and jingled it while grinning. She said, “Got the in-laws’ old truck.”

Ree brightened and smiled and said, “You are who I always did think you were, Sweet Pea. You truly are.” She bent over and began to unlace her boots. “Let me get dry socks on’n we’ll head out.”

The boys watched television, some masterpiece show about dandies with fancy stagecoaches and houses like castles and different accents. Mom sat in her rocker staring at the baby with alarm, pondering wretchedly, tired face riffling between shimmers of suspicion and guilt, as though trying hard to recollect if maybe she could’ve birthed yet another little bundle who’d somehow already slipped from memory. Gail snacked on animal crackers from a small box in the blue bag. She studied Mom’s face as she chewed. She reached to pat Mom on the arm, get her attention.