Again, Dusty claimed that his gun had spontaneously discharged with the safety on. No one believed him this time. No one paid him much attention.

Kids who had marveled at Dusty’s first injury now murmured in the hallway. “Did you hear? That dumb son-of-a-bitch Dusty Birge shot himself in the foot again.” Weeks later, Dusty’s second cast was gone and he walked again with ease.

I had spent the early morning with my father and brother in the deer stand in the woods behind our house. The November sun came up and filtered through the naked branches, warming our wind-chapped cheeks. We had waited since well before sunrise for a deer to wander into the range of our guns. I had just turned thirteen, the age my father deemed old enough to hunt. My brother was a year older. He had killed a small buck the year before. Now it was my turn.

By noon it was too warm. All of the deer had bedded down for the day. All hopes of bagging a trophy buck were suspended until dusk.

My brother climbed down the ladder first, his rifle pointed upwards. My father turned around and began his descent down the ladder as my brother reached the bottom. I opened the breech of my gun, preparing to climb down. Then a loud crack resonated through the woods. I heard my father fall from the ladder and onto the dry leaves of the forest floor. A cloud of smoke rose over the deer stand and enveloped me for a few seconds.

Fear gripped my stomach. I felt weightless, my ears ringing. I peered over the edge of the deer stand. My brother stood at the bottom of the ladder, his jaw hanging like the open tailgate of a truck left to rust in a field. My father lay in the leaves, covering his ears with his hands.