Huntin'

I walked up to the rain barrel and noticed that the screen had slid off the top. I bent over to dip the watering can into the rainwater, but a silver sheen caught my eye. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, then reached down and lifted it out by its tail.

It was a squirrel, its body stiff in a running pose. It stared blankly with clear black eyes. Its whiskers pointed stiffly, like the ends of a handlebar moustache. Its mouth was slightly parted, showing two pair of teeth, tiny and sharp.

When I was a girl, my father went huntin' in the autumn. He left the house early in the morning, wearing a flannel shirt and a hat with flaps and a bill. Later in the day, he stomped on the porch. We stared out the back window at four squirrels piled stiffly on the milkbox. I recall eyes, round and dark, with a trickle of dried blood near the mouth.

My mother made stew but none of the children would eat it, appetites ruined by the memory of the hapless creatures on the milkbox. My father went huntin' a few more times, but gave up eventually.

I dug a hole in our pet cemetery, near the resting places of our pet rodents. Guinea pigs, hamsters and an Egyptian spiney mouse were the ones I remember-- Brownie, Petunia, Pepsi and the others, and now a nameless squirrel.