Instead of Daddy, Vick started coming around, Vick with the big arms and the muscles that bulged.

Vick drove us out to the country in Mama’s car, the blue Plymouth. Mama sat on the passenger side. Vick reached over to Mama, put his right arm around her shoulder and pulled her over to him, pulled her head into his chest. The muscles of his left arm bulged out more with holding the steering wheel and then he had to move his other arm off Mama to hold the wheel steady when we went around a curve, but Mama stayed where she was, leaning up next to him so his arm reached around her head to the wheel.

Billy sat by a window looking out, his forehead on the window pane and his legs stretched out across the floor of the back seat. He rolled down his window about an inch and the wind blew back that long piece of his hair that usually fell over his forehead. The air felt cold, but not too cold, when it reached me across the back seat where I sat behind Vick, right next to the other window. Cherie and Kenny sat between us, Cherie next to Billy. Cherie leaned back on the seat. Her eyes started to close and her head slumped forward on her chest, so it woke her and she opened her eyes and lifted her head up again. Kenny laid his arm on my knee and looked out through my window. After awhile he stopped looking and leaned against my shoulder.

Vick turned the car onto a dirt road and when he did Mama moved away from his chest and back over to the right side of the front seat. Vick looked over at her, but then he used both his arms to finish the turn and then to drive on the dirt road which had ruts in it and sometimes a branch blocking part of the road that Vick had to steer around. The dirt of the road was so dry that the dirt was that light tan color and the ridges of the road held their shape like cement. But trees shaded both sides of the road so the light on the road came through a screen of green instead of shining bright like it had on the paved road.

The trees ended. Up ahead lay a big field of brownish yellow grass and dirt patches. The dirt road went just a little further before it ended. Vick drove past the end of the road across the field to a spot where the ground was dirt and there were a couple of sawed off tree trunks with tin cans on them and more tin cans down on the ground beside them.

Vick opened his door, stood up outside the car and stretched his arms into the air. He slammed the car door then walked around the front of the car to open Mama’s door. As soon as Mama stepped out of the car so could we. Billy and I both opened our doors at once. Billy got out quick, but I had to make sure Kenny didn’t bang his head when I moved my shoulder out from under it. So I moved slow and guided his head towards the seat back. Then I shook his shoulder a little and said, "Kenny," and he opened his eyes and sat forward. That caused Cherie to fall to the side, then she woke all the way up too. We all scooted out of the car then and it felt good to unbend my knees standing up outside.

Billy started for the end of the field where it started to slope down and I followed after him. We got close enough to see a little stream over the ledge before Mama yelled after us, "Come back here. I don’t want you near that ledge."

So Billy and I walked back and sat on the dry grass on the edge of the dirt next to Kenny and Cherie waiting to see what we were here for if not to explore.

Vick took a big gun out of the trunk of the car, a long gun like in the Rifleman, black with brown wood on the hilt of it.

Vick walked over to a tree trunk and set up some empty cans, then walked back to where we sat in a group. He raised up the rifle and looked down its barrel at the cans on the stump. Vick opened up the gun and filled it with bullets then closed it back up again. He raised the barrel up, then slowly lowered it back down, lined it up again and slowly pulled the trigger. The gun made a loud sound and one of the tin cans jumped up off the tree trunk and onto the ground. Vick shot again and another can hopped but only fell onto the tree trunk. One more time and all the cans had fallen over.

Vick pointed the barrel down to the ground. He had on a blue T-shirt with short sleeves stretched tight by the muscles in his arms. His blue jeans were tight too. He walked over to the sawed off tree trunk and put all the tin cans back up, stacked them, one on top of the other two.

This was going to be dull if we couldn’t explore, if all we could do was watch Vick shoot the tin cans off the tree stump, even though it was kind of fun to see them pop up like that.

Vick asked Mama if she wanted to try it. Mama leaned her head down and shook it. Mama wore a dress, not pedal pushers or slacks like she sometimes did out in the country, like she would have if it had been Daddy with us out in the country. Just a light blue housedress with little flowers, and a cloth belt, not one of her dressy dresses, and she had flat shoes, not high heels. But her hair was combed with hair spray and her lips were more red than on a normal day.

Mama said, "Maybe the kids would like to try it."

Vick rubbed the short hair on his round head and said to Billy, "How about it sport, want to shoot up a tin can?"

