Back up the hill, I knew enough to get the propane burner going full-bore, and to fill my largest pot with spring water. Lily and Karen went to the duck shed and picked out the drakes. It’s only the female ducks who quack, Karen told me. Drakes make a choking whistling sound. They held each bird and listened to it, then Sharpied each duck with an X on her beak. It turns out I had seven drakes and only four ducks. Soon the water roiled and steamed. Karen took a utility knife from her belt and sawed off the top of each traffic cone, letting the stubs fall like candy corn near the firepit.

I took a chance. “You’re the first people up here since my boyfriend left,” I said.

“Do you miss him?” asked Lily.

“He was a pretty good boyfriend,” I said. “But I talked too much. I didn’t know when to shut up and leave him alone. And now I’m on my own.”

“You think he left because of something you said?” Karen said. “That’s horseshit.”

“And he said I wasn’t ambitious,” I said.

“That might be true,” Karen said. “But that’s not why he left.”

“I didn’t really know how to get started out here,” I said.

“If we’re going to do this, we’ll need buckets,” Karen said.

“At night, sometimes, I bet it’s hard,” Lily said. “I wouldn’t want to sleep out here all alone.”

“Buckets,” Karen prompted.

I found some, and Karen rigged a long line and suspended the traffic cones like funnels over them. She held the drakes until they were calm, and then two by two we lowered them upside down into the cones, so their necks stuck out the narrow end. They did not struggle but opened their beaks and gazed at the woods, the firepit, the razor knife. We slit their throats at the jugular.

The sun grew hot and the yellow jackets came. We sat by the firepit and ripped feathers out by the fistful. It was true that to get all the pinfeathers out was nearly impossible. The hot smell of boiled feathers and blood choked the air. We cleaned the drakes. We set up the pressure canner. We rinsed everything down. I hoped that Lily and Karen wouldn’t leave.

“Do you want to go swimming?” I asked. “It might be the last warm day. And we’re covered in gore.”

“Where?” Karen asked.

“We could get in the creek,” I said.

We pushed down through the woods until we found a place where the elderberry bushes dipped into the high water. There was a honeybee hive on the far bank, the bees gone sleepy and slow this time of year. Lily and Karen peeled off their clothes and plunged in, scooping handfuls of water over Lily’s belly, whooping at the cold. I stripped down and followed them. Together, our bodies showed the marks of elastic waistbands, of chigger bites and peeling scabs, stretch marks, birthmarks, ingrown hairs, generous ripples of fat around thighs, jellied parts, furry belly buttons, sunburnt clavicles. Caked with grime, our toenails were sharp and filthy as hooves.