Excerpt Four - Roy

As promised, another excerpt from Correction Line. I thought this small scene was appropriate for Canada Day - what's more Canadian than hunting geese?

Hope you like it.

Roy Blake and his father stood on a gravel road twenty miles from Langton. 

"You see 'em Roy?"

Roy looked into an empty sky.

"C'mon, do I have to point them out?"

He squinted, concentrated on trying to see anything birdlike.

"Geez, boy, right over there." Roy's father pointed to a blank part of the empty sky just above a copse of trees. Small specks came into focus.

"There?" He punched Roy in the shoulder and pulled him toward the car.

His father threw the Chevy in drive, spitting gravel as he gunned the engine. Roy cracked the window. His stomach churned from all the backroad driving. The idea was for one last hunting trip before Roy left town. He didn't know why his father thought this was a good thing, supposedly to strengthen some sort of non-existent bond. He couldn't wait to get the hell out of Langton. He was sick of the nothingness of the landscape. He wanted something to look at, buildings, houses, clubs where things actually happened. All he had around here were lonely fields where even the cows looked bored out of their skulls.

His dad eased around a corner and then back, the wheels sliding as he made the turn. It was one of those curves that made no sense – they weren't going around anything.

"Correction line," his dad said.

"I know. Can I turn on the radio?"

"Not while we're hunting."

I am not fucking hunting, Roy thought. "You always turn it on."

"On the way home, when we're done. That's when I turn it on – and only when there's a game on. Now shush, we're almost there."

The small group of trees grew larger on the horizon. Roy's father pulled the car over and shut off the engine. Roy knew not to talk for this next part – he had caught shit enough times for making noise. They got out of the car silently, opened the trunk and his father brought out the shotguns one at a time. His father's Remington had been fired many times – Roy had never fired his unwanted eighteenth birthday gift.

His father checked both safeties, released the latches and put them back into locked position. He pointed at the switch, then at Roy and back at the switch. Roy rolled his eyes.

"You pay attention – you don't fuck with guns. Understand?" His father hissed.

The swearing caught Roy by surprise. He fought back from saying something, clenching and releasing his fist. He pointed the Remington at the ground and followed his father into the ditch. The wind had picked up, making his neck cold, his ears beginning to ache. The trees were a gorgeous red orange, Halloween colours that Roy thought would make a great photograph. Through gaps in the leaves he could just make out a long slough and a cluster of black shapes. His father pointed, swept his hands along the horizon, and gave a sharp nod. Roy wondered how someone could get so excited about killing. Roy stepped on a branch, the snap made his father turn back to him. A few geese lit over the trees, Roy raised his gun. His father grabbed the end of the barrel and forced it to the ground.

"Dammit. Wait."

That was a pretty stupid thing to do. What if he had fired just at that moment? The old man would be missing a few fingers, or worse. As they crept into the copse, Roy felt like doing something stupid, yell at the geese, tell them to get the hell out of there and go back to their families. Stupid birds. They probably didn't even know their mothers and fathers – the whole family got split up long ago. Maybe their relatives got killed or just flew off. He wondered where the baby geese were, then remembered his father telling him they are born in the spring – and adding that Roy should know something like that. 

His dad crouched and raised his gun, flipping off the safety. Roy took a position a few feet to the left. He flipped his safety and stared down the sight.

"Rack it," Roy's father whispered.

Chikk-shhkk.

The geese plucked at themselves, dipped their beaks into the slough, came up and shook, sprayed water, then started over with the plucking. They glided as if pulled by a mechanical force, a set of shiny gears that moved the birds across the surface of the water. Roy watched one stare straight ahead, completely oblivious to the others, and unaware of the gun sights pointed at him. An explosion of noise and the back of the goose's neck erupted in red and the black mass of birds lifted as one. Roy, only barely aware of his dad pumping the gun and firing into the crowd, geese dropping out of the sky to their death, his dad killing as many as he could, not saying a word while he shot. Roy stared down his sight, his finger on the trigger shaking, his shoulder tense, waiting for the blast.

"Shoot Roy shoot!"

Roy closed his good eye. If he hit anything he didn't want to see it. His shoulder jumped as the shotgun recoiled against him. He racked it and fired one more time.

The flock grew smaller in the sky, the sound of beating wings getting softer like shirts flapping on a line. His father let out a low whistle.

"Whoa Roy. That was beautiful." He smiled broadly, a line of sweat under his hunter's cap. "You have trouble with the safety?"

"Yeah, I guess." Roy's forehead felt hot.

"Was it your eye?"

"What's that mean? You know I can't see out of it."

"Hey, you were part of it. Whoever is there for the kill is part of the kill."

Roy shrugged.

The expression on his father's face changed.

"I don't get you boy."

"Just not big on killing things, Dad."

"Shit. You've got a helluva lot to learn about the world." He pulled his hat down tight over his eyes. "I was your age my old man made me go out and get supper. If I didn't kill something, we didn't eat. We're the top of the food chain for a reason, you know. Eat or be eaten – you ever think of that, smart ass?"

Roy started to walk back to the car. His father grabbed his shoulder.

"One of these days you're going to understand what I've been trying to teach you."

Roy leaned away from the touch and looked at the ground. "Can we just go home?"

"For fuck's sake." He lifted his hand off of Roy's shoulder like it was suddenly hot, then grabbed Roy's gun. "Come help me get the birds."

"You do it." Roy walked toward the ditch, not looking back as he heard his father swear and say his name.

It was years before Roy would ever hold another gun.