“Yup. That’s right son. Now just get the bead lined up in the sights, make sure its right in the middle. Uh-huh. Then when you’re comfortable, you shoot.”

I breathed in and out a few times. I could feel my forehead start to get warm and my heart beat faster. I didn’t feel comfortable, but I didn’t want to disappoint my dad. So I tried to catch my breath, and I pulled the trigger. The sound cracked out sharp, diluting as it rang out along the empty plains. It smelled like burnt charcoal with a metallic shine. I could taste it on my tongue. A slight wisp of smoke exited the side of the barrel where the hot spent shell jumped out in front of the bolt action and bounced off of my forearm that was stabilizing the .22 rifle. I watched a meager gathering of dust pirouette up off the ground, like a gentle grassland geyser. 

“How’d that feel? See what I mean with the sights? It works better when you have an actual target though.”

“Ya,” I said. “I get it.”

“Oh! There’s one! See? Straight east of where you just shot. Up on top of the mound, he’s standing straight up. See?”

I nodded my head yes. 

Dad was teaching me how to shoot gophers. He would call them a pest, or sometimes dirty buggers if he was extra mad. They would leave holes everywhere, and when the cows went out to graze they could break a leg if they stepped into one. He said they also ate up acres worth of seeded crop, he figured they’d cost us a lot of money. Enough to take us on a trip somewhere he said. He really wanted me to hate gophers, but I didn’t. I knew all that stuff was bad, especially for us and everyone else who farmed around here. But it still didn’t make me hate them. I did wish they wouldn’t do that to the cows though. That made me sad. 

“Ok, just like last time. Line the bead up in the sights, and when you’ve got it where you want take a breath in and hold it. Exhale after you’ve pulled the trigger.” 

I lifted the barrel up and felt my arm quivering as I held the gun. The wind blew against the back of my neck, I could feel the tiny hairs back there moving. It tickled. When the standing gopher was in my sights I gulped and was scared. I felt guilty - he didn’t know what was about to happen. His eyes were bulging black and shiny, reflecting the landscape back onto itself. I never realized how many different shades of brown were in their tiny coats. 

I took a deep breath in and moved the barrel down slightly, pulling the trigger. The dirt shot up two feet in front of the gopher, and he frantically dove back into his hole. 

“Ah, dang. Nice try, son. We’ll try to find you another one.”

I was hoping he’d recognize my terrible aim and send me home, but he was a lot more patient than I wanted him to be. 

We bumped along the prairie in Dad’s truck following the tire tracks in the dead grass back to the road. As we drove along the gravel, clouds of dust erupted from behind the tires, splitting the sea of golden brown grass all around us. The windows were down on both sides and the warm July air swirled everywhere. It smelled like Dad in the cab and I felt comfortable again. 

He raised his voice to combat the tempestuous air around us. “I know! We’ll head down to the cemetery. I mowed the lawn there the other day and the dirty buggers were all over the place. You’ll have all sorts of chances over there.”

I felt uneasy in my stomach. My heart started up again. “The cemetery? But what do-”

“Speak up, son! Can’t hear ya!” 

The most unconfident volume increase followed. “But what if I hit a headstone! Isn’t shooting in a graveyard like - disrespectful or something?”

“I mean, you shouldn’t do it for fun. Look at it like we’re going to go help clean it up. I mowed it the other day right? Well now we’re just going to do another job to help make the space look nice and tidy, so when folks come to visit their family it looks like somebody cares about the place. Because we do.”

He smiled down at me and I felt his loving conviction. 

That seemed like it made sense. 

We pulled into the entrance of the cemetery and slowly crawled forward. It felt like a strange community gathering place. There wasn’t a house for a mile in any direction. The only place in that expanse that seemed cared for by something.

I’d been here before. My dad did all of the maintenance to keep it looking proper. Sometimes he brought me along to pick up sticks or pull weeds. I didn’t like coming here in the beginning, but it was slowly becoming more familiar to me. It wasn’t a very large place. Just three rows of headstones. I don’t know how many were there, but it wouldn’t have taken very long to count all of them. There was a thick, sprawling old poplar tree right in the middle of the grounds with three rows of caraganas along the back and sides. It felt sheltered and watched over. I looked over the familiar area and saw the place crawling with gophers. 

There was no way we were getting skunked on this trip. 

“Dirty. Buggers.” Dad stared through his open window and glared among the activity. There were so many of them conducting their lives with such frenzy, it was as if they were mocking our presence.

They were standing on headstones with multiple holes dug into the graves, scurrying all over our dead relatives and neighbours. I wondered how far those holes went down, and what those gophers had seen down there.

