Feathers And Fur

I’ll never forget how good it felt to pick up my first rifle. I was just 6 years old; the firearm my father’s .410. The way it kicked when I squeezed the trigger, how loud the blast of a shot was, the smoke from the barrel after each shot, it was intoxicating for me. Just the first shot of it was enough to get me hooked, like a drug. And like a drug, I needed more and more, shot after shot. That elation of looking at a downed deer, smelling the powder in the air after I let my finger from the trigger. I was psychologically addicted to shooting. By the time I was 13, I had killed at least seventeen deer, over half of which were over one hundred fifty pounds, at least a hundred ducks, and a few bear. I had shot at least twenty different kinds of guns, from black powders to sniper rifles, bows to automatic shotguns.
I am Michel Blanchard, but call me Nekro. I am 16, in body, but in mind, I am 23. I have seen things no one as ever seen. I have done things most 23 year olds would cringe at even the mere thought of. My hands have been covered in so much blood, half my own. Want to hear my story, of love, hate, and blood money? Pull up a chair Nancy, and grab a drink. You are going to be here for a while.

Why don’t I start the last day I was normal…well, normal as I can be. I’ll never forget that sunrise; I was out in the darkness of the swamps, water up to my waist. The ball of light rose slowly over the trees. I could hear the calls of the swamps all round me; mallards screaming into the wind as they rose to find food. A few mosquitoes buzzing around the entire pond. The wind pushing the branches of the trees into each other, making the tantalizing sound that made the morning complete…almost. All I needed was that sun to come over the trees to make this morning whole. My body was freezing in the winter wind. I could barley feel my toes in the insolated boots two feet underwater. My short green (yes, my hair is green) barley kept my head insolated from that stinging blast of air. But I smiled all the while, waiting for the sun.
The ball of light began to reach over the treetops, making this scene even more magical. The orange illuminated the foggy southern skies, showing the black shadows gliding in on the wind, their voices barley muffled by the blast of air. It sounded like drum rolls of clucks, crescendoing  as they descended into the spread of decoys I had set out an hour before. As soon as the whole ball of light was above the cypress line, I saw the green head of the lead fowl, my target. His eyes could see me, but did not deem me a threat, and so he and his mate were hell-bent to land in my pond
But I had other plans for those mallards. As they flared their wings one last time, in the blink of an eye the shotgun that was in my hands was to my shoulder, the rear and front sights between the two ducks. Those flaring brown, green, and blue wings began to quarter away from me. His hen began to shout to all the other ducks of the skies, telling them to go away from here. But she was silenced by the bang of the shotgun. I closed my eyes, letting the recoil hit my shoulder full blast, and exhaled as the music of the swamp was silent for a whole five seconds after the shock, and came back as the bodies of the fowl hit the water, dead as could be.
From my side came another splash and the black head of Shadow my lab chugging along to the site of the carnage, flying feathers marking his destination. I ejected the spent red shell, and slid another one in. Shadow was right back on his stand, the necks of the game in his mouth. My shivering arm picked him up the fowl, putting them in the game vest around my waist. She barked, sending up a few cranes across the pond from us.
That sunrise, that morning, those will forever be in my head…
The paddle back, through the only bayou connecting the pond to the main canal, that will also be in my memory. How the whitetails grazing on the floating mats would turn their heads as my pirogue cut through the lilies, heading for the main canal. I heard the big buck of the group grunt at his fawn, asking it to get behind its mother. I had to smile; it was like a real family…not that I have ever known what a real family is. My father pretty much left me to my own devices as long as I’ve lived, never really caring of my interest in anything. He left my mom some number years ago…the wounds he left when that door slammed one final time are still open and bleeding. Every time my body tries to scab them over, he comes back to peel it off, and let the pain flow again.
I started to paddle again, and the deer took flight, a rooster tail of water following their steps deeper into the swamp. I sighed, keeping up the rhythm of two strokes of the paddle on one side, two on the other. Over and over the metronome of water being pushed was overtaking the sounds of the swamp in my ears. Not too much farther until I found my boat, and I could go home, and get these trophies ready to be stuffed; that was why I went out today; I wanted to get my first mounts. My father told me like the butt hole he was that you weren’t a true hunter until you had a pair of French ducks mounted on your wall
Well merry fucking Christmas Pop, you’re son’s a hunter now… <i>