Twenty Bucks a Pop

I felt worse about every step we took. I wasn't some crybaby animal person, worrying about the poor little baby deers and all. Truth is, I didn't think about animals too much at all. I ate meat. Still do. Never saw anything wrong with that. And I'm convinced that Maureen's turkey casserole could bring anyone to his knees and make them beg for a fork. So, okay, that's where I was coming from. Sensible man, but not too sensitive, if you see what I'm saying. Medium. Even keel. Still, the further we got into the trees, Wes, Dean, and me, the worse I felt.

The ground was hard frozen—it was the dead-end ass of December—and my ankles and shins were starting to gripe. My feet were blistering. New boots. Maureen said I should wear them in some, but that would have just made this whole thing feel like it was starting a week early.

Let's just say Wes didn't have the right way of thinking about this, for my money. He was too excited, like a kid opening Christmas stuff, and it was because some fella at Ruby's said something about a man he knew wanted to buy fox pelts. Fox pelts. Fella said this dealer would pay twenty bucks a pop. Wes got charged up over that, started adding up numbers so hard he forgot to finish his beer. That's the way Dean tells it. I wasn't there. I hadn't gone drinking with them two for I don't know how long. Better things to do with my time. Game on, or a project down in my shop. Wes got it in his head that I needed to go out with them, for fox. I started to say no, Wes standing on the woven rug in the living room, dripping snow all over, but watching his fist clench and unclench, I said yes. Just like that.

Didn't want to be there. I didn't even believe the part about the dealer. Twenty bucks for a fox? Who's going to pay that? So I'm wondering, the whole time we're banging into the woods, what the hell we're doing there. Then one of their guns goes off, maybe thirty, forty yards up. I run up, slapping my feet on the ground like flippers and there's Dean, down on the ground. He's bleeding from the chest. He's on his back trying to find the sun with his eyes. And Wes is looking at me like I'm next.