Sometimes Dad was funny when he was angry, but not this time. He seemed more serious. I started to feel myself get angry too. 

“Well son, looks like we came to the right place.” 

He pulled ahead and then backed the truck down the green grass pathway, big enough for a vehicle to pass through slowly. He parked in the middle and handed me the .22, I pushed the barrel through the open window and rested it on the door. 

“Just like how we practiced, bud. Take your time, don’t do anything if you’re not comfortable.”

I slid my right hand between the door and the resting gun to support it more. I carefully placed my left hand in position. My index finger pointed straight forward and parallel to the barrel, seemingly identifying my potential targets, their narrow snouts directed straight back at me. Dad told me to never put your finger on the trigger until you’re absolutely ready to fire. I nestled my head into the heel, and closed my right eye. As I slowly panned my sights along I saw two gophers scurry back into their hole, a small poof of dust signaling their exit. One remained above ground, oblivious. He stood up tall, about two feet behind on a headstone. That one was for Herman Donaldson, he died in 1974. I remembered that one cause once I saw an acoustic guitar etched into the stone, along with a design of four playing cards. I had been picking out thistles that were growing right next to it. I liked that his grave marker made me feel like I knew him a little bit.

“Now whatever you do son, just make sure you don’t hit anything that isn't ground or gopher. If you’re even a little unsure that you can’t do that, just let me know.”

Now I knew I couldn’t miss on purpose this time, too much of a risk. That didn’t matter out on the prairie. 

I lined up the gopher in my sights again, just like I had at our previous spot. I was pretty sure I had my aim right then, I knew I would have hit that one if I hadn’t missed on purpose. I was actually pretty good when I was just shooting old pop cans off of fence posts. 

I breathed in, and my heart was racing. It felt like my hands were shaking, but when I stared down the barrel it stayed completely still. I nervously wiggled a loose tooth with my tongue, Mom figured it would be my last baby tooth left.  

I pulled the trigger.

The pop didn’t surprise me this time, but I felt my stomach plummet through the floorboard when the gopher dropped.

“Attaboy! That’s exactly how you do it! There’s some more clustered in the next row back, let’s see if you can’t get on a roll.” My dad was trying to share his enthusiasm with me.

Sometimes when I would get nervous at home Mom would ask if it felt like there were butterflies in my stomach. This time it felt more like if a deranged seagull was trapped in there. My eyes began to well up and I sniffled. 

“You alright bud?”

POP

I dropped another one.

“Oh - sorry - thought something was wrong.”

POP

Another.

I didn’t want Dad to see me cry. 

I ended up getting six before we couldn’t find anymore. That’s how it usually goes Dad said. You get a handful or so in a short burst and then the rest get wise to it and hunker down for a spell. Dad put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze from the driver’s seat. Told me I did a good job, and thanked me for helping to keep the cemetery a pleasant place for folks to come to. As much as I hated shooting those gophers, it did get kind of easier with each one. I barely had to think about it after the first couple. And it felt good that Dad thought I did a good job. It made me feel better to be decent at something. I felt a little bit proud for a second, and then I wanted to throw up. 

“Well bud, we better head ‘er back home. Your mom’s probably getting supper ready.”

I nodded my head.

“But before we go, we gotta clean up these carcasses.”

“What do you mean clean them up?”

“Well we just gotta get them outta here, folks don’t wanna see a bunch of dead stuff laying around the cemetery.” He chuckled to himself and tapped his hand against the steering wheel twice. 

He grabbed some deer skin gloves from the backseat of the truck and tossed them on my lap. 

“You can put those on and just grab ‘em up by the tail. Take ‘em to the back fence and toss them over into the tall grass back there. Coyotes or hawks should clean them up, but they’re out of sight if nothing else.”

“Like touch them?” I asked. I couldn’t handle getting that close to them. I couldn’t understand the point of getting them out of the way. People were coming here to be close to a bunch of dead people in the ground, what difference did it make if they saw some dead animals too?

“You know what? I think I’ve got a shovel in the back, just grab that and you can scoop them up and then toss ‘em. How’s that sound?”

I still didn’t like it, but at least there was a little more distance between us. I walked over to the first gopher that I shot and I slid the shovel between the ground and its body. I could barely look at it. It was so limp. Its eyes were still open, but there was no reflection in them this time. Matte black. And I could see the tiny teeth in its mouth. Did gophers ever lose teeth? I looked back towards the truck and saw Dad was squatted down and picking weeds next to Judith Hummel’s grave, died 1995. She always had nice flowers by her headstone.

Once I saw he was occupied I continued walking towards the back fence, trying to balance the lifeless body in the shovel without looking at it. I started to cry, but made sure to do so quietly.