"What happened?" I heard Sandy say from behind me.

"Looks like she was just wandering around and fell in head-first."

"What a pisser. Are you going to shoot it?"

"Shoot it?"

"You know, put it out of its misery."

"That’s horrible. I think that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard you say."

"Are you just going to let it suffer like that?"

"I don’t even have a gun."

"I do. It’s in my truck. Just a minute." She left.

I didn’t like guns, but Sandy had lived in this wilderness longer than I had. I usually assumed she knew what to do in such situations.

"I don’t want to be around when you do this," I yelled after her.

Jesus. She was something. Just in the T-shirt, her tiny legs flapping behind her as she ran, she actually came back with a rifle.

"Twenty-two," she said. "Should do."

"You’re really going to do it?"

"I hate seeing things suffer."

"But she doesn’t deserve to die. She’s been around here for so long."

"Is this Empress? Poor sweet Empress."

"Do you have to do this?"

"Do you know how to set a deer’s broken leg? Even if you did, it wouldn’t let you get close enough."

I watched Sandy’s expression change from pity to resolve.

"Get away," she said. "I’m counting to five."

She loaded three bullets and put the gun on her shoulder. She pulled back the bolt with a sound that made me think of a locked car door.

"One..."

I stayed a little while to see her in her last seconds of life. Poor sweet Empress.

"Two..."

Her eyes showed me nothing except the will to get free, to live the life she was meant to live out in the forest somewhere, eating flat leaves. She opened her mouth wide...

CRACK! CRACK!

My eyes were fixed in fascination. The shots struck its head, throwing it aside only to have it snap back repulsively. The blood first spurted quickly then oozed and covered the side of the face and neck. Its struggles were gone, its pain erased.

"You said you were counting to five!" I said after a silence.

She laughed. "I say a lot of things."

"You said you were counting to five!"

"Hey, get a grip. Things like this happen every day."

"You said you were counting to five!"

"There are no guarantees! Jesus, Clay!"

"You said you were counting to five!"

"Come off it! For God’s sake! You’ve been hiding from things your whole life. It’s unnatural. You can’t live your life without knowing how things die."

"Yes. Yes I can."

"It’s not healthy."

I got away and stumbled into the house, shaking.

She came after me. "You can’t accept death without looking at it close-up."

"I’m perfectly willing to accept death without having to know what it looks like. Oh, JESUS! Why did you do that? You said you were counting to five, dammit!"

"You’ve been moping up here long enough!"