Shallow Graves

Mr. Pellam were walking through the farmyard zoo Sam ran off toward a bow and arrow shoot. He thought about returning to the rifle shoot and winning something for Mr. Pellam, but he remembered seeing the bow and arrow game—where you shot at paper targets of deer. One of the prizes was a small plastic football and because Mr. Pellam had played in school that’s what Sam decided he was going to win.
    He gave the man a dollar for ten arrows and the hawker gave him a smaller bow, a straight pull, not one of the pulleyed hunting bows. Sam took it and notched an arrow, the way he’d done at camp. He went into position and pulled the string back. His muscles were quivering and his fingers let go quickly, before he’d sighted properly. He hit the deer in the rump.
    “Hey,” the voice called, laughing. “Got him in the ass.”
    Sam turned. It was one of the boys from highschool. A senior, he thought. He believed his name was Ned. He was smiling but Sam followed the grade schoolers’ general rule that every high school boy was a potential terrorist. They’d take your lunch away from you, tie your Keds together and swing them like gaucho’s bolos over electric wires, swear and spit on you, use you for a sparring partner.
    Sam swallowed and ignored him. He concentrated fiercely on the target, the way his mother had taught him when he shot—not paying attention to the bow or arrow, but to where the arrow should strike. He drew the bowstring back and fought the agony in his thin arms as he stared at his target. Finally, he released the arrow.
    Thwack.
    A heart shot.
    “Fucking good,” the boy was saying, shaking his head. Sam looked at him cautiously. Ned wasn’t being sarcastic. “Thanks.”
    Two more heart shots, a gut shot, and then his strength started to go. The next four hit the bale of hay, but missed the deer. The last shot was another gut shot.
    “Okay, you won yourself anything from the bottom shelf, son. What do you want?”
    Sam hesitated. The kid was going to take his football away from him. He muttered, “One of those footballs.”
    “Okay, there you go.”
    Sam took the green plastic ball. He started to walk away quickly but the boy was making no moves toward him. He just said, “That was some good shooting. I wish I could shoot like that.”
    Sam laughed involuntarily. Here was a kid who was, like, eighteen telling Sam he couldn’t shoot bow and arrow as good as him! Totally weird. “It’s not hard. You’ve just gotta, you know, practice.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Sam.”
    “I’m Ned.” He stuck his hand out. No high school kid ever shook hands with grade school kids. Sam reached out tentatively and shook.
    “Hey, you wanta see something?” Ned asked.
    “Like what?” Sam didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore. The boy could have grabbed the football and pushed him down anytime. But no, he was just smiling and seemed to want to talk.
    “Something neat?”
    “I guess,” Sam said, glancing toward where his mother and Mr. Pellam were walking slowly, the same way his mother and father walked.
    The boy walked off into a thick woods off the side of the football field. “What’s here?” Sam asked.
    “You’ll see.”
    About thirty feet inside the woods was a small clearing. The boy sat down. He patted the ground next to him. Sam sat. “Let’s see the ball.”
    Sam handed it to him.
    “That’s all right.” He tossed it in his hand. “Feels good.”
    “I’m going to give it to Mr. Pellam. He’s the man with the movie company.”
    “Yeah, I heard about that. Totally excellent, making a film here.” The boy handed the ball back to him. “Here you go.”
    There was silence for a moment.
    Ned said, “I like it here. It’s kind of secret.”
    Sam looked around and thought it looked like a clearing in a forest. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
    “You got ten bucks?” Ned whispered.
    “Naw,” said Sam, who did in fact have eleven dollars and some change in his jeans pocket.
    “How much you got?”
    “A couple dollars. I don’t know. Why?”
    “You wanta buy some candy?”
    “Candy? Ten bucks for candy?”
    “It’s special candy. You’ll like it. I thought I saw you had ten bucks when you paid the guy at the arrow shoot.”
    Sam looked away from the older boy and squeezed the football. “Well, that, like, wasn’t mine. It was my mom’s.”
    Ned nodded. “I’ll give you a sample. Then see if you don’t want to buy one.” He opened a yellow envelope and shook a dozen