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My finger squeezes.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
All three tin cans flip off the fence railing. My father squints and takes his hat off to wipe his face with a bandana. Sweat etches down his neck, wetting his collar.
“Good. That’s good,” he says.
I drop the magazine out and hand it over. He watches me intently as I put the gun back in the holster at my belt. It’s too big, and it hits my knee as we start down the hill. We don’t talk much, me and my father, but that’s alright. I don’t expect a lot of words from him.
My mother stands in the doorway of the ranch house. She’s much younger than my father, but neither of them will tell me how old they are.
My father has lines around his eyes and silvery hair while my mother is beautiful with long auburn hair and always smells like cinnamon. She doesn’t have a single wrinkle on her skin.
She hugs me, taking the gun off my belt. I hear her say something to my father, their voices low. I’m thirsty, though, so I don’t stick around.
I hang my hat and put my boots away. In the kitchen sits a tray with two glasses of lemonade. My father doesn’t drink anything but lemonade and water. I grab one and empty it.
My mother will be inside in a moment, and she’ll want me to clean up, so I duck into the bathroom off the kitchen. One step ahead.
Their footsteps sound as I scrub lye soap up to my elbows, the way my mother showed me. She likes everything clean and neat. Their voices rumble, unintelligible. I finish up and turn the water off so I can hear what they’re saying.
“I don’t know,” my father says. “He kinda fucking scares me.”
I freeze, my stomach twisting.
“He’s a good boy,” my mother says, her voice soft. “He’s just…older for his age.”
“He shoots like a grown man. I’ve never seen anything like it,” my father says. “It’s unsettling. But I’d be a fool not to make sure he uses a skill like that.”
Unsettling—it feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
“He’s a little young to be shooting with you,” my mother says tentatively.
“Don’t start on that,” my father says. “He acts like a grown up and he’s fucking seven. He can handle his shit.”
My mother gives a sigh of defeat. “Of course.”
I stay in the bathroom for a while after. Finally, the dinner bell rings, and I eat in silence. All the ranch hands are lined up, and I sit with them instead of next to my father. I always do—he says that’s where children should sit. He eats at the far end of the room, my saint of a mother at his side.
He has a big presence: confident, belligerent, and aggressive to the world, but lenient towards anyone who obeys him.
The next day, my father takes me out to the field behind the barn. It’s hot, the air filled with the whine of cicadas. In the distance, lined up in the plowed field, sits a row of tin cans.
They’re a lot further out than they were yesterday.
My father flips his wrist and looks at his silver watch with its worn leather band. It belonged to his grandfather. It’s eight in the morning. I haven’t had breakfast yet.
“I’ve been giving it some thought,” he says. “Let’s see what you can do.”
He gives me his gun. I check the chamber, spin it, and click it into place.
“You want me to shoot them all, sir?” I ask.
He nods. “You got fifteen seconds.”
