Nothing but the Rain
A boy’s hunt with his grandfather becomes a test not just of skill, but of conscience. As thunder rumbles above, a twelve-year-old must decide what kind of man he wants to become.
Coming-of-age story. Hunting short story. Southern fiction.
They’d been tracking the buck for nearly a mile before they saw the treehouse. The forty-foot rise offered a better vantage point, and the scope on his grandfather’s rifle without all the low-hanging branches would carry their sights even farther.
Sunlight shot down through dotted leaves as Carter and his Pawpaw footed the path across Keith Barnham’s property. They walked with a steady pace through the tree line and into the high grass. The old man put his finger to his lips, reminding the boy to keep quiet. He’d advised him on the drive there to walk as if the world was going to fall out from beneath him. Carter nodded his head, somewhat nervous at the idea of such a thing happening. He was afraid, after all, to shoot a gun. But the day was upon him, as his Pawpaw told him for years. The twelfth year of his life, like all the other men in his family, was when it was to happen.
On the drive there, they’d listened to the robotic voice seeping from the truck speakers ramble on about the Columbia space shuttle, which two days prior had disintegrated as it entered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana. Carter watched a plane in the sky dip above them in and out of the clouds as he chewed a piece of gum. He’d never flown, but he wanted to. Hearing about the shuttle crash made him more scared than ever to be the far off the ground. He wondered, if he were to fall out of the tree stand they were soon to climb, how long it’d take for him to hit the ground.
“He’s heading back towards the field,” Pawpaw said.
His words were slow and guided, his voice like a river, taking form in the shape of his mouth. Nothing in the world could compare. Carter could fall asleep to the sound of his voice with ease. And when Pawpaw sang, usually church hymns, but sometimes a soulful rendition of “The Anchor Holds,” peace moved through the boy’s ears like a gust of wind, brushing against his delicate bones.
Carter didn’t ask his grandfather how he knew which way the buck was headed without having seen it for himself. The man just had a way of knowing things. Always had. Said he would get this tingling, like a warm buzz—an inclination that pulled his mind in a certain direction.
His grandma got those feelings too. She could tell a pregnant woman if she was carrying a boy or a girl just by pressing her palm against the expecting mother’s stomach. That’s what she’d done with him. Told his momma her child would live to favor all the other men in the family. Just before his momma passed, his grandma had told Carter, only five years old at the time, that she knew his mother’s end was coming. Grandma said her daughter’s final days appeared as a cluster of looming clouds she could see taking form above the mountains. Then in one breath, the sky opened up and swallowed her whole.
They climbed the ladder slowly in fear of the old wood giving out. A breeze rippled the frayed fabric that curtained the structure’s window. Carter watched as Pawpaw settled his rifle on the windowsill, swaying the gun from one side to the other as he followed the deer’s movement across the field.
“Here, have a look,” he said, his breath heavy.
He let out a hoarse cough as quietly as he could manage without startling the creature. Steadying the gun with one arm, he tugged on the boy’s jacket. Pawpaw wore a pair of dingy overalls with oil stains all up and down the legs and a brown jacket with red flannel lining. Six feet tall and thin, he was strong, despite people’s assumptions. Years of hauling and laying carpet had left his arms wiry and rugged, his hands calloused.
Carter shuffled his body closer to the old man. For a boy his age, he was quite small, his arms lanky. He smelled the deer urine with which his grandpa had soaked his clothes, beneath it a hint of tobacco. Carter looked up at his grandpa and traced the wrinkles on his face down to the small scar that disrupted the black hair of his mustache. He turned and nestled his eye to the scope.
And there the buck stood. Just as pretty as could be. An eight-pointer with muscular legs, veins protruding along his brow no more than a couple hundred yards away. They had a clear shot of him, and so long as the buck didn’t get spooked, he would keep eating the feast of mushrooms and pokeweed he’d discovered along the ridgeline, unaware of their eyes on him.
Pawpaw coughed again, and the buck jerked his head up, still munching on the weeds in his mouth. The tree branches bounced, and in the far distance, a train blared its horn.
“Come on, dammit, don’t you move now.”
Coming-of-age story. Hunting short story. Southern fiction.
They sat still as perched birds, finally breathing again once the buck dropped his head for another bite. His head was only slightly visible through the tall grass, but his midsection and rear end stood tall. Pawpaw guided Carter’s hand to the trigger.
The boy closed his eyes and inhaled.
“Take it.”
The old man tightened his grip.
“Take it, boy.”
Carter wanted to cry, let it all go, but instead he froze.
He thought about all the stories he’d heard about how his ancestors fought to preserve their land from poachers, even if it meant putting another man’s family through mourning. And then he thought about his Uncle Ethan, who had joined the army when he was freshly eighteen. Carter remembered when he’d finally come home from overseas. The light in his eyes disintegrated. He didn’t talk much. Stopped telling his jokes. Refused to go hunting with Pawpaw. Instead, he kept himself busy building things. Bookshelves. Gun cabinets. Barns. Anything to keep his mind off the lives he’d taken. All that time he’d spent overseas had done to him what winter does to warm water—it turned him ice cold.
Carter cracked one eye. And it was in that moment that the deer didn’t look so much like a deer anymore. He saw its breath rising and falling, saw its eyes full of light. Thought of it running through a field of dandelions full of hope for something else good to eat.
He lifted the gun slightly, just enough to miss, and pulled the trigger. The shot rang through the hills. The bullet landed in the sky.
The walk back to the highway was quiet. The sun was slowly setting along the horizon, and they’d be due home for supper within the hour.
“I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to, but...”
Thunder rumbled above them. Pawpaw cocked his head up to look at the clouds.
“It’s all right. You’ll get another chance.”
“No. I mean I can’t do it. I won’t kill. Only reason I came is you.”
Pawpaw stopped and turned to the boy, putting a hand on his shoulder. He admired the softness of Carter’s face, his eyes green as moss. He’d told him time and time again that there was no denying he bore his genes, with his stout jawline and rounded nose. The grin pinned across the old man’s face told his grandson—despite the boy’s own feelings of defeat—that his Pawpaw was proud.
“You shot the buck, and it ran. We lost track. Far as they know, you did what you were meant. You took the shot. They don’t need to know where it landed,” Pawpaw said as he walked and puffed smoke.
Carter stood there for a moment and watched his grandfather’s figure grow smaller ahead. Thunder rumbled again. He knew when they got home, Grandma would know everything. She’d know he hadn’t shot a thing. She’d know Pawpaw’s cough was more than a cough. She wouldn’t believe him when he said the tears were nothing but the rain. Carter wiped mist from his cheeks and looked up at the clouds.
“You coming?” Pawpaw hollered. “This rain don’t wait on nobody.”
Leo Coffey is a queer fiction writer born and raised in Western North Carolina. His creative work focuses on themes of memory, rural life, and LGBTQ+ narratives. His work has appeared in The Appalachian Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Hawai'i Pacific Review. He is currently pursuing his MFA at the University of Kentucky.