Billy jumped up from the ground, and wiped his dusty hands on his jeans, slapping them against the denim. He reached out towards the gun, but Vick didn’t hand it to him. Instead Vick held the gun, barrel down while he walked around to the back of Billy. Then he raised the gun up to Billy’s arms.

Vick said, "Here, put your left arm here to support the barrel."

Billy did and Vick said, "Okay, put your right hand around the trigger, but don’t put your finger on the trigger yet." Vick still used his left arm to support the barrel and had his right arm near the hilt of the gun while Billy was moving his hand onto the trigger area and moving his legs apart for balance.

"Good," Vick said, "Now lift the gun up to your eye level and look through the sights down the barrel."

Billy lifted the gun and as he did it Vick moved his hands away so that Billy was holding it by himself, so Billy had to bend his knees then force them straight to hold up the gun alone. But he got it up with the hilt wedged up into his shoulder and his head bent down to look through the sights. The barrel wobbled so Billy had to keep bringing it back to the center and look down the sights again. But then he got it almost still, just a little shaking back and forth.

"Got it?" Vick asked.

"Yes," Billy said.

"Then keep the barrel where it is but raise your head up so the gun doesn’t kick back and hit you in the eye when you pull the trigger."

Billy lifted his head up away from the sights. His hair fell across his forehead again, but he didn’t jerk his head like he usually did to get it back on top of his head. Instead he moved his head really slow. I couldn’t see his face but I imagined he was keeping his eyes on the target.

"Good," Vick said. "Now, don’t move the barrel, but just put your index finger on the trigger and pull it back as slow as you can."

Billy’s finger on the trigger moved back, back slowly and Billy’s arms trembled with the weight of the gun, then there was a loud noise and the hilt of the gun came back and knocked Billy’s shoulder so Billy stumbled backwards.

Vick reached out and put his hand on the gun to steady it and laughed, "She’s got a kick doesn’t she?" When Vick laughed the top part of his cheeks filled out like apples.

Billy took a step forward and nodded his head, then he looked to the tree trunk at the tin cans but they were all still sitting there just like before.

Vick looked at Billy, then at the cans and said, "Well, Bud, let’s give the other kids a chance and then you can try again." He lifted the gun up out of Billy’s arms, holding the barrel pointed up again.

But Mama said, "Sandy can try it if she wants, but not the two younger ones." Her voice had a worried sound in it.

So Vick turned to me and said, "Well, how about it, want to try?" and when I nodded yes he held the rifle in his left hand and moved behind me and put his other arm around my shoulder. Then he moved the barrel of the rifle down and moved the hilt up close to my shoulder and helped me get my hands on it like he did with Billy. I could feel his muscles under his T-shirt in his arms and his chest and he had some kind of perfumey smell on his face when he bent down over my head, maybe after shave. Not like Daddy’s smell, from the gasoline and grease from the service station and the gritty lava soup that Daddy used to wash grease off his hands and arms.

The gun was heavy when Vick moved his hands from it. I could barely get it lifted up to look down the barrel. Vick showed me the two little strips of metal to use to get the target in the center of. The barrel of the gun kept dipping down so I had to lift it up and line it up again. Then I pressed the trigger and I tried to do it slow but the gun was slipping away so I just fired it.

The gun jumped back and hit me hard in the shoulder so I probably would have dropped it except that Vick had hold of it now too, and the noise was much louder. My right ear hurt with the noise and my right shoulder hurt where the gun banged into it.

The tin cans were just the same.

Vick asked me if I wanted to try again later, but I didn’t and sat back down with Kenny and Cherie on the dry grass.

Billy tried it again but he didn’t hit anything that time either.

Mama said it was time for lunch and had Vick get the cooler and a blanket out of the trunk of the Plymouth. Vick’s big muscles bulged out when he carried the cooler with the blanket folded on the top of it and the sack with the paper plates on top of that over to the grass at the edge of the dirt.

After that it was like every other picnic we had, with Mama dishing up chicken and potato salad and deviled eggs onto the paper plates and handing them out to each of us along with a plastic fork and a napkin and a can of pop. And the food tasting always better out there than it did inside. Just like all the picnics we had out in the country or up in Mount Rainier with Mama and Daddy, except it wasn’t Daddy now. It was Vick.