I wait, silently, for the traps to go off.

I'm visiting one of the multiple family homes with wide, private acres set up for this sort of thing. All of them can rotate through the different types of clay pigeons; trap shooting, skeet shooting, and my personal favorite, sporting clays. I'm holding one of the many shot guns the family collectively owns for this thing alone.

Some guns are meant for hunting, the others for showing off like this.

I can feel my cousins' kids watching me from more than a safe distance. All of them holding binoculars to see what's going on, with various adults loitering around with them. For some of the onlookers, it's going to be a spectacle. For others, well, it's just another day of me kicking their asses so they don't really watch too closely.

Especially since I'm going first this time.

I hear the familiar sound of the launchers and quickly turn. I'm in a wide stance, and had my back turned towards the crowd, gun pointed at the ground. As soon as I remove the safety aspect of the trigger, I shoot the first clay pigeon I see. My eyes notice the launchers shooting in a more "random" pattern.

Ah, looks like my birthday treat this year is sporting clays.

I focus on what I want, hear only what I want to hear. If anybody makes a noise behind me, I don't notice, I do not care. I focus, I shoot, I focus.

I shoot.

I focus.

I shoot.

The traps fall silent after the programing finishes. I know they'll be reloaded, and whatever cousin wants to go after me will do so. Their children aren't old enough for this just yet. Sure, they go to gun ranges for safety lessons, maybe hold a gun and shoot blanks.

The moving targets, however, will wait.

I reengage the trigger's safety and make sure there's absolutely no cartridges left. My fifth oldest cousin steps up, gently taking the shotgun from me after I carefully hold it out. Leaving my ear protection on, I remove my range goggles to join everybody in the safety zone. I'm handed a pair of binoculars and we all way until the activity starts back up again.

I focus.

He shoots.

He misses.

I try not to laugh.

This activity is repeated several more times by all the adults who wish to participate today. The kids seem excited the entire time, making sounds of astonishment and being impressed. Part of me wonders what I would have heard all these years if I didn't insist on being so focused on what I wanted. Maybe, just maybe, I would have pulled away less.

Maybe not.

After we wrap up and the entire range is taken apart, I walk back to my car. The one that's only two months old, will be replaced next year much to my dismay. All the safety features, all of them feeling like flimsy safeties on triggers sometimes. A desperate plea from Mom for my safety.

What good is a safety trigger if nobody else uses theirs?

I leave first, most of the other adults wrangling kids into their cars. And, by default, I know Grandfather will wait until the workers leave. Not because he doesn't trust them, oh no. And not just because it's a sign of respect, or wanting to be around them. But because somebody like him likes to linger around guns.

Part of me used to wonder when his safety trigger got torn off.

While everybody would prefer I stay for the entire weekend, especially Mom, I won't. I have stuff that I want that I need to focus on. I have things that I want to hear above everything else. No time for extra pleasantries that sound like a bullet missing a clay target. No time to focus on something that's not a clay pigeon.

I focus.

I shoot.

I focus.

I learn.

I focus.

I escape.

I focus.

My time in the tree stand is quiet.

While others may rely on baiting the deer with dried corn, salt licks, other things, I don't. Don't think anybody on either side of my family ever has. I like the strange quiet, the wait. A time to just sit still, the mask slipping away in the soft sounds of the forest.

My last season in Michigan feels like it stretches on. As if the forest refuse to let me go, reminding me of what it has for me. The species of plants and trees that I know so well. The way the deer move, unsuspecting…will California give me the same peace?

I guess I'll find out in time.

The old Winchester sits on my lap, something Grandpa picked up at a convention years ago. A .270 caliber, originally from 1925. And it has, through some means, become my hunting rifle. I'll have to leave it behind, don't think it's a good idea to bring it across state lines.

Fuck I'm going to miss it though.

My thoughts are turned back to the moment when I see a familiar form enter my line of sight. A doe slowly walks into the small opening among the large patch of trees where I'm lurking. She soon pauses at a branch bent down with the weight of acorns; food that'd fatten her up for the winter. And my luck increases as she stands in just the right way for me to get a clear shot of her heart.

I silently raise my gun, release the safety, and fire.

She takes off, sprinting in shock. I reengage the safety before climbing down from my tree stand, grabbing my old, large rucksack before following the trail of blood. I must be quick so as not to give her time to calm down. I find her soon after, near the end of large patches of blood that suggest she bled out quickly. Exactly what I want.

I poke her eye with a stick and it does not move.

She's dead.

I'm quick to empty the rucksack. Pulling on latex gloves, I pull the body onto a tarp I just laid out. Wrapping one end of a wrap around a hind leg, I tie it to a tree so it's raised up. Attaching my hunting tag to the raised leg, I turn to the doe.

Knife in hand, I begin the process of field dressing. The anus and reproductive organs are removed first. I toss them into a trash back before opening up the body cavity. I easily remove the guts, tubes, boring stuff. A skill practiced over the years. The fun however, begins after I remove the liver and stomach.

I take a little longer removing the lungs and heart. Holding the heart up, I quietly admire the hole the bullet created. After having my moment, I toss it into the bag with the rest of the innards. While some keep the heart and liver, I'm not too interested in them. Instead I grab the brown paper towels I brought with me, quickly cleaning up the body cavity to avoid the meat becoming infected. I remove the rope from the tree and leg before replacing my gloves.

I then drag the body to another tarp that I laid out that's clean. Wrapping the body up, I tie the tarp closed. Transporting the deer to the ATV I drove in, I put the bundle into the small trailer attached and tie everything down. Going back, I double bag the innards just to be sure nothing spreads. I clean up, and empty my gun of any bullets. Returning everything to the ATV, I put the gun in its case, lock it off, and drive off.

I think I'll report my kill before butchering it this afternoon.

I'm in a quiet, purposeful corner of my grandparents' garage. Tiled walls, a tiled floor with a drain in the middle. Standing at a table, I'm getting ready the tools to prepare the doe I got. Said doe is currently hanging upside down from a clean chain that hangs from the ceiling. A slash down the throat where I hit arteries to let some of the left behind blood drain out.

Most of it will stay in the meat, but I'll work with what I got.

The oozy blood drips into a small pile of sand in a bucket that I put underneath it. Makes clean up easier.

It's been long enough for the meat to cool, and I pull the bucket away. I roll a table on wheels over, covered in multiple metal food containers that hold unwrapped saran wrap with other supplies on the side.

Before I can begin skinning, I cut out the tenderloins. They go into one container after I clean off the access blood. Wrapping them up, I put them in the fridge so they're not just sitting out. Upon doing so, I step back to my doe.

Now the fun bit can begin.

I roll another table over and grab the skinning knife. Inserting the blade into the middle of the hind leg, I cut up to begin freeing the hide. The process of cutting and peeling truly begins. Tossing the pieces onto the table, I try to ignore a deep feeling. It grips at me, wailing, trying to make me pay attention. It grows louder as I remove the deer's head.

The feeling almost gets me as I stare at the meat previously hidden beneath the hide. As I stare at the now headless body of my prey.

I push the feeling down as I begin butchering.

Some time later I put all the meat into the fridge. People will be by later to grab things for preparation. Most of the meat will be ground up or made into jerky. The hide will be tanned or cured, and I've been promised they'll save me a patch of it. The rest of the carcass will find a use, or be tossed.

I clean up after myself, almost regretting washing the blood from cutting the meat from my hands. After doing so, I bring the old Winchester inside to the room that serves as the family's gun safe. And I feel empty as I lock it away for the last time.