In the Wolf's Mouth

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He leaned forward, swung his shotgun carefully around from his back and raised it so that the stock rested firmly along his jawbone. His stubble rasped against the wood as he adjusted, setting the partridge floating on the two beads. Still there, panting in the heat. He fired. The bird was thrust sideways. It sat heavily, startled, like somebody suddenly shoved out of a chair. The blast rocked in echoes across the valley and knocked up into the air a crow that flew in wide evasive circles, crying out. Angilù thought of the other shepherds in the hills hearing the shot and wondering, frightened maybe. The partridge fluttered one wing as though thinking it might still fly away to safety, but while Angilù walked towards it the movement slowed to a feeble waving and by the time he reached it the bird was still, the clasp of its beak unfastened, its little black eye unblinking in the sun.

He picked up the bird and carried it back up to the ridge where the wind hit him then down the other side to his hut, his tethered mule, the sheep scuttling over stones looking for fresh growth. He sat in the shade of the opening and plucked the bird, the soft beautiful feathers blowing about his feet. When its pimpled flesh was as bare as a naked woman he took his knife and slit below the keel bone then pulled out the wet handful of innards. Ready to cook. Excellent. The partridge was good luck. Otherwise it would have been more salty cheese and hard bread or snails if he could be bothered to collect them. Or wild herbs. There was a place near here where they grew. He could see it in his mind: the clear light, the slender plants shaking in the wind.

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