He shrugged. Shoot us a black grouse.

Despite the thaw the skis rode the snow quite easily. I skied downhill towards a car track through the forest that was cleared in the winter for the holiday homers and where the wild birds liked pecking in the gravel scattered by the snowplough. On my back the rifle felt light. The sun warmed my face. My mind was bright and wideopen to the trees and the flying creatures mostly ravens that were moving among them.

After a couple of kilometres I reached the track so I stopped and listened to the forest.

The trees were snapping with joy that the cold was easing up at last. Sheets of snow tumbled from the branches and thumped to the ground. This was the forest of my childhood. Kippoforest stroked my back with its needlerough arms.

Father had taught us how to hunt. We would walk along with the crew until we were old enough to apply for licences. Then we could join the team.

I ought to have shot the old bastard rather than ramming a hayfork into him. It would have made for a clean death instead of him 26living on as if nothing had happened. By now I could barely remember how it had happened or at times I just couldn’t. Some memories grow inaccessible. It was like putting one picture next to another with most of them perfectly focused. That one shows him beating up mother that one shows him beating up bror. Then a totally blank picture. Not white but with a glossy sheen like brassopolished metal.

A bird rose suddenly. Bigger than a raven. An alarmed black grouse cock. Cautiously I put a cartridge into the barrel and moved slowly towards a branch at a height that I could rest the gun on.

I had the bird in my sight. Lowered the weapon so that the crosshairs was a little below his chest and squeezed the trigger. Observed the bird’s last seconds of life until it stilled and crashed into the snow.

The long skis kept getting caught in small contorta pines. The bird had landed at most fifty metres away from me but I was still unsure where exactly it was. Taking my skis off and clomping through the snow was not an option. I would sink through the soft crust. All I could do was carry on in the most likely direction and hope the sun would not set too fast in case it took time. I was sweating under the anorak. My heels were rubbing against the sagging socks in my boots. But I had to make sure the grouse was not wounded.