The Doe by Jules Archer

​The Doe

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            The cab of the truck smells like diesel fuel and sunlight. I don't know how I can smell sunlight, but I can. Like melted butter or a sandy beach. Mom presses her body beside me and I am warm. Her jacket is nice, but too big for her. Camo. A rough, rustling material that I also wear. This is my first time hunting and I remember the rules I've been told like a storybook. Never touch a gun. Never step in front of the barrel. Never shoot a doe during nursing season. My grandfather rests his shotgun out the driver's side window. We hold our breath. I place a hand on the grimy, pebbled dash and lean forward. Watching, waiting. My chest holds a heart like a rabbit and I feel it as it scampers this way and that, ready for the trap. It isn't long before there's the crunch of dried grass, brown movement in my periphery. When the gun goes off, loud, a flash-bang, the expelled bullet singes the back of my hand. A white-hot scald. I yelp, and try to scramble away. I crawl across my mother's lap and exit the passenger side door.

            I watch Grandpa kneel beside the fallen deer, lying motionless on its side. He puts down his gun. He pinches a teat. White milk sprays like a fountain. My heart is in my ears, obsessed with finding a new place to beat, as I watch my grandfather hang his head and swear. He stays there a long minute. When he stands, he tells me to get my pansy ass back in the truck. But I can only stare at him. There's blood on the knees of his jeans. For a brief moment, I wonder if the blood is mine. For a brief moment—it is.

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Jules lives in Arizona. She likes to smell old books and drink red wine. Her chapbook ALL THE GHOSTS WE'VE ALWAYS HAD is out from Thirty West Publishing.

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