Her First Hunt

By Sage Delaney

She handed me the rifle like it was made of porcelain,
her rough hands gentle on walnut and steel.
“Don’t aim unless you mean it,” she whispered,
and I nodded, even though I didn’t yet understand
what it meant to take something from the world.

We sat in silence on that frostbit pine ridge,
two blaze-orange specks in a sea of stillness.
She poured coffee from a battered thermos,
offered me a sip like it was whiskey at a wake.
I burned my tongue but didn’t flinch.
I was learning.

A doe stepped into the clearing just before sunrise,
and my mother’s breath caught like a branch under boot.
She didn’t tell me what to do.
She just looked at me, calm and certain,
like the woods had been waiting for me to decide.

I didn’t pull the trigger.
She smiled anyway.

Now the rifle rests in my closet.
Her thermos on a shelf I dust too often.
There’s a photo on my desk —
the two of us in that ridge stand,
my cheeks red from cold and nerves,
hers flushed with pride I didn’t earn yet.

I think about that morning more than I care to admit.
Especially now, when the air turns sharp
and the geese call from high above.
I hunt alone these days,
but I carry her in every step.

One day, if the Lord allows,
there’ll be another girl in blaze orange beside me.
I’ll hand her the same rifle.
Pour her the same burnt coffee.
And when the deer steps out,
I’ll look at her — calm and certain —
and let the woods teach her what they taught me.