The Rifleman

The three of them remained motionless, still. He began to comprehend the anticipation in the air that made the moment linger. Simultaneously there was a thickness in the wait, an understanding of the deed to come, and a thinness in the knowledge the insignificance that this moment would have directly after. He looked to his brother. Older and more composed, he was kneeling on the floor, his elbows out and hands clasped on the windowsill. He rested his chin on his hands and moved his head side to side in a playful manner that betrayed the sanctity of the moment, as far as Max was concerned. But who was Max to say?

He must have been around ten. Numbers aside, he was young enough to still believe in the beauties of the body and soul that adorned his limited perception of the world. He was young enough to have a grip, understand the world, or at least his world. His brother was born twenty minutes before he was, and numbers aside, whatever saturated those twenty minutes was enough to create a permanent dichotomy between the two for the rest of their lives. But he adored his older brother, and his playful attitude in this whole situation only added to the feeling that something was wrong. Max was pretty sure his brother had never seen anything be killed before, but you would never know it to look at him now.

Max had hoped that Michael would stand with him, but he had removed himself to the privacy of his own world, as he always did when the ground began to tremble, and footing was scarce to find. Now, then, Max stood outside and held onto a tree, peering around it at the silver cage on the edge of the woods. Even in the gray sky its dim glisten stubbornly persisted through the air and made itself known as a fractured piece of technology against the wooded background. It was an odd sight, when you think about it. An animal surrounded by a metal cage, a metal cage surrounded by the woods. Unnatural is the word Max would have repeated in his head had he been able to place a title on the mood.

And there the creature sat. A furry little prisoner held without accusation or explanation. It had been three days since the animal had been trapped, and three days of pleading by the brothers were not enough to earn a stay of execution. The first day the animal had banged around and tried to get out of the cage. The type of anger only witnessed when no other emotion will do. The transforming kind of anger. The second day it had resigned most of its energy to lethargy, and by now freedom was merely the smell of the forest filtered through tiny diamonds of metal wire and rods. Max and his brother had been repeatedly out to the cage, and even tried to feed the creature one morning, before the parents awoke. It wouldn't eat and just looked at them on its side as if it pitied them because they didn't know how late they were.

BANG! There was a loud clap and Max noticed his brother jump out of the corner of his eye. It was the first time he had ever heard a gunshot and he had only a moment to catalog the noise before another, more horrible sound arose from the tree line. The shot had apparently not killed the creature, and the sound that arose now was the scraping of four clawed paws against the dirt and metal of the cage. It was trying to run. It put its head down and pushed against the side of the cage. Unbudging though it was, the creature was clearly running in place. It's tail bobbed up and down with a franticness that was undeniably raw and graphic. No other sound other than the running. The creature had gone from not moving for an entire day to suddenly alive with life, stimulated by the one thing that will animate absolutely: the promise of death. This creature had no understanding of what had just bitten him, or how it got close enough to bite him in the first place. All it knew was that the sting it felt held little other than death. Max realized, almost immediately, that this animal had grown and flourished successfully until this day. It had done this by doing what all animals are wired first to do, survive. There was no hope for the creature. The pause between the first and second shot was long enough for Max to understand that he was witnessing the destruction of a life that had only ever strove to live.

And so it ran. At first the door wouldn't budge, but then against the pressure of the creature's body the wires slowly bent, and eventually sprung open. The creature did not take a moment to ponder this sudden freedom. Nothing had made any sense the last few days, and with fresh soil beneath its feet, it felt the air move against its face, a feeling it never thought it would ever taste again. The wound did not slow the creature, and it ran with the ferocity of freedom its parents, family, and indeed entire preceding species had lived and died to ensure. It did not look back, and disappeared into the dark shadows of the woods with the promise of a clearer future, on its own terms.

But Max's fantasy was interrupted by the second shot. And this time there was no running. Stillness. Max was right. He barely remembered the moment before the first shot, and certainly forgot the boy he was before it. He watched as the rifleman put his weapon away and walked inside. Raccoons had been Max's favorite animal.

Years later Michael joined the Navy, and on leave one time confided in his family that he hated guns. Max still remembers that day, and every once in a while allows himself the pain of going back to that tree. To the feel of cold, rough bark in his fingernails and the weight of the end that would someday be his own.