Ainesley knocked on the door. A voice called out for him to come on in, and he pushed open the door and entered.
In ten minutes or so Ainesley came out again with a heavyset man, about sixty or so--hard to tell. He was dressed in shorts, ankle-high shoes, and a T-shirt decorated with a faded palmtree logo and the word ARUBA.
Ainesley walked to the rear of the truck while the man waited, pulled open the tarpaulin again, and this time took out a bolt-action, single-shot .22 rifle.
"Come along," he said to Raff and Junior, "I'm going to show you how to get your own food."
Following the owner, they passed a toolshed and the abandoned shell of a truck, then a tiny plot of land surrounded by a low white picket fence. Inside the fence was a gravestone bearing the single word BELOVED.
Pointing with his thumb, the owner said, "That's where I bury my dogs."
Soon the group came to an outdoor pen enclosed by a wire fence. The owner said it was two acres, but it seemed much smaller. Thirty yards inside the fence they saw a flock of a dozen guinea fowl resting in the shade of an oak tree. The owner wagged an index finger in that direction. "These here is the only guinea birds you're gonna find all the way down to Mobile."
Ainesley pulled the bolt of the rifle back and down, chambered a slim cartridge, and hooked the bolt back into position. He flicked off the safety.
"Now, what you remember when shooting small game like this is always go for the head. You do that and you get a sure kill, and you don't mess up the body. We've got to clean the bird when we get home and I don't want to have to dig a bullet out of the best eatin' part." The flock, disturbed by the approach of the humans, began to stir. Ainesley sighted on a cock in its midst.
Raphael clenched his whole body, gritted his teeth, and tightened his fists. He half closed his eyes. He'd never seen a warm-blooded animal bigger than a mouse killed, and certainly nothing executed with a gun.
The shot made a popping sound, surprisingly quieter than the shotgun. The bird's head kicked back, and the rest of its body simply collapsed onto the ground. The owner went into the enclosure, scattering the flock as he approached. He scooped up the slain bird in a newspaper and handed the package to Ainesley.
As they drove the rest of the way past farms and pine plantations to the little town of Clayville, Ainesley was in better spirits. He took a shot of Jack Daniel's from a small paper-bag-covered bottle lying above the dashboard, cleared his throat, and continued his lecture on the hunter's life. "You saw how I took that bird down. The big thing down in this part of the country is marksmanship. In the early days most people had to get some of their food from the woods, and they couldn't afford to waste any ammunition doing it, either. That's why the Confederates--and there were Codys in action during that war, believe me--they were able to pick off so many of the Union infantry at places like Shiloh and Antietam. Our boys have always been the best shots. They've always been the best soldiers in America too."
Later, he continued his lecture on Southern marksmanship. "Right around here, they used to hold shooting matches every year. For example, one contest was 'snuffing the candle.' You had to clip the wick at fifty yards and put the flame out. But--and this is important--it was just the tip of the wick you were supposed to cut, so the flame would go out but then it came back on again.
"My dad told me about another contest they called 'bark the squirrel.' Shooting squirrels was a big thing in those days. Some of the country people around here still make squirrel stew, with okra and tomatoes and stuff, and I'll tell you, when done right it is real tasty."
Chuckling, he added, "If you like squirrel meat, that is." He took another sip from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve.
"Anyway, you didn't want to tear up the squirrel any more'n you had to, so you tried to bark the squirrel. So here's how it was done. You let the squirrel run up the tree and stop to look back at you the way they always do, then you