I was happy enough just to pass the time. Pass through their lives and leave my mark on them. Enjoy the sport and the chase then rub them out like they were never there.
Then a chance encounter. A ghost from the past. But not a ghost. And I see there was a meaning after all.
I remember this one night my old man took me out shooting in the bush. I was nine. It was the middle of winter and there was a gale and driving rain ripping our faces off. We had the ute windows down and the spotlight pointed off to the side and there must have been twenty roos sitting in this paddock waiting to die.
‘Take your time,’ my dad said. ‘Pick your target, stay steady, let out a slow breath and squeeze. Make sure it’s a proper kill.’ He waved a thumb at the rain. ‘We don’t want to be getting out in this shit just to put down a winged roo.’
I did take my time, picked my target, stayed steady, and squeezed.
And I didn’t kill it.
My dad lit up a smoke and sat with the engine running. ‘Go and finish it then.’
The rain ran down my neck and my clothes were soaked. I was shivering and miserable out there in the middle of the paddock. The wind gusts nearly blowing me over.
‘Left, about ten steps,’ Dad yelled from the ute.
I found it, a female. The bullet had gone through the side of her neck. She was still moving, dragging herself along the ground, making this terrible screeching and wheezing noise. The spotlight from behind showed shiny blood pumping down her body.
‘Kill it, then,’ Dad shouted.
I put the twenty-two barrel to her eye and pulled the trigger. The head exploded. Then I noticed the joey. Its ears were poking up out of the pouch and its eyes were big and round and scared.
‘There’s a baby,’ I called back, trying not to cry.
‘Finish it off.’
But I couldn’t.
I shook my head. Started blubbing.
Dad swore and got out of the ute. He took my arm with the rifle in it, and placing my finger back on the trigger, squeezed it. ‘Like this.’ No more joey.
It wasn’t so hard, after that.
Like this, Dad said.
Take your time, pick your target, stay steady, let out a slow breath and squeeze.