We pedaled furiously as we rode the coming dusk. I needn’t look ahead to know where I was going, and neither did my three fellow heathens. Quickly we navigated our bikes around the soft curve, and then continued straight. Straight over the drainage rut, until we met the bottom of the gravelly hill. At which point we pedal even faster, if possible, so that we could ascend the rocky knoll. At the top awaited the camp site where we made home in the summer months when the weather permitted. It was a rather shady area, which was great in high August when the sun was at its most merciless peak. But no grass would grow there. Only rocks seemed to spontaneously spout from the ground with its one purpose being to get stuck between unsuspecting toes. But we hooligans hadn’t time to worry about pestilential pebbles, for we had far dire things to attend to. Well, as dire as things could be for four children, with the eldest being barely thirteen years old.

My brother was quick as he ran inside our trailer. Emerging from the tin can brandishing the pellet gun we needed for our latest venture in no time at all. While still holding the gun, he again mounted his bike and off we went, as quickly as we had come. We sped down the hill, went oven the drainage rut with little resistance, and then continued straight until we rounded the soft curve. On we went, with a clear purpose in mind. Only did we slow when we were nearing our destination, so not to scare our target. We steered our bikes into the vacant campsite as silently as possible, noting that our prey was still present. It nimbly hopped from branch to branch, taking no leisure in its lengthy bounds. I guess it was frightened. My brother, undeterred by the creature’s feeble attempt to escape, aimed the pellet gun into the trees. With one quiet shot, the squirrel’s red body fell to the ground. Only we and the trees looked upon its broken body.

Trenton jogged over to the body, and retrieved the fastly fading squirrel. The limp body hung by his side as we began to walk our bikes home. It had been a cloudless day, one where the sun dominated the sky and left you cowering from the heat in the cool confines of the trailer. We inhaled the familiar scents of pine and evening campfires as we made our way along the dusty road. Silence enveloped us. Though we soon stopped, for the squirrels story needed an end. So, in another empty campsite with our bikes lying idle on the grass, we four knelt to the ground and put our hands to use. For a good ten minutes we hacked at the moist earth with grubby little fingers. Gradually we deepened that hole beneath a silent tree of the deciduous variety. The end product was a yawning grave that was quite shallow, but accommodated the squirrel’s small body all the same. As its corpse was placed into the ground, I noted that it had a beautiful ginger pelt; though it had by then been caked with dry crimson. I watched my siblings push dirt over the furry little body and head, its eyes still open. They covered it until there was no more carroty fur visible.

Once it was buried, we all stood. Our dirty hands and knees were the only remnants of our brief employment as grave diggers. We four heathens watched as the dark encroached on our heels. After a short moment of solace, we continued on, homeward bound. On the way, maybe we returned to laughing and continued earlier conversations. The camp fire in our yard drew nearer and nearer, until alas we were home, and I could finally see the fire’s golden embers. So close to them was I, that they were blinding.