It was unclear if it was me or my father. We both shot at the same time. What was clear was that it wasn’t clean. The duck did not fold its wings and drop like a sack of rocks. Would that have been better? Decided? Rather, it circled then crash landed. Around a copse of trees. My father gave me the credit. You got it. Great shooting. Your first duck. A woody at that. Then he hustled through the calf-deep water. I could see my breath as I followed. Through the December rain. The movement staved my shivering. And I was glad for that. I was past ready to head home. We slogged from thin, still pools to brown, flat-grassed shoals. Out and then back in, leaving a wake behind. My hip waders, held up by suspenders, were too big, hand-me-downs from my uncle. The boots moved awkward in and out of the soft mud bottom.

I see it, my father shouted, over his shoulder. And then I saw it too, wings splashing, attempting to fly. My father grabbed it by the neck, raised it in the air then motioned his head toward the shore. When I caught up to him, he told me that it was a beautiful specimen, aix sponsa, then held it out for me to admire. No damage, my father said, breathing heavily, puffs of steam coming out of his mouth. A drake. Look at that color. Gonna look bueno in your bedroom.

I would need to kill him without damaging feathers. He suggested a drowning. So I knelt at the edge. Held him under longer than either of us thought it would take. And together we were confused. Gonna have to choke it, I guess, he said. No telling how long the bastards can hold their breath. Thumb into the trachea, son. Come on now. My red fingers seemed like something else poking out of my fingerless gloves. I pinched until the tips went numb. The shivering had returned. The woody blinked motionless in my hands. Not a word was said when I was handed the pliers from the leather scabbard on his belt. I squeezed as tight as I could. My father said that should do it three times before he took the pliers from my shaking fists. Well, all be, he said. Tough son of a bitch. But my father didn’t try for himself. To do what I couldn’t do. Rather, he stood looking down at us for what felt like too long. 

I know exactly what we’re gonna have to do, he said. Andale, buddy. He walked fast and I had a hard time keeping up, and when we got back to the cabin, he shut the woody in the bathroom while we got out of our hunting gear to pack the van. The woody was the last thing he loaded. I watched them from my seat, through the sideview mirror, my father holding the woody out, two-handed, too far from his chest.

We listened to a cassette of Muddy Waters the two hours home, my father punching it out of the player, turning it over, and putting it back in, again and again. I looked back at the woody now and then, but he never moved or made a sound the entire way.

In his late teens and twenties, my father had been an accomplished musician. He never knew it while he was alive, or maybe he did, but he and his band, The Jades, are in the Texas Music Hall of Fame. I had always wondered why all those homelife years he kept his six-string sunburst in its case behind shoes at the bottom of his closet.

Once we arrived, it wasn’t hard for my father to catch the woody, squatting in the back of the van on my camouflage duffle. Can you hit the garage clicker, he called. Then he raised the lid of the chest freezer, full of previous kills: filets, breasts, and steaks. He assured me that nothing could survive such cold. And I was glad. Glad that it was decided.

The woody would hang on the wall of my bedroom for years. Though I don’t know now what’s become of it, maybe sold for a few dollars at a yardsale before one of our many moves, I remember the mount perfectly. Perched upright on a piece of holey driftwood — its webbed feet yellow, plumes of iridescent teal, eyes a target of red — colors like nothing I have ever known.

I pressed the button again. Maybe we don’t tell your mother about this part, my father said. And with that, we stood side by side watching the garage door struggle to close.

Nelson Taylor grew up in Texas and now resides in Providence. He has an MA from The University of North Texas, an MFA from The University of Alabama, and studied fiction with Gordon Lish. He is the author of the book America Bizarro. He currently writes lyrics for local bands, and since COVID he’s been trying to solve a cold case murder, for which he’s currently producing a podcast. This is the first story he has published in 25 years, a hiatus to raise a family and build a career as a residential real estate broker.