Death grip

How do you kill them?

Do you hope the dog takes care of them before he brings them back to hand or are you such a good shooter than you stone every one of them?

Or are you like me? Do you find a few of them, blinking and half alive? Do you stand there for a moment and think about what’s transpired in the last few seconds? You made a decision, a big boy decision, to pull the trigger. You hit your target. You brought the bird down. It flopped and flapped and absorbed more lead than you though avianly possible, but it’s not dead. Not yet. That last part is now up to you. And your hands.

Do you dispatch, terminate, put ‘em down, finish ‘em off, snuff ‘em out, exterminate or harvest ‘em?

I don’t. I kill them. Quickly. Swiftly. Without fanfare. Without much thought really, because too much thought and you’d stand there like a fool leaving everything open to contemplation.

So it’s a twist of the neck, maybe a head rapped against a nearby tree. Not pretty, but not overly dramatic, either. The hunter bringing the end near. Life running out of the hunted. You can feel it go. Almost like when you’re fishing and the hook dislodges. It’s just…gone.

Not so much remorse as just a pause. And then you move on.

- Crawford