On graduation night we skip out on the dreaded ceremony with its foldable metal chairs and grandparents dabbing sweaty necks with lace handkerchiefs and walk single file along the dirt road to Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse. Ellis walks up front with a BB gun tipped against his bare, tanned shoulder, tobacco spit dribbling down his chin. Every so often he spits to his right and August flinches and curses. August always walks too close behind his twin brother, hovers in his shadow.

            Ellis can shoot a tin can off a tree stump from thirty paces. He rides horses bareback and sometimes barefoot, too. There’s a rumor that girls will run across the Quebec-Ontario border late at night in their jean shorts and flip flops if they hear Ellis will be at an Ontario party that night. Then Ellis will charm them in his broken French, and they’ll laugh because he has a good-looking face.

            “We’re going to get killed by Beaver,” moans August. August did not inherit the looks or the charm that his twin brother is graced with but instead an affinity for bugs and no hearing in his right ear. He often squats down in the dust and dirt and sticks his finger in the ground, admiring an ant or a spider or a fat caterpillar. At school people lean into his deaf ear and whisper “freak” and “queer” and “creeper”.

            At school people buy Ellis slices of pizza and offer to lend him their dirt bikes. August squats in the dirt and smiles and doesn’t hear what people whisper in his right ear.

            “Shut up, August,” I say. “Cormack Beaver’s dead.”

            The sun is almost down but the heat is smothering. Crickets are popping in and out of the dry yellow grass along the road. The sound they make is like a high-pitched whine.

            Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse is a long walk outside of town. Ellis wanted to shoot out the windows instead of getting his high school diploma. He brought me along because he knows I’m a good shot and I don’t talk much. I have my dad’s hunting rifle with me. The weight of it feels powerful, the butt of the gun bumping against my thighs as I walk. Once Ellis said that he’d want me on his team for the zombie apocalypse. I grinned like an idiot for the rest of the day.

            “People say that if you shoot out the windows on Beaver’s house then he’ll haunt you in your sleep.” August walks with his head down, his glasses nearly sliding off his face. The tips of his ears are sunburnt.

            “Then go home, August.” Ellis doesn’t turn when he speaks.

            An old pick-up truck grumbles along the road towards us. It is shiny silver and reflects the late evening sun in white flashes. We all stand and squint at it as it approaches.

            “There’s no hunting here, boys,” says an old man’s voice from the window.

            I stand with August as Ellis goes to speak with the driver. August points out a wasp nest a few feet away, nestled in the gnarled branches of a magnolia.

            “That’s a nice spot,” he says.

            Ellis walks back to us and the truck drives off, leaving behind a cloud of yellow dust.

            “Old asshole,” Ellis says. He spits a wad of black grime and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

            “He’s reporting us?” I ask.

            “He bought the property beside Beaver’s place. He said he’ll call the cops if we don’t leave.”

            “What the hell are we gonna do?” I dig my shoe into the dirt. This was supposed to be a good time. The old man has ruined everything.

            August is staring off at the magnolia tree, hypnotized by the lazy hum of wasps.

            Ellis raises his BB gun and aims in one fluid motion. He fires ten times at the wasp nest and smiles when it hits the ground. 

Issie Patterson is a writer from Toronto. Her fiction and reviews have been featured and are forthcoming in untethered, Prism, Gargoyle Magazine, and Vancouver Weekly. Her stage plays have been performed on both coasts of Canada. She is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA creative writing program. She lives in Nova Scotia.

“Frank, Brian is moving more of them.” Arlo stopped mid-chew when he heard the familiar sound. He abandoned lunch and moved closer to the ridgeline.

            “Where do you think he’s taking them?” Barry asked, though it was barely coherent through his mouthful of food.

Frank said nothing, chewing his lunch slowly. The entire crew turned to him—it was the habitual response—but nothing in Frank’s expression told them what he was thinking. Arlo was the first to look away from him and back to Brian.

            “Don’t know,” Bob chimed in. “Don’t care. I say farewell and ado and see ya later!” His large lips smacked obnoxiously after he took another bite.

            “But we won’t see them later.” Arlo raised his head a little higher to see over the ridge to the bottom of the hill turning golden with the onset of the cooler weather. He especially liked the smell of it up on this ridge. Arlo watched for a few minutes as Brian loaded the trailer. The smell of the grass turned rancid in his large nostrils. “That’s why we care.” Arlo’s voice languished but it made Saul jump. Silence had taken over the group and Arlo’s voice, regardless of its hushed tone, had broken it abruptly.

            “Okay, boys,” Frank said, walking over to join Arlo. The cooler air made his breath visible as it rushed from his nostrils. Frank felt the responsibility heavily some days. He surveyed the land from their lunch spot. He always enjoyed this view. “I think it’s time. Brian’s got to go.” His voice was steady and calm, just like it always was.

            Arlo swung his head to look at him, his eyes even bigger than usual. Frank met them with his own dark brown eyes. The pair were a mirror image of each other except for Frank’s larger, more muscular stature. It commanded respect. Frank held Arlo’s gaze, only interrupting it with a slow blink.

Arlo backed away from the edge no longer able to watch the scene below. “Moo,” he acquiesced. He tore the grass nearest to his feet and chewed, but he didn’t taste it.

            Another moo rose up from the herd. Then another rose to join it, again and again, until all of them melded into a chorus.

            Brian looked over his shoulder. It wasn’t like the cows to carry on that way. The rancher shook his shoulders to get rid of the chill that had settled in, somehow piercing his rugged work coat. Their song stopped all at once. Brian looked up. The sky was blue, but a storm was rolling in from the west over the hill. His biggest bull stared at him from the top of it. A chill ran down Brian’s spine. He laughed it off as he shoved the last cow into the trailer. He needed to get to the slaughterhouse before the weather came in.

L.C. Hill spends every waking minute writing, thinking about writing, reading about writing, writing in her car via voice memo, writing in her head and forgetting the brilliant thing she just wrote in her head because she didn’t write it down, and writing down brilliant things that she later can’t read because her handwriting is terrible. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her American Bulldog, Ernest Hemingway.

She is a board member for the Literacy Coalition of Colorado and the content editor for their newsletter and social media.

All the family came—even Declan who’d treated his eighteenth birthday as a family holiday emancipation—and, despite advance grumbling about Bev’s vegan holiday meal, all ate well. Properly sated, they took possession of every sofa and loveseat cushion, the recliner, and the mixed chairs around the penny table. Lights were dimmed. The tradition film was started. Moved by the increasing rareness of these congregations, Bev took a moment of private appreciation: all whom she loved joined in the cozy dark of her living room, the television playing unwatched, every head down as if in prayer, each face lit by the mysterious glow of their own private screen.

M.C. Schmidt holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. He is the author of two novels and his recent short fiction has appeared in Litro, Every Day Fiction, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Dime Show Review, Cleaning Up Glitter, and The Books Smuggler’s Den. He has work forthcoming from Abstract Magazine.