We were walking through the woods and he saw a bird and figured he’d kill it as he was carrying his rifle with him. I didn’t like him killing things like that especially as I knew he wouldn’t want to eat it afterwards like Molly would and he’d just leave it there on the ground with a pellet in it but I wasn’t going to say anything to him being sweet on him at that point. So he drew a bead on it and got set to pop it away and I don’t know if he made a sound or if it was just coincidence or if the bird had some sort of premonition but it flew away right as he pulled the trigger. A white scar bloomed on the trunk of the tree and he said dammit he’d missed and he blamed me.

Well, sweet or not I wasn’t going to stand there and let him yell at me so I told him that if he was going to shoot at birds that never had done nothing to him he had to expect that sometimes he’d miss. He didn’t like that and so we went round on that subject for a while and I ended up stomping off through the woods one way and he went in another and the next thing I heard that he’d gone and shot himself in the foot like a prize idiot down at the dump where I guess he’d gone to cool off by shooting rats or something. After that I wasn’t anywhere near so sweet on him and didn’t see much of him so it all worked out all right in the end. I wouldn’t’ve wanted to waste myself on a guy who spends his time on rat patrol anyway. I’ve got some standards.