The Shooting by James Boice

pigpen with blood on their hooves. —Where are the chickens? his father says. The coop is open and they are nowhere to be seen, it is like they were never here. Through his diseased eye Lee watches his father run around looking for them. —What the fuck? he says. —What the fuck? He is covered in sweat, reeks of yesterday’s whiskey. Lee begins to cry. —Stop crying, his father shouts.
    The man who sold them the animals comes from town in a pickup truck just like Lee’s father’s but bigger, newer, and made not by Chevrolet but Toyota. He gets out and walks through the gravel dust settling around him.
    â€”He was born and raised here, Lee’s father tells Lee, voice somber with respect. —His family’s been grazing livestock ‘round these parts since 1850. He’s one of us.
    The man wears a cowboy hat like Lee’s father, a flannel shirt, boots, jeans—just like Lee and Lee’s father. A new plastic European space gun is holstered on his hip. He shakes Lee’s father’s hand, shakes Lee’s. Looks in silent amusement at the dead animals, at Lee’s father who around this man is very talkative and moves around a lot. The man says nothing, just nods and grunts as Lee’s father explains how last night they were fine.
    â€”Think it’s wolves? his father says.
    The man says, —That ain’t animals. That’s a knife did that. That’s slaughtering.
    â€”Slaughtering? his father says, looking around as though whoever it was might still be seen.
    â€”Probably oughta call the police.
    His father shakes his head at the idea. When the man leaves, Lee’s father’s face is red and he does not look at Lee or at anything. —I know who it was, he says. Lee says, —Who? but his father won’t say, and he takes the gun out of its holster, stomps off fifty feet out toward the trees, and points it and, screaming, fires once and fires again and keeps firing until it’s empty. Comes back, gestures over his shoulder.
    â€”Pick ’em up.
    â€”Huh?
    â€”The bullets. It ain’t good for the land for them to be out there, they’ll poison our soil. Go out there and fetch ’em and bring ’em back. All of ’em. And don’t come back until you do.
    â€”Why?
    Warm pain splatters across the back of his head and his hat falls off.
    â€”We obey our daddies where we come from.
    His father goes back inside and shuts the door, and Lee wanders toward the trees, crying, face hurting. He goes as slowly as he can. When he gets too close, when he cannot bear to go any farther, he turns and runs off to the guest house on the far side of the property, one of four, his hiding place. When he returns to the house four hours later, stopping at the gun range to dig six crushed bullets from the sand mound there, his father is in his chair in front of the TV, watching Happy Days. He does not look at Lee and he is drunk, and Lee thinks he looks like a little boy. Lee drops the bullets on the coffee table but his father does not look at them or acknowledge him.
    Over the ensuing week the garden stops growing altogether. Soon it is just wood and dirt, and soon fall comes and chills it, then winter comes and finally kills it off completely. They buy their groceries from Safeway, overpriced and infused with chemicals and hormones, in cartons and plastic packaging, meat killed by other men, crops grown on other men’s land. The bullets his father fired into the trees remain out there.
    His father disappears with no explanation. Lee wanders around the arsenal in the basement, picking up guns, feeling his father in them;he puts the special gun in a holster on his hip and admires himself in the mirror, wanders around the house like that. Steps outside and feels the breeze blowing over his skin, watches the green tops of the trees. He finds himself walking down the long driveway to the street, stands there for a moment, then